Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Contest - Win a Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill CD

One of my favorite theatrical experiences of this past season was seeing the lustrous Audra McDonald in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, so much so that I went back a second time just to bask in Audra's glow.

Now, the good folks at PS Classics have seen fit to release a live, two-CD set of the the entire show. I just got mine, and I can't wait to settle down a give 'er a listen. 

But I also have a copy to give away, and as I periodically do on this blog, I've come up with a series of trivia questions about Audra, Billie Holiday, and whatnot to make things a little interesting. If you'd like to enter the contest, please answer the trivia questions in the comment section below. (Don't worry: I won't publish your answers until the contest is over.) I'll select a random winner from all of the correct entries. 

(The contest ended Friday, July 18th, 2014 - The winner has been notified. Thanks to everyone who entered. -C.C.)

All right, folks. Ready, set, Audra. 

1. For what show, and for which role, did Audra McDonald win her first Tony Award? [ANSWER: Carrie Pipperidge, Carousel]  
2. With her most recent Tony win, Audra not only won a record-breaking sixth Tony Award, the most of any actor of either gender, she also gained a certain unprecedented Tony distinction. What was that distinction? [ANSWER: She's the first actress to win in all four acting categories] 
3. Lonny Price, the director of the current production of Lady Day, in his earlier days created a significant role in a Stephen Sondheim musical. What was the musical and the role? [ANSWER: Charley Kringas, Merrily We Roll Along]  
4. One of Holiday's most iconic songs was "Strange Fruit." What does the title refer to? [ANSWER: It refers to the lynching of African American men]  
5. Which performer received an Academy Award nomination for portraying Billie Holiday, and in which movie? [ANSWER: Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues]

TIE-BREAKER: In the play Lady Day, Billie Holiday tells a story about confronting a racist restaurant hostess. What action does Holiday take at the end of this confrontation? [ANSWER: The restaurant hostess refuses to let Billie Holiday use the bathroom, so Holiday proceeds to urinate on the floor.]  

Reviews - Act One, Casa Valentina, Lady Day at the Emerson Bar & Grill

Regular readers will recall that I occasionally attend "straight" plays. (I prefer to call them "non-musicals.) My attendance at these belting-deprived affairs is usually contingent on the presence of some intriguing crossover from the world of musicals. Some of the actors perhaps, or members of the creative staff, might be slumming in between musical gigs.

The recently-ended season presented a fairly decent stock plays with musical-theater resonance. In preparation for the Tony Awards this evening, I'll be engaging in a little desk-clearing with this post, hoping to bring you up to speed on some of the "legitimate" offerings from the spring. (Musicals, as you know, are illegitimate, spawned disgracefully out of the holy bonds of wedlock)

Truth be told, I actually enjoy non-musicals a great deal. I try to focus my trips to New York City on seeing as many of the Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals as I can, but there's often time to add a play here or a dance performance there.

But don't worry, dear reader: my heart remains where it likely will always remain, firmly ensconced in the thoracic cavity of musical theater. (How's that for an overly specific metaphor?)

Casa Valentina has quite few ties with the musical-theater world, starting with author Harvey Fierstein, presenting his first non-musical in more than 20 years. Also present are director Joe Mantello, and a cast that features Patrick Page and John Cullum, certainly no strangers to the musical stage. The play concerns one weekend at a country getaway for heterosexual men who nonetheless like to dress in female clothing. Secrets and shame lurk behind every bush, as it were, and we eventually learn that the titular Casa Valentina is just shy of foreclosure, and desperately needs to form a seemingly unholy alliance just to stay afloat. As is typical in Fierstein's recent work, things get preachy as all hell, and there's a lot of expository speechifying. Nonetheless, Fierstein creates some vivid characterizations and crafts a setup that wrings compelling drama from the scenario. But then, at the end, he drops the ball with a denouement that is both forced and inscrutable. The show is worth seeing mainly because of two standout performances in the otherwise ensemble cast: Mare Winningham as the seemingly understanding wife of one of the men, and genial hostess for the weekend. Winningham really shows her stripes toward the end as the fabric of their little dreamworld begins to unravel. Tony nominee Reed Birney crafts a searing performance as the honored guest who knows everybody's secrets and is not above using them to her advantage.

The women who received Tony nods for Best Actress in a Musical this year can thank the fact that Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill is technically a play, not a musical, although it does contain a full complement of Billie Holiday classics. Otherwise, Audra would have picked up her sixth Tony Award in a category with mostly strong competition this season. (Mary Bridget Davies? Puh-Leez.) It almost isn't fair how stunning Audra is onstage, and how versatile she is. So far, her Tonys are in three categories: Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Best actress in a Musical, and Best featured Actress in a Play. If she wins tonight, as I think and hope she will, she will have won in all four acting categories. (Perhaps then, we should take a tip from sports and retire her number, as it were.) Audra crafts a flawless rendition of Billie Holliday, but unlike Davies with her Janis Joplin impersonation, delves deeply into the character to show us her state of mind and spiral downward. The play takes place just months before Holliday's death, and Billie has seen better days. So we see her right before the end, and yet unlike End of the Rainbow, which dredged up a squalid and pathetic Judy Garland, Lady Day allows Holliday her last shreds of dignity.

I had heard mixed reactions going into Act One. Tedious and bloated, some said. Overly long and flat, said others. I, however, was thoroughly charmed, even captivated by author/director James Lapine's loving tribute to Moss Hart, based on Hart's own Act One, considered by many (myself included) to be the finest theatrical memoir ever written. The book and the play concern Hart's early rise into the world of show business, focusing primarily on his impoverished childhood, desperate need to work in the theater, and big break landing George S. Kaufman as a collaborating on his first big hit, Once in a Lifetime. Along the way we meet many colorful characters (many of them played by the always delicious Andrea Martin). I was predisposed to falling in love with these people, partly because I'm such a fan of the book, but also because I consider Moss Hart to be one of the unsung founders of musical theater. Sure, we hear about his Kaufman collaborations, but Hart was also instrumental in bringing greater cohesion, ambition, and social conscience to the American musical, including the shows he wrote himself (Lady in the Dark, As Thousands Cheer, Face the Music) as well as the ones he directed (My Fair Lady, Camelot). Central to making Act One the joy that it is are the two central performers, Santino Fontana as Hart as a young adult (three actors play Hart at various ages) and Tony Shalhoub, who plays Kaufman, among others. These remarkably appealing performers create the emotional center of the production, and Shalhoub is a riot when wrapping his teeth around Kaufman's legendary and infuriating mannerisms.

Review - The Servant of Two Masters at Boston's Paramount Theater

One of my favorite theatrical experiences last season was One Man, Two Guvnors, a British import that rollicked at the good old Music Box Theatre for 159 performances, three at which I was in giddy attendance. So when I heard that Arts Emerson in Boston would be hosting a touring production of The Servant of Two Masters (Carlo Goldoni, 1743), upon which One Man, Two Guvnors is lovingly based, I knew that I had to take it in. 

I had never had the occasion to see The Servant of Two Masters before, and it turns out One Man, Two Guvnors is extremely faithful to its source, in terms of the story, the characters, and the raucous, ribald feel of the proceedings. I'm happy to report that I had every bit as much of a grand old time at The Servant of Two Masters as I did at its British progenitor. 

Of course, both Servant and Guvnors owe their genesis to the commedia dell'arte tradition, the Italian theatrical form dating back to the 16th century. As in commedia, Servant follows the framework of a story, with certain set comic bits, or lazzi, but much of the action and dialogue is improvised. There are also familiar character types: Pantalone, the miserly merchant; Arlecchino, or Harlequin, the mischievous servant; Columbina, Arlecchino's lusty love interest; Il Dottore, the blustery pedant, etc.

It's easy to see how commedia dell'arte was able to flourish for some many years -- nearly two centuries -- especially if the original commedia were this outlandishly funny. This particular production of Servant was full of fresh characterizations, high-energy staging, and a delicious sense of bawdy, ribald goings on that were the hallmark of commedia. It was sometimes rather difficult to tell which parts were improvised and what was scripted. So much of the show seemed to be so tightly choreographed that it seems rather unlikely it was extemporized. 

But there were also numerous topical bits and local references that seemed rather clearly devised for the Boston run of the show. Some of these were a bit forced, like the reference to one character doing his doctoral dissertation on Make Way For Ducklings. Others are spot-on and appear to directly reflect the fact that the production originated at the Yale Repertory Theater. At one point Truffaldino, the Harlequin character, starts to sing a snatch of a song from The Music Man, and Pantalone stops him. "We're not doing a musical here," he says. "This isn't the ART, you know." Zing. At another point, during a bondage-and-discipline reference, one of the characters suggests that their safe word should be "Pippin." Again, zing.  

