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In case you ever thought that there might be a musical version of the HBO hit mob-family drama THE SOPRANOS (and I think the only ones who did might have been New York Magazine), the mag checked in with star Edie Falco at last night's Drama League Gala who told them "No. Off the top of my head, no, I couldn't [see that happening]. I think David Chase would probably hang himself before he let such a thing happen."
Click here for their full report and let's be glad that there's one less thing for us all to worry about.
I can’t think of anyone currently giving a funnier performance on a New York theatre stage than Tina McKissick in When Joey Married Bobby. Playing Southern belle Republican Sarah Edwards, who is organizing an elaborate wedding for her gay son while securing her chances of being named “Christian of the Year” by mounting a glitzy Christmas pageant (“Swaddling cloth is just Hebrew for Donna Karen.”), McKissick brings to mind the old-school brand of broad physical and verbal comedy grounded in realism, best exemplified by the likes of Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and Carol Burnett. Her comically rhythmic vocals and fluctuating tones squeeze gags out of the most innocuous lines. Her self -mocking grace when her character is unaware of how absurdly tacky she’s being (especially when relishing her own appearance in a pride-themed hoop-skirted gown) is just delightful and her rubbery facial expressions subtext the hell out of her lines.
McKissick has no New York theatre credits in her bio and her acting career seems to consist primarily of work as a film and television stunt double. Hopefully we’ll be seeing her trodding the Gotham boards much more.
Unfortunately, her current vehicle is better intentioned than executed. Penned by John William Gibson, who also directs, and Anthony Wyatt Morris (they are jointly billed under the name William Wyatt), When Joey Married Bobby attempts to be a wacky farce coming out in favor of marriage rights. And while the stage is filled with appealing performances, the laughs are at a minimum. It may be refreshing to see a comedy where nobody on stage expresses any objection to gay marriage but without that conflict, or a suitable one to replace it, When Joey Married Bobby has no laugh-generating plot beyond an assortment of minor irritations that never amount to much.
There are funny turns from Jennifer Banner Sobers as a wisecracking domestic, Rebecca Dealy as Sarah’s liberal daughter who invites a homeless man (Richard James Porter) to stay with them, and Deborah Johnson as the family matriarch who bonds with Joey’s best man, Dan (William Yoder) over cocktails. And the authors do come up with a handful of amusing one-liners (“As long as there are Mexican pharmacies on the internet, this is going to be a happy occasion!”) but too many of the jokes fall flat, particularly in a scene where Dan reveals that he has AIDS and Sarah keeps insisting it has been cured.
The popular female impersonator Lady Bunny contributes her brand of rowdy nuttiness as a minister’s wife who is experiencing imaginary labor pains as she plans to adopt a third world child. She models a fabulous sequined number in the second act (the costumes are not credited) and delivers name-dropping reports on the unseen political and celebrity guests. (“Someone has to tell Andrew Cuomo that Governor Patterson is not the valet parker.”) Former Detroit Tigers pitcher turned actor Matthew Pender plays it straight, giving a nice, natural performance as the slightly nervous Joey. (The other title character is never seen.) Those enticed by the show’s nearly nude publicity photos of Pender may be disappointed to know that the only skin revealed on stage is that of his impressive guns, one of which used to throw a 96mph fastball.
Once again, The Paper Mill Playhouse is offering clues to its fans who would like to guess the shows selected for their next season. Usually Paper Mill presents one straight play in a season otherwise loaded with musicals, but so far there are no other hints offered as to their 2010-2011 schedule aside from the following illustrations. The official announcement comes on Friday, February 19th, but see if you can break the story now.
Bashing the Roundabout Theatre Company has been a popular online topic as the non-profit theatre company didn't have the most successful of years (then again, few non-profits did in the economy). The good news for fans of the theatre company is that the company's got a heck of a lot more assets than they do debt, so conventional wisdom says that they'll be around for years to come producing even more theatre that, at the very least, will always have people talking.
Philip Boroff of Bloomberg News covers Roundabout's financials in a story this morning on the site, and delves into both how they went from producing a revival of "Merrily We Roll Along" to "Sondheim on Sondheim" instead, as well as into the company's deal with "All About Me" and more.
It's an interesting Monday AM read for sure, and though attacking the 'big guy' is always easy, I'm keeping the faith and believe that we'll be seeing lots more good work from them ...
It doesn't take long after music director Rob Berman first thrusts his baton before the thirty-one members of the Encores! orchestra for one to feel that something classic is lofting through the City Center auditorium. Fanny, which premiered on Broadway in 1954, was the first musical drama scored by the versatile Harold Rome, who had previously made his mark writing clever topical songs for revues like Pins and Needles and Call Me Mister and pop rhythms for the musical comedy Wish You Were Here. But with Fanny, the deep emotional textures of Rome's music (enhanced by the superb movement in Philip J. Lang's orchestrations) coupled with the simple language of his lyrics (written for characters who don't have the words to express their extraordinary feelings) create a score that, despite having no individual song that has survived as a standard, pulls at the heart with a grand and entrancing familiarity. Alas, Fanny is not a great musical. But there are traces of greatness in its composition and writing that are well worth experiencing, making it a perfect selection for a concert revival.
