Is it possible to recreate someone else's authenticity seven times a week doing the same Off-Broadway show? If last Saturday night's performance of Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've Never Had It So Good) is any indication, the answer is a resounding... I'm not sure. But in any case, the lighthearted madness inhabiting The Public Theater's Newman space, devised by the German/British theatrical squad named in the title, makes for a rollicking good time. Gob Squad's version - part recreation, part commentary - is viewed by the audience on a large screen that takes up nearly the entire stage. But before the performance begins, the customers are permitted to walk behind the screen to see the actors hanging out on the set; reinforcing the fact that even though once we take our seats we'll be watching projected black and white images, it's all happening live on stage. Also, I imagine, this quick visit also serves to let the actors see what kind of people are in the house for that performance, which will come in handy later. The company rotates members with only four used per performance. On Saturday night Sean Patterson, looking into the camera and addressing the audience directly, supplied us with some background about the film, sharing the cramped kitchen with Nina Techlenburg, the Sedgwick stand-in. But while Sean goes on to explain how their set's box of Trader Joe's Corn Flakes is meant to represent Kellogg's and how the bag of "All Natural" Wise Potato Chips they have would, in 1965, be loaded with preservatives, there are two other films being seen at the same time. To the right of Kitchen, we see Sharon Smith recreating one of Warhol's "screen tests." These were short films made of actors left alone, unaware they were being filmed, in order to capture them at their most natural. To the left, Sarah Thom is recreating Sleep, the nearly five and a half hour long film of a man sleeping. Unfortunately, Thom is pretty restless so she finds an audience member to take her place being projected napping in bed. Smith has a role to play in Kitchen so she also recruits an audience volunteer to take over her screen test. Eventually the entire quartet is replaced, with audience actors wearing earphones so that the off-screen Gob Squad actors with hand-held microphones can whisper to them lines and stage directions. These aren't quick audience participation cameos. Some of them are on for over half the show. Bits of other Warhol films, with self-explanatory titles like Eat, Kiss and Blow Job are given their due and though the evening is scripted, one audience member is drawn into an extended improvisational moment that, if the subject is willing, can turn quite intimate. The subject was willing the night I attended and for once, that bit of authenticity that Gob Squad was aiming for was there; a tender and honest scene played touchingly in black and white. In a very funny and clever show that boasts some truly original and inventive moments, that's the one thing I wasn't expecting. Photos by David Baltzer. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter. Click here for Michael Dale's Twitterized theatre reviews.
Posted on: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 @ 04:15 AM Posted by: Michael Dale
"We can make ourselves actors, but only the audience can make a star." -- Jose Ferrer The grosses are out for the week ending 1/22/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section. Up for the week was: CHINGLISH (11.2%), WIT (9.8%), THE MOUNTAINTOP (8.6%), GODSPELL (4.7%), JERSEY BOYS (3.5%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (1.5%), Down for the week was: SISTER ACT (-13.4%), MEMPHIS (-12.2%), MAMMA MIA! (-10.8%), MARY POPPINS (-9.5%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (-8.7%), ANYTHING GOES (-7.1%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-6.9%), ROCK OF AGES (-5.8%), SEMINAR (-5.0%), CHICAGO (-3.8%), RELATIVELY SPEAKING (-3.8%), WICKED (-3.6%), STICK FLY (-3.4%), THE ROAD TO MECCA (-3.3%), PORGY AND BESS (-3.2%), FOLLIES (-2.9%), HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (-2.7%), ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (-2.6%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (-1.2%), WAR HORSE (-0.4%), THE LION KING (-0.1%),
Posted on: Monday, January 23, 2012 @ 05:21 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
There's a beautiful softness that bathes every artistic aspect of director Gordon Edelstein's graceful and endearing production of Athol Fugard's meditation on independence through creativity, The Road To Mecca. And, of course, there's the exceptional company - Carla Gugino, Jim Dale and especially Rosemary Harris - giving delicate, but fully fleshed, portrayals that make for a deeply moving evening. Written in the mid-1980s, the play is inspired by the real-life story of Helen Martins, a reclusive outsider artist who, until her death in 1976, spent the last years of her life creating glittering works from crushed glass, wire and cement; most notably over 300 statues displayed in her garden, primarily owls, pointing east. The home has been kept intact as a museum and is now a national monument known as The Owl House. Elsa is furious when the minister Marius (Dale) arrives trying to convince Miss Helen that she would be better off in a retirement home and lashes out at her friend when she hesitates to immediately refuse. Though Marius has great feelings for Miss Helen, and is concerned for her well-being, he's also concerned about how the locals regard her with suspicion and take offense at her outdoor display; works he considers blasphemous. Perhaps it's hearing Marius' description of her statues as "monstrosities" ("Your life has become as grotesque as those creations of yours.") and Elsa's defensive, "She dared to be different," that gives Miss Helen the strength to stand by her choices. An inspiring second act speech, wondrously played with heartfelt dignity by Harris, is a tribute to those who dare to create their own paradise and live within it as they choose. Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Rosemary Harris and Carla Gugino; Bottom: Jim Dale and Rosemary Harris. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter. Click here for Michael Dale's Twitterized theatre reviews.
