Reviews

New Play Festival at The Flea Theater

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:37:54 -0400

They are kicking butt at the Flea Theater with their New Play Festival. I was lucky enough to see two productions. The Wundelsteipen and Letter From Omdurman. All the actors are member of The Bats, and they are bats (are you old enough to remember that term???) in all the ways that matter. First of all, when most pre-show announcements ask you to turn your phone off, these folks ask you to keep it on, as part of their low-key marketing program, and tell the caller where you are.

Then there are the fabulous productions:

#1) THE WUNDELSTEIPEN (AND OTHER DIFFICULT ROLES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE) is written by Nick Jones, Directed by Tom Costello

This is a collection of terrific scenes, short plays actually. These plays have nothing in common but the absurdity of the situations they present. Welcome Parents features a camp counselor (whose excellent performance would be enhanced by having her make eye contact with the audience) whose welcome is a classic case of TMI. The Wundelsteipen happens to be a sex faerie who visits generations of boys to give them their fist sexual experience. That she brings with her the request for a few kinky elements of her own making shouldn’t be a deterrent should it? College Romance combines a rare medical condition with more iterations of the word “Dude” than is legal and is so stunningly funny it makes your head spin. Everybaby tells the tale of what happens to those pesky little kids that God wants to punish just for being born. The Supper Supportive Family is tested mightily when their son appears at home with a blood stained shirt, but what’s a little blood among family, eh? Salome, Disney Princess is just that, and shoves the woeful tale of John the Baptist directly into the toilet. Caligula in the Morning is the most haunting of the plays, bringing into piercing focus what can happen to a person whose job it is to give Caligula a wake-up call.

This is a fascinating and inspiring collection of short plays. For those of you interested in writing, you should come see what can be accomplished in 10 well written minutes. And I can think of a few published as well as produced authors plays that would do well to take a page out of Nick Jones book.

Well maybe not a page. This Jones is so economical that taking a short monologue would be enough.

Photo by Hunter Canning

#2) A LETTER FROM OMDURMAN by Jeffrey M. Jones, directed by Page Burkholder

This is one of those shows where you unhinge the top half of your head – like a Muppet – and tip it way back so you can swallow the show whole. As the PR for the show says: All true, mostly factual, just didn’t necessarily happen.

Jeffrey M. Jones is way tired of swallowing whole the mythic stories of war and violence-gone-right. He is way tired of the idea that war is justifiable, especially when it is delivered to us at cocktail hour, when we can see it, become used to it and still carry on our lives as if everything was swell.

Everything is not swell, and A Letter From Omdurman is a trip through time that drives this point home with a laser beam.

As his elements of creation, Jones has chosen the Middle East:

JOSIE: So here’s an interesting fact
DAVE Would you believe that a thousand years ago,
The mighty powers of the West were hurling vast armies over land and sea against the Middle East?
ALL: And this went on
DAVE: For hundreds of years,
Until the West grew tired
And turned away,
CHARLIE: And stayed away,
ALL: For hundreds of years
JOSIE: Until Napoleon invaded Egypt.

Oops! To this tale Jones adds Wyatt Earp and his attending myths as well as present day U.S. soldiers serving in the Middle East. There is also a dervish thread – not whirling – but the people themselves, specifically a young woman named Josie who tumbles in and out of these stories as both guide and victim.

Jones takes these elements, with a nod to Winston Churchill and the Battle of Omdurman (1868), and creates a sort of scavenger hunt minus the list of objects. We go from point to point in no particular order, move back and forth in time, and watch as elements from one story bleed into another. It is this melding that makes you release your hold on logic or plot. There is no ”normal” logic to any of these stories when they are pulled out of the darkness in which they live. And as for a plot – well it’s pretty simple: we carry war within us, and just because it is dormant it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

The entire package could be overwhelming were it not for the excellent direction of Page Burkholder and the fine performances of Matt Barbot, Veracity Butcher, Will Turner as Wyatt and Wilton Yeung. This team has managed to find threads of pure gold that pull them through the muck of these stories. They find the humor – which is critical – the irony and the a-hah moments that pepper this script, and they create a seamless event.

The result is that we are pulled into war in a way few productions allow. Most productions either keep you at arm’s length or pull you into the quicksand where you cannot breath.

A Letter From Omdurman walks the razor’s edge with you riding piggy back. It is a helluva view from that vantage point.

NEW PLAY FESTIVAL at the Flea Theater: THE WUNDELSTEIPEN (AND OTHER DIFFICULT ROLES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE) by Nick Jones, Directed by Tom Costello

LETTER FORM OMDURMAN by Jeffrey M. Jones, Directed by Page Burkholder

The productions feature members of the Flea’s acclaimed resident acting ensemble, The Bats: for The Wundelsteipen Hannah Corrigan, Tommy Crawford, Eric Folks, Alex Herrald, Maren Langdon, Sean McIntyre, Tedra Millan, Briana Pozner, Donaldo Prescod, and Dominic Spillane. For Letter from Omdurman: Matt Barbot, Veracity Butcher, Will Turner, and Wilton Yeung.

The design team includes Kate Foster (Set), Jonathan Cottle (Lights), Stowe Nelson (Sound), Nicole Wee (Costumes), Robin Frohardt (Puppets), Alison Beatty (Choreographer)

NEW PLAY FESTIVAL will run in repertory April 20 – May 27; times vary, with a complete performance schedule at www.theflea.org. Tickets are $20, available at 212-352-3101 or www.theflea.org. A New Play Festival Double Hitter pass for two shows at $30 or a New Play Festival Triple Hitter pass for all three shows $45, is also available. Mimosa Matinees, Saturday and Sunday noon performances, are $10 for a ticket and a cocktail. The Flea is located at 41 White Street between Church and Broadway, three blocks south of Canal, close to the A/C/E, N/R/Q, 6, J/M/Z and 1 subway lines.

Take What Is Yours

Thu, 10 May 2012 12:24:49 -0400

This is a story that I know well because when I did my own one-woman show What Everywoman Knows, Alice Paul was one of the women I portrayed. Her story often gets lost in the flotsam of Women’s history that can easily stay focused on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Alice Paul had her own ideas back in the early part of the 20th century. She split with other women’s groups and created her own National Women’s Party because she wanted women to get the vote and didn’t want to wait for the states to grant this one by one. She wanted a Women’s Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution. Their strategy, frowned upon by many, was to picket the White House. Woodrow Wilson was busy convincing the country that we had to go to war to protect and preserve democracy. The picketers carried signs that quoted Wilson’s speeches that he used in reference to WWI and applied it to their quest for the vote, i.e.: The time has come for us to conquer or submit. For us there can be but one choice. We have made it.

After awhile it just got to be too much for the Washingtonians (and for the President and his new wife, Edith Bolling Wilson who would one day run the country while her husband was too ill to do so) and the police let the mobs have at the protestors, then arrested these women – the oldest of which was in her 80’s for obstructing traffic. Soon they were convicted and sent to a workhouse where they had no legal counsel or communication of any kind with outsiders, no exercise and nothing to read. A hunger strike ensued as well as a transfer to an insane asylum where Paul and others were force fed with the aide of large rubber tubes that caused bleeding from the nose and throat. Letters were smuggled in and she replied as best she could by writing on the back of them.

Alice Paul and the others knew that they were being imprisoned not because they asked for liberty, but because they asked for the right to ask.

Civil rights take time of course, (note Obama’s recent public support of Gay Marriage) but once the course was set in motion women were given the vote – after much protesting and many physical traumas including rape, murder, tar-and-feathering and plain old assault.