If this production of Servant does have a flaw, it's that the first half goes on about 15 minutes longer than it ideally would. The business becomes a bit repetitive, occasionally bordering on tiresome. Fortunately, the second half gets right down to the business of bringing the complicated plot to a satisfying resolution. Along the way, we're treated to a considerable number of musical interludes, including a gorgeous female trio and a full-blown opera scene.   

The director here is Christopher Bayes, who served as movement director for the Broadway production of The 39 Steps. Bayes and his cast create a world that is fresh, vibrant, and lovingly stylized. Standouts among the cast include Allen Gilmore in the Pantalone role, who has a superb sense of heightened physicality and crack comic timing.

Of course, this production really belongs to Steven Epp in the central role of Truffaldino, the Harlequin character who sets the show in comic motion by attempting to double his salary by serving the two titular masters. Epp is a comic marvel and a very appealing and sympathetic presence on stage. The fine performances from both of these gentlemen are even more remarkable considering both Pantalone and Arlecchino traditionally perform in masks. That both men were able to exude such a strong sense of character, when most of their faces are covered, is a testament to the talent and training of both. 

The Servant to Two Masters plays at Boston's Paramount Theater through next Sunday, February 10th. If you're in Boston and are looking for a rollicking good time at the theater, by all means make haste to the theater district and see some masters of the comic, the titular, and the titillating sort. 

Two final notes. This was my first time attending a show in Boston's recently restored Paramount Theater. I have to say I'm glad that we have this former vaudeville theater up and running again, but the theater looks better in pictures online than it does in person. I mean, there are nice touches in the auditorium, but you can really see the economies in the construction, including the rather twee and flat wall frescoes.

Also, you may recall that this production, while it was playing the Guthrie Theater, offered patrons the chance to sit in "Tweet Seats," in which they were encouraged to use their smart phones to their hearts' content. I'm exceedingly glad that Arts Emerson did not replicate this policy, and resolutely refuse to patronize any theater that does. Theater is a chance to become fully immersed in another world. There's quite enough in the theater these days to take me out of the moment: people chatting constantly with their neighbors, rustling through bags looking for the snacks they brought, chewing their gum with their mouths wide open, checking the scores for the big game on their phones, etc. I don't care if the Tweeters are in a different section. I'm against any such policy on principle. Turn off your goddamn phones and watch the goddamn show. 

Here endeth the diatribe. 

Review - All My Sons at Barrington Stage

My latest review for TheaterMania. It's of a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons out at Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, Mass.

The last time I saw this play, it was the 2008 Broadway revival with John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson, and Katie Holmes. Click here for my review of that production, and here for my current review.

 

Reviews - Spring Broadway Play Roundup

Regular readers of my blog will likely know two things about me: 1) In selecting shows to see, I tend to stick to the musicals. 2) I teach full-time, and toward the end of each semester, I tend to get behind on my blogging.

However, there were many compelling choices with respect to non-musicals this season in New York, and I was fortunate enough to catch a handful of them in between musicals. Also fortunate, at least from my perspective, is the fact that most of these plays featured a healthy dose of music, to the point where two of these plays even received Tony nominations for Best Score. (Although this also represents a telling comment on the quality of the scores of the actual musicals this season. Leap of Faith, Ghost, Lysistrata Jones, and Spider-Man all failed to receive nominations for their scores.)

So, in this post, I'm playing a little blogging catch-up, while at the same time acknowledging the musical nature of many of this season's non-musicals. Here's my take on four new plays on Broadway, in descending order of preference.

I had so much fun at One Man, Two Guvnors that I went back a second time. Of course, I'm an inveterate Anglophile, weaned on Monty Python, Blackadder, Absolutely Fabulous and the like. So, I went in predisposed to the sort of smart, off-the-wall lunacy that's peculiar to the Brits. Fortunately, One Man, Two Guvnors delivered in spades. The play, by Richard Bean, is based on the 1753 Carlo Goldoni classic Servant of Two Masters, which is in turn based on the commedia dell'arte tradition. But that makes the play sound a whole lot more high-toned than it really is. Make no mistake: this is base humor. Slapstick, pratfalls, bodily functions. There's really not much to it besides having a good time, but what a good time it is. The cast is led by world-class clown James Corden, whom some might recall as the hefty boy from both the stage and movie versions of The History Boys. But the entire cast is genuinely outstanding -- particularly Jemima Rooper, Oliver Chris, and Suzie Toase -- bringing arch characterization and spot-on comic timing to a rollicking ride of a play. At the helm is director Nicholas Hytner, demonstrating a sure hand with the farcical proceedings, and interspersing the scenes with authentic-sounding and thematically resonant 1960s pop songs (by Grant Olding) from an infectiously chipper on-stage skiffle band. On the whole, highly recommended.

Unlike the other three entries in this post, Other Desert Cities doesn't really have a significant musical component. What it does have is a crackling script from Jon Robin Baitz and a tight ensemble of expert performers, particularly Stockard Channing, Stacy Keach, and Judith Light. The play concerns a fictional married couple who were once part of the Reagans' inner circle, as well as the grown-up children of that married couple. The daughter, played by Rachel Griffiths when I saw the show, has written a tell-all memoir about a very dark time in the family's past, and she's come home for Christmas to break the news and deal with the fallout. Other Desert Cities is a compelling hybrid of a show: the presentation is thoroughly old-fashioned, with its unit set and realistic time structure. But the subject matter feels modern, even forward-looking, in terms of the dynamic between conservative and liberal thought, and the search for something beyond mere ideologies. Also, it's a pleasure to see director Joe Mantello return to form with a solid, sure-handed production after his numerous recent missteps (9 to 5, Pal Joey, The Ritz).

Last year's Tony winner for Best Play, War Horse, was a triumph of stagecraft over substance. Don't get me wrong: the stagecraft in War Horse is simply stunning. But the play itself is a potboiler tear-jerker about a boy and his horse. When the Stephen Spielberg movie came out, some people wondered whether the story would work without the puppets. Well, Peter and the Starcatcher has people wondering something very similar as Disney, which owns the property, has recently announced a movie version. Will the story work without the stagecraft? To be fair, Rick Elice's script for Starcatcher seems a lot smarter, or at least a lot more smart-ass, than the one for War Horse. But the main attractions for the show are the fresh and energetic cast members, ably led by Christian Borle, Adam Chanler-Berat, and Celia Keenan-Bolger, as well as the ingenious staging from co-directors Alex Timbers and Roger Rees. It's easy to see the hand of both Timbers and Rees on the production. Timbers directed Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and there's a very similar self-conscious theatricality to Peter and the Starcatcher. And Rees appears to have remembered much of his experience as the lead in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, as he brings a very similar theatrical resourcefulness to his work here. For instance, much of the staging here comes from the deft manipulation of a series of ropes, leaving the rest to the audience's imagination. So, don't wait for the film. What makes Starcatcher worth seeing is all about what's on-stage.

A play about the last days of Judy Garland? I ask you, as a self-respecting gay man of a certain age, how could I not see End of the Rainbow? I was genuinely hesitant, however. Having dutifully read "Get Happy" and other books about Judy's tortured life and career, I knew that Judy's last days were anything but pretty. But I had heard so many wonderful things about Tracie Bennett as Judy that I figured it was worth a shot. Well, Bennett indeed lives up to the hype. Her portrayal of Judy is uncanny: layered, complex, sympathetic, infuriating. It's really a remarkable achievement that crosses over from mere mimicry into embodiment. But then there's the play itself, by one Peter Quilter, which really has no merit beyond providing Bennett with a vehicle for her bravura performance. It's a shame, because there's so much dramatic possibility inherent in the story: Judy is holed up in an upscale London hotel -- with her soon-to-be husband number five, Mickey Deans -- for a series of comeback concerts. She's a nervous wreck, and she can't seem to shake her dependency on drugs and alcohol. But Quilter does little more than set up the scenario, introduce the characters, and give them superficial things to say. So, if you go, go for the performance, not to be challenged or enlightened.

Reviews - Venus in Fur and Private Lives on Broadway

More blogging catch-up today. This post is about two (gasp) non-musicals that I saw recently on Broadway. One of these shows has already closed, but is likely to return later in the season. The other closes this week, about a month sooner than it was supposed to. In short: the one that's coming back deserves to, and the one that's closing early is no great loss.

Let's start with Venus in Fur, the smart, funny, surprising new play by David Ives. My only previous experience with Ives was in his capacity as adaptor for the Encores! series at City Center. Ives has the unenviable job of cutting down the libretti to the classic shows that Encores! presents in concert form, and the result is almost always a show with a book that doesn't fully set up or justify the songs. It's really hard to hold this against him, but it was my only previous exposure to Ives.