Posted on: Monday, January 23, 2012 @ 05:01 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
In these days of ever-shrinking Broadway orchestras, it's rather refreshing to walk into a cabaret room and find that seats have been removed from an otherwise sold-out house in order to fit a nine-piece musical ensemble. The once a month show (next appearing February 12th) has Barton hosting with a wry sense of theatre-centric humor and a flamboyantly jaunty conducting style reminiscent of Cab Calloway. While there are standards in the mix, ("All The Things You Are" "Make Someone Happy") the focus is on theatre songs that aren't heard as often as they should be. Joining in for his January appearance were piano bar favorite Elena Bennett, a classy-dame belter with a vibrant personality - kicking out big band vocals on "It's a Helluva Way To Run A Love Affair" and giving a soft and thoughtful feeling to "Ribbons Down My Back - and Damon Kirsche, a handsome lad with a pleasing high baritone and a knack for comedy, playing a sleazy theatre agent in "Ten Percent" and a sermonizing preacher in "A Picture of Happiness." Jule Styne was represented quite a bit this particular night, which began with our host just barely covering his distain as he endured listen to a medley of selections from The Lion King, Mamma Mia and Spring Awakening before tearing into a rousing instrumental Dixieland arrangement of "Penniless Bums" to serve as the overture. Among the Styne selections was Kirsche's deliciously self-loving "My Fortune Is My Face" and Bennett's knockout brassy "Hold Me, Hold Me, Hold Me." Kirsche was joined by guest Jesse Luttrell for some Hope and Crosby-ish antics in a vocal reprise of "Penniless Bums." Another guest was Karen Wilder, delightful in a swing arrangement of Kraukeur and Oppenheim's "Struttin' To Sutton Place." The special guest of the evening was Pamela Myers, who brought down the house with a searing "What Did I Have That I Don't Have?" The host charmed in patter and novelty numbers such as Cole Porter's "Don't Monkey With Broadway" and Grossman and Hackady's "Don't Be Anything Less Than Everything You Can Be." There'll be a different assortment of singers for each edition of Fred Barton Presents - And Thinks You're Gonna Love It!, and if they're anything like this past one, serious showtune lovers should be in for some swell nights. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter. Click here for Michael Dale's Twitterized theatre reviews.
Posted on: Saturday, January 21, 2012 @ 03:34 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
"I was as content Off-Broadway as I was in a big Hollywood movie and I just try to be content wherever I am." -- James Earl Jones The grosses are out for the week ending 1/15/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section. Up for the week was: THE ROAD TO MECCA (23.8%), FOLLIES (15.0%), PORGY AND BESS (7.4%), CHINGLISH (6.8%), THE MOUNTAINTOP (5.8%), ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (4.7%), MAMMA MIA! (4.3%), WIT (3.7%), THE LION KING (2.7%), WICKED (1.9%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (1.7%), STICK FLY (0.1%), Down for the week was: MARY POPPINS (-17.8%), CHICAGO (-12.0%), SEMINAR (-10.1%), JERSEY BOYS (-7.5%), GODSPELL (-7.4%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-5.6%), SISTER ACT (-5.1%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (-4.9%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-4.9%), ROCK OF AGES (-4.5%), AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY PATINKIN (-4.5%), ANYTHING GOES (-3.6%), HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (-2.3%), RELATIVELY SPEAKING (-0.4%), MEMPHIS (-0.3%),
Posted on: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 @ 02:15 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