The musical takes its story from a Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of plays, Marius, Fanny and Cesar, set in seaside Marseilles. Young Fanny and Marius have been friends since childhood and though they are in love, Marius won't admit to it because he feels the call of the sea and longs to spend his life traveling by ship. The evening before he's about to run away from home to embark on a five-year ocean stint, Fanny convinces him to spend his last night with her. Two months later she realizes she's pregnant and, since Marius has made no effort to contact her in that time, she agrees to accept the marriage proposal of Panisse, a wealthy, much older widower who could not conceive a child with his first wife and who longs for an heir. They agree to marry immediately and allow people to believe the child, a son they name Cesario, was fathered by Panisse. Though the older gentleman makes a kind and loving father and husband, the story's great conflict arises when Marius eventually returns.
The major flaw in Joshua Logan and S.N. Behrman's book comes out of the fact that the original production's top-billed star, Ezio Pinza (in his return to Broadway after a triumphant debut in South Pacific), was playing the peripheral character of Marius' father and Panisse's best friend, Cesar. While not directly involved with the central plot, his leading role's scenes where he gives fatherly advice to Marius, sympathizes with Fanny and partakes in a friendly rivalry with Panisse, despite providing some of the show's loveliest musical moments, slows down the progress of the plot, leaving the title character severely underwritten. The drama's main emotional conflict, how Fanny is torn between her passion for the man she loves, who left her, and her affection for the man she doesn't love but who was there when she needed him, is never expressed sufficiently in song.
But despite the book troubles (the first act scene featuring a belly dancer and the second act presentation by a circus troupe would be both be more entertaining if they were better incorporated into the plot), director Marc Bruni delivers a swift and pleasing production, bathed in Ken Billington's romantic lighting and featuring Lorin Latarro's muscular ensemble choreography, typical of 1950's musical drama.
James Snyder, whose rockabilly vocals were so amusing when he starred in Cry-Baby, switches to a more legit Broadway voice as Marius, and opens the show with a thrilling rendition of Rome's "Restless Heart," a hard-driving melody expressing the character's longing to set sail. His singing and acting of the gorgeous title song, where character must reject the woman he loves in order to follow his heart's other passion, is beautifully anguished. Elena Shaddow matches him with a Fanny that sounds girlish until heightened emotions call for her strong, mature soprano to emerge. She also has a charming duet late in the show; the comical "Be Kind To Your Parents" sung with Ted Sutherland, who, playing her 12-year-old son, shows a spirited boy soprano.
Fred Applegate, playing the musical's most developed and attractive character, is full of rascally humor and touching sincerity as Panisse. His mellow singing voice and light-footed step is delightful in the catchy waltz, "Never Too Late For Love." The hopeful pride he puts into singing of his future heir in "Panisse and Son" and the sweet simplicity of his loving toast, "To My Wife," give Fanny the warmth that matches the fire of the young lovers. George Hearn makes a dignified, but soft spoken Cesar, singing with a light, thoughtful touch.
In smaller roles, Pricilla Lopez plays up the comic sassiness as Fanny's mother and David Patrick Kelly is amusingly salty as the odd seaman who lures Marius shipboard.
But it's Harold Rome's emotional melodies that dominate the evening. Perhaps with a differently structured book Fanny would have become a repertory standard instead of the interesting "forgotten" musical it has become. But this imperfect entry is still a satisfying accomplishment.
Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Elena Shaddow and James Snyder; Bottom: Fred Applegate and Elena Shaddow.
The only real surprise (to me) in this morning's Academy Awards Nominations announcements was that the wonderful documentary, EVERY LITTLE STEP, wasn't included on the list. The film did make the Best Feature Documentary short list back in November, which are the 15 films (narrowed down from 89) that were being considered for the 5 documentary slots.
The documentary is thankfully however available on DVD and if you haven't seen it, I HIGHLY recommend it.
EVERY LITTLE STEP explores the incredible journey of A CHORUS LINE, from ambitious idea to international phenomenon. Through 15 years of continuous performances from the 70's to 90's and a revival beginning last year, A CHORUS LINE has touched generations around the world with stories so poignant, they could only have come from truth. The film compares and contrasts the original musical with the current revival. It investigates the societies in which they've debuted, and why the themes are so timeless and universal.
The film goes behind the scenes with exclusive interviews and footage of the revival's audition process, revealing the dramatic journey of the performers, and unfolding the story of life imitating art. The real dead-of-night conversations in a dance studio that inspired A CHORUS LINE were recorded to audio tapes which have been locked away for decades. The filmmakers, James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, were granted unprecedented access. Interviews, then and now, with the creative minds who shaped A CHORUS LINE and the cast who realized it provide fascinating insights and reveal the truths behind the genesis of the show.
There's something so wonderfully familiar about director Nicholas Martin's frothy and fun new production of Noel Coward's Present Laughter; from the art deco clashes of Alexander Dodge's extravagant London flat set, which resembles a crassly ego-driven attempt at dignified tastefulness, to the casual elegance of Jane Greenwood's costumes to the perfectly cast Victor Garber and a splendid collection of actors who go about their duties with the kind of light finesse that typifies the playwright's reputation. Present Laughter is the type of comedy that necessitates the inclusion of words like "enchanting" to populate our vocabulary and this charm-filled, traditional mounting makes comfort food of beluga and Moët.
With its wafer-thin plot and character depth boiled down to those Coward witticisms, Present Laughter can come off as a tad too long in even the best of productions, but I'm certain most playgoers wouldn't mind occupying the occasional slow moment by simply admiring how dazzling Mr. Garber looks in a dressing gown. As matinee idol Garry Essendine, a role the playwright intended as a self-spoof, he is a model of relaxed cheerfulness and warm, melodic tones hiding inner terror at the prospect of growing old. Whether overacting soliloquies for the benefit of anyone listening, making mad dashes to check himself in the mirror whenever a guest arrives or languidly crooning of his world-weariness, Garber smacks this one out of the park.
