Ben Peltz - Page 12

Carson McCullers, Erika Mann and Gypsy Rose Lee are sharing a house in Brooklyn.  No, it's not the theme for a costume ball at Sarah Lawrence.  It's a taste of February House, the heady new chamber musical at The Public (by way of Long Wharf) that may still be in need of some sharpening and editing to match its lofty ambitions, but still offers some refreshingly high-minded moments of musical theatre.

The admirable mission of Gigi Naglak and MeghAnn Williams, writer/performers of Chlamydia Dell'Arte: A Sex Ed Burlesque, is to remove some of the awkwardness in open discussions about human sexuality by treating intimate issues with humor.  Their modestly produced show, which just completed a week-long run at Los Kabayitos, is obviously built to travel, coming to Gotham via stints in Philly and DC, and the amiable pair pulls off their mission with endearing enthusiasm.

Match.com ain't got nuthin' on New York's cabaret scene, where composers, lyricists and performers are constantly on the lookout for perfect mates; whether for a lifetime commitment or just a brief, but mutually satisfying, fling.

Broadway audiences can be forgiven if they don't quite recall being introduced to James Corden six years ago as one of The History Boys' ensemble of Oxbridge hopefuls, but in Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors, the loveable harlequin makes an unforgettable sophomore appearance, taking center stage in an uproarious evening of slapstick, music and comical hijinks.

The lunatics, lovers and poets merrily charge onto the stage in full force in Classic Stage Company's raucous and witty, sexy and sensual mounting of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Director Tony Speciale's playfully romantic staging of Shakespeare's tale of earthbound lovers fleeing to the woods to escape an arranged marriage, only to find themselves mixed up in the petty squabbles between a royal faerie couple, features a completely winning ensemble and entrancing visuals.

It took two years, a Pulitzer Prize and an Olivier Award-winning London production before happening, but Bruce Norris' searing satire, Clybourne Park, has finally made the six-block transfer from Off-Broadway's Playwright's Horizon to Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre.  The original ensemble of director Pam MacKinnon's excellent 2010 production has been reunited for the playwright's scathing telling of the racial integration of a Chicago neighborhood, as seen through the history of one very significant home.

In every previous Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, a white Blanche DuBois has complained that her sister Stella's white husband Stanley has “something downright bestial about him.”  She refers to him as “sub-human” and “ape-like.”  And depending on her co-star's performance, audience members might have agreed with her to some extent.

Remember when political conventions were fun?  When the delegates gathered into town, not to perfunctorily declare a pre-determined winner, but to debate through multiple votes, late night deals and maybe a few protest rallies to come up with a nominee?

Last season's debate over whether the Best Play Tony should be awarded for the quality of the written text or for the production as a whole – set off by the nomination and subsequent victory of War Horse – is likely to be brought up again if the raucously funny and surprisingly tender Peter And The Starcatcher is included among this year's nominees.

“Are you the great white hope?” a Boston sports reporter asks the Indiana-grown college star newly acquired by the home team; a player expected to help his suspiciously pale-hued group of teammates win basketball championships.

In October of 1971, three days after the original Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar began its week and a half of previews, the title song of what is considered to be the world's first rock opera was heard on American television's highest-rated show.  No, it wasn't The Ed Sullivan Show, which had ended its run earlier in the year, but the controversial new sitcom, All In The Family.

If energy and physical commitment equaled craft and technique, Tracie Bennett's performance as Judy Garland in End Of The Rainbow might be considered one of the great triumphs of the season. But Peter Quilter's flimsy play offers her little in the way of support and director Terry Johnson has her playing more highly strung caricature than character, reducing the enterprise to little more than an endurance test for those at both sides of the footlights.

Before the audience members began to take their seats for the Off-Broadway premiere of Once this past December, members of the press were already sent an email announcing that the production would be moving to Broadway following its limited run at the New York Theatre Workshop.  Thus, the fact that the critical response to the show supported such a move seemed superfluous.

Despite the loveable antics of those hard-working ladies from Texas, Broadway musicals have always been a little awkward around prostitutes.  The book of New Girl In Town (based on Anna Christie) gets tongue-tied when trying to be honest about its title character's former profession and the creators of Sweet Charity turned Nights of Cabiria's prostitute protagonist into New York's most chaste taxi dancer.  To this day I'm certain there are little boys performing in Oliver! who believe Nancy is some kind of den mother and Bet is her helpful assistant.

In the years between the fall of vaudeville and the rise of Comedy Clubs, Americans looking to enjoy some live stand-up would frequently gather at their local jazz venue, where rising stars like Lenny Bruce and Mort Saul would offer their observations in a rhythmic style that many would say mimicked the licks themselves.  In his musical tale of losing his job, No Place To Go, playwright/composer/lyricist/performer Ethan Lipton tells the story of mounting disappointments in wry growls of spoken comical riffs that glide into an after-hours score heavily infused with jazz and blues.

With its funny, sexy and sentimental book by master craftsman George Abbott and a catchy and clever score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, Damn Yankees is a textbook example of the kind of big and brassy musicals that made Broadway's Golden Age glitter.  Paper Mill's terrific new production is packed with boisterous comic performances and, as the song says, miles and miles and miles of heart.

About ten years ago, Tommy Tune was starring in an Off-Broadway revue; a nightclub-style act he had been performing in Las Vegas.  I hadn't seen the show yet, but one night I was browsing through a theatre chat board and read a comment by someone who had just seen a preview.  The writer was very excited to report about one of those special moments the audience witnessed that night that could only happen in live theatre.

Sidney Goldfarb's Hot Lunch Apostles might have been quite the shocker when The Talking Band's original production, with its run-down carnival setting that has strippers trying to spice up business by presenting religious tableaus, premiered at La MaMa in 1983.  But if director Paul Zimet's spirited revival offers more of a nostalgic look at the type of avant-garde that had congress debating the value of arts funding three decades ago, the material is wrapped in a fun, participatory production.

Somewhere around the middle of Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson's solo play adaptation of Homer titled An Iliad, the storyteller, known simply as The Poet, halts his detailing of the Trojan War because something he just mentioned reminds him of an event that occurred in... And then he takes several minutes to sequentially list every major conflict in recorded history from ancient days to the present.