by Jonathan Warman

Another play I don’t like by a playwright I do like. This is getting discouraging. At his best, Playwright Martin McDonagh offers a guardedly hopeful and redemptive vision for the violent, pathetic fuckers and hardnosed bitches that populate his plays. And aren’t we all at one time or another a pathetic fucker or a hardnosed bitch?

Unfortunately, there’s not much hope or redemption in A Behanding in Spokane, so we’re just left with violence cropping up in pathetic situations. In this little charmer, a man who has been searching for his missing hand for 47 years encounters two young con artists in a fleabag hotel.

Christopher Walken plays Carmichael, the handless man, in a very “Christopher Walken” performance. I didn’t love his performance as much as a lot other people seem to, but seeing him perform in person I did gain a new appreciation for his very “live” sense of timing.

Anthony Mackie, as the cagey young dope dealer Toby, delivers the most recognizably human performance of the evening. Toby’s the closest thing to the sympathetic clueless sucker who generally gets half a clue by the end of a McDonagh play.

Here, though, Toby seems to leave pretty much as he came in. He was wasting his time trying to sell Carmichael a hand, and Behanding wastes both our and McDonagh’s time. Give some poor guy half a brake next time, won’t you, Martin?

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

I’m happy to have the story of blind-deaf activist Helen Keller back on Broadway, but I can’t help wondering if William Gibson’s 1959 drama The Miracle Worker is still the best way to tell this particular story. Under Kate Whoriskey’s able direction it’s getting a passionate revival, whose only major flaw is awkward in-the-round staging that obscures many important moments. The acting’s quite good — more about that in a moment.

The play itself has not held up extraordinarily well. It’s melodramatic and sentimental, and not particularly subtle. Set in Tuscumbia, Alabama in the 1880s, The Miracle Worker tells the story of the young Keller, who became blind and deaf after a childhood illness, and the woman, Annie Sullivan, who taught her to communicate with the world. It doesn’t go into Keller’s later life as writer and activist, which I think might interest a 21st century audience more than it would have the more conservative 1950s audience.

Characters repeatedly say that it would “take a miracle” to get through to Helen, which gives you an idea of the general level of Gibson’s writing. He does manage some moments of insight: into the jumble of feelings that go with raising a disabled child; into Sullivan’s conflicted yet determined psyche; and into the North-South tensions that make Sullivan’s interactions with the Kellers even more difficult. Nonetheless, the play is visibly creaky, and shows signs of its first life as a 1957 made-for-TV script. Perhaps it’s time for someone to write a new play about Keller to replace this old chestnut.

It’s wonderful, then, that we have actors as good as Allison Pill, playing Annie, and Abigail Breslin, playing Helen. Pill builds a believable, fiery woman out of Gibson’s sketchy outline, and Breslin, without any lines, marvelously conveys a raging intelligence thoroughly frustrated by her limitations.
The final scenes, in which Helen finally begins to understand the sign language Annie has been teaching her, still pack an emotional wallop — there was hardly a dry eye in the house. If only the dialogue that led up to this shattering moment were better!

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.  

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by Jonathan Warman

I first saw Lea Salonga in the Broadway “revisal” of Flower Drum Song, which gave her some great acting opportunities but gave a lot of the best songs to other performers — though Salonga did turn it out on “A Hundred Thousand Miracles” and “Love, Look Away”. And of course I knew her voice from Princess Jasmine’s limited singing in the Disney animated film Aladdin (Linda Larkin did the lines for Jasmine in that film). I have to admit that I haven’t yet seen Mulan, where Salonga had more to sing.

So I knew this woman could sing, but that’s about all I knew — truth be told, I heard her sing more in her New York cabaret debut at Café Carlyle than I had heard her sing before. And I was suitably impressed! Salonga is a big star in her native Philippines, where she lives now, and her full-throated yet emotionally subtle singing style is surely the reason.

Her Carlyle act is best when Salonga tells her unique story, the path she took in transforming her success in Filipino musical theatre into international stardom as Kim in Miss Saigon on the West End and then Broadway. Included along the way are traditional Filipino songs like “Salamat, Salamat Musica” and “Waray Waray” (the latter, Salonga notes, was sung on the Carlyle stage by Eartha Kitt), as well as “Too Much for One Heart”, a lovely ballad cut from Saigon, and “Reflection”, a big number from Mulan.

She even does a goofy version of “A Whole New World” in which the band members sing Aladdin’s part, comically pointing up how he keeps interrupting Jasmine throughout the song. Salonga dips into the Great American Songbook a couple of times, with Rodgers & Hart’s “My Romance” and the Gershwins’ “Someone to Watch Over Me”. She has a knack for going to the heart of these songs — I personally would have liked more along these lines. Not the greatest cabaret act ever, but an entertaining way to frame Salonga’s undeniably gorgeous voice.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Ella Fitzgerald once called Marilyn Maye “the greatest white female singer in the world”. I saw her for the first time in her latest club act at Feinstein’s, and I can tell you that’s no exaggeration. There are younger singers who might posses more powerful voices. However, I can think of no other singer who possesses Maye’s combination of interpretive ability, rhythmic verve, and, yes, vocal range (at 81, her voice may not be what it once was, but it’s certainly still the envy of just about any singer 20 years her junior).

Her new show, “In Love Again” — created exclusively for Feinstein's — features her signature hits “I Love You Today” by her mentor Steve Allen and one of her most requested songs, “Guess Who I Saw Today.” This is a classic act in every sense of the phrase. Maye is a jazz-pop singer worthy of being included in the company of Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn or Blossom Dearie, and her phrasing is the finest I’ve heard in that style from a living singer.

Her repertoire for the evening ranges from Marlene Dietrich’s signature song “Falling in Love Again” and a dazzling Cole Porter medley to Sondheim, and even Lionel Richie’s “Hello”. Maye exquisitely tailors her style of singing to the individual song, smooth for the ballads, swinging for the standards, and truly gritty for the bluesier numbers.

Maye appeared on Johnny Carson’s edition of “The Tonight Show” a total of 76 times, a record not likely ever to be beaten by any other singer with any other host. She’s been enjoying a New York renaissance recently, making critically acclaimed appearances at the Cabaret Convention and the Metropolitan Room.

Her run at Feinstein’s brings her back into “Café Society” and there couldn’t be a more magical marriage of singer and venue. If you love classic songs sung like they’re meant to be sung, it doesn’t get any better than this.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you must see this. Not just because it’s an excellent gay-themed production. Not just because it’s a chance to see Michael Urie of Ugly Betty fame in a live theatre setting, showing some very strong acting chops. No, you must see this because it brings to life an essential but too-little known part of gay history, in a surprisingly moving and engaging way.

The Temperamentals is, more than anything else, the story of two men in love in the early 1950s: sometime actor and constant activist Harry Hay (Thomas Jay Ryan) and the fashion designer Rudi Gernreich (Urie). Above and beyond their mutual sexual attraction and romantic feelings, they both passionately commit to building the first gay rights organization in American history, the Mattachine Society.

Urie is winsome and whip-smart as Gernreich, but the performance that most elevates this production is Ryan as Hay. Hay is one of my very few personal heroes, and Ryan vibrantly portrays everything that I found admirable about him: his lightly borne erudition, his love of revolution, his spiritual sense of the place of gays in the world, his puckish humor and his habit of tearing up when politics and music mix (happens all the time to me too).