All of this has pretty much been swept over into the corner of American History under the heading of “You don’t have to worry about that.” So bravo to Erica Fae and Jill A. Samuels for bringing this story out into the light.

We get a very clear picture of Alice Paul, (Erica Fae) her dedication, her humor, her intense devotion to women’s rights, her sense of isolation and deep sadness when she is treated like a criminal. What we don’t get here is a story in the classic sense. We get Alice’s treatises – which are well written and filled with the irony they behold – but that is what they remain. With the exception of the very excellent scene between Alice and Congressman Edwin Y. Webb (D., North Carolina) there is little in the way of action. Instead we see Alice in her jail cell for the most part telling The Man (Wayne Maugans) what the two authors want us to know. It is a litany, not a drama.

And while Ms. Fae is a very good actor, she can barely be heard. Perhaps this is because Ms. Paul was a soft-spoken woman, but an actor must figure out this sort of problem. The set of sliding walls and panels does little to help as it masks the sound, and the novelty of the sliding panels fades so quickly that it does not justify their continued use.

So what we are left with is a pretty good representation of an extraordinary woman. It is too bad that the play does not live up to its subject but instead succumbs to the earnest desire to tell the truth and let the drama take care of itself. Well, drama can’t take care of itself when there is no plot. Fae and Samuels have a taste for historical theatre – and I personally applaud that. The next time out they would do well to enlist the services of a dramaturge. Without a story to move it along, history remains in the past. The story of Alice Paul begs to be in the present.

TAKE WHAT IS YOURS by Erica Fae and Jill A. Samuels

With: Erica Fae (Alice Paul), Adrian Jevicki (Guard/Dr. Gandor), Wayne Maugans (The Man), David Riley (Guard), Courtney Stallings (Nurse)

Alison Brummer (lighting design); Alixandra Gage Englund (costume design); Kristin Worrall (sound design); and Tal Yarden (video design). The moving set was conceived by Jill A. Samuels; Deb O is the set consultant.

59E59 Theaters (Elysabeth Kleinhans, Artistic Director; Peter Tear, Executive Producer) welcomes anecdota with the Off Broadway premiere of TAKE WHAT IS YOURS, for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 27. The performance schedule is Tuesday – Thursday at 7:15 PM; Friday at 8:15 PM; Saturday at 2:15 PM and 8:15 PM; and Sunday at 3:15 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $35 for regular performances; $18 for previews ($24.50 regular performances; $12.60 for previews for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or go to www.59e59.org.

Lonely I’m Not

Tue, 8 May 2012 12:53:52 -0400

What a sweet, twisted and surprising tale. This play raises so many questions, the first one being – why aren’t there more plays like this floating around? Well, in a way there are. Once and 4,000 Miles come to mind. Equally arresting in their discovery of intimate relationships.

In this play Porter (Topher Grace) is a man who was crushed by the weight of his success in the world of finance. He had a nervous breakdown while doing a presentation and spent months in a mental facility. Now he is out in L.A. with not a lot going on, unless you count getting coffee from the local joint before it actually opens to the public as something. Nope, Porter is down.

His college (as in Harvard) friend Nick “Little Dog” (Christopher Jackson) fixes him up with Heather (Olivia Thirlby) who is an entertainment business analyst for UBS. Just the sound of that job title should let you know how tightly she is wired. Heather is also blind, but this in no way stops her from doing exactly what she wants to do. For everything that Nick has messed up in his business life, Heather has tackled and won.

As to personal lives – well they both pretty much suck at that. The last man Heather was with was a liar, or more precisely, A lying sack of shit. Porter was married and had a house in the Hamptons when the earth opened up and swallowed him. As a matter of fact his wife Carlotta (Maureen Sebastian) is still in the picture. She uses Porter as a shoulder to cry on and for other bodily pursuits as well. Mostly she likes him because he is so morose. Go figure.

And there are the parents. Rick (Mark Blum), Porter’s father, is always on the make. Practically a grifter. His attempts at family love have a price tag. And Heather’s mother, Grace is an unbalanced jumble of protective nerves who plants her well-intended foot in her mouth on a regular basis.

Friends? Little Dog (Christopher Jackson) is in it for the money, period. Who loses is no concern of his at any time. And there is Heather’s roommate Claire (Maureen Sebastian) who is so loopy you can almost hear the marbles rolling around in her noggin.

So while we track this budding relationship we are also tracking Porter and Heather when they are away from one another. And the fascinating choice that Weitz makes here is to keep them away from one another most of the time. It is as if the love story is a sub-plot to what is really going on, which is life. Porter and Heather are hacking away at the project called life. They bump into one another and cling like otters. Then a current comes along and pulls them apart. Back and forth they go, into and out of each other’s lives. And we get to watch.

This is not a happily ever after tale. It is not a tragedy either. Weitz’s writing lacks any trace of cuteness, and steers away from being maudlin. It is crystal clear because these fabulous actors take the material and fly. Trip Cullman has crafted a seamless production (with the exception of the unnecessary signage) that hits more than one ball out of the park. These characters connect not only with one another, but with us. We leave the theatre feeling a little bit smitten with the story and everyone in it.

Well done.

LONELY I’M NOT - By Paul Weitz; directed by Trip Cullman

WITH: Mark Blum (Rick/Decter), Lisa Emery (Grace/Yana/Administrator), Topher Grace (Porter), Christopher Jackson (Little Dog/Barista/Waiter), Maureen Sebastian (Carlotta/Wendy/Claire) and Olivia Thirlby (Heather).

Sets by Mark Wendland; costumes by Emily Rebholz; lighting by Matt Frey; projections by Aaron Rhyne; sound by Bart Fasbender; production stage manager, Lori Ann Zepp; associate artistic director, Christopher Burney; production manager, Jeff Wild; general manager, Dean A. Carpenter. Presented by the Second Stage Theater, Carole Rothman, artistic director; Casey Reitz, executive director. At the Second Stage Theater, 305 West 43rd Street, Clinton; (212) 246-4422, 2st.com. Through May 27. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

An Early History of Fire

Tue, 1 May 2012 13:50:38 -0400

Well this is a soggy disappointment that is packed with potential.

Emile (Gordon Clapp) and his son Danny (Theo Stockman) share what appears to be a one-bedroom house (the one bedroom is upstairs and Danny sleeps on the pull out couch in the living room) in an unnamed mid-western neighborhood. Danny works in a local factory and has retained his childhood friends Jake (Dennis Staroselsky) Terry (Johnny Orsini). Jake is all mouth and Terry is still a child in many, many ways. Danny has been dating a rich girl Karen (Claire van der Boom) who is on vacation from a college back east, and he is not only smitten, he has come up against class differences. He is beginning to see himself the way her parents would, and he doesn’t like the picture. He has never left his hometown and has little to show for himself. Karen not only has money, she has seen what is out there in the world. She smokes marijuana. She reads Salinger. She has seen ‘things” and done “things”. It is all very attractive and humiliating at the same time. She is the flame from which Danny cannot stay away.

On the other end of the spectrum is his father, who is still living in Nazi-time. Emile’s only friend seems to be the local lap-dog, Benji, who craves any attention he can get. Pop has promised to teach Benji chess, and that is about as good as it has ever gotten for Benji. Danny watches this relationship with barely restrained disdain. Danny has hated his father ever since Danny’s mother dropped dead. Life was suspect after that. But with the arrival of Karen, Danny is feeling the breeze of possibility.