I've heard it said that there was this Australian fellow playing the Broadhurst recently who regularly had his audiences whipped up into quite a frenzy. I've also heard of a Liverpool quartet that could pack screaming fans into a sold out Shea Stadium. Now, I couldn't tell you if the decibel level was just as high at The Metropolitan Room last week when an American gal named Marilyn Maye was frequently honored with roaring ovations on the final night of her quickie engagement called Marilyn By Request, but I bet Messrs. Jackman, McCartney and Starr would be quite delighted to be still inspiring such boisterous affection as they were approaching their 84th birthdays. And despite that lyric's proclamation that she should be camp by now, she can actually open her show by sashaying through the audience to Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" without a hint of silliness because she believes in the message of the song just as strongly as she does of her traditional encore, Jerry Herman's "It's Today." In between she sang for nearly two hours and you couldn't call one note of the evening excessive. The theme of the three-night run was that audience members could request songs as they made their reservations, meaning Maye, music director/pianist Billy Stritch, drummer Ray Marchica and bassist Tom Hubbard had to put together a new set list for each performance. Most likely there was overlap when it came to classic Maye interpretations like her heartbreaking "Guess Who I Saw Tonight?" and her biggest "commercial" success, a three-year stint as spokes-singer for Lincoln Mercury, singing praises to their latest car models to the tune of "Step To The Rear." But this was a house full of people who were hip to all the latest Marilyn Maye selections, so there was even a request for Jerry Herman's "You I Like," the 11 o'clock polka from The Grand Tour that the canny vocalist flips into cool syncopation. A more introspective moment late in the evening had Maye wondering aloud how much longer she could go on performing. When an enthused voice called out, "Forever!," the saloon singer turned just a tad serious about facing the realism of time, and how happy it makes her to be giving master classes, so that her knowledge and experience can be passed on to a new generation of vocalists. But again, Marilyn Maye is all about the here and now. And right now I dare you to name a more exciting entertainer in all of Gotham. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter. Click here for Michael Dale's Twitterized theatre reviews.
Posted on: Friday, January 13, 2012 @ 06:16 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
By my count, Outside People is the third theatre piece about a white American in contemporary China to hit town this season. On the tails of Mike Daisey's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs and David Henry Hwang's Chinglish, Zayd Dohrn's dark comedy deals with Yankee naiveté regarding cultural differences when it comes to sex and business overseas. Xiao Mei works for David; not exactly as a prostitute but technically as Malcolm's language instructor. (This, after the first two scenes have established their difficulty communicating.) As David explains to his bud, being an American with the ability to take a woman away from China through marriage pushes him up a few points on the dating scale and makes him a more attractive assignment to women like Xiao Mei. While the setup has promise, as well as the theme of how each character is seen as an outsider, the men are scripted in such unrealistic extremes that the story turns to fluff. Lee is appropriately slick and self-centered as David, but the character's disregard for women is so broadly written that the actor might as well be twirling a greasy moustache between his fingers. Malcolm's innocence in the way he accepts being thought of as a prize in China after seeing himself as a loser in the states borders on stupidity. Despite its flaws, the script has some solid moments and clever exchanges. There's a sweetly comic scene where Malcolm tries telling Xiao Mei before they have sex that he has herpes. But quite a bit of the play is spoken in Mandarin without the use of subtitles and unfortunately those moments are not scripted in a manner that lets an English-speaking audience in on what's being said. Still, director Evan Cabnet's slick and sexy production, played by a capable cast, is suitably entertaining for much of the play's ninety minutes. It's just when you're looking for something beneath the shiny surface that Outside People loses its attractiveness. Photos by Carol Rosegg: Top: Li Jun Li and Matthew Dellapina; Bottom: Li Jun Li, Nelson Lee, Sonequa Martin-Green and Matthew Dellapina. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter. Click here for Michael Dale's Twitterized theatre reviews.