I had heard really great things about Venus in Fur based on its 2010 Off-Broadway run at the Classic Stage Company. In particular, I had heard that Nina Arianda gave a star-making performance, and after the show closed, I genuinely regretted not having had a chance to see her in the play. However, when I heard that Arianda would be taking on the Judy Holiday role in last season's revival of Born Yesterday, I went out of my way to make sure I saw that production, and I was oh so glad that I did. (Read my review.)

When I heard that the Manhattan Theatre Club would be presenting Venus in Fur as part of its Broadway season at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, I knew that I would be taking the show in, if only to see Arianda fulfill the promise of her word of mouth, and her terrific turn as Billie Dawn. I'm glad to say I was anything but disappointed. In fact, Arianda is a non-stop delight as Vanda, the enigmatic central character in this thrilling two-hander.

I'm convinced that Arianda is going to be a major star. She has such a strong sense of character, and a wonderfully appealing presence on stage. Performers with this much appeal come along very rarely, and if there's any justice, Arianda will grace the stage for many years to come. (Unless Hollywood snatches her away from us. If so, let's hope that she returns to us regularly, as folks like Hugh Jackman, Patrick Wilson, and Laura Linney continue to do.)

Arianda plays an actress who shows up two hours late to an audition. (Or does she? More on that later.) Arianda plays opposite Hugh Dancy, who is every bit Arianda's match as Thomas, the director/playwright for whom she auditions. Arianda certainly has the flashier role, which she handles with astonishing aplomb, but Dancy's achievement is no less noteworthy. The Thomas character is more subtle, but just as complex as Vanda, and Dancy makes the gradual transition from arrogant master to bewildered slave with deceptive ease.

The most satisfying thing about Ives's deftly crafted play is that you're never really sure, even after the final curtain, who is really who, or what is really transpiring between these characters. Much of the fun of Venus in Fur comes from watching the power dynamic shift over the course of the play, and in speculating as to what's really going on. Ives plants questions in the mind of the viewer, and wisely he never fully answers those questions. But, again, that's part of the fun.

As I mentioned, Venus in Fur prompted me to reconsider David Ives as a writer, but it also gave me new insight on director Walter Bobbie. I had long since written Bobbie off as a has-been, coasting on his success with the Chicago revival. I mean, my dismissal is certainly understandable based on his track record since 1996, when Chicago opened: High Fidelity, White Christmas, Sweet Charity, Footloose. You know what I'm saying here? But, based on Venus in Fur, Bobbie is back in my good books, at least as far as non-musicals are concerned. His direction here is smart, swift, and crackling. It's hard to imagine that Arianda and Dancy would have been able to craft such strong performances without Bobbie's guidance. Will Bobbie find a similar return to form with a musical some time soon? I'll certainly be on the lookout.

The response from critics and audience members alike to Venus in Fur has been sufficiently positive to prompt producers to announce that the play would return later this season for a commercial run. If you didn't get a chance to see Venus in Fur in the fall, do yourself a favor and grab a ticket. (Performances resume February 7th at the Lyceum Theatre.)

In the "no great loss" column, we have the latest Broadway revival of Noël Coward's classic comedy of manners, Private Lives, which plays through the end of this week at the Music Box Theatre. It's funny, but my response to this Private Lives was very similar to the way I reacted to the current Anything Goes: I enjoyed both shows while I was in the theater, but the productions really haven't stayed with me, the way that previous productions of each of these shows have. The 1987 Anything Goes with Patti LuPone was iconic. The current production is merely pleasant.

Likewise, I last saw Private Lives in its 2002 revival with Alan Rickman and Tony winner Lindsay Duncan. Both Rickman and Duncan were masterful as Elyot and Amanda, imbuing the production with both the rapid-fire assuredness that Coward's dialog requires, but also the sort of playful chemistry that brings these potentially insufferable characters to life. (Coincidentally, Rickman is currently appearing across the street from the Music Box in Seminar. Some would call that ironic. They'd be wrong.)

The current production of Private Lives features TV stars Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross. Again, as I sat watching the performance, I found Cattrall to be lively and spirited as Amanda, and Gross as Elyot makes for a handsome and dashing rake. Director Richard Eyre certainly keeps the proceedings going at an entertaining clip.

But.

The show just hasn't stuck with me. I can vividly and easily recall specific elements from both Rickman's and Duncan's performances, nine years after the fact. But Cattrall and Gross, while eminently professional, haven't managed to burn the same indelible impressions. Is the comparison fair? Well, if you're going to sign on for a revival of a show that's only just recently had a revival -- and a really good one at that -- you had better be prepared to offer something that the first show didn't. This Private Lives doesn't.

The producers apparently thought that Cattrall would be a significant draw, based on the popularity of the Sex and the City franchise. Perhaps they even hoped that ticket sales would justify an extension or two beyond the show's announced limited run. For that to happen, the show would have needed to cross over beyond the Coward fans and theater regulars into the tourist trade, and that clearly hasn't happened. As I said, the show is closing this weekend, a little over a month early.

Review - Master Class with Tyne Daly on Broadway

One recent trend on Broadway has been a series of revivals of well-regarded plays that, in the harsh light of retrospect, have revealed themselves to be somewhat less than we once thought. The recent production of Equus shone a none-too-flattering light on the play's heavy-handed melodrama and archaic 1970s pop psychology. And the 2008 Broadway revival of A Man for All Seasons had some people wondering whether the title still held true.

And now we have Master Class, which won Terrence McNally his second Tony Award in two years, over the likes of David Hare (Racing Demon), Sam Shepard (Buried Child), and August Wilson (Seven Guitars). I saw Master Class on tour in Boston with Faye Dunaway (who is supposedly writing, directing, and starring in an upcoming film version), and I remember thinking at the time that it was an entertaining, well-wrought, and powerful play.

After seeing the current Broadway revival of Master Class, which is playing Samuel J. Friedman Theatre under the auspices of the Manhattan Theatre Club, I can honestly say that the play remains powerful and entertaining, but as for well-wrought, well, not so much. Upon second viewing, the play feels more like a superficial character study, with its central diva surrounded by straw men and women who serve as tragicomic fodder for her ravings and punchlines.

Make no mistake, though, it's a hell of a lot of fun, especially when the actress in question has the depth of characterization within her to make Callas believable. By all accounts, Zoe Caldwell and Patti LuPone served this function more than admirably. And, fortunately for the current production, Tyne Daly brings her own brand of fire and fury to the role. Of course, we knew Tyne had it in her, at least based on her kick-ass, Tony-winning turn as Rose in Gypsy. But here, Daly successfully sheds the trappings of her typical working-class roles and emerges as a powerhouse of regal and cultivated strength.

As you may know, Master Class is based on a series of actual master classes that famed opera singer Maria Callas held at Juilliard in the 1970s. McNally is clearly having a ball as he paints a portrait of Callas as both a brilliant performer and an exacting tyrant. He tries to give us a sense of how Callas came to be the woman she was at the time of the play, but the flashbacks come off as facile psychoanalysis: her family treated her poorly, her sister was the pretty one, Aristotle Onassis acted as though she were his possession, all of her nemeses were plotting her demise, etc. That said, Tyne Daly is mesmerizing during these flashbacks, as she is during the rest of the play, bringing to McNally's often stilted words a depth and dynamism that they don't fully earn on their own.

In truth, Master Class almost works as character exploration, but remains unconvincing as genuine drama. The play's chief liability arises in its thinly drawn supporting characters, who are not so much people as types, each a convenient foil to show us some different side of Callas. McNally also falls back to frequently on jokey, easy humor, and much of the dialog from the supporting players seems like a series of setups for Callas punchlines.

On the positive side, McNally is clearly not interested in simply portraying Callas as a heartless monster, hectoring her students to the point of tears and tantrums. He also reveals a bit of what made a Callas great artist as well. For Callas, a great opera performance wasn't so much about vocal technique (Callas famously lost her voice after about 10 years of performing), but rather about achieving a fully realized character portrayal, and bringing out the drama inherent in the music.

Master Class is at its most convincing and thrilling when Callas is exhorting her charges to find the drama behind the music. McNally receives able assistance here from director Stephen Wadsworth, who shows that he knows well the workings of the master class, having overseen many of them himself at Juilliard. Especially fun to watch is Callas's third coaching, with the fiery Sharon Graham, played here by Sierra Boggess (and in the original production by Audra McDonald, who won a Tony Award for that performance). Boggess, last seen on Broadway with a tail fin and in Heelys as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, has terrific presence and superbly clean soprano voice. Daly and Boggess prove to be quite a dynamic paring, particularly as the two spar during Sharon's numerous abortive attempts at getting through Lady Macbeth's letter scene.