The rest of his friends, including Shirley (Erin Darke) who has recently started a new career as a small town hooker, view Karen with the suspicion she is due. After all, she is just home for vacation. Danny is an adventure to her, not someone she would actually take seriously.

It is a volatile time, 1962. The country was emerging from the 1950’s tight fitting expectations and sailing into the land of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Everything was coming into focus, and the edges were sharper than anyone had imagined.

So in this story is great potential, but Rabe does not deliver. These people are more icons than characters. They speak in near platitudes about the changes that are going on and how they are all about to explode. The part that should matter, which is the fact that all of them are broken hearted, gets lost in the tissue of words, words, words. It is as though every character had a coating of shellac because nothing sticks to them.

It’s too bad, really because these were the folk who lead the way for the rest of us. They were the first ones to jump in to pool. These were contemporaries of John Lennon, folks. Come on! There’s a billion stories in there. But in this play, the story is lacking. There is no fire. There is not even a spark.

An Early History of Fire By David Rabe; directed by Jo Bonney

WITH: Gordon Clapp (Pop), Erin Darke (Shirley), Jonny Orsini (Terry), Devin Ratray (Benji), Dennis Staroselsky (Jake), Theo Stockman (Danny) and Claire van der Boom (Karen).

Sets by Neil Patel; costumes by Theresa Squire; lighting by Lap Chi Chu; sound by Ken Travis; dialect coach, Doug Paulson; fight director, David Anzuelo; assistant director, Sash Bischoff; production supervisor, Peter R. Feuchtwanger/PRF Productions; production stage manager, Valerie A. Peterson; associate artistic director, Ian Morgan; general manager, Elisabeth Bayer; artistic associate, Matthew Klein. Presented by the New Group, Scott Elliott, artistic director; Geoff Rich, executive director. At the Acorn Theater at Theater Row, 410 West 42nd Street, Clinton, (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Through May 26. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:41:46 -0400

The first thing you will notice upon entering the theatre, if your nose is in working order, is the faint smell of rubber. Those are not wood shavings covering the set, they are rubber shavings. So the room smells like an auto parts store and the stage floor is squishy. It is so squishy that it throws the actors off balance. Much like women in heels at an outdoor wedding, the actors spend a good amount of time maintaining their balance. This explains why Jordan Dean (Demetrius), Nick Gehlfuss (Lysander) use body postures that border on the absurd in the first act. In their quests for love, these two take a pounding, and the only way to stay balanced is to assume a pose that is reminiscent of a wrestler going for the gold.

What was this production team thinking?

Thank God for Anthony Heald, whose love for and understanding of this language transcends the setting as well as the set. As Theseus he achieves an elegance and grace that is the polar opposite of the anarchy and willfulness of his Oberon. His partner Bebe Neuwirth never quite achieves the same flight altitude as Hippolyta or Titania. Actually, with the exception of a few rich moments given by Steven Skybell as Bottom, none of the cast does.

This is the story of love folded in on itself so that it keeps multiplying. Theseus and Hipolyta have impending nuptials. Helena (Halley Wegryn Gross) and Hermia (Nina Ricci) have their high pitched and irritating sights set on Demetrius and Lysander respectively, in spite of Hermia’s father Egeus (Taylor Mack) who wants the pairings to be otherwise. Oberon and Titania of the faerie world are having a tiff that results in Titania being placed under a spell that has her fall in love with Bottom who has been temporarily turned into a jackass. Then there is the story of Pyrauis and Thisbe, which does not turn out well at all, at all.

In this night’s dream love is not easy and fulfilling. It is a messy, many-headed, live and writhing beast, and the only one who seems not touched by it is Puck (Taylor Mack) who only delights in serving Oberon and watching the effects of his handy-work realized. In this case, Mack’s fine work is diluted by the choice of sartorial excess that makes him a one man costume parade. We are so busy getting used to each costume that we don’t hear what he is saying.

Ultimately it is the men who seem to have the power and it is the women who have to figure out how to plug in to the right outlet. Hermia and Helena duel over their men, but it is the men who make the final call. Oberon manipulates Titania until he gets what he needs. Theseus overrules Hermia’s father in favor of the pairing sought by the lovers themselves. And in the end, it is marriage that wins as the right and honorable conclusion. Sounds like a dream to me!!!

Were this a better balanced production, we might have seen and heard more of the jewels in this language i.e. Oberon’s description of Cupid. But this is an uneven production at best, starting with the bouncy stage floor, combined with the mirrored back wall whose openings occasionally block the floor choreography intended for our eyes, and finishing off with the actors’ general inability to handle this text.

It isn’t a boring production, however. You won’t slumber as in a dream. You just won’t get the goods that Shakespeare wrote and you deserve.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream By William Shakespeare; directed by Tony Speciale

Choreography by George De La Peña; sets by Mark Wendland; costumes by Andrea Lauer; lighting by Tyler Micoleau; music by Christian Frederickson and Ryan Rumery; sound by M. Florian Staab; fight choreography by Carrie Brewer; managing director, Jeff Griffin; production stage manager, Chandra LaViolette; production supervisor, Production Core. Presented by the Classic Stage Company, Brian Kulick, artistic director; Greg Reiner, executive director. At the Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13th Street, East Village, (866) 811-4111, classicstage.org. Through May 20. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

WITH: Jordan Dean (Demetrius), Nick Gehlfuss (Lysander), David Greenspan (Francis Flute/Cobweb), Halley Wegryn Gross (Helena), Anthony Heald (Theseus/Oberon), Erin Hill (Robin Starveling/First Fairy), Chad Lindsey (Tom Snout/Mustardseed), Taylor Mac (Egeus/Puck), James Patrick Nelson (Snug/Moth), Bebe Neuwirth (Hippolyta/Titania), Christina Ricci (Hermia

Don’t Dress For Dinner

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:28:36 -0400

Timing is everything, and the too bad part of the timing on this show is that there is a British farce up the way doing a much better job ofit - One Man, Two Guvnors.

I believe it will also be compared to its older sister, Boeing Boeing, by the same author, which I never saw, but about which I heard nothing but fab comments.

This is one of those old sexist comedies that may have played better in its original French. As adapted by Robert Hawdon, this play needs to be performed at near break-neck speed. If we are going to be subject to this sort of behavior then you better have it leap off the stage and set the house on fire. For this kind of comedy a slow simmer is not ideal. And that is what has happened here.

The story takes place in 1960 in a Parisian suburb. Bernard (Adam James) is seen setting up(with a heavy slapstick hand) the final touches for a romantic weekend with his mistress just before his wife enters the living room. Jacqueline (Patricia Kalember) is off to see her mother, and Bernard can’t get her out of the house fast enough. While he fetches the car, Robert (Ben Daniels) phones to say he is just back from Kuala Lumpur and is about to pop in. This is news to Pamela who is having an affair with Robert who was the best man at Pamela and Bernard’s wedding. She calls her mother, feigns the flu, and the weekend is off to a new start.

When Bernard hears of the change of plans he confesses his philandering to Robert. He is in love with a beautiful woman, a model named Suzanne, and she is on her way to the house for a tryst. The only solution is for Robert to claim Suzanne as his, which Robert does not want to do, else Jacqueline think him unfaithful to her. But friends are friends, and he agrees. After Bernard and Jacqueline leave to buy the groceries for the weekend, the next woman to show up is Suzette, the hired cook for the evening, Robert mistakes her for Suzanne, and there is a mildly funny exchange of words before this is straightened out, with Suzette asking for a cash bonus in exchange for the new duties demanded of her. Soon the infamous Suzanne (Jennifer Tilly) appears, and when all is revealed to her she is pressed into service as the cook in order to keep Jacqueline in the dark. She agrees, but only because she has no other plans for the weekend.