The Temperamentals is the little show that could. It started in 40-seat black box for a sold out run, and promptly moved to a larger Off-Off-Broadway house. Now, after a bit of a break, it has moved to the New World Stages Off-Broadway complex. Director Jonathan Silverstein has managed to preserve the “you are there” intimacy of the original black box.

Perhaps the most noticeable upgrade is in designer Clint Ramos’s costumes. Several key moments involve Hay discovering his “plumage” — clothes that leave no doubt that the wearer is gay — at first a flamboyant woman’s shawl. In the original production, near the end, Hay put on some vaguely genderfucking outfit that signified his evolution into the founder of the Radical Faeries. It was moving, but now Ryan dons an even more colorful outfit that identifiably resembles clothes Hay actually wore, which deepens the impact.

I repeat – you must see this! This lovely and rewarding show needs to be seen by the broadest audience possible, but for gay men, it is required viewing!

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

I like Douglas Carter Beane a lot, so I’ll try to be kind about Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, a comedy I really wanted to like, but couldn’t. Mostly, I have a lot of questions.

Right off the bat, I want to know: Douglas Carter Beane, do you talk like your two titular gossip columnists at home? Mr. Beane and I are neither that far from being Mr. (or Mrs.) Fitch — urbane New Yorkers reporting on pop culture, trying to find witty ways to respond to often witless stimuli. So I ask again: Douglas, do you talk like these overeducated name-droppers at home? Cuz, overeducated as I might be, I sure as hell don’t.

If Beane’s trying to create a cartoon version of an urbane couple fighting to bar the barbarians from the gate, well, it’s not cartoonish enough. In the very first scene, we feel that we’re in a realistically represented Manhattan apartment, and the too-clever banter rings awfully false. Does Beane mean for us to find them as hollow as they appear? And then expect us to give a damn what happens to them over the course of two acts?

There’s evidence that this wasn’t Beane’s plan. The only part of the play that truly held my attention was the final scene, in which the Fitches experience an epiphany, and find the courage of their convictions, both moral and artistic. The Fitches I glimpse in that final scene were people I wanted to get to know better. That they arrive at such an admirable point suggests that Beane wanted us in some way to identify with them. And because of those hollow first impressions, I never did.

Douglas Carter Beane, I know you are capable of creating characters that are vapid (Sonny in Xanadu) or perhaps even a bit evil (Hollywood agent Diane in Little Dog Laughed), whom the audience somehow still cares about and follow through your plots. My biggest question: How did you fail to do that here?

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Set during World War II, the new musical Yank! follows a young serviceman named Stu (Bobby Steggart) as he nervously explores his attraction to men. Bookwriter David Zellnik has created a compelling voyage of discovery for Stu, as he finds true love, promiscuous sex and underground gay culture in ways that overlap and conflict. Cutie-pie Steggart imbues Stu with a very winning combination of sweet good humor and tender longing.

In fact, this is one of those musicals where the book is often more interesting than the music. The energetic and functional score by Joseph Zellnik (David’s brother) captures the general flavor of 1940s pop, but something’s missing. This is a show that practically begs for music that is jazzy, breaks out and swings, and that rarely happens. I don’t know whether it’s Zellnik’s songs themselves, or the way that they’re arranged and played, but the underlying musical rhythm here is decidedly, and unfortunately, “square.”

One song that does successfully swing is “Click,” in which Artie (Jeffery Denman), a gay reporter for Yank magazine (which gives the show its title) shows Stu the ropes of how one gets laid in this man’s army, through the metaphor of tap dancing. Denman, who’s great fun in the role, also choreographed Yank! and gets points for the lively tap routine. He needs them, because he also gets some demerits for the pretty but pointless dream ballet in Act II. It does indeed stop the show, but in all the wrong ways.

Director Igor Goldin does a marvelous job of keeping the action brisk and fluid. Nancy Anderson playfully portrays a series of radio chanteuses — and a very cagey lesbian army officer. Yank! is amusing and occasionally though provoking; I just have the nagging feeling that there’s a better show in there that hasn’t quite found its way out yet.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

On one of the funnier episodes of Will & Grace Lorraine said to Will: “You're a natty dresser. Are you English?” To which Will responded: “Oh, no, I'm gay.” “Well, it's the same thing.” Playwright, songwriter and singer Noël Coward, being both English and gay, was very English and very gay. 

John Standing, currently performing Coward songs at the Café Carlyle, may not be gay, but he is himself so incredibly English that he is more than comfortable with Coward’s gayness. On the night that I was there, Standing got a testimonial from no less than Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York — that’s right, kids, the original Fergie. That’s how damn English Standing is.

Standing has no problem putting Coward’s gayest lyrics up front and center. He opens the show speaking the lyrics of “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party,” all of them; several of the less often heard ones are homoerotic double entendres (or even single entendres). Standing delivers them with panache almost equal to Coward’s own. He seems very nearly as racy, worldly and sophisticated as Noël, whom John first met at the age of ten (Standing’s mother, Kay Hammond, played Elvira in the original Broadway production of Blithe Spirit).

Standing readily admits that he has “a voice like a shoe”. That’s not really a problem, however, since he acts every lyric with great style and intelligence (Coward himself had only a serviceable, if expressive, voice). Wit flows and sparkles like champagne in this show and Standing’s deep affection for both Coward and his songs shines through. Fun just doesn’t get more chic than this.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

The Boys in the Band for a long time had an unfair reputation as being the worst kind of gay play: full of self-hating homos, representing a whole spectrum of stereotypes. It gained this reputation largely because it was among the first commercially successful gay-themed plays. It was the late sixties, and at the time the more forward-thinking gays in the theatre wanted the general audience to see self-possessed, healthy gay characters. The characters in The Boys in the Band may show flashes of self-possession, but they are neurotic (and alcoholic) as hell.
 
Now, after 40 years which have seen a wide variety of successful gay-themed American plays, The Boys plays a bit differently. It’s actually an intelligent, even penetrating, examination of internalized homophobia. Even that makes it sound less interesting than it actually is. Some smart theatre person once observed that Chekhov’s The Three Sisters isn’t about three moping women who never get to Moscow, it’s about three exciting, vibrant women fighting like hell to get there. Similarly, Boys is, at its root, about a group of exciting, vibrant men fighting like hell for self-respect and love.

Michael, a recovering alcoholic, hosts a birthday party for his friend Harold in his Upper East Side apartment, with six of their closest friends. The evening begins with this group of friends celebrating, singing and dancing — when left to their own devices these guys are happy. But when the world comes knocking in the form of Michael’s straight college friend Alan — or the form of dysfunctional toxicity between Michael and Harold that emerges when Michael falls off the wagon — staying happy seems like a steeper climb.

Director Jack Cummings III has staged the play in an actual penthouse loft, transformed into Michael’s 1960s apartment. The audience sits on all sides, creating an intimate, three-dimensional environment. This was a very effective choice; being that close to these men allows you to get a really strong read on precisely when the jokes are kind, and when they’re cruel. It’s a solid production that casts an insightful eye toward both gay history and plain old human psychology.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

I’m a great advocate of the lesser-known works of Tennessee Williams (I recently directed one, and am working on directing another), so I am always excited when I hear about productions of plays of his that haven’t become “brand names.”Clothes for a Summer Hotel, the last Williams play to open on Broadway during his lifetime, imagines an otherworldly encounter between the agitated ghosts of great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda.

Clothes is being revived by director Cyndy A. Marion, who, a couple of seasons back, directed a compelling, eye-opening production of another unfamiliar Williams play, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel. While this Clothes is less focused and sharp than her Tokyo, Marion has clearly worked with her ensemble to develop a good overall sense of the melancholy mood of the piece.