I must concede that most of the critics were a lot more positive about Master Class than I, and based on the positive response, the production has been extended to September 4th. I recommend the show if you want to see a fierce and furious Tyne Daly, who truthfully is a revelation in the role. And the play is never less than entertaining. But as a piece of serious drama, and a tribute to one of the giants of the opera stage, Master Class is somewhat less than masterful.

Review - Born Yesterday on Broadway

The movie "Born Yesterday" is easily one of my all-time favorites. I love to pop in the DVD on a rainy afternoon and luxuriate in the warm glow of Judy Holliday's star-making performance as Billie Dawn. As much as I also adore Bette Davis in "All About Eve" and Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard," I'm still really glad that Holliday won the Oscar for best actress that year over her two admittedly stellar competitors.

Attempts at recapturing the magic of Born Yesterday have been fairly dismal. An uninspired 1989 Broadway revival (which I saw during its Boston tryout) ran only 153 performances, despite the presence of the delightful but far-too-old-for-the-role Madeline Kahn. And the 1993 film remake with Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson, and John Goodman was leaden and mirthless.

Despite those lackluster outings, someone has seen fit to bring Born Yesterday back to Broadway again. The casting for the current revival came as a bit of a surprise at first. As is typical these days with Broadway plays, the cast features its share of Hollywood actors, but not, as I would have expected, in the central role of Billie Dawn. Jim Belushi ("According to Jim") plays Harry Brock, the Broderick Crawford role in the film, and Robert Sean Leonard ("House M.D.") steps into the William Holden role.

But for Billie, the producers have made the brave and ultimately production-saving choice of going with a relative unknown, one Nina Arianda, who makes here an absolutely smashing Broadway debut. I had heard great things about Arianda regarding last season's Venus in Fur, but this was my first time seeing her on stage. In short, she's sensational, and if you don't head right down to the Cort Theater and catch her in this otherwise workaday production, you're going to be kicking yourself for years to come. If Arianda is out, demand your money back and come back another day. She's really that good. 

Arianda appears never to have watched the "Born Yesterday" movie, and thank whichever orthodox deity you personally hold dear for that,  because her take here is fresh and funny and full of charming individual touches that make this production, at least when Arianda is on-stage, a non-stop delight.

As for the piece itself, despite my love for the film, I must admit that the play is a bit of a creak-fest. Garson Kanin's script is basically a preachy civics lesson in three acts. There's a lot of patriotic moralizing about how the government is for the people and by the people, and blah blah blah. Much of it is pretty laughable in retrospect, particularly the parts about how crooked politicians were becoming fewer and further between. Uh huh. Talk to Woodward and Bernstein about that one. The movie takes the moralizing even further, which was probably the work of the Hays Office.

Director Doug Hughes keeps the proceedings going at a decent clip, although the day I saw the show, the supporting cast (i.e. anyone who wasn't Nina Arianda), seemed to be working a bit too hard to claim some of Arianda's well-earned audience response for their own. Particularly guilty in this respect were Patricia Hodges as Mrs. Hedges, the senator's wife, and Tony nominee Michael McGrath (Spamalot) as Eddie Brock, both of whom seemed to have crafted their performances from watching Looney Tunes DVDs. Jim Belushi at first seemed to be doing a pretty decent job as Harry, but he too eventually succumbed to sitcom shtick. A one point in the third act, Belushi actually executed a quadruple take. Hey, ten points for difficulty, but zero points for style.

Fortunately, the play mostly revolves around Billie and her relationship with Paul Verrall, her tutor/love interest. Robert Sean Leonard demonstrates here why he's not only been on Broadway twelve times since his debut in the mid '80s, but also carved out quite a career for himself out west in TV and movies. He's good. Really good. Verrall's not a very flashy role, and Leonard could have mugged up a storm to compete with Arianda, as his fellow cast members did. But he chooses instead to underplay everything and invite the audience in without feeling the need to push everything out. That's a true professional, and this production could have used a few more.

Review - The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures at the Public Theatre

Playwright Tony Kushner has been much in the news lately. A well-received revival of his award-winning Angels in America recently ended a much-extended run at the Signature Theatre Company in New York. And, more recently, there was the tempest in a teapot about awarding Kushner an honorary degree from John Jay College, part of the CUNY system. (Kushner was denied the degree, but the decision has since been reversed.)

Meanwhile, his latest play, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, recently made its New York City debut at The Public Theatre. I'm a huge admirer of Kushner, and of Angels in America in particular, so I was eagerly anticipating this play, although it received mixed notices in its out-of-town tryout at the Guthrie in Minneapolis.

At first glance, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide (or iHo for short) would seem to bear little resemblance with its more well-known forbear except for its extreme length. At the performance I attended, iHo clocked in at about three hours and 35 minutes. (Mr. Kushner needs to acquaint himself with the delete key.) But iHo also shares with Angels an overarching passion for intellectual and political discourse, although the result here is far less satisfying.

For iHo, Kushner has amassed a set of intensely passionate characters, gathered together for a common cause: to discuss and perhaps prevent their aging father from committing suicide. Along the way, we endure a lot of intense and high-decibel discussions about socialism, theology, family dynamics, homosexuality, and prostitution. Kushner clearly hopes to create some meaningful connections among the various narrative threads and sociological theses, but the resulting play, while dense and ambitious, is emotionally and intellectually unfulfilling. Too often, the characters seem more like mouthpieces for Kushner's socio-political musings than real people unto themselves.

That said, the production is worth seeing, if only for its dynamite cast, including Linda Emond as Empty (an annoyingly unsubtle name, derived from the character's initials, M.T.), the daughter who strives the longest and hardest to persuade her father to live. Michael Cristofer, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright of The Shadow Box, as the central father figure, reveals himself here as an actor of great depth and subtlety. Kushner regular Stephen Spinella plays the son with a passionate addiction to rent boy Michael Esper, the latter of whom shows that he's a much more layered and persuasive a performer than American Idiot gave him a chance to demonstrate.

Based on the mixed reception that greeted iHo's bow at the Public, I can't imagine the show will move to Broadway. But it would seem very likely that we'll start to see regional productions of the play at some of the more adventurous theater companies around the country.

Review - War Horse at Lincoln Center Theater

The essence of theater is artifice. As audience members, we know that we're being manipulated, and yet we're eager to submit, as long as the production in question exhibits craft and genuine emotion.

It's funny, though, sometimes when we're actually aware that our collective chains are being yanked, it sort of spoils the fun. Sometimes. Other times, we know full well that the show we're watching is shamelessly tugging at the old heartstrings, and yet we succumb.

War Horse is fairly shameless. And manipulative. And, at times, cheap. And yet it works, and smashingly so. I can't remember the last time I felt so pummeled and yet so emotionally satisfied by a staged production, musical or otherwise. (Although War Horse has quite a bit of music, the show is technically a play.)

The production is the latest in a delightful succession of productions imported from the The National Theatre of Britain, and it shows every sign of becoming a smash hit: the production was originally supposed to play at the Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre through June, but has been extended indefinitely based on boffo box-office sales and a raft of raves from the critics.

From where I sit, the show deserves both its praise and its financial success. Frankly, War Horse is not the deepest play ever to trod the boards. The play is based on the children's book by Michael Morpurgo, adapted for the stage by Nick Stafford, and the story essentially comprises "boy meets horse, boy loses horse, boy goes to war to get horse back." The show is directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, and in lesser hands, this could have been nothing but a turgid, sappy melodrama. And, frankly, at times, it is. But Elliot and Morris bring the admittedly predictable story to vivid and often horrifying life through some simply stunning stagecraft, aided by a handful of heartfelt performances.

You may have heard about the amazing puppetry involved in War Horse, and everything you've heard is true. (The puppets are designed and constructed by Handspring Puppet Company, with horse-movement sequences credited to Toby Sedgwick.) But, here's the thing: it's not the technical wizardry that makes the horses astonishing, but rather the way the talented team of puppeteers brings each horse to life. I swear, at times, I completely forgot that I was watching puppets.

But who wants to go and watch a three-hour puppet show? Not I, I can tell you that for sure. No, the magic of War Horse ultimately lies in a simple tale, well told, and a cast of talented performers. Particularly moving is Seth Numrich as Albert, the boy who follows his beloved horse into the horrors of war. Also affecting were Matt Doyle as Billy Narracott, Albert's cousin and rival, and a wonderfully understated Alyssa Bresnahan as Billy's mother.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

As a play, War Horse stumbles a bit in its second half, when the show broadens its scope beyond the story of the boy and his horse. As the show began to put Albert's tale into the larger context of World War I, along with the technical developments that made that war so horrifying (e.g. machine guns, barbed wire, armored tanks), I found myself thinking, "Dude, it's just a horse." But when the narrative was focused on Albert, I was totally on board with what he was doing.