So now the kids are in the oven and the cookies are on their way to school. We just have to sit back and watch the time bomb count down to the great reveal when Jacqueline is let in on the secret – but only one step at a time. And everyone gets their comeuppance. Everyone, with the exception of Suzette who has been taking advantage of the situation, scooping more and more cash bonuses as those around her tie themselves in knots. In the funniest and best choreographed moment of the play, she even gets a sartorial makeover in 10 seconds flat.

Spencer Kayden seems to have found a solid niche, but most of the cast is not on solid footing. And Jennifer Tilly almost seems to be in a different play altogether.

Those around me were laughing loud and often, so this is not a show that will offend many. It has its funny moments. But it could have been so much more. Perhaps, as the cast gets steadier, they will figure out how to move this along at the tempo it deserves. Think speed of light.

But at the moment this is little more than harmless theatre. No need for you to bother. Too bad.

Don’t Dress for Dinner -By Marc Camoletti; adapted by Robin Hawdon; directed by John Tillinger

WITH: Ben Daniels (Robert), Adam James (Bernard), Patricia Kalember (Jacqueline), Jennifer Tilly (Suzanne), Spencer Kayden (Suzette) and David Aron Damane (George).

Sets by John Lee Beatty; costumes by William Ivey Long; lighting by Ken Billington; sound by David Van Tieghem; hair and wig design by Paul Huntley; fight director, Thomas Schall; production stage manager, Barclay Stiff; production manager, Aurora Productions; general manager, Denise Cooper; associate managing director, Greg Backstrom; associate artistic director, Scott Ellis. Presented by the Roundabout Theater Company, Todd Haimes, artistic director; Harold Wolpert, managing director; Julia C. Levy, executive director, in association with Damian Arnold. At the American Airlines Theater, 227 West 42nd Street, Manhattan; (212) 719-1300, roundabouttheatre.org. Through June 17. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.

Ghost The Musical

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:10:04 -0400

Synopsis: Boy and girl are in love. Sam (Richard Fleeshman) works in finance. Mollie (Caissie Levy) is a sculptor. They move into a loft together. Time passes. They are still in love. They go out one night and Sam is attacked. He dies. They are still in love. Sam comes back as a – you guessed it – GHOST and discovers that his death was not an accident. It was planned, and now Molly’s life is in danger as well. Sam does everything he can to warn Molly, whom he still loves you see, but nothing works. No one can see or hear him. He stumbles upon a psychic, Oda Mae Brown (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who has more or less been pulling the wool over people’s eyes for a long, long time, but for some reason Oda Mae hears Sam. They team up to contact Molly who believes what is happening and then doesn’t, even though she and Sam are still in love. Sam teams up with Oda Mae for a sting and the bad guy gets outed, which brings Molly back on board with the whol deal. Sam comes back to Molly one last time, using Oda Mae’s body as a conduit. They dance, they kiss, he leaves. They are still in love.

Woven into this story are some mediocre songs that, with the exception of Oda Mae’s numbers, all sound alike. There is a lot of volume and a lot of vocal embellishment and a lot of singers standing down stage center who sing their hearts out. There is also a lot of dancing by people who look as though they could really handle some good choreography, were it ever to come their way, but there is no danger of that happening in this show.

But what there is the most of is special effects. There are moving walkways; floating fire escapes; entire subway systems; animated city dwellers; bodies that rise and fall and vanish; material objects through which characters can pass their hands; death scenes that separate a characters’ spirits from their bodies; bobbing concert lighting pointed at the audience (seriously unpleasant); hologram-ish projections of what Superman might see on a night flight through Manhattan; spirits being exiled to certain damnation.

In the presence of all this noise and action, any connection to these two star crossed lovers is left far behind. There is more passion in the Ice Capades than there is here. Not because the actors are not trying, but because they are drowned out by the combination of a book and music that are banal and special effects that border on the pyrotechnical. The only character that seems to push through and connect with us is Randolph as Oda Mae Brown. Her appearance lights up the stage as only an actor can, and she is a welcome relief.

If you are a female between the ages of 12 and 20 this show is for you, because you will have the innocence and energy to pick through the detritus and pull out a love story. It has some razzle, a little dazzle, kissing, mystery, betrayal, sulking and pining: everything a young, very young, woman would want. In short, this comes as close to being a romantic movie fantasy as it possible can.

Oh. I forgot. It was! Well, that would explain everything.

Note: there is a moment of irony in the final moments of this play where the two women are isolated in an embrace on a bare stage. It is the only uncluttered scene in the entire show, and it speaks volumes.

Ghost the Musical - Book and lyrics by Bruce Joel Rubin, based on the Paramount Pictures film written by Mr. Rubin; music and lyrics by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard; directed by Matthew Warchus;

WITH: Richard Fleeshman (Sam Wheat), Caissie Levy (Molly Jensen), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Oda Mae Brown), Bryce Pinkham (Carl Bruner), Michael Balderrama (Willie Lopez) and Lance Roberts (Hospital Ghost).

Designed by Rob Howell; choreography by Ashley Wallen; lighting by Hugh Vanstone; illusions by Paul Kieve; sound by Bobby Aitken; musical supervisor, arranger and orchestrator, Christopher Nightingale; projections and video by Jon Driscoll; general management, Bespoke Theatricals; production management, Aurora Productions; musical director, David Holcenberg; associate director, Thomas Caruso; additional movement sequences by Liam Steel. Presented by Colin Ingram, Hello Entertainment/David Garfinkle, Donovan Mannato, MJE Productions, Patricia Lambrecht and Adam Silberman, in association with Coppel/Watt/Withers/Bewick, Fin Gray/Michael Melnick, Mayerson/Gould Hauser/Tysoe, Richard Chaifetz and Jill Chaifetz, Jeffrey B. Hecktman, Land Line Productions, Gilbert Productions/Marion/Shahar and Fresh Glory Productions/Bruce Carnegie-Brown, by special arrangement with Paramount Pictures. At the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, 205 West 46th Street, Manhattan; (877) 250-2929, ticketmaster.com. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

The Lyons

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:06:26 -0400

This is a really not a play in the classic sense. It is a theatrical triptych of one acts. The first, in which Linda Lavin as Rita Lyon glows red hot, is the story of a man on his deathbed with his seriously dysfunctional family in attendance. Thank goodness there are only three of them. The term Pride of Lyons is hard to avoid here, because each of them holds up their pride like a shield. Ben (Dick Latessa) has always loved his wife, even though he has treated her like crap for most of their time together. Rita has never warmed up to Ben, but was one of those women who married because it was expected of her. You find a nice boy who is crazy about you and will treat you well; you settle down. Don’t worry about love because, strictly speaking it is not necessary.

Now that Ben is dying (although you wouldn’t know it by the look and sound of him) Rita’s already tightly wound persona has snapped a few of its restraining straps, and she prefers to fantasize about their new living room décor while she sits a premature shiva at her husband’s bedside.

The kids are uniquely unhappy as well. Lisa (Kate Jennings Grant) is a recovering alcoholic who is still in love with her abusive ex-husband. Curtis (Michael Esper) is so emotionally stunted that he prefers an active fantasy life to reality. Rita tolerates both children with a dispassionate air that only cracks when Ben attacks Curtis for being gay, which has not been news for decades.

