Kristin Salaky - Page 8

Wipe off the green makeup, bulldoze the castle and get rid of the tap-dancing rats- no, keep the tap-dancing rats - and Shrek, despite its fairy-tale setting and gentle lesson about embracing the qualities that make us different, reveals itself as just a good ol' musical comedy. And a darn enjoyable one at that. Of course, whether you find it sophomoric or smartass might depend on your reaction to fart jokes, anachronistic contemporary references and visual quotes from classic musicals, but director Jason Moore has his terrific cast performing their goofy antics with slick professionalism. Add some very humorous puppetry and bright, catchy tunes and you've got a fun night out.

Ah, it's that time of year again when, while most theatergoers are assembling their lists of the top (and sometimes bottom) plays and musicals of the year, I prefer to focus on ten memorable moments that perhaps relatively few got to see. These moments don't necessarily come from the ten best productions, but in a city with the abundance of high quality theatre that Gotham enjoys, you never know when a great dramatic moment will come your way.

The daffy and delightful Christine Pedi's newest cabaret concoction, the Jolly Holly Christmas Folly is an inviting cocktail mixing old favorites with a few new routines; very merry, raucously funny and abundantly cheery.

Anyone who saw Mary Bond Davis as Broadway's original Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray, or in her many cabaret and concert performances, knows that woman can sizzle on stage. But now viewers of The Food Network have a chance to see how she sizzles in the kitchen.

I somehow doubt that, despite Broadway's struggles in the current economy, Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez would be so cynical as to use the title of this entry as their new 'For Now' lyric in Avenue Q, but since it's only a matter of weeks before the sharply satirical children's educational musical for adults they penned with Jeff Whitty outlasts the current presidential administration, that infamous lyric, 'George Bush is only for now,' is about to be impeached.

In case this is your first time reading one of my reviews of a Broadway revival of a classic musical, allow me introduce you to my personal prejudice. I completely abhor the now very common practice of revising the book and messing with the score of any musical theatre piece after the authors are deceased. If a composer, bookwriter or lyricist is around to approve of changes, that's swell, but all too often their estates will allow anything from the sparse, but significant, tweaks to South Pacific to the wholesale revisions of The Pajama Game and The Music Man. Even more deplorable is the practice of letting these changes go uncredited, as was done in the three examples just cited, giving audiences no clue that what they are watching is not wholly the musical the original authors wrote.

While there isn't anything terribly wrong with the new Broadway adaptation of the 1954 movie musical smash, White Christmas, hitting New York after four years of holiday season engagements across the country, there's also quite a bit that isn't especially right about it either. Yes, it's got those glorious Irving Berlin songs like 'Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep', 'Let Me Sing and I'm Happy' and 'Blue Skies' - the kind of stuff that turns wearing your heart on your sleeve into a hip fashion statement - and Larry Blank's swing orchestrations provide choreographer Randy Skinner's dancers with a red carpet of sizzle, but too much of director Walter Bobbie's perfectly pleasant production settles snugly into a groove of innocuous entertainment that is swift, professional and rarely exciting.

Eugene O'Neill might not have been the first playwright to have time come to a halt mid-conversation while characters reveal hidden thoughts through internal monologues - a technique I'm sure is familiar to more Americans through Groucho Marx's spoof of his Strange Interlude in the film version of Animal Crackers than by having seen the play itself - and I'm certain Craig Lucas, whose Prayer For My Enemy has its share of supressed asides, won't be the last. But while I wouldn't opt for dramatic lighting and stylized acting every time someone has a personal moment, the playwright's desire, as stated in his script, that, 'the manner of separating the inner from the outer can and should change throughout,' can cause a tad of confusion in this play where lack of communication is key. Sure, we get the point when someone turns to the audience and starts talking, but a post-performance read of the text made it clear that a lot of the lines said while directly facing someone had actually gone unheard.

Everyone has their own idea of what makes great theatre. For some it's adventurous writing, for others it's well-detailed performances and for others it's dazzling production values. More often it's a combination of many qualities. Whatever your definition of great theatre is, where in New York are you most likely to find it? Let us know in our new poll…

'We love you, Liza!,' a faint, but audible voice yelled from what seemed to be a far corner of the Palace Theatre's mezzanine. And though the 62-year-old entertainer was understandably still catching her breath after a spirited vaudevillian delivery of Styne, Comden & Green's tongue-twisting comic masterpiece, 'If,' she suddenly stopped what she was doing, lifted her face to the direction of the adulation and with a soft, angelic look of wonderment, answered in a clear, strong voice, 'I love you, too. You know I do.'

That cultish assemblage that likes to recite my reviews from memory on open mic nights at the Nuyorican Poets Café (it's weird being an icon for the culturally disenfranchised) may notice many similarities between my following scribblings on Lincoln Center Theater's Broadway production of Horton Foote's Dividing The Estate and my review of this mounting's original Off-Broadway run last season at Primary Stages. But if director Michael Wilson can do a cut and paste job, with minor adjustments here and there, there's no reason I can't do the same.

'Why do I feel like a fucking tourist in my own neighborhood!?!' That is the angry, anguished cry of Robert, a Polish-Puerto Rican native of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who has seen the crime and neglect of his lifelong neighborhood remedied by a gentrifying influx of high-end restaurants, art galleries and expensive building complexes that have priced long-time residents out of their communities.

Penned by a pair of downtown revue writers (Betty Comden and Adolph Green), composed by a wunderkind New York Philharmonic conductor (Leonard Bernstein), choreographed by a Ballet Theatre soloist (Jerome Robbins) and originally directed by musical comedy master George Abbott, there's never been a musical on Broadway that mixes highbrow and lowbrow with such a wondrous cacophonous clash as On The Town.

For the benefit of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Equus star Daniel Radcliffe will be auctioning off the pair of Lucky Brand Jeans he wears in the show after matinee performances on November 22, 29 and December 6. What do you think? Tell us in our new poll…

'Sooner or later we're bound to get it right.' That's the final line of Road Show, the new Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical, directed by John Doyle, that's opened at The Public. It was also the final line of Bounce, the Harold Prince directed previous version of Road Show, which for a time was to be known as Gold!, that that did not make its presumed arrival to Broadway after tepidly received engagements in Chicago and Washington, back in ought three.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.