Also, the dialog in the second act became a bit more ham-handed, particularly the lines for the German deserter, Friedrich (Peter Hermann). The story became a bit plodding and confusing, and the writer/directors missed some ripe opportunities for pathos. The unceremonious demise of one of the show's main characters is treated in an almost off-handed way. The show forecasts many of its developments long before they arrive. ("What's that in the distance? A German regiment? Or a predictable plot twist?") And the climactic scene in particular seemed blissfully unaware of subtlety and all its synonyms. 

So, not a play for the ages, but definitely a production to be cherished, savored, and remembered for years to come. This is pot-boiler theater at its tear-jerking best. I was weeping like a little girl, practically from start to finish. And I hope to see the show again, to marvel once more in the physical production, the clean and honest emotion, and one of the most genuinely moving stories I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. But this time, I'll bring tissues.

Review - The Importance of Being Earnest at the Roundabout

I've had a love affair with The Importance of Being Earnest since I was in college and appeared in a student-directed production of Ernest in Love, a flawed but charming musical based on Oscar Wilde's delightful send-up of Victorian societal conventions. For me, the show has always held an irresistible fascination, representing a perfect little world of genuinely clueless people, who nonetheless firmly believe every last utterance that issues forth from their convention-addled little brains.

Pulling off the feat of creating Wilde's ridiculous world requires a firm directorial hand. Such direction was sorely lacking from the most recent film version of Earnest, and somewhat uneven in the recent Off-Broadway revival of Ernest in Love.

Alas, the same can be said for the current Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest, although I do get the sense that I'm in the minority here. The production truly comes alive whenever Brian Bedford is on stage. Bedford gives a truly virtuoso comic performance here as that fabulous Gorgon, Lady Bracknell. He embodies her heart and soul, bringing to the role a delightful sense of pomposity, wringing humor from even the most seemingly mundane of Wilde's rejoinders.

But, as often happens when actors helm productions in which they star, Bedford the director hasn't fully succeeded in bringing all of his fellow actors into the same Wildean world. The cast is sublimely talented to a person, but they all seem to be acting in different productions. Truthfully, each of those productions would likely be a delight to witness, but somehow those worlds don't combine into the heady and intoxicating concoction that the play has the potential to be.

The disparate styles present in the three central scene partnerships in the show embody a good deal of what's missing from the show. In the central role of Algernon, Santino Fontana is full of puckish charm and impish delight. It makes me sort of sad I missed him in last season's short-lived Brighton Beach Memoirs. But David Furr as Jack Worthing, seems to be in a completely different world from that of Fontana, which throws off the rhythm of their many scenes together. Furr is forced when Fontana is effortless, and it robs their scenes of comedic momentum.

Likewise mismatched are Charlotte Parry as Cecily Cardew and Sara Topham as Gwendolyn Fairfax. Again, we have Topham's twinkling, easy charm with Parry's more studied vacuousness which produces a very similar plodding nature to scenes that should ideally brim with effervescence.

As if on cue, we have yet another discordant couple in Dana Ivey as Miss Prism and Paxton Whitehead as Reverend Chasuble. Ivey would seem to be perfect for the role, but here eschews her more typical intense underplaying for a melodramatic style that would seem more at home in a Restoration comedy. Whitehead's style seems a bit more appropriate to the piece at hand, giving Chasuble an arch yet restrained countenance that the rest of the cast could have greatly benefited from.

Again, I would seem to be alone in finding fault with this production, because just today we heard the announcement that the show has been extended a whopping 17 weeks, through July 3rd. (A move that has prompted the Roundabout to shift its upcoming production of the intriguing new musical The People in the Picture, starring the marvelous Donna Murphy, to the Studio 54.) Despite my quibbles, the production is well worth seeing. I just really wish it had been more enchanting, and less of a slog.

Review - Elling on Broadway

Wow. It wasn't that bad.

Before I even had time to post my review for the new play Elling on Broadway, the producers have announced that the show will close this Sunday, after only 9 regular performances. I honestly didn't think it was a very good play, but I certainly didn't think it would close four months early.

The show has a dynamite cast, to be sure. Denis O'Hare is always a dynamic and quirky presence on stage, and he clearly delivers in that respect here playing the title character. Jennifer Coolidge is comedy incarnate, particularly in such Christopher Guest films as "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind." And they don't come much more classy and august than Richard Easton.

So what happened? Two things: the script and Brendan Fraser.

Elling is neither fish nor fowl: it's not funny enough to be a comedy, and it isn't weighty enough for drama. The play is based on some novels by Ingvar Ambjørnsen, with a stage adaptation by Axel Hellstenius, and an English adaptation by Simon Bent. And it's the very definition of the word "slight." I'm sure there's some inherent drama in the scenario of two mental patients trying to find their way in the real world after being released from the "insane asylum," but the aforementioned committee hasn't found a way to bring that drama to the stage. 

There are numerous elements throughout the play that the authors could have developed into something a bit more compelling. The Brendan Fraser character, called Kjell Bjarne, builds a matchstick model of the new house that he and Elling have moved into, and he presents it to Elling upon their first Christmas together. But when Kjell Bjarne becomes involved with the woman who lives upstairs, Elling destroys the model in a jealous fit, an act that provides the tension for the first act curtain. The play sets the character of Kjell Bjarne up as a potentially explosive character, not unlike Lenny from Of Mice and Men, but when he discovers that the house is destroyed, he shrugs it off.

Later, the Richard Easton character, a famous poet who hasn't produced any work in decades, comes across Elling's precious notebook of poetry, and we see him contemplate appropriating the material to make his comeback. But Easton simply returns the notebook in a subsequent scene without incident.

Perhaps the script's greatest crime is creating a slate of interesting characters and then not really giving them anything interesting to do. The Elling character, particularly as embodied by O'Hare, is a fascinating morass of neuroses and rationalizations. And Kjell Bjarne has some potential as a compelling character, but unfortunately Brendan Fraser hasn't found a way to make him real. Granted, it's no small feat to play someone who's simply stupid, hungry, and horny, but Fraser doesn't convincingly portray any of these characteristics. He's all surface bluster, with no apparent internal motivation.

If you happen to be in New York between now and Sunday, and you were thinking of catching Elling before it closes on Sunday, there's really only one reason to see it: Denis O'Hare. Otherwise, Elling is forgettable at best.

NOTE: New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept anything of material value related to their blog posts. I received complimentary press tickets to this performance of Elling.

Review - The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway

I was never a really huge fan of Pee-Wee Herman. I am rather fond of his first movie, "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure,"
and I certainly appreciated "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" on the odd occasion when I would catch it, but I wasn't a fanatic or anything.

Nevertheless, I was pretty excited to see him live on stage in The Pee-Wee Herman Show, now playing at New York's newly christened Stephen Sondheim Theatre. I caught the show last week, shortly after it opened to rather strong reviews. I was especially pumped about the show when I heard it would feature two of my favorite performers from "Mad TV," Phil LaMarr and Josh Meyers. Fortunately they didn't disappoint, bringing the same fresh-faced sparkle to their roles here as they did to that now-defunct TV series.

Would that I could say the same for Pee-Wee himself. While overall I certainly enjoyed myself, the show wore out its welcome rather quickly. A little Pee-Wee goes an awfully long way. The somewhat one-note proceedings here are the sort of thing where 70 minutes would have been much better than 90. The seats we had were really close to the stage, near enough to see the wear and tear, both in the material and the performers. Plus, Pee-Wee himself seemed to be on automatic pilot. The sense of fun and mischief was there, but his energy seemed wan and his eyes were bloodshot.

I am glad to see Paul Reubens making a comeback, though. I always thought he got a bit of a bum rap. I'm not talking about what actually transpired in that movie theater, but rather how his career essentially went on hold for 20 years. Some of the best parts of the current show occur when it makes sly references to the past indiscretions of its creator. For this isn't so much the Pee-Wee of the children's TV show as it is a return to the double-entendre-laced Pee-Wee of his original stage show. There's not much here that would be overtly objectionable to parents with their kids in tow; any child that really gets the underlying humor here probably wouldn't need a chaperon anyway.

As for director Alex Timbers (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), I didn't see his hand really appear on much of the show. I suppose that's the sign of a good director, but I get the feeling nearly anyone could have staged this show. It's all about the performances and the content, and not really about the presentation. It's possible I could be vastly underestimating Timbers' influence, but I really didn't notice anything that screamed "strong directorial hand." In any case, Timbers' work would seem to be beside the point here. This is a show for Pee-Wee fans, not theater mavens. And as is so often the case with nostalgia, the actual craft behind it is a secondary issue at best.

NOTE: New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept anything of material value related to their blog posts. I received complimentary press tickets to this performance of The Pee-Wee Herman Show.