If anything, this production goes a bit too far in the direction of treating Clothes as a mood piece. There is already enough melancholy and insanity in the script; to play it reverently and melodramatically, as the cast often does, makes even the tensest scene a bit sleep-inducing.

Kristen Vaughn is generally effective as Zelda, zeroing in on her frustrated intelligence and sexuality. Vaughn does have a tendency, though, to play Zelda as if she were some other Williams heroine, such as Blanche Du Bois or Amanda Wingfield. Playing a generalized “Tennessee Williams style” (which, in acting terms, doesn’t really exist at all) is an error many actors make, and Vaughn is no exception. Better that she should have concentrated her efforts on recreating the real-life Zelda Fitzgerald, and completely ignored the playwright’s name.

The play takes engaging liberties with time and place, as the Fitzgeralds’ ghosts seem to experience past, present and future simultaneously. In his stage directions for Clothes, Williams says “the extent to which the characters should betray an awareness of their apparitional state will be determined more precisely in the course of a production.” That determination doesn’t seem to have happened here, or if it has, it is played too vaguely. Much excitement could have been generated by exploiting the tension between times, excitement this production definitely needs.

One scene truly “popped” however: when the ghosts of Scott and Ernest Hemmingway come to terms with the homoeroticism in their works, and even in their own competitive relationship. I attribute this scene’s singular success to Rod Sweitzer’s portrayal of Hemmingway. He’s the one actor who seems to have figured out how best to effectively manipulate the shifts in perspective.

In the final analysis, while this production of Clothes for a Summer Hotel is by no means definitive, it is certainly done with enough intelligence to be of interest to Williams fans.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

What a startlingly entertaining comedy this is! Sweetly bland gay hunk Joey (Matthew Pender) decides to marry the never-seen Bobby. But, title to one side, that’s not the real story here.

Joey's Southern socialite mother Sarah Edwards is the real central character, a fantastic comic creation of the Atlanta-based playwrighting team that goes by the name “William Wyatt.” It isn’t that Sarah opposes the wedding as such — she’s glad to see her son happy — but she does have an overwhelming desire to keep up appearances, and that’s the engine that drives most of the play’s comedy.

When Joey Married Bobby is a tasty vehicle for the actress playing Sarah, a well-intentioned slightly-off-her-beam snob, and the diminutive, fast-talking Tina McKissick plays the living daylights out of the part. Her firecracker performance alone is worth the cost of admission.

But Sarah’s not the only comic showpiece that William Wyatt has devised. None other than legendary drag queen Lady Bunny plays the powerful but clueless Baptist Minister's Wife, Charity Divine (interestingly enough, Charity doesn’t oppose the wedding either, mostly because she’s incredibly self-centered and flighty). Bunny’s been hamming the hell out of her song parodies for ages, and I am delighted to report that she is just as riotously funny milking Wyatt’s dialogue for every possible laugh.

But even though the William Wyatt team has certainly created a satisfying comic entertainment, they haven’t created a play where all of the parts fit well, or every joke lands. There’s plenty that could, no, should be cut here, not because the play is too long (it isn’t), but because they’re laugh lines that just aren’t funny and don’t get laughs.

I recommend that the guys behind When Joey Married Bobby go on what the great director Jack O’Brien calls a “clam hunt”. During the show keep a script in hand and make a mark next to what gets a laugh; the bigger the laugh the bigger the mark. Repeat for several performances to counteract odd audiences. If something you wrote for a laugh has only tiny marks next to it, ditch the sucker. Then, When Joey Married Bobby will not only be a lot of fun (which it already is) it’ll also be airtight.  

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Undiluted pleasure. A major cabaret event, cabaret history, even. So supreme, the very finest entertainment that New York has to offer. Faaaabulous!

All of those would be apt descriptions of Christine Ebersole’s dazzling new show at the Café Carlyle. She has a high mark to live up to: The act that she did in late 2001 at the much-missed cabaret Arci’s Place is the stuff of cabaret legend. It caused me to write that she is “one of those talents that comes along just a handful of times every generation,” something she proved in spades in her Tony-winning run as Little Edie Beale in the Broadway musical Grey Gardens.

I’m delighted to report that this show is in the same league as the Arci’s Place act. First off, Christine is working with the magnificent John Oddo, like she did last year at the Carlyle. Oddo was musical director for the late, great Rosemary Clooney and he worked with jazz legends like Woody Herman, and it shows in the tight, elegant and powerful arrangements and piano playing he brings to the table.

This also finds her reuniting with director Scott Wittman, who has his own Tony for co-writing the score of Hairspray, and who directed that magical Arci’s Place act. Ebersole, Oddo and Wittman are all working at the top of their powers here, and the results are dumbfoundingly fantastic.

The show opens with the band tearing their way through a pounding rendition of “Hawaiian War Chant” effectively building the excitement for Christine’s entrance. Looking gorgeous and glamorous, she raises the temperature further, with, appropriately enough, “Too Darn Hot”.

She then goes into the witty patter that Wittman is so brilliant at helping singers to develop (though few deliver it with the sparkling élan that comes so naturally to Ebersole), letting us know that we are in for a show on hot topics like “sex, politics, religion…and weather!” The comment about weather gets a laugh, but one of the undeniable high points of the evening is a truly thunderous rendition of “Stormy Weather” that goes miles beyond any other rendition I’ve ever heard.

Ebersole also did a wonderful performance in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit on Broadway last season, and ever since has been working on an album (soon to be released) of Coward songs. She does a handful of his songs in the act, including the lyrical “Matelot” and the sentimental “I’ll See You Again”. If this is any indication of how good the album will be, I can hardly wait.

You absolutely, positively must see this; I’m simply not giving you any other option.

For tickets, click here. Seriously. Now.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

It’s no accident that Betty Buckley’s doing a lot of Broadway in her latest cabaret act — “For The Love Of Broadway!” — she says that Feinstein’s got complaints about the jazzier slant of her earlier acts at the club. “We came to see Betty Buckley; we want to hear Broadway, dammit!” She even comically complains about the situation in a very funny specialty number called “When I Belt” written especially for this act by John McDaniel and Eric Kornfeld.

Whether that’s all true or not (it certainly makes for funny patter), it’s a real pleasure to hear her tear into songs as varied as Pal Joey’s “Bewitched,” Avenue Q’s  “There’s a Fine, Fine Line” and The Wiz’s “Home.” Musical director Kenny Werner’s arrangements are original and dynamic, and Buckley’s delivery smart, big and powerful. Particularly touching was her take on Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away” in which you could almost sense the lover addressed in the song slowly turning away.

The act, however, is a bit on the ballad-heavy side. This brakes what I consider to be one of the few rules about building a solid cabaret act: go easy on the ballads (you want an audience that is in love, not asleep). You can’t fault her often-riveting interpretations, though, and there’s just enough spicy up-tempo stuff to make this a generally enjoyable evening.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Manhattan Theatre Club does very well with plays by Donald Margulies. His Sight Unseen was the first play to be an unqualified success in their Broadway theatre in 2004 (called the Biltmore at the time, now called the Friedman). His Brooklyn Boy received a similar reception the following season. Now, after a break of a few seasons, the Friedman will play host this spring to not one but two Margulies premieres, Time Stands Still and Collected Stories.

