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Peter Barnes' Red Noses, which won a London Observer Best New Play Award back in 1985, has been revived in raucous, bawdy fashion by The Actors Gang, a company that specializes in physical theater with a social bent.
Elaine May's three one acts under the heading After the Night and the Music provides an evening of light entertainment with a strong, sparkling cast, headed by the incomparable Jeannie Berlin whose behavior nuances, quirks and comic timing are fascinating, funny and unique. The rest of the cast includes some of the best in town, including J.
Swiftly-paced and agreeable rendering of Twain's tale, recommended for family outings. Passable tunes and okay lyrics are secondary to can't-miss storyline, inspired settings (by designer Heidi Ettinger), and nicely-staged climactic man-hunt in the cave. If only the Minskoff weren't such a barn, with the orchestra sounding like a car radio and the actors appearing to sing a quarter-beat behind because of the acoustics.
Joshua Park
The latest grade school pageant masquerading as a Broadway show, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer starts with the germ of an enterprising family entertainment: a romantic musical adventure tale of young Tom and pal Huck Finn and their involvement in a shady town murder. The tuner then proceeds to turn the germ into a deadly virus; that is, shows that have no business in 1700+ capacity theaters foolishly trying to put one over on the unsuspecting audience.
One of the tunes in the latest Broadway production by Disney, Aida, sings that "we lead such elaborate lives" ("Elaborate Lives," by the way, was once this show's moniker). Well, looking at what's presented onstage, you would absolutely have to concur. Apparently no expense was spared for this baby, from Bob Crowley's positively jaw-dropping costume designs and sets to Natasha Katz's inventive, rich lighting to the three credited writers of the book (Linda Woolverton, director Robert Falls and Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang).
It's Stomp with a hint of Blast! and a dash of "Yan Can Cook." Sounds appetizing? For awhile, this Korean import, conceived by Seung Whan Song and now a world-wide touring phenomenon, promises to be both light on the funny bone and tempting to the salivary glands, as Cookin' shows a group of young "chefs" ordered to prepare a multi-course meal in exactly one hour.
Kevin Bacon is an extremely popular movie star (36 films are credited in the playbill). He is also half of the much publicized musical group, The Bacon Brothers, and is currently all over the tube in at least two highly-visible commercials, one promoting New York, another Visa. This is also his eighth listed appearance onstage. Those credits alone are enough of a draw to fill a large Broadway theater, and the Roundabout Theater Company must be very aware of all this.
Nearly a year into its Broadway run, Aida remains an unqualified audience hit. Many critics have grumbled about this show, which had its Atlanta debut in 1998, but the musical is still packing `em in at the Palace Theater.
All Shook Up, the Broadway show constructed around the songs that Elvis Presley sang, is a feel-good musical from start to finish. It's a first-class entertainment with great singers and dancers, brilliant arrangements by Stephen Oremus, an active, spectacular, imaginative set (that should win awards) by David Rockwell, amazing costumes by David C. Woolard, marvelous innovative choreography by Ken Robertson for perhaps the best chorus in town, and a book by Joe DiPietro that perfectly integrates the songs in this imaginative concept, directed with pizazz by Christopher Ashley.
I happened to catch an A&E "Biography" special last month on actor Kevin Bacon, and while watching, I was taken aback by how much work he had done that almost nobody gives him any credit for. Now in his early forties (and still looking as youthful as in his "Diner" days), Bacon has become synonymous with ubiquitous celebrity, having a Six Degrees-type game named after him and generally appearing as a supporting player in various Hollywood pictures. But what the actor may not realize is that placing him in this "he's everywhere" state is no insult.
It has been 20 years since Peter Shaffer's acclaimed play Amadeus has been on Broadway, and the newest revival is dignified, well acted and also thoroughly wrongheaded. The playwright has revamped the show to remove some of the melodrama that has always bothered him, but in the process has removed the play's sinister allure.
After 9/11, a little spirituality on a Broadway stage isn't a bad thing, but Heather McDonald's static solo play isn't likely to give anyone religion. Kevin Bacon plays a man saddled with Job-like troubles, including witnessing a school bus crash, enduring three miscarriages, and raising a child with lanugo, a rare disease that causes hair to grow all over her body.
Anna in the Tropics won a Pulitzer Prize based on its script, before it ever was staged, and it comes to Broadway with high expectations. The play provides good entertainment but has flaws that keep it from being fully satisfying. The faults include a cheap and contrived denouement and gaps in plot. For example, the eldest member of the cast, owner of a cigar factory, is shown to be a gambler and a drinker who has no money. But in Act Two, he is suddenly sober and sensible and pulls out a wad of bills saying that he got a loan.
Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, about famous killers and would-be killers (like John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinkley, Squeaky Fromme) of famous people (like Lincoln, Kennedy, Sharon Tate), with songs by Sondheim and book by John Weidman, is a piece of expressionist theater that occasionally works as vibrant musical drama, but often sinks into inane verbiage.