Reviews - La Bete and Brief Encounter on Broadway

There's really no getting around it: I'm all about the musicals. I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise to my regular readers. But that doesn't mean I don't make occasional forays into so-called "straight" plays.

Such forays are especially rewarding when the plays in question are well nigh on musicals themselves (e.g Amadeus, Master Class). Or when the shows feature such a heightened reality and/or a slick presentation that they feel as though they could be musicals (e.g. M. Butterfly, The Lion in Winter). Which is why, although there are certainly quite a few intriguing new musicals coming to New York this season, I have sacrificed a few of my precious show slots to a few non-tuners during my recent trips to New York.

Cases in point: La Bête and Brief Encounter. I saw the former a few weeks back, and the latter this past Wednesday. And both shows represented that larger-than-life theatricality that musicals supply. As we'll see, though, only one of these productions genuinely works, at least in terms of providing an overall satisfying theatrical experience.

Some background: I first saw La Bête in Boston in 1991, during its out-of-town tryout at the Wilbur Theater. The show wasn't selling very well, so the producers were papering the house, and a friend had scored a couple of seats. The play was originally supposed to feature the late Ron Silver in the central part of Valere, but those mythic "creative differences" came a cropper, and understudy Tom McGowan took over the part.

Even then, at (ahem) a rather tender age, I knew that there was something missing from the play. As you may know, playwright David Hirson intended La Bête to be an homage to Molière. (The name of the other major male character, Elomire, is even an anagram of Molière's name.) As such, the play is written entirely in heroic couplets: that is, continuous sets of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter. The problem is, once you get beyond the novelty of the rhymed couplets, the play doesn't really have much to say. Oh, sure, there's the whole theme of popular entertainment versus artistic ambition. But other that "low art bad, high art good," there really doesn't appear to much else on Hirson's mind here.

In fact, the show ironically falls victim to what it purports to decry. The famous opening monologue by the Valere character (here played by the phenomenally talented Mark Rylance), in which the boorish lout Valere expatiates for some 20 full pages in the script, amounts to a shameless appeal to the peculiar modern mania for that which is bigger, longer, higher, lower, larger, louder, etc. The feat is impressive, but is it really any different from your typical "American Idol" showboating? Our the thankfully fading preoccupation with enormous, characterless surburban homes (AKA "starter castles")?

That's not to say that this production of La Bête is lacking in charms. Far from it. Rylance alone is well worth the ticket price. Rylance deservedly won the Best Actor Tony a few years back for his masterful performance in Boeing-Boeing, directed there as he is here by wunderkind Matthew Warchus. As an inveterate fan of "Absolutely Fabulous", I was of course thrilled to see Joanna Lumley live on stage again. (I saw her in London in an otherwise forgettable revival of The Letter.) And David Hyde Pierce does his best as Elomire, in an admittedly lackluster role. But the few delights La Bête has to offer come primarily in the person of Mr. Rylance.

Far more successful as an overall theatrical experience is the Roundabout Theatre production of Brief Encounter, now playing at Studio 54. Director Emma Rice has adapted Noël Coward's screenplay with an eye toward the whimsical, but without ever losing track of the inherent beauty and heartache of Coward's simple but compelling story. The plot features a fleeting love affair between a married woman and a married man. The story also features two romantic subplots that provide alternately flirtatious and lusty counterpoints to the doomed central affair.

The show features that self-same heightened reality that I mentioned above, including song, dance, video projections, environmental staging, and even the occasional semi-acrobatic interlude. Particularly enjoyable for me were the interpolations of little- and well-known Noël Coward songs, such as "Mad About the Boy" and "A Room With a View." The result is a thoroughly theatrical experience in a similar vein to The 39 Steps, but with a far more serious and heartfelt tone.

One of the primary joys of Brief Encounter lies in its charming and sprightly cast, particularly Hannah Yelland, who is just sensational as the central female lover, Laura. Yelland makes every line both intense and credible, with a presence that more than fills the cavernous Studio 54. Also excellent was Tristan Sturrock as her extramarital paramour. Of the strong supporting cast, the most notable were Annette McLaughlin as Myrtle, the local restaurant proprietor, and the wonderfully versatile Joseph Alessi in the dual roles of Laura's husband and Myrtle's boy toy. 

I must admit that I sometimes found my attention wandering during Brief Encounter, but eventually I chalked this up to a deliberate choice on Emma Rice's part to give the show a languorous pace. Rice isn't in any particular hurry, and is often content to linger over such revealing detail as watching the central couple slowly dress after they have dried their clothes subsequent to a minor boating incident. For me, Brief Encounter reveals much of what is missing from La Bête: mostly heart, and a depth of human feeling. La Bête is ultimately about facile ideas and low comedy. Brief Encounter is about nothing less than finding whatever happiness you can.

Book Review - The Girls of Murder City by Douglas Perry

When Douglas Perry saw the Broadway revival of Chicago in the late 1990s, he became fascinated with the factual events that inspired the show. He expected to be able to find a book about the real-life "killer dillers," but found that there wasn't one. An accomplished journalist, Perry sought to rectify the situation by producing a tome of his own.

The result is The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and The Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago (Viking, 2010), a fascinating tale of the decidedly skewed sense of justice holding court in 1920s Chicago. Along with the Jazz Age came a rash of homicides committed by females, but the city's all-male juries were reluctant to condemn women murderers, especially the pretty ones.

Much of the general public ascribed such heinous acts by women to a loosening of moral values, and an overindulgence in the cabaret lifestyle and bootleg liquor. Or perhaps it was more of a general social malaise. "Something about Chicago was destroying the feminine temperament," writes Perry, not from his own point of view, but from the perspective of the general 1920s Chicago zeitgeist.

Enter Maurine Watkins, an aspiring journalist, playwright, and moralist seeking to acquire some first-hand experience as a crime reporter. Watkins became one of the few female crime reporters with the venerable Chicago Tribune. The Tribune considered itself the "hanging paper," in contrast to the Hearst publications, which sought to wrench as much human melodrama as possible from any given tragedy -- whether or not the details were actually true -- in the shameless pursuit of newsstand sales.

Shortly after Watkins arrived in Chicago, two sensational murderesses hit the real-life Cook County jail: Belva Gaertner (think "Velma"), a stylish former cabaret singer and three-time divorcee, accused of gunning down her married lover. And Beulah Annan (think "Roxie"), the beautiful car-mechanic's wife, who allegedly shot her lover and danced over his dying body to the strains of a jazz record playing over and over on her Victrola. What follows is a scandalous tale of sexism, racism, xenophobia, yellow journalism, and miscarriages of justices.

In The Girls of Murder City, Perry's descriptions of various murder cases and the attendant media circus are heavily detailed and thoroughly compelling. I did have to wonder, however, how he got as specific as he did with the precise descriptions of what the various characters were doing and feeling. Perry provides an extensive bibliography, and one can assume that his accounts are taken from those sources, but sometimes the level of specificity strained credulity. How, for instance, could he know that Beulah Annan, when attending church services, would be "leaning her cheek against her mother's elbow during services"? Perry's bibliography lists no source for this reference, so perhaps it's meant to be fanciful projection?

In any case, Perry certainly knows how to effectively set the scene. His descriptions of the rampant mob mentality during the funeral of one of the minor murderesses was alternately heartbreaking and terrifying. Perry also demonstrates a knack for building suspense during the trials of Gaertner and Annan, wringing compelling drama out of the court proceedings. Perry does devote a bit too much attention to the Leopold and Loeb case, which admittedly occurred during the time period, but would seem to be outside the scope of Perry's thesis.

Based on her experiences covering the Gaertner and Annan trials, a disgusted and outraged Maurine Watkins decided to turn these travesties into the play Chicago, which ran on Broadway during the 1926-27 season, and later toured the country. The play was made into a film twice, once in 1927 under the title "Chicago," and again in 1942, this time called "Roxie Hart." Watkins was unhappy with both versions, and to her dying day refused to entertain offers of a musical treatment.

When Watkins died in the early '70s, Bob Fosse approached her estate about creating a musical with John Kander and Fred Ebb, and you probably know the story from there. Fans of the musical Chicago will notice in Perry's book elements that have survived intact from the news reports and court documents, all the way to Watkins' play and Fosse's and Ebb's libretto. This includes actual lyrics, such as "We both reached for the gun," as well as plot elements, including Roxie's fake pregnancy.

One of the reasons the musical Chicago struck a nerve upon its 1996 revival was that the show's focus took on a new relevance alongside the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, a miscarriage of justice in a very different vein, which nonetheless made household names out of Marcia Clark, Kato Kaelin, Judge Ito, Johnnie Cochran, and Mark Fuhrman. I'm frankly appalled that even now, after 15 years, I can still recall those names. That's the insidious power of the media, and Perry's book puts a fascinating perspective on how another media circus evokes its own particular place and time.