It is the finely written first act that gives us a complete picture of all of these people as they collide in Ben’s hospital room. They are each a Molotov cocktail walking around with a lit cigarette in hand. Should they set themselves on fire or toss the match onto a family member? It’s a tossup. Either would be satisfactory. There is little in the way of back-story presented here because we don’t need it. Their pain and prejudices come out like toothpaste from a cracked tube under high pressure. There is nowhere to duck because you are GOING to get some on you.

After a revelatory argument the children leave, come back and leave again, and after a sorry bit of a confession on Rita’s part, Curtis returns with his tail between his legs, asking “Is her dead?” to which Rita replies, with a touch of hope, “Maybe tomorrow.”

The play could end right there, but it doesn’t. Instead we are treated to a bit of what makes Curtis run as he meets and a real estate broker in an empty studio apartment. Esper and Gregory Wooddell (Brian) take on this tennis match of a scene with skill and precision. It is the second one-act and, like the first, is a complete unit.

The resulting final act is yet another nugget and stands on its own as a play.

That we accept this as an entire play speaks to the fact Nicky Silver knows how to make characters pop. Silver hears them talk and has the ability to make them hook into one another, flip around and take off in a different direction. These people are nearly jet propelled, and mainly what they have in common is the room in which Silver places them. The longer they stay, the more they reveal. It is not conventional play making, but it sure as hell keeps you glued to your seat.

And it keeps these people alive in your head long after you leave the theatre.

The Lyons

By Nicky Silver; directed by Mark Brokaw; sets by Allen Moyer; costumes by Michael Krass; lighting by David Lander; music and sound by David van Tieghem; production manager, Aurora Productions; fight director, Thomas Schall; production stage manager, Robert Bennett; general manager, Niko Companies Ltd. A Vineyard Theater production, presented by Kathleen K. Johnson. At the Cort Theater, 138 West 48th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Running time: 2 hours.

WITH: Linda Lavin (Rita Lyons), Michael Esper (Curtis Lyons), Kate Jennings Grant (Lisa Lyons), Brenda Pressley (Nurse), Gregory Wooddell (Brian) and Dick Latessa (Ben Lyons).

Clybourne Park

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:57:58 -0400

What a total pleasure. Good writing. Spot-on directing. Glowing performances. Excellent design team. Funny how that works.

And to think it almost never made it back to New York. Clybourne Park opened two years ago at Playwrights Horizons and has had several stops outside the city. Because of the vagaries of theatre finances, it almost didn’t make it back to New York. But, here it is by God, and with the entire team in tact. We are the lucky ones.

Back aways, Bruce Norris had one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” ideas and ran with it. 406 Clybourne Street, the setting of this play, is the home to which Lena Younger and her family are moving at the conclusion of A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. This is the story of that house and the people who sold the house to the Youngers as well as new owners fifty years after the Youngers. This is as complicated and layered a tale as you might imagine because it is a story about race relations, the eternal unacknowledged secret that most of this country sidesteps every day, as well as its dancing partner – the economic divide. In Norris’s hands this story becomes a hot poker that only betrays its temperature when you touch it. These characters touch it a lot and never seem to get the message that it is h-o-t.

In the first act we are in 1959. Bev and Russ (Christina Kirk and Frank Wood) are in the final stages of packing. Well, Bev is packing. Russ is eating ice cream and offering opinions on the derivation of the word “Neopolitan” as that is the type of ice cream he is eating. Bev is peripatetic both physically (her elbows seem to be spring-loaded which is distracting) as well as verbally and pays no attention to what she leaves in her wake. She offers her black housekeeper Francine (Crystal A. Dickinson) a chafing dish because she herself never used it, and when Francine politely refuses Bev says, “You just think about it,” and moves on to the next item on her list. Bev and Russ have a limited sphere of reference, we learn, that is camouflaging a deep pain in which they are nearly drowning.

Soon the neighbors come to call. Jim, (Brendan Griffin) is the local minister, affable and a bit dim. Karl and his deaf wife Betsy (Jeremy Shamos and Annie Parisse) stop by as well, but not for a goodbye. Seems as though there is a rumor that the buyers of 406 are colored, and Karl is here to verify or quash the rumor, because of course this would not be a good situation. Rather than answer Karl’s question, Russ works up a head of steam that threatens to take down the house before they move out of it. And as a final touch, Francine’s husband Albert (Damon Gupton) gets drafted into taking a trunk down from the upstairs against Russ’s wishes, which puts the cherry on the sundae. These carryings on are up there with the Marx Brothers, and the addition of the race card makes it all razor sharp.

In the second act we have arrived at 2009, and history is showing its sad side. The house is in sorry shape with graffiti on the walls. The floor is a mess, and the kitchen door is gone. Every actor in the first act has returned. Dickinson and Gupton are husband and wife again (Lena and Kevin) who are young pillars of Clybourne Park and concerned about its future. Parisse and Shamos are paired again as well (Lindsey and Steve) as the pregnant couple who bought 406 with the intention of tearing it down and building their dream home complete with a coy pond. Also in attendance are two realtors (Griffin and Kirk) who try to maintain focus on the bureaucratic requirements that the city has issued. Wood is now a handyman who is digging up the past in the back yard.

The second act takes all the elements of the first and puts a match to them. Because the first act is so rock solid the cast is free to blow up the joint. This is a spectacular cast who leaps from great heights without a safety net. No one comes out unscathed. While Parisse and Shamos lead the way in the self-referential and ignorant department, the others are not far behind. Everyone’s a little bit racist (to quote Avenue Q) and that truth tumbles out of their mouths and spills onto the floor like jacks looking for the red ball. These people are a mess, and by the end of the act you are just grateful no one was carrying a gun.

Norris’s ends the play with a final scene that reminds us where the whole deal began decades ago: with a family in a house in a neighborhood. He takes us from the noise and commotion he created and drops us into a moment as pure as a heartbeat, and that is where he leaves us. After watching everyone else, we are left facing ourselves.

Bravo. Seriously.

This is what I wrote two years ago after the Playwrights Horizons production: This is a show that should be extended at the very least, and one could hope that it makes its way to Broadway in the not too distant future. Racism is a subject that we white folk here in New York like to think is no longer an active issue in our country. We hardly notice that 95% of our working actors, 97% of the theatre going audience, and 107% of what passes for entertainment on television and in film are white because we are so damn used to seeing it that we don’t notice any more. “Clybourne Park” disabuses us of that notion with style, and wit and grace.

You should pardon the expression, but it will get under your skin.

Go see this show.
Clybourne Park By Bruce Norris; directed by Pam MacKinnon

WITH: Crystal A. Dickinson (Francine/Lena), Brendan Griffin (Jim/Tom/Kenneth), Damon Gupton (Albert/Kevin), Christina Kirk (Bev/Kathy), Annie Parisse (Betsy/Lindsey), Jeremy Shamos (Karl/Steve) and Frank Wood (Russ/Dan).

; sets by Daniel Ostling; costumes by Ilona Somogyi; lighting by Allen Lee Hughes; sound by John Gromada; hair and wig design by Charles LaPointe; production manager, Aurora Productions; production stage manager, C. A. Clark; general manager, Bespoke Theatricals; executive producer, Red Awning. A Playwrights Horizons production, presented by Jujamcyn Theaters, Jane Bergère, Roger Berlind/Quintet Productions, Eric Falkenstein/Dan Frishwasser, Ruth Hendel/Harris Karma Productions, JTG Theatricals, Daryl Roth , Jon B. Platt and Center Theater Group, in association with Lincoln Center Theater. At the Walter Kerr Theater, 219 West 48th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Through July 8. Running time: two hours.