Time Stands Still also reunites Margulies with his leading lady from Sight Unseen, the luminous Laura Linney. Here Linney plays brilliant and acclaimed photojournalist Sarah, who has been seriously injured by a bomb while working in a war zone. Her journalist boyfriend James (Brian d’Arcy James, fresh from Shrek), is nursing her back to health, and is also nursing the notion of them leaving war coverage behind and settling down.

Margulies is best at portraying the subtle, quiet moments when people connect or ever so slightly miss connecting, and there’s plenty of that here. He’s also probing into the ethical and psychological baggage of relatively privileged people who make it their business to document the world’s worst miseries. 
 
Sarah stands squarely at the crux of this probe, as the character most driven to cover the world, in spite of nearly losing her life in that pursuit. Linney is a marvel, investing Sarah with serious gravitas and deep emotions that percolate suddenly and unexpectedly to the surface. James definitely holds his own opposite Linney, making a very strong case for the simple, comfortable life.
 
Eric Bogosian and Alicia Silverstone make terrific appearances as Sarah’s editor and his new girlfriend, putting the central couple’s struggle in the context of the wider world. If I have one beef with Margulies, it would be the play’s lack of an explicit argument for the importance of the press.

That said, the play’s powerful final moment makes a sudden, visceral impression that pulls the whole thing together in one potent image — arguably what Sarah’s been doing all along.

For tickets, click here. 

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

For once, finding homophobia in a play doesn’t offend me. When Brooklyn longshoreman Eddie Carbone, the protagonist of A View from the Bridge, says that Rodolpho, a fresh-off-the-boat Italian immigrant, “isn’t right” or is a “punk,” he’s certainly insinuating something about his sexuality.

Clearly, though, the homophobia we’re seeing isn’t a reflection of playwright Arthur Miller’s own attitude toward homosexuality (whatever that might have been). Eddie is covering up the real reason he doesn’t like Rodolpho, namely that the newcomer has very heterosexual intentions towards Eddie’s 17-year-old niece Catherine — to whom Eddie has himself developed an uncomfortably possessive attachment. Also, Miller wrote the play in 1955, a long time before anybody knew what the word homophobia even meant.

It also doesn’t hurt that Eddie is being played with great sensitivity by one of the most intelligent and talented hunks of the American stage and screen, Liev Schreiber. Catherine is being played with equal grace by Scarlett Johansson. Most gratifying is her complete commitment — we feel we’re watching a seasoned stage pro disappear in the part, with not even the slightest hint of a movie star slumming on Broadway.

In fact the entire production is a class act, which director Gregory Mosher has helmed with modest dignity and subtle power. This is my first encounter with this particular Miller play, and I feel like I’ve seen a production that advocates for it very well. It didn’t suddenly become my favorite Miller, but this production is rock-solid theater that I can highly recommend.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Horton Foote’s The Orphan’s Home Cycle follows a modest, honest Texan soul, Horace Robedaux (played with quiet dignity by the handsome Bill Heck), from childhood through adulthood, over the course of nine one-acts spread out over three evenings. Part Two takes place just under 100 years ago, and focuses on Horace’s married life.

The late Foote focused on genuinely humane individuals trying to make worthwhile lives in the face of attacks from the many human monsters that small-town Texas begets. The monsters in this part are less obvious than in the more desolate Part One, but our hero Horace certainly isn’t getting any kind of free ride. No onstage deaths from alcoholism this time, but we hear of a few, and see a few booze addled creatures come and go.

In The Widow Claire, Horace loves the titular lady, but is stymied at every turn — even beaten up at one point — by Val, a violent, whiskey-guzzling moron who is also “courting” Claire. Claire finally agrees to marry a third, older man, leaving Horace in the lurch.

Luckily, he falls even more deeply in love with one Elizabeth Vaughn in Courtship but comes up against her overprotective father (played with great subtlety by James DeMarse). In Valentine’s Day the couple, who had to elope, reconcile with Elizabeth’s father, while Horace finally has enough security to really feel the loss of his father, and abandonment by his mother. The strongest of the three plays, Valentine’s Day brings into sharper focus the themes of the cycle as a whole.

The Orphan’s Home Cycle is emerging as one of the more interesting events of the season — I’ve enjoyed the first two, and am very curious to see how the whole thing comes to a close in Part Three.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

In aging matinee idol Garry Essendine, the central character in Present Laughter, playwright and gay sophisticate Noël Coward created one of the great comic monsters of the modern theater. All the greater because behind his arrogant, preening exterior, Garry is actually a truly compassionate, loving person, surprisingly devoted to the friends he so often bullies and insults. He just can’t help getting dazzled by his own brilliance (“I still maintain I should have been magnificent as Peer Gynt!”) — and who can’t identify with that?

It’s a truly delicious role, and Victor Garber seems to be having a wonderful time sinking his teeth into it. While other actors have had great success comically playing up Garry’s ego, Garber lets that take care of itself and takes Garry’s relationships with his tight-knit circle of friends totally to heart. This makes for what is easily the most textured Present Laughter I’ve ever seen. Even as you’re rolling your eyes at the excuses Garry makes for himself, you know he sincerely means well and is trying to get it right.

While Garry struggles to plan his upcoming tour of Africa, his elegant London flat is invaded by all manner of vivid characters. The flat itself is packed with character — Alexander Dodge’s set is a luscious Deco marvel. Lisa Banes is delectably dry as Garry’s estranged wife Liz, and Harriet Harris is her usual wickedly funny self as his indispensible secretary Monica.

Perhaps best of all is Brooks Ashmanskas as queer-in-every-sense playwright Roland Maule. Coward intended this character to seem like he’s truly touched; Ashmanskas is insanely over the top, truly from a different planet — or maybe just high camp heaven!

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Joanthan Warman

In Tyne Daly’s previous nightclub act at Feinstein’s, her cabaret debut, she couldn’t find a theme to connect the songs she wanted to sing, so she simply titled it “Songs.” This time, in a show called “The Second Time Around,” Daly has settled on the theme of the blessings and curses that the passage of time brings. It’s a more reflective show, with Tyne showing a more subtle side that’s equal parts expansive emotion and steely-eyed realism.

That’s not to say the stage and screen persona for which she’s known — a “broad” who’s so brassy that it’s dangerous (many have called her 1989 performance as Mama Rose in Gypsy “terrifying”) — doesn’t make an appearance. Her take on Bessie Smith’s murderous “Send Me to the `Lectric Chair” is satisfyingly intense, and she makes a very solid case that she should play Countess Aurelia, The Madwoman of Chaillot, in Jerry Herman’s Dear World (by way of a climactic medley from that show).

More typical of the tone of the show, however, is her wistful take on Bill Withers’s “Ain’t No Sunshine.” Thoughtful and hushed, it’s a more textured approach than you might expect from Daly, although what she gains in nuance, she loses in magnetism. This way of working is a mixed blessing, intriguing but not what I would call compelling.

That said, there isn’t a moment that Daly doesn’t exude both a heartening confidence and a surprising vulnerability. It’s not a rousing evening, but it is in its own way quietly rewarding.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Unlike The Mikado, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta which has long been a favorite of mine — and which I reviewed last week — I have never seen that team’s 1887 operetta Ruddigore, or The Witch's Curse. The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players have mounted an entirely new production of this lesser-known show, with largely positive results.

The designs for this production were inspired by the illustrations of the late Edward Gorey, most famous these days for designing the animated opening credits for PBS’s Mystery. You can see the Gorey influence most strongly in the gothic set for the second act, but it’s generally so muted that I wouldn’t have noticed it, if it hadn’t been pointed out to me.