NOTE: New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept anything of material value related to their blog posts. I received a complimentary review copy of The Girls of Murder City .

The Greatest Theater Characters of the Last 20 Years?

In this week's Entertainment Weekly cover story, the EW staff select their picks for the "100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years." Predictably, the list is heavy on movies and TV, but the staff do throw in some token nods to the culture crowd. There are a few literary characters -- that is, if Bridget Jones is your idea of literature.

Perhaps surprisingly, there are actually a couple of characters from theater, although both are from musical theater, and neither would necessarily have made my list for the most memorable: Mimi Marquez (Rent) and Elphaba (Wicked). Um, thanks for throwing us a bone, EW, but there were *many* more memorable theater characters in the last 20 years. Many *many* more.

Here's my list of some of the most memorable theater characters of the last 20 years. Of course, there's a considerable bias towards musical theater reflected in the list below. Dear reader, feel free to add your nominations -- from musicals or straight plays -- and I will forward the compilation to EW upon completion. For the most part, I only chose one character per show. Let me know if you think a different character from that show is more memorable.

MUSICALS

• Stu, Yank
  
• Fela Kuti, Fela
• Heywood, The Scottsboro Boys
• Andrew Jackson, Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson
• Diana Goodman, Next to Normal
  
• Susan Blackwell, [title of show]
• Stew, Passing Strange
• Uncle Winston, A Catered Affair
• Mr. Zero, Adding Machine
  
• Usnavi, In the Heights
• Clio/Kira, Xanadu
  
• Edie Bouvier Beale, Grey Gardens 
• Melchior Gabor, Spring Awakening 
• Man in Chair, The Drowsy Chaperone
• William Barfee, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
• Celie, The Color Purple
• Mark, Altar Boyz
  
• Freddy Benson, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
• Pippi, The Great American Trailer Park Musical
  
• Margaret Johnson, The Light in the Piazza
• Dessa Rose, Dessa Rose
• Caroline Thibodeaux, Caroline, or Change
• Rod, Avenue Q
• Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray
• Cathy Hyatt, The Last Five Years
  
• Mrs. Meers, Thoroughly Modern Millie
  
• Little Sally, Urinetown
• Bat Boy, Bat Boy
• Dusoleil, Amour
  
• Jesus, Reefer Madness
• Alfie Byrne, A Man of No Importance
• Jerry Lukowski, The Full Monty
• Roger De Bris, The Producers
• Jon, Tick, Tick...Boom
  
• J.J. Hunsecker, The Sweet Smell of Success
  
• Queenie, The Wild Party
  
• Lucille Frank, Parade
• Coalhouse Walker Jr., Ragtime
• Shelby Stevens, Steel Pier
• Violet Karl, Violet
• Floyd Collins, Floyd Collins
• Gordon Schwinn, A New Brain
  
• Hedwig, Hedwig and the Angry Inch
  
• Daisy/Violet Hilton, Side Show
• Angel Dumont Shunard, Rent
• Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
• Luis Alberto Molina, Kiss of the Spiderwoman
• Fosca, Passion
• The Whore, Hello Again
  
• Jelly Roll Morton, Jelly's Last Jam
• Marvin, Falsettos
  
• Stine, City of Angels
• Otto Kringelein, Grand Hotel
  
• Archibald Craven, The Secret Garden
  
• Ti Moune, Once on This Island
• John Wilkes Booth, Assassins
  

DRAMA (I don't really see a lot of plays. Here's where you come in, dear reader. Feel free to add your nominations below. --CC)

• Violet Weston, August Osage County
• Veronica, God of Carnage
  
• Diane, The Little Dog Laughed
• Sister Aloysius, Doubt
• Richard Nixon, Frost/Nixon
• Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, I Am My Own Wife
• Mason Marzac, Take Me Out
  
• Catherine, Proof
  
• Lettice Douffet, Lettice and Lovage
• B, Three Tall Women
  
• Ouisa Kittredge, Six Degrees of Separation
  
• Roy Cohn, Angels in America 
• Gorgeous Titelbaum, The Sisters Rosensweig
  
• Buzz Hauser Love! Valour! Compassion!
• Maria Callas, Master Class
  
• Mag Folan, The Beauty Queen of Leenane
• Jeffrey, Jeffrey
• Oscar Wilde, Gross Indecency
  

Review - Enron at the Broadhurst Theatre

Never doubt the power of the Tonys, at least when it comes to marketing a show. No sooner had the Tony nominations come out than the producers of the new play Enron announced that the struggling show, which opened April 27th to decidedly mixed reviews and weak grosses, would be closing Sunday, May 9th after only 12 days of regular performances. The producers were likely hoping for more than just the four nominations that the show received, but alas, the all-important nod for Best Play was not among the four.

I have to say that I'd feel a lot worse for the Enron folks if the play itself were any good. But, in my humble estimation, it is not. I saw the show last weekend, before the closure announcement, and it wasn't anywhere near the electrifying experience I had been led to expect.

Enron was the one play of the season that I was actively looking forward to. That's probably because I had heard that it was sort of a play/musical hybrid, with ample amounts of dance, music, and stylistic touches. Plus, I had heard that the cast would feature Broadway musical stalwarts Norbert Leo Butz and Marin Mazzie. The New York Times even referred to the show as a musical in one of its Arts, Briefly notes. (The Gray Lady later appended that article with a note that, despite the songs and dancing, author Lucy Prebble considers it a play.)

After the reviews for Enron came out, I heard some speculation that the New York production wasn't well received because Americans don't like to see themselves criticized. Sorry, I don't buy that. You'd be hard pressed to find an American who would defend Enron, or to take any attack on Enron personally. No, it comes down to the effectiveness of the play itself. Despite an acclaimed London run, Enron seems to have lost something in translation. Rumor has it that director Rupert Goold was only able to spend two weeks rehearsing with the cast because of his schedule. But it's not clear to me that more rehearsal would have made much difference. It wasn't the presentation that was lacking, but rather the substance of the play itself.

Enron is certainly well-presented, but the dramaturgy is pedestrian. I'll say one thing for Prebble: she made the abstruse financial machinations almost comprehensible. But the play has no point of view, other than "Gee, weren't these guys greedy and evil?" Theatre thrives on ambiguity and nuance, and there's precious little of either in Prebble's play. There were a few times when I thought I was getting a glimpse of the people behind the disaster, particularly in the final monologue of Jeff Skilling (played here with characteristic aplomb by Butz):

You wanna hold a mirror up to nature? [A projection reveals a graph of the Dow Jones Index over the last century.] There's your mirror. Every dip, every crash, every bubble that's burst, that's you...This one gave us the railroads. This one the Internet. This one the slave trade. And if you wanna do anything about saving the environment or getting to other worlds, you'll need a bubble for that, too.

That's a fairly interesting insight, but that's really all we get, and it comes after a lot of unconvincing drama and plodding dialog. In one of the first scenes, the Andy Fastow character (played rather broadly by Stephen Kunken) is at an Enron party, and says (to no one in particular) "Look, even Ken Lay is here." In a later scene, Fastow is being bullied by some of the energy traders, and says "I'll remember this when I'm CFO." That kind of ham-handed indication should have been edited out after the first draft.

Prebble also traffics in facile and obvious metaphors: the arcane financial instruments become corporeal "raptors," in a reference to "Jurassic Park." And the energy traders take on the countenance of Jedi knights, complete with a light-saber-laden dance number. Now it's entirely likely that Prebble took those cultural references directly from the Enron folk themselves, but accuracy doesn't necessarily translate into inspiration.

I will admit that it was illuminating to see the extent to which the Bush family, George W. in particular, was in bed with the Enron folk, and relied heavily on financial contributions from same. It was also eye-opening to see how soon-to-be governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger was involved, with particular regard to the disastrous deregulation of electricity in California, which led to the rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001. The implication was that Enron helped get The Terminator into office, specifically with the goal of bringing about deregulation. But all that info is readily available elsewhere. If you're looking for some insight into the Enron fiasco, you're better off reading The Smartest Guys in the Room or renting the 2005 movie version.

Despite the play's flaws, it's possible that Enron could have found a receptive audience. I find it really hard to believe that, with this many producers (IBDB lists a whopping 34), there weren't sufficient cash reserves to allow the show time to catch on. But they probably saw the show's gross go down one week after the reviews came out and just panicked. (I'm sure there's an incisive parallel in there somewhere with the investor panic involved in the collapse of Enron, but I really can't be bothered.)

GRADE: B minus (Not nearly as insightful or thrilling as it thinks it ought to be) 

Review - A Behanding in Spokane

There are so many new musicals that I want to see this season, but when I was in New York last weekend, none of them had started previews yet. So, as I was headed down to see Yank (see my review below), I figured I'd take in that rarity of rarities in my theater-going career, a straight play.