Posted on: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 @ 04:36 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
"I was born because my mother needed a fourth for meals." -- Beatrice Lillie The grosses are out for the week ending 1/8/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section. Up for the week was: PORGY AND BESS (18.2%), AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY PATINKIN (15.6%), SEMINAR (11.9%), FOLLIES (9.0%), LYSISTRATA JONES (6.6%), ROCK OF AGES (1.0%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (0.1%), Down for the week was: CHINGLISH (-22.4%), RELATIVELY SPEAKING (-21.9%), MAMMA MIA! (-21.6%), SISTER ACT (-19.0%), CHICAGO (-14.9%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-14.6%), MEMPHIS (-12.6%), MARY POPPINS (-10.2%), GODSPELL (-9.6%), STICK FLY (-9.5%), ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (-7.9%), JERSEY BOYS (-4.3%), THE MOUNTAINTOP (-3.6%), ANYTHING GOES (-3.2%), THE ROAD TO MECCA (-2.7%), THE LION KING (-2.7%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (-2.4%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (-2.0%), WICKED (-1.9%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-1.5%), HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (-0.8%),
Posted on: Monday, January 09, 2012 @ 05:16 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
"Broadway is a main artery of New York life - the hardened artery." -- Walter Winchell The grosses are out for the week ending 1/1/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section. Up for the week was: SISTER ACT (39.4%), THE ADDAMS FAMILY (36.4%), BONNIE AND CLYDE (34.1%), MAMMA MIA! (28.5%), MEMPHIS (27.0%), RELATIVELY SPEAKING (26.4%), CHICAGO (25.0%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (21.4%), ANYTHING GOES (20.1%), MARY POPPINS (19.7%), ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (19.7%), CHINGLISH (17.2%), STICK FLY (16.9%), LYSISTRATA JONES (14.4%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (14.2%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (13.1%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (12.6%), JERSEY BOYS (12.4%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (12.3%), ROCK OF AGES (10.8%), SEMINAR (10.4%), THE MOUNTAINTOP (9.2%), AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY PATINKIN (6.7%), FOLLIES (6.4%), GODSPELL (3.8%), HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (3.8%), THE ROAD TO MECCA (2.8%), WICKED (0.7%), THE LION KING (0.5%), Down for the week was: PORGY AND BESS (-8.5%), HUGH JACKMAN, BACK ON BROADWAY (-0.2%),
Posted on: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 @ 06:35 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Hang around the theatre long enough and you grow accustomed to hearing the word "problematic" applied primarily to two things: a Shakespeare play that's not one of his better efforts or the book of a musical that's rarely revived, despite an excellent score. I beg to differ. Look at Lerner's previous classics. Is a musical about a possible reincarnation any less believable than one about a Scottish town that disappears every hundred years? Or one about two men who spend weeks living together playing dress-up with a pretty young girl without at least one of them coming out of the closet? And compared with what's currently on Broadway? Please, for craft, intelligence and imagination I'll take the original book of Clear Day over the books of Sister Act, Mamma Mia, The Book of Mormon and most of the current crop. It may not be a great show, but in the world it creates the story makes perfect sense and a good production can give you a swell night out. But the dollars and cents truth is that, despite a gorgeous score that has Lerner's typically upscale lyrics matched with Burton Lane's typically entrancing melodies, the show is rarely performed nowadays. So when a director with the track record of Michael Mayer says he has an idea about reconceiving the show, the people who own the rights listen. And when a star with the drawing power of Harry Connick, Jr. shows interest, plans for a limited Off-Broadway engagement are scrapped in favor of an open-ended Broadway run. The supposedly unrevivable chamber musical of 1965 involved Mark Bruckner, a doctor and college professor seriously immersed in the study of hypnosis, who is approached by goofy young Daisy Gamble, who, trying to conform to the wishes of her conservative fiancé, asks to be hypnotized into quitting smoking. While under the doctor's spell, Daisy begins speaking in the cultured British tones of Melinda Wells, a privileged 18th Century lady whose wit and elegance fascinates Mark as a doctor and seduces him as a man. His suspicion that Daisy may be faking it is countered by the fact that, before being put under, she was able to read his mind, sense where a lost book was located and hear a phone before it rang. Not knowing of the past life she's been revealing, Daisy misinterprets Mark's interest in her to be romantic, coming from a man who, unlike her intended, seems perfectly willing to accept her as she is. This new approach proves to be... what's the word...? Problematic. Aside from taking away the opportunity for the audience to enjoy watching a talented actress transform herself from the hyper-neurotic Daisy to the cool and sensual Melinda (The general consensus is that Barbara Harris was a sensation in the role.), the double casting and the choice to make Melinda a singer make the plot less believable. Parnell has Mark entranced by Melinda's singing voice, and though Mueller does supply the evening with its musical highlight, a whip-smart jazz rendering of "Ev'ry Night at Seven" (written by Lerner and Lane for the film Royal Wedding), the audience is left wondering what exactly the doctor is hearing, since the voice that he should actually be listening to is David's. Later