The three acts revolve around the people whose lives and livelihoods revolve around Garry, whose celebrity provides the gravitational pull of his privileged universe. There's the sweet young thing under the illusion that their one-night fling is going to lead to a grand romance (Holley Fain), his manager and producer's (Marc Vietor and Richard Poe) plans to book him in a theatre he detests, the canny advances of a predatory seductress (Pamela Jane Gray) and the ramblings of an oddball playwright (Brooks Ashmanskas) determined to see him do more serious work.
Protecting and grounding our hero are the two women who know him better than he knows himself. Harriet Harris is an acerbic treat as his gate-keeping secretary who snidely finds amusement at the phoniness and naïveté she deals with every day. Lisa Banes is delectably cool and dry as his not quite ex-wife who still cares after him. In smaller roles, James Joseph O'Neil and Nancy E. Carroll also impress as the convivial manservant and his decidedly grim counterpart.
While Ashmanskas is one of today's most talented and downright funny Broadway clowns, the decision to have him portray the eccentricities of Roland Maule on a stratospheric level, crossing the stage in leaps and lunges that would be the envy of basketball stars and Olympic figure skaters, is the production's only major misstep. The playwright's comical fixation on Essendine and sore-thumbness in his world are expertly played, but on such a broad level as compared to the rest of the goings-on that the focus switches from the character to the actor playing him. And in the world of Garry Essendine, there's room for only one case of overacting.
Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Victor Garber; Bottom: Victor Garber and Harriet Harris.
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You know there's something terribly wrong when a two-character play matches an attractive woman wearing tight, skimpy outfits with a good looking guy displaying a desire to be dominated and yet the ninety-minute affair can barely sustain a pulse.
David Ives' Venus in Fur has a premise with potential for some thrilling, erotic fun but the author overwrites scenes, telegraphing moments through a predictable path and remarkably turning sadomasochism into a bit of a bore.
Inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novella, Venus in Furs, Ives sets the piece in a contemporary rehearsal studio where playwright Thomas (Wes Bentley), who is taking his first crack at directing, is on the phone with his fiancée for one of those exposition-packed phone calls that are so cute in 1920s drawing room comedies but seem rather forced here. His latest work is an adaptation of Sacher-Masoch's controversial story of a man who takes pleasure in being degraded and physically dominated by the lady he adores and he's just spent a frustrating day auditioning women incapable of playing his leading role, which requires a combination of youth, beauty and sexual worldliness. Before the one-sided conversation is over we know the guy harbors a pretty low opinion of women in general.
Enter Vanda (Nina Arianda), hours late for an audition she wasn't even scheduled for, displaying the worst aspects of scatter-brained ditziness that Thomas just finished describing. She is so out there -- talking fast and incessantly, saying the wrong things, dressed too overtly sexy for the occasion -- that it's obvious that as soon as she starts reading from the script she'll suddenly transform herself into exactly what the guy is looking for, since there'd be no play if she didn't.
The thing is, though, that she isn't really reading from the script. She has it memorized, despite her claim that she just glanced over it on the subway. And she happened to show up at the audition with bags full of costumes just right for her and for Thomas, who reads the play with her. The line between real life and erotic fiction blurs as the relationship between the characters becomes the relationship between actress and director and the actual identity of this mysterious thespian becomes more apparent.
But while the plot has its high points, Ives' text is repetitious and lacking in any kind of character development that would help sustain interest. Director Walter Bobbie can't seem to extract any sense of danger or mystery from the piece so much of it is played for laughs that don't land.
Bentley gives a stilted and flat performance, both physically and vocally. While Arianda frequently overplays the comic aspects of her role, she's at least breathing life and some excitement into the production. She's especially good at quickly switching from her role as the actress to the role that her character portrays, to the point where it can be intriguingly unclear who exactly is speaking. This is my first time seeing Arianda, who has very few professional credits in her bio. I look forward to seeing what she can do in something better, but Venus in Fur gets so painfully dull I spent much of the time wishing I could yell out a safe word.
Photos of Nina Arianda and Wes Bentley by Joan Marcus
Are we supposed to deny ourselves ordinary happiness because there's misery in the world? This is one of many questions Donald Margulies poses in his intelligent and timely new play. James and Sarah, a journalist and a photographer, have been together for nine years and share a passion for documenting the realities of war. But when injuries force them to return home to New York, the adventurous couple confronts the prospect of a more conventional life. Time Stands Still is a blazingly important new work about responsibility - to ourselves, to our loved ones, to our community, and to our world.
David Rooney, Variety: "Donald Margulies' new play is a thoughtful, absorbing work, its strengths maximized in the crystalline naturalism of Daniel Sullivan's production and the incisive interpretations of four astute actors. Reflecting on the divergent growth paths and changing needs of long-term relationships, "Time Stands Still" tends to tack on ethical debate points that reveal as much of the playwright's voice as those of his characters. This makes the drama somewhat amorphous and less satisfying than it could be. But there's a ring of truth to the emotional experience being thrashed out onstage that keeps it compelling."
Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: "Time Stands Still," which opened Thursday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater in a flawless Manhattan Theater Club production directed by Daniel Sullivan, is handily Mr. Margulies's finest play since the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Dinner With Friends." Like that keenly observed drama about the growing pains of adulthood, the new play explores the relationship between two couples at a crucial juncture in their lives, when the desire to move forward clashes with the instinct to stay comfortably - or even uncomfortably - in place.
Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: "Bottom Line: Donald Margulies' sharp, well-observed drama receives a beautifully acted Broadway production."
Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal: "I wish I could say something nice about a play that stars Laura Linney, Alicia Silverstone, Eric Bogosian and Brian d'Arcy James. No can do: Donald Margulies's "Time Stands Still" is a predictable piece of middle-of-the-road Pulitzer bait that has nothing to recommend it beyond the cast, Daniel Sullivan's staging and Mr. Beatty's set, all of which are exemplary."
Erik Haagensen, Backstage: "Margulies' habit of carefully doling out the exposition keeps us engaged, but it's not enough. Though there's much to admire at the Friedman Theatre, "Time Stands Still" ultimately fails to cohere in either a thematically or emotionally satisfying way."
Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "But it is Linney who galvanizes the production, expertly riding the rhythms of Margulies' insightful writing. There is an unsparing directness to her performance - not to mention a superb sense of timing - that makes this photographer one of the most compelling characters to grace a Broadway stage this season."
John Simon, Bloomberg News: "Donald Margulies's "Time Stands Still" compellingly demonstrates what a master playwright can do with great economy and efficiency, and with four fine actors who conjure up a commanding cross section of our conflicted, compromising or intransigent world."
Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly: "As a shrapnel-scarred war photographer, Laura Linney (HBO's John Adams) is all sharp edges and steely gazes in Time Stands Still, whether battling her journalist boyfriend (Brian d'Arcy James) or pouncing on her editor (Eric Bogosian) and his 'embryonic' young girlfriend (a brilliant Alicia Silverstone). Why this woman is so prickly remains a mystery, but Donald Margulies (Sight Unseen) has crafted another beautifully bleak portrait of a tortured artist. A-"
Michael Sommers, NewJerseyNewsroom.com: "At heart a mournful individual, Sarah might be a total downer were it not for the tensile steeliness of purpose that Linney builds into her character. Setting her jaw and lowering her vocal pitch, Linney effectively makes Sarah a woman on a mission to expose the wounds of the world no matter what the personal price."
Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "Time Stands Still (* * * out of four), which opened Thursday at Broadway's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, is a case in point. The characters and dilemmas are variations on themes we've encountered before - if not in life, then in films and TV dramas. Sarah, a photographer, and James, her journalist beau, are socially conscious adrenaline junkies who thrive on dangerous, purposeful assignments."
Stephanie Zacharek, NY Magazine: "There's a mournful tug beneath the surface of Time Stands Still, but the material, directed here by Daniel Sullivan, is also colloquial, lively, and inquisitive without being preachy."
Linda Winer, Newsday: "It feels ungrateful to be impatient with any play that gives Laura Linney a flinty, complicated character to put under her high-powered microscope. And it's at least as unsettling to be frustrated by "Time Stands Still," the Donald Margulies drama that bothers to grapple with authentic and timely questions about the nature of happiness amid a world of suffering."
Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: "Under Daniel Sullivan's direction, the cast of this Manhattan Theatre Club production rises above the material it's been handed. Richard is a sketch of a nice guy, but Bogosian fills it with substantial decency. Silverstone imbues Mandy -- a part written with infuriating condescension -- with a kindness and generosity that make Sarah and James look like rude jerks."
Yisrael Campbell has been circumcised three times.
I'll repeat that.
Yisrael Campbell has been circumcised three times.
And when a person makes such choices in his life, I suppose the obvious next step is to write and star in a solo play about it called Circumcise Me. (Could the title be inspired from Morgan Spurlock's 2003 fast food documentary, Super Size Me?)
Okay, so if you're wondering how one's foreskin can be removed more than once, be advised that after the first time it's simply a matter of drawing a drop of blood. But as the performer/author emphasizes, it's "not from your thumb."
Born Christopher Campbell, the child of "a manic-depressive Italian woman and a pathologically silent Irishman," our hero was brought up Catholic. "Catholic enough to know I was going to hell," he explains, which may be a reason why reading Leon Uris' Exodus was enough to inspire him to go to Israel and eventually convert to Judaism. Life, love and his soul guided him through the progression of starting as a Reform Jew, then converting to Conservative and, finally, Orthodox.
Directed by Sam Gold, Campbell's warm personality and ample supply of familiar, gently humorous observations ("It doesn't matter what denomination of Judaism you belong to, just so long as you're ashamed of it.") make for a pleasant time, but there's a significant lack of conflict in the piece, which includes what must be the most uneventful case of childhood alcoholism in the history of western drama. Campbell, at least as presented here, has had a pretty good life.
So, while there are some very sincere passages about faith and family, the text innocuously flows from borscht belt one-liner to one-liner ("Is it hot in here or am I the only one dressed for Poland in the 17th Century?") and, of course, jokes about taking blood from one's penis.
And judging from the laughter from all the yarmulke-clad gentlemen surrounding me in the audience, that seems good enough for his target audience.
Tony® Award-winner Liev Schreiber and Golden Globe nominee Scarlett Johansson, in her Broadway debut, star in Arthur Miller’s A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE directed by Gregory Mosher on Broadway at the Cort Theatre. This limited engagement will run for 14 weeks only. In A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, Schreiber plays Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman obsessed with his 17-year-old niece Catherine, played by Scarlett Johansson. When Catherine falls in love with a newly arrived immigrant, Eddie's jealousy erupts in a rage that consumes him, his family, and his world...