The message of TV's "Sesame Street," tucked in amid the array of alpha-numerical lesson plans, is that, despite the occasional obstacle, "everything's a-ok." While its multi-ethnic casts, resident grouch and human- monster interactions hint at a world of diversity and occasional miscommunication, the Children's Television Workshop nonetheless concocts an inviting urban landscape, full of "friendly neighbors" with their doors open wide to "happy people like you."
Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing, written in the depths of the depression in 1935, is full of stylized poetic phrases in the dialogue that are ripped from the gut and express the anguish of love, of poverty, of aspiration unfulfilled. The themes are as powerful (and sometimes funny) now as they were when Odets wrote them. However, this production, for me, is miscast and misdirected (by Bartlett Sher) with a lot of energy and lots of missteps including the wrong dog (what's a black poodle doing in the arms of these poor working-class people?
If a musical revue is first rate, it can last and be fully entertaining years later, assuming it's done well by a top-notch cast of Broadway-level singers. The current revival of A...My Name is Alice, as directed by Adam M. Muller, is as entertaining today as it ever was. It has energy, verve, lively sparkle and real voices, most of them directly from Broadway. Soara-Joye Ross is outstanding, but the rest -- Ellie Dvorkin, the comic lead, who did the zippy choreography, Jennifer Allen, Avery Sommers and Donna Vivino are all up there with the best on Broadway.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is a great actress. In Mike Leigh's 1977 play, Abigail's Party, now on Theater Row, she is amazing as she turns artifice into reality, broad caricature in movement, voice, accent, physicality and attitude into a totally believable human character. She plays a narcissistic pretentious working class woman who believes she is some kind of princess, and Max Baker as her cringing husband brings a matching piece of work to the stage.
Acts of Providence, two one acts by Edward Allen Baker, a strong writer with a good ear, is an intriguing evening of theater. The first play, Jane's Exchange, sets up a fascinating mystery about the relationships among four people in the kitchen of a bakery. The four actors, Amorika Amoroso, Joe Capozzi, Julie Karlin and the scintillating Tonya Cornelisse fulfill their roles perfectly, and Russell Treyz directs this engaging, fully satisfying piece with verve.
Theatergoers "on the other side of the pond" (that's us) may not be as familiar with The Woman in Black as their London counterparts. The reason? London audiences have kept one of their theaters filled with this hit show since 1987. Thankfully, one needn't book airline tickets abroad to see the play. Renaissance Theaterworks has taken on the challenge of mounting Woman in Black in Milwaukee's intimate Studio Theater.
If music makes the musical, then who can argue with those who call the legendary My Fair Lady, "the greatest musical of all time?" Over the years, many of the show's lovely songs have become "standards." Who cannot hum a few lines from, "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," or "On the Street Where You Live?"
Impressions of Manhattan Theater Club's Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Doug Hughes, in which two half-sisters (the excellent Alison Pill and Katie Finneran) vie for the possession of a stamp collection:
Like Love, a chamber musical with book and lyrics by Barry Jay Kaplan and music by Lewis Flinn, gives us a wonderful singer/actress/beauty, Emily Swallow; Jon Patrick Walker, a fine singer with the worst haircut on the NY stage, and the lively Danielle Ferland as the narrator/symbol of "The Spirit of Love."
In Will Durst: The All-American Sport of Bi-Partisan Bashing, Durst, an engaging political comedian, takes big hits at Bush and little taps at Hilary. It's all observational humor, and he evokes chuckles, smiles, and laughs as he skewers political figures. As the show goes on, Durst reveals himself to also be a terrific physical comedian and impressionist with broad, complete expressions of body and face that take the show into a higher dimension of comedy as he covers a wide range of contemporary topics.
Signature Theater's ambitious recreation of Kander and Ebb's final work, The Visit, was proof of the 18 year-old D.C. metropolitan-area theater's deserved national reputation as creator of new versions of musicals and new plays. Stretching their intimate black-box space to its limits, it utilized a topnotch small orchestra, a cast of 23 including world-class stars, and a constantly changing, elaborate production, brilliantly acted, sung and danced.
I love Horton Foote, and his Dividing the Estate confirms my romance with his work. As impeccably cast and deftly directed by Michael Wilson, the show puts us in the midst of the family interactions on the stage in the drama of a Southern family, its foibles and mistakes, and the death of a matriarch. There is not a false note in the interaction of these relatives and their economic problems which partly grew out of hopes and unrealistic dreams.
It's that time of the year again. Blood runs like twobuck-chuck Merlot. Screams start their crescendo, climaxing on the 31st, Halloween. Sledgehammer Theater will get you into the mood with Seven Crimes: A Celebration of Murder, Mayhem and Mutilation at the Tenth Avenue Theater. Presumptuously billed as the First Annual, I expect many annuals if they maintain the bloody humor of their first production.
The North Park Playwright Festival is unique in many ways. It is open to first-time playwrights, directors and actors in a time that has become exceedingly difficult for tyro theater folks to learn their art. The mission of North Park Vaudeville and Candy Shop is to provide a platform. The festival attracts scripts from around the world and local talent, both brand new and well experienced.
"A Terminal Affair," by Lisa Kenner of
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