confusion is caused by the staging of one of the show's catchier numbers, "On The S.S. Bernard Cohn," a song originally sung by Daisy to her friends describing how attentive Mark was to her while taking her out on a tour boat. The new mounting has David doing the same, only now, over to the side, there's the added silent presence of Mark keeping company with Melinda on the boat while David wears an ignored expression. Exactly what was going on is as unclear as the first act curtain scene, showing the three of them in some kind of dance together, ending with a blackout just before Mark seems to be about to kiss David. (This moment is explained in the second act, revealing what appears to be a reluctance to show the two men kissing on stage.) The book makes a valiant attempt to flesh out Mark a bit more by making him a widower still mourning for his wife, with Kerry O'Malley wasted in the throwaway role of a friend who carries a secret torch for him. But the new plot needs to be propelled by a new score. There are perfunctory rewrites given to many of the original's songs (uncredited, making Lerner look bad to the unaware), plus a pair from the Clear Day movie (One of which is introduced with, "I wrote a song for you.") and a few more Royal Wedding tunes, but there's nothing to approach Mark's major conflict; the fact that he, while supposedly heterosexual, is falling for someone that he only sees in the body of a man. Connick spends most of the evening in lethargic gloom, pepping up somewhat when he sits to the side watching other people perform and, since he really has nothing to act, sings like Harry Connick, Jr. in concert. Similarly, there are no songs left in the score that were written specifically for Melinda, so Mueller, though sounding great, barely has a character to play. Turner's best scenes were lost with the decision to split the role in two, along with any empathy for the fellow he portrays, making his torcher "What Did I Have That I Don't Have?" carry little weight. The character's ability to read minds and hear phones before they ring has been cut, along with the ability to make flowers bloom to miraculous volumes by talking to them, making a great Lerner character lyric, "Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here," superfluous, and the moment is chopped into bits that bridge together book snippets. "Wait 'Til We're Sixty-Five," a snazzy jazz waltz with a very funny lyric, was originally sung by the stuffy, asexual Warren, whose idea of marital romance was the great retirement benefits he and Daisy will have to look forward to. But the number makes little sense now, squeezed into the plot by a reference to the possibility of gay marriage someday being legal, and shared by Warren, David and their friends. Likewise mangled is the comic song, "When I'm Being Born Again," originally sung by an eccentric Greek millionaire who funds Mark's research, now twisted into an East Indian arrangement and given to his students. At least both songs feature Sarah Stiles, whose energetic comic performance as David's mod friend sparks every moment she's on stage. Aside from the hacking and misplacement of Lerner's lyrics, Lane's melodies suffer from being encased in Doug Besterman's faux-70s orchestrations that reduce a truly beautiful, romantic score to middlebrow funk. Equally headache-inducing is Christine Jones' scenic design, which sets the piece behind cutouts of psychedelic optical illusions, occasionally lit by Kevin Adams with swirling hypnotic spirals. Oh, and if you're going to set your musical in June of 1974, it might not be a good idea to add a line that gives the impression the Mets are a lousy team, since they were the defending league champions at the time. Photos by Paul Kolnik: Top: Jessie Mueller and Harry Connick, Jr.; Bottom: David Turner and Drew Gehling. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter. Click here for Michael Dale's Twitterized theatre reviews.
Posted on: Thursday, December 29, 2011 @ 06:48 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
"Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own." -- Ethel Merman The grosses are out for the week ending 12/25/2011 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section. Up for the week was: GODSPELL (23.7%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (16.1%), PRIVATE LIVES (15.6%), RELATIVELY SPEAKING (13.5%), MAMMA MIA! (11.4%), HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (8.0%), CHICAGO (7.8%), WICKED (5.0%), CHINGLISH (4.2%), MARY POPPINS (3.4%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (2.2%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (1.5%), THE LION KING (0.5%), HUGH JACKMAN, BACK ON BROADWAY (0.1%), Down for the week was: PORGY AND BESS (-21.8%), ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (-21.0%), LYSISTRATA JONES (-16.8%), FOLLIES (-12.2%), SEMINAR (-11.9%), AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY PATINKIN (-11.4%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (-10.6%), BONNIE AND CLYDE (-10.2%), SISTER ACT (-9.4%), ANYTHING GOES (-7.2%), THE ADDAMS FAMILY (-7.1%), THE ROAD TO MECCA (-7.1%), JERSEY BOYS (-5.2%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (-2.2%), STICK FLY (-2.0%), MEMPHIS (-1.3%), ROCK OF AGES (-1.2%), THE MOUNTAINTOP (-0.2%),
Posted on: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 @ 03:55 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
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The squad gets their inspiration from Andy Warhol's Kitchen, a 1965 film that had Edie Sedgwick and other Warhol actors hanging around a kitchen having meaningless, often indecipherable, conversations. Like his eight hour and five minute long film of the Empire State Building taken from a motionless camera, Kitchen was generally considered unwatchable, and to Warhol, that was the point.