Ben Brantley, The New York Times: "Mr. Schreiber is such a complete actor that he has often thrown productions into imbalance, highlighting the inadequacy of the performances around him. That is not a problem here. That the excellent stage veteran Ms. Hecht holds her own with Mr. Schreiber is no surprise. That Ms. Johansson does - with seeming effortlessness - is."
David Rooney, Variety: "Sometimes it's high praise to call a stage director's work invisible. The compliment applies to Gregory Mosher's searing revival of "A View From the Bridge," though it by no means indicates any lack of craftsmanship or insight. Returning to Broadway after a considerable absence, Mosher has instilled in his outstanding cast an unconditional trust in Arthur Miller's text, evoking a time, a place and a 1950s blue-collar community with penetrating integrity. Each scene flows seamlessly from the one before in a production that expertly plants the seeds of inexorable tragedy yet grips with a tension and volatility that make every moment seem unpredictable."
Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "A new revival of A View From the Bridge (* * *½ out of four) features what could be this season's most inspired piece of movie-star casting - though you may not immediately recognize the star."
Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "As Alfieri says of the play's protagonist: "Eddie Carbone never expected to have a destiny." At the Cort, Schreiber, Johansson and company have managed to make it a memorable one."
Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter: "Bottom Line: Scarlett Johansson makes a fine stage debut and Liev Schreiber delivers another titanic performance in this revival of Miller's classic tragedy."
David Sheward, Backstage: "Scarlett Johansson matches Schreiber's intensity as the inexperienced but determined Catherine. This film star makes an impressive Broadway debut, clearly conveying what this girl wants-to be a grown woman-and pushing against the only obstacle in her path: her overly attentive uncle. As Eddie's loving but agonized wife, Beatrice, Jessica Hecht stakes her claim as one of our most sensitive portrayers of downtrodden women. Her climactic howl of despair rings through the theater and tears at your heart."
Stephanie Zacharek, NY Magazine: "Schreiber even manages to look stunned by the violence at the show's climax, as if Miller hadn't been signaling it from the start. Schreiber recognizes it as a moment of Shakespearean grace, as Hecht's Beatrice does-her body folds around his, protectively, like the petals of a flower. But it's not time to go home yet: That noble wet blanket Alfieri is lurking nearby, ready to send us off with a final, mournful monologue. Yet even he brings a delicate touch to Miller's speechifying. Can actors save a playwright from his worst impulses? This A View From the Bridge may be everything a playwright, living or dead, could want: People who care enough not just to keep your language and your ideas alive, but to watch your back."
Linda Winer, NY Newsday: "Over a decade of New York theater, Liev Schreiber has coolly skinned the layers of darkness off some of its most thrilling and complex tough guys. He has been sleaze triumphant in David Mamet and Eric Bogosian, silken menace in Harold Pinter, crumbling evil as Shakespeare's Macbeth and Iago. Even so, nothing prepares us for the shattering grandeur of his Eddie Carbone - the Brooklyn longshoreman..."
Michael Sommers, NewJerseyNewsRoom.com: "Written by Miller with an inexorable sense of doom, "A View From the Bridge" is a drama where viewers realize early on that something bad surely is on the way and yet can't help but hope the flawed hero somehow will avoid catastrophe. Schreiber's sensitive, deeply-felt portrayal of inarticulate Eddie Carbone only increases one's pity for this good-hearted man wrecked by a love gone terribly wrong."
Peter Marks, Washington Post: "The acumen on display raises the Cort's thermostat from what might have been coolly sobering to positively scorching. You'll leave, happy to have felt the theatrical heat."
Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: "But this production pivots on Schreiber, as it must. And the actor effectively conveys Eddie's inner torment, feelings so deep he seems incapable of articulating them with mere words, let alone of overcoming them. B+"
John Simon, Bloomberg News: "Johansson, looking less cosmeticized than she does onscreen, fits the bill well enough as an otherwise ordinary but appealingly young girl and comes across sincere and believable. Schreiber brings his considerable skill to conveying outward stolidity and uncomprehended inner turmoil, the dumb animal sliding into a wild one. So, too, Corey Stoll manages Marco's transition from dignified calm to wounded fury with condign competence."
Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: "Rarely has a character shown so much appetite for self-destruction as Eddie, and Schreiber's sober portrayal makes you feel for each agonizing decision. But then, we already knew that Schreiber is a superb stage actor equally at ease in Shakespeare ("Macbeth") and Mamet ("Glengarry Glen Ross"), and that Hecht can suggest flutters of pain and defiance that will tear your heart out. Johansson, on the other hand, comes out of left field with a committed performance that's resolutely unshowy. She certainly does better by Miller than Katie Holmes did in 2008's "All My Sons." This Catherine is demure and shy, but she also goes after what she wants, and it's just wonderful to watch Johansson challenge both herself and our expectations of her. She's the biggest surprise in a production that's short on them -- not that this is a bad thing. As this show proves, a punch in the gut doesn't hurt any less if you see it coming."
While it remains to be seen if future generations will regard New York's fringier art community's revitalization and reinvention of burlesque dancing as Gotham's most significant artistic movement during the first decade of the 21st Century, there's no doubt that the sleaze-less strip tease has become this era's answer to performance art and beat poetry readings.
For the unintroduced, this has little to do with the entertainment offered by a typical gentlemen's club. Think more along the lines of venues that resemble Off-Off Broadway spaces and modest cabaret rooms where creative lasses sporting playful monikers like Anita Cookie and Little Brooklyn entertain both men and women in a cheerfully noisy, upbeat atmosphere. And while I won't pretend that seeing an attractive woman shedding her coverage down to pasties and a g-string isn't part of the draw, the focus of the routines is more on coming up with interesting scenarios, amusing characters and even making political statements.