I can easily see, however, how directors Albert Bergeret and David Auxier would have made a connection between Ruddigore and Gorey’s dark whimsy. The Murgatroyd family, Baronets of Ruddigore Castle, was apparently cursed in ancient times by a witch: the head of the family must commit a crime of some sort each day, or face an agonizing death. Ruthven, the most recent Baronet, has escaped this fate by hiding in a fishing village under an assumed name. When Ruthven’s true identity is revealed, he is forced to assume his birthright, perhaps losing the hand of his ladylove in the process.

It’s all the clever, high silliness one expects from G&S. Perhaps because this is a new production, and not a remounting like their Mikado, the ensemble comes closer to the kind of fizzy, tizzy madness that makes this kind of stuff really work. In particular David Macaluso, who was a workmanlike Ko-Ko in The Mikado, really lets loose as Ruthven, finding all kinds of bright comic colors in this shy, reluctant nobleman. I could have done with a heavier Gorey touch, and a bigger dose of insanity overall, but all in all this is a pretty good way to meet Ruddigore.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

I remember seeing a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1885 operetta The Mikado when I was a kid and thinking it was one of the most hilarious things I had ever seen. So, when I saw that, in this slow-as-usual January, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players would be presenting it, I jumped at the opportunity to see it again.

Even though it’s set in a Japanese village, The Mikado is about as jolly British as you can get — I was also curious to see if it was more racist than I remember. Hardly! It’s far too briskly silly and willfully inauthentic to be taken as saying anything about Japan or the Japanese. Casting a few more Asian actors who could use the work might have been nice (I counted one), but Japan is an almost arbitrary setting that mostly justifies colorful costumes (which costumer designers Gail J. Wofford and Kayko Nakamura delivered in spades).

In the village of Titipu, beautiful school girl Yum-Yum loves the romantic minstrel Nanki-Poo but is engaged to Ko-Ko the executioner (who has a list of potential victims but is too sensitive to actually perform his duties). This romantic triangle is further entangled by the arrival of the fearsome Katisha, claiming Nanki-Poo as her "perjured lover," and later the emperor, or “Mikado,” himself.

This production hits the right tone of silly fun but doesn’t go far enough with it. To my taste, the more The Mikado is done with barely controlled insanity, the better it is. While a handful of performers approach this — particularly Louis Dall’Ava as the comically corrupt bureaucrat Pooh-Bah — in general the humor in this production is too tame by half. It’s often half-hearted, but at least that half is in the right place.

There is nothing half-hearted about the musical side of this Mikado, though, and the principal pleasure here is hearing the score, one of the most glittering in all of operetta, done with such passion and dedication. This Mikado will not likely create any new lovers of operetta, but should satisfy the already converted.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Broadway legend Elaine Stritch’s latest cabaret show Singin’ Sondheim…One Song at a Time (has anyone ever dared to do two at a time?) finds her doing her very favorite songs by her fellow Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim, including some written with such collaborators as Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rodgers and Jule Styne. With her longtime music director Rob Bowman leading a six-piece band, Elaine works overtime to entertain audiences with Stephen’s biggest showstoppers. 

Stritch is most famous today for her wildly successful autobiographical 2002 theater piece Elaine Stritch at Liberty. In her late seventies at the time of At Liberty, her voice was ragged but she acted the hell out of any song that came her way. Soon to be 85, the voice is more ragged still, but the power of her acting has not diminished one whit. The second song is “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy — let’s just take a moment to applaud the balls it takes do that epic as your second number! — and I have never seen a more frighteningly lucid Rose. This Rose knows she’s batshit crazy and doesn’t give a damn. Eek!

Stritch has a tender story to tell about the love of her life, John Bay, and his Sondheim-approved parody of “Send in the Clowns” as a Groucho Marx song. Turns out that she and John, Londoners at the time, had stayed at the Carlyle when they first came to see the show “Clowns” comes from, A Little Night Music. Today, she commutes to the show. an elevator ride down from her residence in the Carlyle Hotel, the very same room she shared with Bay.

She does some unusual takes on well-known songs: she delivers “Broadway Baby” as the wistful rumination of a Broadway star looking back on her gypsy days, and delivers the lyrics of “Every Day a Little Death” as a devastatingly effective monologue. Perhaps best of all is her ruefully tender encore of “The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me” from Sondheim’s most recent, Road Show. By and large, though, this is Broadway comfort food (in a good way) as Stritch sells every clever Sondheim-ism to the back row.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

The late Horton Foote is known for his detailed, closely observed plays about lives in small-town Texas. That might sound dry and dreary, but his plays are anything but; Foote focuses on genuinely humane individuals trying to make worthwhile lives in the face of attacks from the many human monsters that the Lone Star State begets.

The Orphan’s Home Cycle follows one such honest soul, Horace Robedaux, from childhood through adulthood, over the course of nine one-acts spread out over three evenings. Part One takes us all the way back to 1902, showing an even more desolate and monstrously forbidding environment than Foote’s other plays.

There are not one but two onstage deaths from what we would recognize today as liver failure due to alcoholism. It’s a harrowing way to go, and director Michael Wilson has not flinched from portraying it honestly. The first such death is in Roots in a Parched Ground, in which Horace’s father Paul (played by Bill Heck, who plays Horace for the great majority of the cycle) lies in his deathbed, having taken to drink after his marriage fell apart.

Paul’s family is an educated, scholarly, citified bunch originally from Galveston, ill-suited for the hard realities of surviving in a small town. The impressionable young Horace goes from wanting to be a lawyer like his father to wanting to turn his back on his family and learn a trade.

He thinks he’s going to be helping run a store, but the second play finds him guarding the titular Convicts, and helping out the irascible plantation owner — and Confederate Civil War veteran — Soll Gautier (a towering performance by James DeMarse). Gautier suffers the second alcohol-induced death of the evening, but where the elder Robedaux went quietly, Gautier undergoes acute paranoia and hallucinations, which turn his inborn meanness into an unpredictable, grotesque horror. Fun stuff!

Lily Dale, the third play, finds Horace (now played by Heck) in 1910 Houston, visiting his mother (who more or less abandoned him when his father died). He tries to reach out to his sister Lily Dale (Jenny Dare Paulin), but is stymied at every turn by his stepfather Pete Davenport (a terrifying Devon Abner), an abusive man whose affection for Lily is more than a little creepy. The least effective piece of the three, it’s still an evocative slice of Texas as it moves into modernity (Davenport works for the railroad and Lily plays rags in addition to classical pieces on the piano).

The Orphan’s Home Cycle is classic Foote — I am excited about seeing parts Two and Three in the coming weeks.  

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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Sharon Gless is set to star in a new play by Jane Prowse, based on the best-selling book “A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance” by Jane Juska.

According to the New York Times:

It tells what happened when the author, a semi-retired high school English teacher, placed a personal ad in The New York Review of Books in 1999 that read: “Before I turn 67 — next March — I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.” The play is scheduled to begin previews on Jan. 5 at the Theater Artaud in San Francisco, where it will open on Jan. 16 and run through Feb. 7.

Gless, who starred in "Cagney and Lacey" and "Queer As Folk," also had the lead role in the recent film “Hannah Free,” about a lesbian love affair.

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by Jonathan Warman

While I enjoyed In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, I don’t think I’m its audience. For various reasons, I know a bit more than your typical theatergoer about feminism and the history of sexuality, so while Ruhl’s play revealed a few salient details I wasn’t aware of, I wasn’t as shocked or titillated as the rest of the audience seemed to be.