Patterson tells us that the screenplay for Kitchen was penned by Ronald Tavel, but the actors didn't bother to learn it, improvising their scenes instead, and that the film was popular at underground cinemas where is was seen by gays, beatniks, lesbians, drug addicts; "People like you."
The walls of Michael Yeargan's set, representing the home of an aging artist living in an isolated South African village, have the appearance of being covered in watery dyes. Peter Kaczorowski's lighting unobtrusively provides pockets on intimacy in the large, candlelit dwelling, displaying numerous creations and oddities.
Fugard's fiction has the elderly Miss Helen (Harris) struggling with the limitations that come with aging. Her letter describing her distressed indecision about her future, sent to her younger friend, Elsa (Gugino), has prompted the Cape Town schoolteacher to make a twelve-hour drive to find out what is wrong. Their conversation, which takes up the bulk of the first act, doesn't set up a plot, but rather establishes a relationship where Elsa's affection for Miss Helen is as both a person and as a symbol of what she can do with her own life by denying the conventions put upon her sex.
But in the unusually titled 
There's nothing nostalgic about watching Marilyn Maye perform, which is a great part of what makes her shows so exciting. Sure, her repertoire consists mainly of American Songbook standards and she'll throw in a story about Ray Charles or Johnny Carson now and then, but perhaps it's because her warm and expressive voice is in such spectacular shape that she never lets your mind wander back to how good she used to sound. The emphasis is on the here when she time travels through Sondheim's survivalist anthem, "I'm Still Here," singing it with the relaxed satisfaction of a woman who won't have any regrets about anything that led up to where she is now.
Geeky filmmaker Malcolm (Matt Dellapina), drowning in his own neuroses, arrives in Beijing at the urging of his old college roommate, Chinese-born Da Wei, a/k/a David (Nelson Lee), who wants to set him up with a job. David is a hotshot in some unspecified business and before his pal has even had a chance to rest up from his flight he has him in a hip lounge sharing drinks with a beautiful local, Xiao Mei (Li Jun Li). With their limited knowledge of each other's language, the two can barely hold a conversation, but at the end of the evening Xiao Mei makes it crystal clear to the surprised American that she intends spend the night in his bed.
While Malcolm has convinced himself that he has fallen in love with a woman whose motives he doesn't trust, David has his own issues with his moneyed Cameroonian girlfriend Samanya (Sonequa Martin-Green), who resents being thought of as foreign after being raised in China.
Since opening in 1965 as Alan Jay Lerner's first musical after the retirement of his long-time partner, Frederick Loewe, 
The nearly completely new book by Peter Parnell is set in post-Stonewall 1974, shortly after the American Psychiatric Association discontinued its classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. Dr. Mark Bruckner (Connick) now narrates the show as a presentation about a recent case for the benefit of an audience of his colleagues. His topic is still hypnotism but now the patient who wants to quit smoking is a gay florist named David Gamble (David Turner), who wants to please his perfectly loving, commitment-minded boyfriend, Warren (Drew Gehling). While under, David still turns into Melinda Wells, but now she's a 1940s jazz singer, played by Jessie Mueller, who captivates the doctor with her sensational vocals.
About Michael: After 20-odd years singing, dancing and acting in
dinner theatres, summer stocks and the ever-popular
audience participation murder mysteries (try
improvising with audiences after they?ve had two hours
of open bar), Michael Dale segued his theatrical
ambitions into playwriting. The buildings which once
housed the 5 Off-Off Broadway plays he penned have all
been destroyed or turned into a Starbucks, but his
name remains the answer to the trivia question, "Who
wrote the official play of Babe Ruth's 100th
Birthday?" He served as Artistic Director for The
Play's The Thing Theatre Company, helping to bring
free live theatre to underserved communities, and
dabbled a bit in stage managing and in directing
cabaret shows before answering the call (it was an
email, actually) to become BroadwayWorld.com's first
Chief Theatre Critic. While not attending shows
Michael can be seen at Shea Stadium pleading for the
Mets to stop imploding. Likes: Strong book musicals
and ambitious new works. Dislikes: Unprepared
celebrities making their stage acting debuts by
starring on Broadway and weak bullpens.
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