This week I caught the jubilant fun in the back room of Chow Bar, where, on a tiny makeshift stage crowned by a Chinese dragon head, Calamity Chang hosts Dim Sum Burlesque every Sunday night. Dressed in classic black lace with bright red fringe, Ms. Chang, as her name suggests, brings to mind a saloon dancer who might have migrated from Asia to the American west in the late 1800s. Her bawdy sense of humor is delivered with perky enthusiasm, whether she's teaching an audience volunteer the proper technique for twirling tassels ("The harder you bounce the more they swing."), inviting another customer to nibble on a fortune cookie lodged in her cleavage or just filling time between acts by asking everyone how many times a day they masturbate. But when performing traditional burlesque fan dances to vintage recordings of "Shanghai Lil" and "St. Louis Blues" (both sung in Japanese), Calamity Chang is all willowy elegance as she demurely smiles at her fans, teasing their eyes with brief glimpses of skin beneath feathery veils.
Guest performers vary from week to week, although the first dancer of the evening is traditionally a "sacrificial lamb"; one who has never performed in New York. The lamb of the week this time was "boy-lesque" artist, Stanqi Sex, who, to the music of AC/DC's "Hell's Bells," entered in a floor-length beige dress ordered on line from a polygamy compound in Texas. While the customers could appreciate how stripping down to his red briefs represented a personal liberation from his own overbearingly religious upbringing, their loudest appreciation was for the display of the young man's fine physique.
Liberation from cultural oppression was also the theme for Dame CuchiFrita, who humorously portrayed an opium addicted sex slave (smoking a veeeeeery long pipe), who learns to unbind her feet from their silk ties, gracefully celebrating her freedom while a fan allows her robes to billow in the breeze. Statuesque redhead Miss Ruby Valentine wowed the crowd with her 1950s style fetish act, cracking a whip while showing off her curvy figure in a black corset, high boots and stockings. Vocalist Broadway Brassy was just that, belting out red hot sass with "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" and rocking out (with guitarist Michael Webb) to "He's a Magic Man."
In between acts, the evening's "stage kitten," Miss Gemini Rose, helped gather clothing and set up for the next performer, looking very lovely in an outfit I'm sure Actors' Equity would find impractical for their stage managers.
Throughout the month of January, Dim Sum Burlesque is offering a tremendous bargain, waving the $10 cover charge for all performances and eliminating the $25 per person food/drink minimum. (Tips for the performers, not mandatory but certainly appreciated, are collected by passing a hat.) It's a great way to sample the glamour, the playful sexiness and the boisterous fun of burlesque.
Top photo of Calamity Chang by Michael Webb; Bottom photo of Broadway Brassy by Jenny Bai.
Victor Garber stars in this new production (and the first Broadway opening of 2010!). Garry is a vainglorious actor who is about to celebrate his birthday with a trip to Africa. But when Garry's posh London flat is invaded by a love-struck ingénue, his estranged wife, an adulterous producer and a crazed young playwright, so begins the kind of midlife crisis that could only come from the brilliant mind of comic genius - and master of the mix-up - Noël Coward.
Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "director Nicholas Martin manages to keep the bubbles from bursting in the Roundabout Theatre Company's effervescent revival that opened Thursday at Broadway's American Airlines Theatre. Much of the credit goes to his debonair leading man, Victor Garber, who looks totally at home in a spiffy dressing-gown and silk pajamas. But then the man has the requisite matinee-idol profile to play Garry Essendine, a charming, self-absorbed actor who bears an uncanny resemblance to the playwright himself."
Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: "Should Bergdorf Goodman experience a sudden run on velvet smoking jackets and silk pajamas, blame Victor Garber, the debonair star of the Roundabout Theater Company revival of "Present Laughter," Noël Coward's valentine to the maddening, marvelous world of the theater and to his own maddening, marvelous self."
Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Coward didn't traffic in over-the-top, but when Ashmanskas is on stage, it's omnipresent laughter. Works for the show, works for me."
Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: "The performances are fun to watch -- and Garber does have a smooth charm -- except that they belong to different shows."
Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal: "If you've never seen "Present Laughter," go and enjoy yourself: It's a comic gem, and this production is much better than none at all. The set alone, an Art Deco orgy designed by Alexander Dodge, is almost worth the price of admission. If you know the play at all well, though, you won't need to be told what Messrs. Martin, Garber and Ashmanskas are getting wrong, and why it matters."
Scott Brown, NY Magazine: "Victor Garber, God bless him, can wear the daylights out of a dressing gown. He can even make an old one look...well, not new, exactly, but damned comfortable. And "comfortable" is the word that pops immediately into mind after experiencing the gentle, genial charms of the Roundabout's Present Laughter, a comedy about aging ungracefully, the silken pleasures of decompensation, and the people we choose to grow old with, to the extent that we have any choice in the matter."
Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter: "Unless a comedy by Noel Coward is played with perfect precision, it tends to have the taste of champagne that has lost its fizz. Such is the case with the Roundabout's Broadway revival of "Present Laughter." In this production, the name of the lead character of aging matinee idol Garry Essendine, modeled on the playwright himself, has been reduced to Gary. Like that wayward letter, something has been lost along the way."
John Simon, Bloomberg News: "The text has undergone cuts, rephrasings, and some peculiar additions, including a redundant, musical-comedy second ending. Still, no one can quite kill Coward."