One Man Two Guvnors

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:02:58 -0400

Oh my, my, my. There is Joy in Mudville once again. And more than that, there are moments in this play that are so funny you don’t just laugh, you bark.

There are a few things at which the Brits Excel. Tea, of course, but you have to be over there for it to taste right. The other is humor, and that one is exportable. I’m talking that stupid kind of humor. That door opening stage right while door closes stage left humor (the kind that Lucy tried to make her own). I’m talking the humor where the main character is off on an adventure of ludicrous proportions and decides to include us in on all his secrets, whether we like it or not. Of course this confidence sharing strategy is picked up by a few other characters as well who share the same philosophy.

In this case we like it. We like it a lot.

When the leading man with the plummy voice (Oliver Chris as Stanley Stubbers) receives the news that the local pub also served food (in 1963 Brighton), he replies “Buzz-wam, whoever thought of that? Wrap his balls in bacon and send him to the nurse!” whereupon the gentleman in front of me three seats to my left laughed so hard that his head snapped fore and aft like a hand puppet operated by an amateur.

James Cordon as Francis Henshall – the MAN - does everything. He toys with the audience. Deceives his employers. Pursues Dolly (Suzie Toase), a buxom woman with a mind like a calculator, the way a puppy goes after a bone. As a young man washed up on the shore in downtown Brighton, Francis is on the look out for a meal – he has to keep his fat up – which means he needs a few bob with which to buy it. He accepts a position with two different men, the aforementioned Stubbers and Roscoe Crabbe (Jemima Rooper). The fly in the ointment is that Roscoe is actually his sister, Rachel, in disguise, and Rachel is in love with Stanley who has, incidentally, killed her brother Roscoe. These two star crossed lovers are frantic to find one another, but their common man Francis does everything he can to keep them apart so that his employment will remain steady.

Mixed in here is also the nearly fatal love story of Pauline Clench (Claire Lams) a sweet dim bulb who is in love with the world’s worst actor, Alan Dangle (Daniel Rigby). Their fathers are old friends as well as counsel and client. All are caught in the middle of the Crabbe deception because “Duck” Clench (Fred Ridgeway) owes Roscoe money, and Pauline has been thrown into the mix for good measure. Just for the heck of it an 80 year old waiter, Alfie (Tom Edden) is added to the slapstick in case you don’t have enough to laugh at. To top it all off, we are treated to musical interludes by the talented and stupidly charming band, The Craze, a kind of Beatles gone Country quartet.

And, perhaps unlike any other performance running in the city, the show succeeds most wildly when it comes to a screeching halt. It is at those moments – and if you are lucky there will be a few – that Cordon steps up to the plate and takes on all comers: fish heads gone astray; the hoped for sandwich; a reticent audience member; and of course the ubiquitous mobile phone serenade. (This and the musical interludes are part of the reason that the show runs 2 hours and 30 minutes,)

And though Corden does stray off the path, way off the path, we always return to the thread of this story that is filled with equal parts true love, deceit, mistaken identity, pomp, sex, circumstance, music, and people being really, really silly. The ensemble is fine tuned and brilliant from start to finish. This is humor that demands the actors fly from point to point without a net. They make it look easy, which is how you know that their precision is flawless.

The result is that Two Guvnors makes you remember how long it has been since you laughed this hard because the experience is exciting and a bit foreign at the same time. “Oh, right,” your body seems to say to you, “I remember this! Why don’t we do THIS more!!”

I concur. Send in the clowns, please. Yesiree, please do.

One Man, Two Guvnors - By Richard Bean, based on “The Servant of Two Masters” by Carlo Goldoni; directed by Nicholas Hytner

WITH: James Corden (Francis Henshall), Oliver Chris (Stanley Stubbers), Jemima Rooper (Rachel Crabbe), Tom Edden (Alfie), Martyn Ellis (Harry Dangle), Trevor Laird (Lloyd Boateng), Claire Lams (Pauline Clench), Fred Ridgeway (Charlie Clench), Daniel Rigby (Alan Dangle), Suzie Toase (Dolly) and Ben Livingston (Gareth), and Eli James, Mr. Livingston, Sarah Manton, Stephen Pilkington, David Ryan Smith and Natalie Smith (Ensemble).

Physical comedy director, Cal McCrystal; designed by Mark Thompson; lighting by Mark Henderson; sound by Paul Arditti; songs by Grant Olding; associate director/choreographer, Adam Penford; music director, Charlie Rosen; production stage manager, William Joseph Barnes; technical supervisor, David Benken; technical producer, Katrina Gilroy; administrative producer, Robin Hawkes; general manager, James Triner. Presented by the National Theater of Great Britain under the direction of Mr. Hytner and Nick Starr, and Bob Boyett, National Angels, Chris Harper, Tim Levy, Scott Rudin, Roger Berlind, Harriet Newman Leve, Stephanie P. McClelland, Broadway Across America, Jam Theatricals, Daryl Roth, Sonia Friedman, Harris Karma Productions, Deborah Taylor and Richard Willis. At the Music Box Theater, 239 West 45th Street, Manhattan, (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

Peter and the Starcatcher

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:29:02 -0400

When is a rope not a rope? Answer: When it is a doorway, a window, an ocean wave, a ship’s rail and oh, yeah, when it is used to tie up hostages. I guess it is a rope for the latter, but by the time it is used that way, you have forgotten that it’s a rope to begin with.

And this is all quite, quite good. Quite.

For those of you who were ever children, welcome to your show of shows. This is the prequel to Peter Pan and answers the burning question of: how did that kid land on that island and never grow up? The answer is inventive and touching and mostly hilarious, and you will want to see it for yourself.

But here’s a bit of information. There is this stuff, see, called Star Stuff, and in the wrong hands it is dangerous. Star Stuff has the ability to turn people into what they WANT to be, not necessarily what they SHOULD be. So it could turn people into tyrants, or monsters, or Tea Party members at the drop of a hat. There is a trunkload of this Star Stuff that must be taken from Victorian England to the land of Rundoon, where Lord Aster (Rick Holmes) will dump it into a volcano. As a decoy there is an identical trunk of sand that will travel on another ship. Aster’s daughter Molly (Celia Keenan-Bolger) an apprentice Starcatcher (read person of great importance) will travel on one ship, the Neverland, and her father on the other, the Wasp.

When the Wasp is intercepted by pirates, headed by Captain Black Stache (Christian Borle), who is villainous and campy and apparently an ancestor of Groucho Marx, things, as well as the ships themselves, take turns for the worse. Stache is after what he believes to be treasure, and the Asters are sworn to protect the Star Stuff until it can be disposed of. The dye is cast and confrontation ensues!

Caught in the middle of this ruckus are three orphan Boys who are LOST – get it? They are Prentiss (Carson Elrod), Ted (David Rossmer) and Boy (Adam Chanler-Berat) who is so lost that he doesn’t have a name at first, but the moniker Peter Pan will find him before the night is out. They join forces with Molly, who assures them that she is their best bet as well as being the best leader because she is the best at everything, period.

Soon there is a shipwreck on an island where the facts tumble out faster than a cornucopia gone mad on vaudevillian wine. This author never waits for anyone to get the puns or the references to Peter Pan, but fires them point blank into your smiling face. The croc gets the clock, the Stache prepares to become Hook and Neverland is born. Parry, thrust and voila!!