Continue reading "Theatre Review: "In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play"" »

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by Jonathan Warman

Fela! dances, shimmies, shakes, pulses, thrusts and explodes in a way never seen on Broadway before. About Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and his tumultuous life as political activist and innovative musician, this “musical” is less a book musical and more of a wholesale reconstruction of a unique place and time.

Director/choreographer Bill T. Jones takes us to Fela’s nightclub, “The Shrine” in Lagos, Nigeria, on a hot summer night in 1978. And he really takes us there — set designer Marina Dragihci has covered every available inch of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre with colorful, funky, Afro-centric decoration. The very hottest of today’s Afrobeat bands, Antibalas, is jamming the entire time the audience is entering. Throughout the evening, the imagery never stops, and neither does the groove.

Actually, we get “The Shrine Plus”: surely Fela’s club never featured lights as dynamic as those designed by Robert Wierzel, or projections as powerful as Peter Nigrini’s. Plus, Jones has Fela telling big chunks of his life story in a more or less chronological fashion, which would have never happened at a real evening in the Shrine, which were very spontaneous and pot-fueled.

That said, the evening actually isn’t structured enough — the attempt to catch the wild atmosphere of the Shrine means that somewhere in Act II our interest slacks, in spite of a tremendous 11 o’clock appearance of the incomparable Lillias White as the deified spirit of Fela’s mother Funmilayo.

Also, this is decidedly “Fela’s Fela,” Anikulapo-Kuti presented as he himself would have wished, as a folk hero. A few important faults go unreported: Fela’s attitude towards his 27 wives, and women in general, veered wildly between worshipfulness and genuinely shocking sexism. We are only shown the worshipful side.

Further, he wrote songs against condom use and portrayed AIDS as a “white man’s disease” — while in a deeply ironic turn, he died of the disease himself in 1997 (it bears saying that his family has been deeply involved with AIDS advocacy ever since). AIDS is not even mentioned in the show, save for a slogan on a coffin at show’s end. Given that Jones did a groundbreaking dance about AIDS in 1994 called Still/Here, this omission is odder still.

Still, Fela! is an energetic, exciting part of an ongoing infusion of new ideas and approaches into the Broadway musical. For that alone, it is well worth seeing.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

This musical, set in the very earliest years of the 20th century Sweden, is as optimistically romantic as Stephen Sondheim ever got. Even here there are generous helpings of his wry cynicism, but never enough to truly darken the sweetly swooning mood. Based on Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night, A Little Night Music the story follows lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Alexander Hanson) and his renewed entanglement with glamorous actress Desirée Armfeldt (Catherine Zeta-Jones) after many years apart.

Continue reading "Theatre Review: "A Little Night Music"" »

Posted by Jonathan Warman at 01:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

by Jonathan Warman

Yet another duo cabaret act from Michael Feinstein, after two terrific match-ups with Cheyenne Jackson and Christine Ebersole (the show with Jackson was so successful that it was subsequently made into a terrific studio album). The previous shows were studies in contrasts, with Feinstein playing more or less the straight man to his more flamboyant partners.

This latest act with David Hyde Pierce finds Michael in the hot seat, playing the romantic next to Pierce’s classical, restrained, hilariously deadpan persona. Pierce goes quite literally Classical with “Ill Wind,” a Mozart concerto set to ludicrous, tongue-tripping lyrics by English comedian Michael Flanders.

Immediately after, Feinstein sits down at the piano and goes into an instrumental version of Cole Porter’s “So in Love” that sounds like Romantic composer Rachmaninoff. This segues into the rip-roaring John Oddo arrangement of that song that was such a hit in the Cheyenne show (and CD). Oddo, perhaps best known as Rosemary Clooney’s music director, is also music director here, and did all of the arrangements. It bears saying from time to time that there are few things in cabaret finer than a John Oddo arrangement.

This pattern holds for most of the evening, Michael belting out showstoppers like “I Wanna Be Around” and “A Lot of Livin’ to Do,” while David patters through stuff like his big number from Spamalot, “You Won’t Succeed On Broadway (If You Don’t Have Any Jews).” There’s one breathtaking exception, when Pierce sings the brief “Your Face” by out composer John Kander. Written in the 1960s, it tenderly describes his lover’s face as he sleeps. Pierce delivers it with such warm simplicity, that—well, if it doesn’t make you kvell, you’re just not gay.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

The Lost Lounge, the latest from downtown lesbian troupe Split Britches, is hardcore group performance art. How much you like the show therefore depends a great deal on how much you like performance art. If you love it, this is some of the very best performance art out there. If you don’t love it, you may find a thing here or there to enjoy about The Lost Lounge, but ultimately it won’t be your cup of tea.

I like, but don’t love, performance art, so I had a good, but not great, time. It helps a lot that Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver, the couple at the heart of Split Britches, are skillful and charismatic performers. The subject of The Lost Lounge is the loss of many things that made New York special; I think that it hurts the show that we don’t really get a sense of the things lost, just a generalized sense of angst over their loss.

The show is at its best when Shaw (the suavest butch anywhere) and Weaver (a wry, tough, self-aware femme) sing and dance through the pain, when they deadpan their way through a faux Louis Prima & Keely Smith number (Vivian Stoll providing the music), or put their backs into Stormy Brandenberger’s evocative choreography. This is exceptionally well put together performance art, that maybe needs to dig a little bit deeper and think a little bit harder.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Rich white man Charles (Richard Thomas) has been accused of raping a not-rich black woman, and hires a law firm led by partners Jack (James Spader) and Henry (David Alan Grier) with associate Susan (Kerry Washington). Sounds like a promising set-up for a David Mamet play, right? Think again.

The most compelling thing about the production is the opportunity to see Mamet as directed by Mamet. In general, I think it’s a mistake for a writer to direct his own work. In the case of Race, though, Mamet’s direction clears up one very important thing about performing his plays: Don’t let the rhythm hypnotize you.

Yes, as everybody says, this playwright picks his words very carefully. But there is not some great mystery in this, no right rhythm that overrides the sense of what he’s written. The words mean what you think they mean, and they’re spoken in the way a real human would say them. Sometimes they dance, but just as often they halt and change directions. Spader in particular masterfully delivers the lines with maximum economy and impact.

That said, there’s a lot more economy than impact in the writing of Race. In terms of content, the play, while smart, isn’t even up to insight of a third rate episode of Law & Order. I’m thinking in particular of a (first-rate) episode of L & O: Criminal Intent (co-written by playwright Teresa Rebeck), dealing with a street gang run with the precepts of Marcus Aurelius, that digs a lot deeper than Race does. Mamet wrote Race because he could, not because he needed to, or had anything really new to say to us.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

Posted by Jonathan Warman at 02:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

by Jonathan Warman

Director David Cromer’s revival of Thornton Wilder’s haunting evocation of a small New Hampshire town at the turn of the last century is intimate, even a bit claustrophobic. Between the years of 1901 and 1913, change comes slowly to the town of Grover’s Corners, and a stage manager (originally played by Cromer himself, now Jason Butler Harner, with great dryness) shows us scenes of the townspeople’s daily lives, loves and deaths.

Cromer, however, has the cast dress in 21st century rehearsal clothes, with only slight evocations of period dress. No noticeable Yankee accents, either.