Brendan Lemon, Financial Times: "A climactic physical gag between the playwright, played by Brooks Ashmanskas, and a dowager, played by Alice Duffy, remains priceless, but Ashmanskas's wide-eyed leaping about tended to grate the second time around. And the line readings of the lovely Pamela Jane Gray, as Garry's seducer Joanna, slow down the evening's pace too much. Otherwise, Present Laughter is delightful."
Michael Sommers, NJNewsRoom.com: "Roundabout Theatre Company's revival, which opened Thursday, showcases Victor Garber, an excellent actor who's all right here but doesn't possess that indefinable but indispensable life force that Coward termed "star quality." Without a powerfully charming hero blazing at its core, the comedy drifts along rather than whirls away."
Erik Haagensen, Backstage: "it's with bewildered disappointment that I have to report that Roundabout's current production amounts to almost a total misfire."
David Rooney, Variety: "The silk dressing gowns and suave airs of aging matinee idol Garry Essendine are a fine fit for Victor Garber in "Present Laughter," as are the quietly melancholy undertones of a charming but vain peacock, too self-absorbed and infantile to appreciate the pleasures life affords him. He's housed in the swankiest of London apartments in Nicholas Martin's elegant production, with its gorgeous, honey-toned deco wall treatments and cascading chandeliers, dominated by a portrait of Garry as Hamlet that leaves no doubt as to who's the center of attention. But those assets can't keep a certain windy fatigue from creeping into Noel Coward's comedy."
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To introduce a sharp change of style in the middle of Lear, playwright/director Young Jean Lee has an actor step out of character, turn to the audiences and, with a motion to the playing space, utter, "We enjoy watching horrible things. It gives us a feeling of immunity." Moments later, the fellow has made his way into the audience, asking, "Why are you here? Run away and do something better."
Sometimes a playwright just invites a reviewer to be snarky. But since this is my first experience seeing the work of this quick-rising downtowner, I'll just say Lear has not made me a fan.
Before the festivities begin, a voice advises us that we're about to see, "an inaccurate distortion of King Lear," and that, if we're unfamiliar with Shakespeare's text, we should take a look at the plot synopsis inserted into our programs. (I'll just assume that my dear readers are either familiar with the original or have access to Wikipedia.) We then get treated a lovely little dance by Regan (April Matthis), Goneril (Okwui Okpokwasili), Edgar (Paul Lazar) and Edmund (Pete Simpson) with David Evans Morris' eye-dazzling red and gold palace setting and Roxana Ramseur's elaborate costumes appropriately teetering the line between royal elegance and garish self-absorption. Excellent work on both their parts.
After a blackout the play proper begins with an intense Edmund taking what might be a full minute (forever in stage time) to spurt out his feelings about the atrocities they've committed on their fathers. But soon the others convince him there are more interesting topics to discuss. Like who's getting fat. Or who's looking unfeminine. Or what exactly Buddhism is all about.
Speaking with a heightened contemporary vocabulary, the foursome (plus Cordelia when she arrives) bicker, one-up each other and spend an interminable amount of time exposing themselves for the unfeeling hot messes we know they are. Though Goneril defends her good points ("I'm a lavish tipper.") and the sticky sweet Cordelia celebrates her own charms ("I would transform shit into sugar blossom.") Edmund is nevertheless convinced that "Everything sucks!"
Eventually Edgar decides he's a dolphin and starts talking in dolphin language.
(Yes, I know, if Richard Foreman had a character talking in dolphin I probably would have thought it jolly fun. Here it just seems tiresome.)
Then the "horrible things" moment arrives and the author seems to spend the rest of the piece trying to convince us that the preceding hodgepodge had something to say about appreciating your fathers while they're alive. First we witness a reenactment of the famous Sesame Street episode broadcast after the passing of Will Lee, the actor who played Mr. Hooper, where Big Bird learns about death and grieving. (Okay, not his father but certainly a father figure.) Following is a monologue about anticipating the death of an ailing dad, which might have been touching if the play had not worn out its welcome long ago.
Plays like Lear represent a type of theatre I usually try to be supportive of, suggesting my readers let minor flaws go by for the sake of an artist's adventurous spirit and effort to pull off something daring and original. But not this time. While I have no doubts about Ms. Lee's artistic sincerity, the eighty minute piece, though presented with professional flair, offers little more than what has become the conventions of unconventional theatre, lacking thematic foundation to the point where the evening appears more gimmicky than thoughtful.
As Tallulah once quipped, "There's less to this than meets the eye."
McKissick has no New York theatre credits in her bio and her acting career seems to consist primarily of work as a film and television stunt double. Hopefully we’ll be seeing her trodding the Gotham boards much more.
The musical takes its story from a Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of plays, Marius, Fanny and Cesar, set in seaside Marseilles. Young Fanny and Marius have been friends since childhood and though they are in love, Marius won't admit to it because he feels the call of the sea and longs to spend his life traveling by ship. The evening before he's about to run away from home to embark on a five-year ocean stint, Fanny convinces him to spend his last night with her. Two months later she realizes she's pregnant and, since Marius has made no effort to contact her in that time, she agrees to accept the marriage proposal of Panisse, a wealthy, much older widower who could not conceive a child with his first wife and who longs for an heir. They agree to marry immediately and allow people to believe the child, a son they name Cesario, was fathered by Panisse. Though the older gentleman makes a kind and loving father and husband, the story's great conflict arises when Marius eventually returns.