This show is precariously close to children’s theatre, which is fine with me because I know the deep dark secret about this genre. Children’s Theatre has to be smart enough for parents to sit through. Think about the story of Peter Pan for instance. What adult doesn’t know it? And who doesn’t clap their hands on occasion to prove that they believe?

This brilliant cast is choreographed into being everything from a forest to a giant crocodile using the simplest of tools and their own belief in the magic of theatre. They are like a theatrical marching band moving in and out of formation. This is way more than sleight of hand – this is sleight of entire company.

The children watching this show nearly jump out of their skins with excitement, and the adults are swept away by the memories of childhood fantasies that are not buried as deep as one might imagine. This is a story filled with true adventures and maddening disappointments that are coupled with hidden rewards. Molly becomes a bona fide Starcather, but she must leave Peter. Molly will grow up and Peter will remain a boy. Both get what they want, but it is at the cost of separation from one another. Molly will have a daughter, Wendy. Peter will acquire a new tiny twinkling best friend in Neverland who bestows upon the formerly lost Boy this directive: FLY!!!!

He does, we watch him, and we are not far behind. Not far at all. Brilliant, eh?

Peter and the Starcatcher - By Rick Elice, based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson; directed by Roger Rees and Alex Timbers

WITH: Christian Borle (Black Stache), Celia Keenan-Bolger (Molly), Adam Chanler-Berat (Boy), Teddy Bergman (Fighting Prawn), Arnie Burton (Mrs. Bumbrake), Matt D’Amico (Slank/Hawking Clam), Kevin Del Aguila (Smee), Carson Elrod (Prentiss), Greg Hildreth (Alf), Rick Holmes (Lord Aster), Isaiah Johnson (Captain Scott) and David Rossmer (Ted).

Music by Wayne Barker; movement by Steven Hoggett; sets by Donyale Werle; costumes by Paloma Young; lighting by Jeff Croiter; sound by Darron L West; music direction by Marco Paguia; technical supervisor, David Benken; production supervisor, Clifford Schwartz; general manager, 321 Theatrical Management. Presented by Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Greg Schaffert, Eva Price, Tom Smedes, Disney Theatrical Productions, Suzan and Ken Wirth/DeBartolo Miggs, Catherine Schreiber/Daveed Frazier and Mark Thompson, Jack Lane, Jane Dubin, Allan S. Gordon/Adam S. Gordon, Baer and Casserly/Nathan Vernon, Rich Affannato/Peter Stern, Brunish and Trinchero/ Laura Little Productions, Larry Hirschhorn/Hummel and Green, Jamie deRoy and Probo Prods./Radio Mouse Entertainment, Hugh Hysell/Freedberg and Dale, and the New York Theater Workshop . At the Brooks Atkinson Theater, 256 West 47th Street, Manhattan; (800) 745-3000, ticketmaster.com. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes.

Ninth and Joanie

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:11:20 -0400

I didn’t feel very good after seeing this show, and I have struggled to find the right word to describe how I was feeling.

Abandoned. That’s the word.

This is a story about a supremely unhappy family told in a supremely unhappy manner. On the evening in question Charlie (Bob Glaudini) and his son Rocco (Kevin Corrigan) have returned to their South Philadelphia home (kudos to David Mayer for this remarkable set) from the funeral of the matriarch of the family. We don’t find this out, however, until after many, many, many silent minutes. The second brother, Michael (Dominic Fumusa) arrives on the scene filled with noise and lots of anger. With his arrival there comes a spew of dialogue, which, if you don’t pay strict attention, will pass you by. It seems that years ago, a drunk driver killed the brothers’ sister Joanie. Charlie convinced Michael to kill that man, and when Michael recently confessed this to his mother, she killed herself.

Things don’t get better in any way, and there is another funeral on the horizon for this family. The second act is devoted to more mourning and silence, and the introduction of the next generation of unhappy folks.

I get that there are people like this in the world. They are silent and stunted and decaying. I try and stay away from them. So if you are going to ask me to come into a theatre and watch people like this for two hours, then you better make me care about them in a way that I normally don’t. That is the unwritten contract between the writer and the audience. But in this show that contract is not fulfilled by the writer, nor is it addressed by the director or the actors. There is so much unexplored silence combined with repetition of lines that it is almost as if we, the audience, are being asked to figure it all out on our own. As if the silence and the repetitions were code for something else.

A long time ago one of my acting teachers told me that the audience wants to go into your basement and poke around. They don’t want you to keep bringing things out of the house and setting them up on the lawn. They want inside, and if you, as an actor or a writer, lead them down into the dark scary bits they will follow. For this to work, however, everyone must agree that the door at the top of the basement staircase remains unlocked. With that knowledge, the exploration of the grimy depths is unlimited.

With Ninth and Joanie, Brett Leonard, as well as Wing-Davey and the cast, let us into the basement, but then they lock the door on us. Instead of being treated as guests, we are trapped.

So yeah, abandoned pretty much sums it up.

Ninth and Joanie - By Brett C. Leonard; directed by Mark Wing-Davey; sets by David Meyer; costumes by Mimi O’Donnell; lighting by Bradley King; sound by David Bullard; stage manager, Rhonda Picou; production manager, Rosie Cruz; technical director, Paul Bradley; associate director, Scott Illingworth. Presented by the Labyrinth Theater Company, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Ms. O’Donnell and Yul Vázquez, artistic directors; Danny Feldman, managing director. At the Bank Street Theater, 155 Bank Street, West Village; (212) 513-1080, labtheater.org. Through May 6. Running time: 2 hours.

WITH: Rosal Colón (Isabella), Kevin Corrigan (Rocco), Dominic Fumusa (Michael), Bob Glaudini (Charlie) and Samuel Mercedes (Carlito) .

4,000 Miles

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:26:30 -0400

For Immediate Release – 4,000 MILES

Vera Joseph (Mary Louise Wilson) is a woman in her 90’s living in a walk-up apartment somewhere near Chelsea. Her balance is off, she can’t hear so well, she forgets her words, and at 3:00 in the morning, when the doorbell rings and she answers it, she has also forgotten her teeth.

Yipes! An older imperfect female character on a stage. What will they think of next?

What Vera has not forgotten is her grandson, Leo (Gabriel Ebert) who is the source of the ringing buzzer, standing in her doorway, fresh from a cross-country bike-ride and smelling like a load of dirty laundry. No she has not forgotten him.

“Are you high?” she asks.

No, it turns out, he is not. Leo has landed on Vera’s doorstep carrying the detritus of a bike trip begun in partnership and finished solo as well as the burdens of a young man at a crossroad. When his biking partner Micah died, all Leo could do was complete what they had started. Now that he has, the bottom has more or less dropped out from under his tires.

Vera has her own liabilities aside from the aforementioned. The chief one is that she is nearing the end of the race, and as she watches comrades around her making their departures, she wonders about her own. Life is a pain in the ass. Two husbands who didn’t satisfy her, one unnamed lover who did. A lifetime of politics and progressive thought. Vera’s eye still wanders the skyline looking for something to catch her eye.

So there we are folks – the up and coming bunking in with the nearly departing. Not that either of them wants to embrace the future. Not right this minute. No thanks. They would rather hop off the stagecoach for a bit set up camp.