So, I got a ticket to see A Behanding in Spokane. Because I'm a die-hard Martin McDonagh fan? Not really. Because I wanted to see one of the greatest actors of our time, Christopher Walken? Nope. Dear reader, I must confess that I wanted to see Behanding because for years I've had an enormous crush on Sam Rockwell.

It's sort of hard to explain. It's not that he's attractive. ("But, oh, my heart grew active...") He certainly is, although not in a conventional way. Ever since I saw him as the smarmy Guy Fleegman in a movie that has become one of my guiltiest of pleasures, "Galaxy Quest," there's just been something about Rockwell's presence, demeanor, and acting style that just makes my insides melt. So, like a great big fangirl, I giddily made my way to the Schoenfeld Theater to gawk in person and in public at my long-time cinematic crush. 

Of course, that meant I had to sit through A Behanding in Spokane. It's not that it's a bad play, it's just not the sort of thing I would normally gravitate toward if it didn't feature by celebrity boyfriend. (Oh, the things we do for love.) Behanding is a pointedly and self-consciously macabre affair involving an itinerant vengeful psychopath on the prowl for his missing left hand. Two small-time cons try to trick him into believing that they have his hand and try to collect the reward money. And havoc ensues.

I have to say, I was laughing pretty hard throughout the show. I'm not overly familiar with McDonagh's oeuvre, but based on Behanding, he would seem to have quite a way with a one-liner, if mostly of the sardonic sort. Christopher Walken gets most of the laughs, and deservedly so. The man is a marvel. I used to think that all those people who did Walken imitations were exaggerating, but based on Walken's line delivery in Behanding, they would actually seem to be toning his tics and mannerisms down. But somehow it works. Walken makes you believe that at any moment he could coolly pull out his gun and pop someone in the head, without the slightest provocation. And that characteristic alone imbues Behanding with an uneasy sense of suspense. 

As for my man Rockwell, he can certainly hold his own with Walken. Rockwell plays the hotel clerk at the seedy hotel where Walken's character is staying, and for me he was the most interesting character in the show. The two victims are played by Zoe Kazan and Anthony Mackie, and I've read in numerous places that they are among the most promising actors of their generation, and I guess I'll have to take other people's word for it. (I've only seen Kazan before, in the recent revival of The Seagull, and found her to be one-note whiny as Masha.) To be fair, McDonagh hasn't really given them believable characters to inhabit; they simply act as the unfortunate but underwritten foils for Walken's maleficence.

But Rockwell's character is much better realized, a puzzling mix of cluelessness, bravado, and seeming suicidal tendencies. He's really the only character for whom we get any back story, by way of an in-one, curtain monologue in which he talks about his love affair with a monkey at the local zoo. (But, you know, not in a gross way.) And Rockwell keeps you guessing beyond the final curtain as to whether this guy is warped, evil, or just plain stupid.

So I probably won't be rushing to see any more Martin McDonagh anytime soon. (I'm kind of a weenie when it comes to violence and cruelty, which is why I gave The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore a pass.) But I'll continue to seek out Sam Rockwell, both on the stage and screen. If not [sigh] in life.

Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig in Whatever. (Oh, Yeah. A Steady Rain)

Like most people, when I heard that Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig were going to appear together on Broadway, I didn't really care about the show itself. I just wanted to see Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig.

As for the vehicle that brought this hot pair to Broadway, well, let's just say that playwright Keith Huff is one lucky man. If it hadn't been for Jackman and Craig, this contrivance of a play would likely never have made it beyond his hometown of Chicago.

It's become a cliche to say, "I could watch so-and-so read the phone book." I would imagine that, for most people, that phrase represents hyperbole. There are certain actors I admire greatly, but in truth I would never be able to watch any of them read the Manhattan Yellow Pages.

Well, as a play, A Steady Rain is certainly a step above the phone book. But not a big step. As I said it my Twitter post right after I got out of the play, "Clumsy play, rife with unconvincing melodrama + two hot guys = $130.00"

As for the performances, Daniel Craig reveals himself as a remarkably versatile and nuanced actor, immersing himself entirely in his character. Hugh Jackman was fine, but I find I must repeat what a number of my fellow bloggers have said about his performance here: it's hard to forget that he's Hugh Jackman. Whether that's a function of the level of his super-stardom or a reflection of his acting abilities, well, I'm not sure I really care. He certainly looked great in a pair of chinos.

[SPOILER ALERT: I'll be revealing a key plot point later in this review. If you already have your ticket and don't want to spoil the surprise, you might want to read the rest of this review subsequently]

The play concerns two childhood friends who have entered the police force and become partners. (Don't get too excited: I mean "partners" as in "working the same beat." But wouldn't that have been cool?) Huff's dialog has a certain idiomatic flair, but he seems to have been hellbent on cramming in as many plots developments as he could manufacture, without regard for balance and credibility.

Not content to merely tell a story of two men whose lives are developing in a way that forces them to make some very difficult decisions, Huff crafts A Steady Rain with an inexorable momentum toward tragedy, and the results are unsatisfying. Particularly difficult to swallow was a plot revelation that represented a fictionalized account of a certain well known serial killer who disposed of his victims in a rather culinary way. ("Swallow" was an unintended pun, I assure you, but upon rereading this post, I decided to leave it in. I considered it in keeping with the way this play left a bad taste in my mouth. Er...I mean...) There's also an unnecessarily manipulative use of a puppy as a plot device, which literally had me groaning, as did the show's ultimate denouement.

Rumor has it that the entire run for A Steady Rain is sold out, but that's not true. A quick check to Telecharge reveals that there are indeed tickets left for a number of upcoming performances. If you, like me, are purely interested in seeing these two guys on stage, and you've got $130.00 to spare, then the questionable quality of the play itself will be unlikely to deter you. Just don't expect anything more than two iconic stars doing their best with overwrought material.

Million Dollar Quartet Will Play the Nederlander

No sooner had the revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs died what many consider to be a premature death at the Nederlander Theater then a new show announced its tenancy. Million Dollar Quartet, which has been playing for more than a year in Chicago, will begin performances on 41st Street in March of 2010.

Million Dollar Quartet relates the story of one day in 1956 when Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins all jammed together "for the first and only time," according to the show's Web site. The show features a book by Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott, and interpolates popular period songs, including "Great Balls of Fire," "See You Later Alligator," "Fever," and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On."

Will Million Dollar Quartet be the next Jersey Boys or the next All Shook Up? To be honest, I'm finding it really hard to care. I can't imagine a musical I'd be less interested in seeing, except perhaps Pure Country. Yeah, I'm not that big on rock 'n roll, country music, or their derivatives. Of course, I'll see the show. I like to see everything. But, to paraphrase Frank N. Furter, I'm not exactly shivering with anticipation.

Plus, the commercial resume for the show's co-director, one Eric Schaeffer, isn't particularly encouraging. Yes, Schaeffer is the artistic director of the respected Signature Theater. But his Broadway outings thus far have comprised Putting it Together and Glory Days . "Ick" and "Youch," respectively. He also directed the first national tour of Big, and the London premier of The Witches of Eastwick. So you'll forgive me if I'm skeptical.

But, getting back to the topic of Brighton Beach Memoirs, I've been lying pretty low on this topic, partly because my interests lie primarily in musical theater, but also because so many of my blogger peeps seemed to be in mourning, and I didn't want to salt their wounds. But I have been bristling at all the journalistic hand-wringing, particularly by Howard Kissel of the New York Daily News. Kissel uses the failure of BBM to bemoan the death of "the Broadway Audience," whatever that means.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see any larger implications for the closure of BBM, beyond the fact that the producers chose to do a show that few people apparently wanted to see. Yes, I'm sure poor marketing and insufficient finance had something to do with it. But all the sturm und drang I keep hearing about the death of straight plays (at least those without stars above the title) and the growing irrelevance of Neil Simon and whatnot is pretty much crap.

I see dozens of shows each season, and even I wasn't all that interested in seeing BBM. Many of my blogger cohorts were thrilled with the production, and on that basis I might have taken it in, had it run longer. But, again, I see the demise of BBM as the result of bad producing, in particular faulty (or nonexistent) market research.

Is the non-star straight play dead? August: Osage County anyone? If the play is good, people will come. Sure, the producers resorted to bringing in Estelle Parsons and Phylicia Raschad toward the end of the run, but only after the show had captivated New York audiences without a single well-known name. Is Neil Simon a relic? That remains to be seen. Recent productions of his shows have certainly been disappointing, but there's no such thing in theater as a "never" or an "always." Methinks the pundits are looking for higher meaning where it's entirely possible that none exists.

My $0.02.