James Snyder, whose rockabilly vocals were so amusing when he starred in Cry-Baby, switches to a more legit Broadway voice as Marius, and opens the show with a thrilling rendition of Rome's "Restless Heart," a hard-driving melody expressing the character's longing to set sail. His singing and acting of the gorgeous title song, where character must reject the woman he loves in order to follow his heart's other passion, is beautifully anguished. Elena Shaddow matches him with a Fanny that sounds girlish until heightened emotions call for her strong, mature soprano to emerge. She also has a charming duet late in the show; the comical "Be Kind To Your Parents" sung with Ted Sutherland, who, playing her 12-year-old son, shows a spirited boy soprano.
The only real surprise (to me) in this morning's Academy Awards Nominations announcements was that the wonderful documentary, EVERY LITTLE STEP, wasn't included 
With its wafer-thin plot and character depth boiled down to those Coward witticisms, Present Laughter can come off as a tad too long in even the best of productions, but I'm certain most playgoers wouldn't mind occupying the occasional slow moment by simply admiring how dazzling Mr. Garber looks in a dressing gown. As matinee idol Garry Essendine, a role the playwright intended as a self-spoof, he is a model of relaxed cheerfulness and warm, melodic tones hiding inner terror at the prospect of growing old. Whether overacting soliloquies for the benefit of anyone listening, making mad dashes to check himself in the mirror whenever a guest arrives or languidly crooning of his world-weariness, Garber smacks this one out of the park.
Protecting and grounding our hero are the two women who know him better than he knows himself. Harriet Harris is an acerbic treat as his gate-keeping secretary who snidely finds amusement at the phoniness and naïveté she deals with every day. Lisa Banes is delectably cool and dry as his not quite ex-wife who still cares after him. In smaller roles, James Joseph O'Neil and Nancy E. Carroll also impress as the convivial manservant and his decidedly grim counterpart.
David Ives' 
The thing is, though, that she isn't really reading from the script. She has it memorized, despite her claim that she just glanced over it on the subway. And she happened to show up at the audition with bags full of costumes just right for her and for Thomas, who reads the play with her. The line between real life and erotic fiction blurs as the relationship between the characters becomes the relationship between actress and director and the actual identity of this mysterious thespian becomes more apparent.
Are we supposed to deny ourselves ordinary happiness because there's misery in the world? This is one of many questions Donald Margulies poses in his intelligent and timely new play. James and Sarah, a journalist and a photographer, have been together for nine years and share a passion for documenting the realities of war. But when injuries force them to return home to New York, the adventurous couple confronts the prospect of a more conventional life. Time Stands Still is a blazingly important new work about responsibility - to ourselves, to our loved ones, to our community, and to our world.
Okay, so if you're wondering how one's foreskin can be removed more than once, be advised that after the first time it's simply a matter of drawing a drop of blood. But as the performer/author emphasizes, it's "not from your thumb."
Tony® Award-winner Liev Schreiber and Golden Globe nominee Scarlett Johansson, in her Broadway debut, star in Arthur Miller’s A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE directed by Gregory Mosher on Broadway at the Cort Theatre. This limited engagement will run for 14 weeks only. In A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, Schreiber plays Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman obsessed with his 17-year-old niece Catherine, played by Scarlett Johansson. When Catherine falls in love with a newly arrived immigrant, Eddie's jealousy erupts in a rage that consumes him, his family, and his world...
For the unintroduced, this has little to do with the entertainment offered by a typical gentlemen's club. Think more along the lines of venues that resemble Off-Off Broadway spaces and modest cabaret rooms where creative lasses sporting playful monikers like 
Guest performers vary from week to week, although the first dancer of the evening is traditionally a "sacrificial lamb"; one who has never performed in New York. The lamb of the week this time was "boy-lesque" artist, Stanqi Sex, who, to the music of AC/DC's "Hell's Bells," entered in a floor-length beige dress ordered on line from a polygamy compound in Texas. While the customers could appreciate how stripping down to his red briefs represented a personal liberation from his own overbearingly religious upbringing, their loudest appreciation was for the display of the young man's fine physique.
Victor Garber stars in this new production (and the first Broadway opening of 2010!). Garry is a vainglorious actor who is about to celebrate his birthday with a trip to Africa. But when Garry's posh London flat is invaded by a love-struck ingénue, his estranged wife, an adulterous producer and a crazed young playwright, so begins the kind of midlife crisis that could only come from the brilliant mind of comic genius - and master of the mix-up - Noël Coward.
BroadwayWorld.com, the largest, most comprehensive theatre site on the net with regional coverage for 100 U.S. cities, and 25 countries is now going even more global!
2/9:
No Musical of THE SOPRANOS
2/9:
When Joey Married Bobby
2/9:
Home sweet home...
LA CAGE Announces Addt'l Cast Members
STAGE TUBE: Green Day And The Cast Of American Idiot Record 21 GUNS
STAGE TUBE: Megan Mullally Talks Gensis of 'That's What She Said' on FunnyorDie.com
Ziegfeld Theatre Hosts Week Engagement of 'West Side Story' and 'Funny Girl', 2/12-18
Mayer, Miyagawa et al. Set for DREAMING THE AMERICAS Conference, 2/26 - 2/27
“Naked” Polar Bear Cruise Hosts Fundraiser for Wildlife Conservation Society, 2/27
Colin Hanlon, Jeremy Jordan Join CAP21's NEXT THING YOU KNOW Reading, 2/22
League of Professional Theatre Women Hosts Victoria Bailey at Leadership Lunch, 2/25
MoMA Presents JIA ZHANGKE RETROSPECTIVE, 3/5-3/20
Lynn Nottage and Paul Taylor to Receive Rockefeller Awards, 3/15