He’s staged the action amongst the audience, sometimes having actors performing within inches of a given audience member’s face. It’s hard to single out any one performance for praise in this production, so strong is the sense of ensemble playing. Cromer’s aim seems to be to make the play as immediate as possible, and he’s succeeded admirably.

This approach also strips away the sentimentality of most productions of Our Town. Most noticeably, many of the town’s adult males are portrayed as hard-nosed, grimly provincial and even intolerant, instead of most productions’ strong silent types with hearts of gold.

This brings into stark relief the plight of alcoholic church organist Simon Stimson (Jeremy Beiler) — in this production he reads as distinctly gay, but completely repressed, destroyed by a complete lack of any avenue for expression of his true nature. Except, that is, through the tortured, dissonant piano music he plays at various points throughout the evening.

Cromer has even made the evening’s biggest chestnut, a scene late in the play bidding farewell to Grover’s Corners, into something freshly exciting, even sensual.

This Our Town may be innovative, but it’s also highly successful. On Wednesday, December 16, performance #337 will make this staging the longest-running Our Town in the 71-year worldwide history of the classic play. The announcement was made by Tappan Wilder, the playwright’s nephew and the literary executor of his uncle’s intellectual properties.

According to Tappan, there have been “tens of thousands” of productions/licenses of Our Town that have been performed in more than 26 countries and translated into 22 languages.  The longest-running of those productions was the original 1938 Broadway version. Personally, I heartily hope that Tappan was right when he said, “this production will most certainly have a lasting effect on future versions of Our Town around the world.”   

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Ragtime dials the clock way back, looking at the emergence of ragtime in the 1900s. It doesn’t tell the story of that music’s evolution; instead, it uses it as a metaphor for the convulsive changes then happening in America. Based on E.L. Doctorow's epic novel set in New York’s combustible melting pot, Ragtime in fact weaves together three distinct stories — those of a sheltered New Rochelle housewife, a indomitable Jewish immigrant on the poverty-stricken Lower East Side and a passionate young Harlem piano player.

I didn’t see the 1998 Broadway debut of Ragtime; my first exposure to it was Stafford Arima’s 2005 production at Paper Mill Playhouse. The Arima production and this one (directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge) share a heated minimalism, as well as a lead actor, Quentin Earl Darrington as ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker. In both productions, Darrington makes Coalhouse the soul of the show, playing him with real danger, passion and sorrow.

Other standout performances include Christiane Noll giving a surprising wryness to the WASPy “Mother” and Bobby Steggart as surely the most earnest (and cutest) “Young Brother” ever. Robert Petkoff brings great humanity and humor to the role of Orchard Street artist turned filmmaker Tateh. Derek McLane’s set is a masterpiece of functional elegance and flexibility. Santo Loquasto’s costumes tell a story all by themselves, especially his vaudeville costumes for Evelyn Nesbit.

As for the show itself, I’m not in love with the tendency of composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist to do “stand downstage center” arias. Ragtime’s strongest moment are the ensemble numbers, including the rousing title song (which Dodge has stage with great intensity and intelligence) and “New Music.” All in all, a very strong entry in the musical season.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

Posted by Jonathan Warman at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

by Jonathan Warman

Is The Understudy a love letter or a poison pen letter to the theatre? Playwright Theresa Rebeck looks at one of the most infamous positions in the theatre: the understudy. The play, Rebeck’s best and funniest in years, certainly celebrates what the theatre is capable of, but it also has piercing insight into hard show biz truths.

It’s fitting that the “understudy rehearsal” which makes up the play is for a Broadway production of a newly discovered play by Franz Kafka. The Understudy reveals the ways in which show business is like one of Kafka’s nightmare bureaucracies — everybody is standing in for somebody else more powerful.

We may initially think that Harry (rubber-limbed Justin Kirk) is the titular understudy, but Jake (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, looking great in a tight t-shirt) the minor movie star whose role Harry’s “covering” is himself understudying the role of an even bigger movie star, the unseen Bruce. And Roxanne (Julie White, hilarious as always) may be a much-loved (in more ways than one) stage manager, but she also has acting ambitions herself. Rebeck even hints at the idea that commercial theatre as a whole is a much-abused “understudy” of the movie industry, aping its moves and jealously eyeing its bigger paychecks.

Beyond all this, however, we get to see glimpses of the dream that motivates all three characters. Harry has a great instinct for tone and physicality, Jake, real passion for the philosophical seriousness of Kafka, Roxanne, penetrating insight into the possibilities of cross-gender casting. When all three do the Kafka play’s finale, an absurd yet passionate dance, it’s a moving homage to what the theatre can do when humble artistry triumphs commerce-driven nerves.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

Posted by Jonathan Warman at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

by Jonathan Warman

This musical revival charms from the word “go.” Finian’s Rainbow follows the charismatic Irish dreamer of the title (played with genuine magic by Jim Norton) and his fiery daughter Sharon (Kate Baldwin) through a fanciful version of the American south, where they go up against an intolerant Senator, a credit crisis, a wronged leprechaun, and, of course, a complicated love affair.

This is assuredly the best-sung Finian’s Rainbow that ever was. There’s no arguing with Cheyenne Jackson’s glittering delivery of “Old Devil Moon” (there’s a too-easy dirty joke in hunky Cheyenne playing a character named Woody, but I’ll leave it be). I’ve never heard a more luscious “How are Things in Glocca Morra” than the one Baldwin gives us. “Necessity” was never more passionate and moving than when sung by Terri White, and Chuck Cooper rattles the rafters in “The Begat” (I’d bet anything they turned his mic off more than once, he sings so strongly).

Director/choreographer Warren Carlyle has in general done a solid job of keeping what could have been hopelessly dated fresh and brisk. In his very briskness, though, he’s tended to gloss over some key things. The actual moment that Sharon and Woody fall in love, well, it just didn’t seem to happen. Boom, they’re in love --- which could have been magic, too, but wasn’t. Also, lyricist Yip Harburg wrote some of the funniest, jokiest lyrics in musical comedy, but as often as not the cast zoom right by the jokes.

It’s clear that choreography is Carlyle’s great strength --- when this Finian dances, it soars. If only the book scenes were as agile. These are quibbles, though, with a show that’s more often than not a genuine pleasure and delight.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

Posted by Jonathan Warman at 03:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

by Jonathan Warman

I’ve never been much of a fan of Neil Simon’s work, so I haven’t made much of an effort to get to know Brighton Beach Memoirs or its companion plays Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound in the twentysomething years they’ve been around. Yes, I know that they are regularly praised as his best work, as the plays in which he successfully goes beyond his sitcom-y reputation (without turning his back on it). These reports piqued my interest, but never quite enough to read them or see regional productions.

So I came to this production with moderately low expectations, and was moderately pleasantly surprised. This semi-autobiographical play focuses on young Jewish teen Eugene Morris Jerome (loosely based on Simon himself) and his extended family living in a crowded home in late `30s Brighton Beach.

Brighton Beach Memoirs still trades somewhat on formulas that have success on television, but more in the direction of good soap opera than situation comedy. It is very tightly plotted, and Simon deftly builds suspense. There are still the expected one-liners (including one tasteless and mean one at the expense of a fat gay kid).

Director David Cromer has given us a production that is miles more grounded and humane than any other Simon play I’ve seen. The cast is uniformly strong, although I’d definitely single out Laurie Metcalf and Dennis Boutsikaris as Mama Kate Jerome and Papa Jack Jerome—these characters are the heart of the show and Metcalf and Boutsikaris’s performance are unsentimentally full-hearted.