For the moment, Leo has an old love, Bec (Zoë Winters) to deal with. They are volatile and honest and impossible together. Amanda (Greta Lee) crosses his path one brief night and leaves a trail that almost glows in the dark. Vera views these young women with slight interest. They are passers through. What she does want to know about is how Leo will straighten out his relationship with his mother Jane and his adopted sister Lilly. It’s not that Vera likes Jane very much, but that family thing bears some attention. Not having children of her own is about the only regret that Vera can call to mind.

This interlude is not something they planned. This is not an episode of Grandma Knows Best. They are not even related by blood. Leo is Vera’s stepdaughter’s son. But that’s good enough reason to join forces. These, however, are not touchy feely people. They bump up against one another and yelp. They step on each other’s toes. They fall back and regroup. They listen. They judge. They divulge. They withhold. They pounce. They drift. They dream. They are, quite simply, themselves. And THAT is way more than adequate. It is delicious.

Daniel Aukin has staged this play almost like a ballet on this beautiful set by Lauren Halpern. Even entrances and exits get your attention. Japhy Weideman’s lights are the perfect, perfect compliment to a relationship that unfolds in the dim light of a Manhattan apartment.

Amy Herzog has given us a gift, and this production team has made is shine like a beacon in a fog. Wilson and Ebert create a pas de deux that is equal parts blunt and rough; tender and surprising; vulnerable and thoughtless; inconsistent and insensitive. Greta Lee and Zoë Winters add the exact amount of “the world out there” that Vera and Leo need to keep them connected by that invisible thread that bonds all such extraordinary duos.

What a splendid adventure. What a complete pleasure. Cheers all around.

By Amy Herzog; directed by Daniel Aukin; sets by Lauren Helpern; costumes by Kaye Voyce; lighting by Japhy Weideman; sound by Ryan Rumery; stage manager, Kasey Ostopchuck; general manager, Adam Siegel; production manager, Jeff Hamlin. A Steinberg New Works Program production, presented by Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3, under the direction of André Bishop and Bernard Gersten; Paige Evans, artistic director. At the Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street; (646) 223-3010; lct3.org. Through July 2. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

WITH: Gabriel Ebert (Leo), Greta Lee (Amanda), Mary Louise Wilson (Vera Joseph) and Zoë Winters (Bec).

Barbara Cook - Let’s Fall In Love

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 11:22:39 -0400

When Barbara cook sings, she takes a small golden arrow from her quiver and shoots it directly into your heart. This is all done sleight of hand. You don’t see a thing, but you feel the hit.

This is the first time Cook has chosen all the songs for an act – which is kind of surprising. But with this show she says she is hearing things differently. She has created the layout for many of these numbers, and included a song by Hoagy Carmichael, The Nearness Of You, because she realized that she never had included him before.

Cook goes back in time to prime the gold and puts a new twist on Makin Whoopee. When she sing’s Georgia you suddenly remember that this is a woman of the South.

The entire room stops when Cook wails the tale of The House of The Rising Sun and follows it with a singular and sad Bye Bye, Blackbird, and probably for the first time in history of the planet we understand that both songs were about houses of prostitution.

When Sunny Gets Blue was popular in the 1970’s when I was coming up, but in the hands of Cook you can hear the laugh that Sunny lost.

As she moves through the evening, Cook directs our attention to her musicians more than once (Ted Rosenthal, Lawrence Feldman, Jay Leonhart and Warren Oats). She also speaks about the composers and lyricists over and over again. She reveres their work, and it isn’t enough that she sings their songs; she wants to be certain you know their names. They are her family and her friends. And she is not immune to the opportunities that the present offers. She prowls the Internet where YouTube is her drug of choice, providing her with endless song titles that call to her, the favorite being If I’d Shot You When I Wanted To I’d Be Out By Now.

She includes I Don’t Want Love by Dan Hicks on the strength of his lyrics alone. Ram Ramirez’s Lover Man wipes out any memory of anyone else having pleading this case.

She closes out the evening with two gut-wrenchers, If I love Again by Ben Oakland and John Murray - 1933 and Here’s To Life by Artie Butler and Phyllis Molinary. But she pulls us off the tarmac with the Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm.

She send us off into the world with a gift that she sings without a microphone, Imagine by John Lennon. She opens her hand and in it is her heart that she gladly hands to us, courtesy of Lennon’s magic.

We have no choice but hand ours back in exchange.

Barbara Cook gets richer and wiser and better with every performance. You owe yourself the gift of seeing this woman and getting feeling the hit of that golden arrow. She reminds you that you have a heart because she touches it.

FEINSTEIN'S AT LOEWS REGENCY will present BARBARA COOK from April 10 through 21 with the following schedule: Tuesday through Saturday at 8:00 PM with additional 10:30 PM shows on Friday and Saturday evenings. All shows have a $60.00 cover with $100.00 premium seats and $135.00 up-front seats, all with a $40.00 food and beverage minimum. Jackets are suggested but not required. FEINSTEIN'S AT LOEWS REGENCY is located at 540 Park Avenue at 61" Street in New York City. For ticket reservations and club information, please call (212) 339-4095 or visit us online at feinsteinsatloewsregency.com and Ticketweb.com.

For photos or interviews, please email miller@millerwright.comordanfortune@millerwright.com

You Better Sit Down: Tales From My Parents’ Divorce

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:05:00 -0400

Ahh. The Civilians. A playwright or two could take a page out of their book. I mean the playwrights who want to remind us over and over again that “This is based on a true story.” More often than not this is the kiss of death for a play, but with the Civilians, it is an invitation to pull up a chair and watch magic happen.

That the subject of this magic is divorce should in no way be a deterrent. In the hands of these folks we travel farther and faster in a little over an hour than most people do on the A-Train.

Each of these fine performers plays one or more of their own parents: Matthew Maher (John/Frinde), Caitlin Miller (Mary Anne), Jennifer R. Morris (Beverly) and Robbie Collier Sublett (Janet). And what is striking is that each of them actually had this conversation with a parent who was willing to talk.

The result is a carefully woven tale of love discovered, dared and doomed. These people have nothing in common, other than the fact that they are all on the same stage together. They do not interact with one another, they only speak to the child that is the actual actor. These people erupt, ponder, dismiss, question and laugh at this enormous chunk of their lives that went sour.

Their children and collaborators find great swaths of humor to carry us along this path, which at once opens us and the characters to one another. While one woman has to file for divorce to keep from going to jail, she remembers to hide her wallet so her husband can’t steal that too. One couple drifts apart into other sexual relationships with a sort of “we are comrades to the end” spirit. One mother remembers the sort of emptiness of it all being spiked with her husband’s overt avoidance of the children. One mother demands to be called a Jew-ess when her husband curses her out.

In the only odd choice of the evening, most of these characters do not interact with us. This is a loss because it leaves us a little outside the box as they look past us, or up the center aisle. It is as if we are not quite present – which may be how their children felt. But it is an annoying detraction from an otherwise near perfect evening.

This isn’t Divorce American Style, or any such souped up nonsense. This is the nut of drama: storytelling. Complete with the requisite protagonists and antagonists. Characters want something; characters get in the way. Life goes on and the stories become myths.

A splendid evening, and when they start looking at the audience it will be even better.

The Flea Theater invites you to the New York Premiere of The Civilians' YOU
BETTER SIT DOWN: TALES FROM MY PARENTS’ DIVORCE, by Anne Kauffman, Matthew Maher, Caitlin Miller, Jennifer R. Morris, Janice Paran and Robbie Collier
Sublett. Conceived by Jennifer R. Morris and directed by Anne Kauffman, this
limited Off-Broadway engagement runs April 7 - May 6 at The Flea (41 White
Street between Church and Broadway in Tribeca).