Brighton Beach Memoirs will be playing in repertory with Broadway Bound, generally agreed to be the best play in the trilogy that Memoirs opens. For possibly the first time ever, I’m actually looking forward to seeing a Neil Simon play.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

I love this show! Another show that Memphis director Christopher Ashley directed, All Shook Up, featured the early Elvis Presley song “That’s All Right.” That song is deceptively simple, but Ashley’s staging of it mined all of its implications, most vividly the racial tensions that lay under the success of Elvis, “the white man who sang like a black man.”

In Memphis everything that was implicit in that riveting moment becomes electrifyingly, grippingly explicit. In July 1954, a Memphis DJ named Dewey Phillips was the first DJ to broadcast “That’s All Right” the young Elvis Presley's first commercially released record. Memphis fictionalizes Phillips into the character of Huey Calhoun, who defies the racism of Memphis to express his love of rhythm and blues --- and not coincidentally his love for beautiful, black rhythm and blues singer Felicia.

Everybody here is working at the very top of their game. Ashley, best know for his gifts at staging comedy, proves he can be even more compelling and engaging (and entertaining) when dealing with dead serious themes like racism and the fear of success. David Bryan’s music, while it is more ‘60s rock & soul than ‘50s r&b, is miles more sophisticated than his work on The Toxic Avenger or anything he did with Bon Jovi.

Joe DiPietro’s book is inspirational, heart wrenching and devastatingly smart --- sometimes all in the same moment. Chad Kimball kicks ass as Huey, and Montego Glover positively glows as Felicia. If I were to pick one performance out of the stellar supporting cast, it would be Derrick Baskin as Gator, arguably the show’s wounded but joyous soul.

Of course it’s not perfect: Ken Travis’s sound design frequently obscures the vocals, rendering a fair portion of the lyrics unintelligible. What lyrics I can make out are of a piece with DiPietro’s wonderful book, so I really do miss hearing them. Nonetheless, if somebody were to ask me what the Broadway musical at its very best is capable of accomplishing, I would give Memphis as a prime example.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

While I like a lot of plays by Swedish playwright August Strindberg, I really don’t have much use for his play Miss Julie. It focuses on the fallout from a one night stand by the titular young woman of the landed gentry and her father’s footman Jean. It may have been groundbreaking in its frank dealings with sex and class in 1888, but it just seems mean, slow and overwrought now.

Patrick Marber’s adaptation After Miss Julie transposes the play to an English country house on the eve of the Labour Party’s historic landslide in 1945.  He does Strindberg’s original a few favors, taking the edges off of Jean’s misogyny, and making Julie herself a touch more sympathetic. Still, this is mostly the same Miss Julie that has always bored my pants off, and while director Mark Brokaw’s production has its virtues, I still don’t really give a damn about these characters.

For what its worth, this version is well acted. Sienna Miller has the right caged heat for poor little rich girl Julie, Marin Ireland has the spine of iron that the role of Jean’s fiancée Christina (my favorite part in the show) requires, and Jonny Lee Miller is all tightly controlled, brooding sex as Jean.

For the most part, Brokaw keeps things in motion, with the exception of a handful of long silences that I suppose are intended to be filled with tension and suspense --- but just weren’t. But I have such a strong prejudice against the original play (which this did nothing to change) that I suggest you seek out the opinions of other critics.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Seeing how she won a Tony Award for her turn in Light in the Piazza, Victoria Clark would be perfectly within her rights to go the Broadway diva route and create a cabaret act that was all about her. It’s very refreshing, then, that her debut Feinstein’s engagement is called “The Vicki & Ted Show” and is equally split between her and her old friend --- and star Broadway music director --- Ted Sperling.

This isn’t technically the premiere of this show: it had an acclaimed run at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater in Washington DC. It celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of their remarkable friendship that began when they were students at Yale University. Since then they have, separately and together, been involved with many hit  Broadway shows, including How to Succeed in Business..., Titanic and The Light in the Piazza (Ted also won a Tony for that show, by the way, for his sumptuous orchestrations).

They both are deeply musical people who, when they began their careers, had classical music ambitions. That makes for musically rewarding show that includes terrific songs from the likes of Sondheim, Berlin and John Pizzarelli & Jessica Molasky (one of several songs written especially for Clark).

The good news is that Sperling is a terrific singer, if not quite in Victoria’s opera-worthy league. As well sung as it is, the act could definitely benefit visually from a director’s touch: Sperling is often hidden from sight by his sheet music (even when he’s singing!) and Clark often delivers stuff to him that would been more effectively delivered to the audience. Still, when Victoria sings such sweeping songs as “In Buddy’s Eyes” and “Fable” from Piazza to Teds equally grand arrangement, this is pretty hard to resist.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Boy what a mess! I don’t know what Robert Longbottom did here, because this revival of Bye Bye Birdie seems very nearly un-directed. Let’s start with the casting: Gina Gershon is a talented actress and a gifted comedienne, as was very clear from her performance in last season’s Boeing Boeing. But her role here, Rose Alvarez, was written specifically for Chita Rivera, a formidable singer and dancer, and Gershon is formidable in neither capacity. Longbottom clearly hasn’t helped her to “sell” the numbers either, as Joe Mantello did so successfully in 9 to 5 earlier this year with non-singer Allison Janney.

Let’s move on to the visuals. The design does evoke the early sixties, but only in the most general way. The show’s story follows hip-swingin’ teen idol Conrad Birdie (Nolan Gerard Funk), who’s been drafted into the army.   Birdie's manager Albert (John Stamos) and Albert’s secretary Rosie (Gina Gershon) cook up a plan to send him off with one last kiss from a lucky teenage fan from Sweet Apple, Ohio.

Thing is, Sweet Apple looks nearly identical to Albert’s office in Manhattan. The most stark example: A Sweet Apple bar looks more like a brand new airport bar than a roadside house in small-town 1960 Ohio. The costumes have everything to do with color composition, but very nearly nothing to do with character. And the splashy glass panels that frame the stage make what should be a warm fuzzy show feel icy and lifeless.

Then there is the complete lack of consistency in the performance. Bill Irwin is hilarious as small-town dad Harry, but he seems to be in a completely different show (a more fun show to be sure). When Jane Houdyshell steps on-stage as Albert’s mother Mae, she wipes the stage with everybody else. It’s simply because she’s making strong choices and playing them with total conviction, not a common occurrence here. Funk plays Birdie with just as much confidence, plus a hint of raging libido underneath his pretty-boy exterior. Three strong performances, with not the slightest sense that Longbottom has put a second’s thought into what theatrical world would encompass all three.

There’s lot of talent here, but every time this Birdie hits a mark it feels like a happy accident.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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by Jonathan Warman

Is Tracy Letts a “Great American Playwright” in the tradition of Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams? Or is he simply a playwright with a gift for engaging, entertaining characters who gives them just enough grit to make his plays seem weighty?

by Jonathan Warman 

Boy, do I feel Coleman Domingo! A Boy and His Soul is an autobiographical one-man show, but it escapes almost every single pitfall of that genre. Domingo views his own story through the life-giving lens of soul music (which I love very nearly as much as he does), imbuing that story with a glowing, rich texture and warmth.

I’m a great believer in the power of music to tell stories that words can’t fully express, and of dance (or hell, any kind of movement) to add even more dimension.  A Boy and His Soul is packed so full of that power that it positively vibrates, making it one of the most deeply pleasurable experiences I’ve had in the theatre.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.

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