Ben Peltz - Page 8

Despite its title, it's easy to forget what a funny play Margaret Edson's Wit is.  But then, this Pulitzer winner is as much about humor - the dry, detached kind - and its power to attack and defend as it is about a woman's slow and painful death from late stage ovarian cancer.

'It's not fair,' the 14-year-old girl complains to her mom.

Is it possible to recreate someone else's authenticity seven times a week doing the same Off-Broadway show?  If last Saturday night's performance of Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've Never Had It So Good) is any indication, the answer is a resounding... I'm not sure.  But in any case, the lighthearted madness inhabiting The Public Theater's Newman space, devised by the German/British theatrical squad named in the title, makes for a rollicking good time.

There's a beautiful softness that bathes every artistic aspect of director Gordon Edelstein's graceful and endearing production of Athol Fugard's meditation on independence through creativity, The Road To Mecca.

In these days of ever-shrinking Broadway orchestras, it's rather refreshing to walk into a cabaret room and find that seats have been removed from an otherwise sold-out house in order to fit a nine-piece musical ensemble.

I've heard it said that there was this Australian fellow playing the Broadhurst recently who regularly had his audiences whipped up into quite a frenzy.  I've also heard of a Liverpool quartet that could pack screaming fans into a sold out Shea Stadium.  Now, I couldn't tell you if the decibel level was just as high at The Metropolitan Room last week when an American gal named Marilyn Maye was frequently honored with roaring ovations on the final night of her quickie engagement called Marilyn By Request, but I bet Messrs. Jackman, McCartney and Starr would be quite delighted to be still inspiring such boisterous affection as they were approaching their 84th birthdays.

By my count, Outside People is the third theatre piece about a white American in contemporary China to hit town this season.  On the tails of Mike Daisey's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs and David Henry Hwang's Chinglish, Zayd Dohrn's dark comedy deals with Yankee naiveté regarding cultural differences when it comes to sex and business overseas.

Hang around the theatre long enough and you grow accustomed to hearing the word 'problematic' applied primarily to two things: a Shakespeare play that's not one of his better efforts or the book of a musical that's rarely revived, despite an excellent score.

The audience greets their star's entrance with a long round of enthusiastic cheers as she takes her place center stage and she, in turn, glares back at them with a look of unrestrained contempt.  That's the charm of Jackie Hoffman's relationship with her fans.  She always seems utterly annoyed at the prospect of being there and they love her for it.

When it was announced that Transport Group's compact production of bookwriter Douglas Carter Beane and composer/lyricist Lewis Flinn's giddily fun and sexy musical combo of Aristophanes and college hoops, Lysistrata Jones, was moving to Broadway, there was some understandable concern about the Off-Broadway production - originally staged on a gym's half-court - being able to fill out the much larger space.  Not to worry.  It turns out LJ was just aching for some much-needed elbow room to really fly.  At the Walter Kerr, the production values have been expanded to enhance the freestyle romp without overwhelming it, the performances have grown with Broadway-sized confidence and the show is funnier and more delightful than ever.

Call me envious, but the genre of plays that feature smart, educated, financially well-off characters screwing up their lives under the knowing smirks of the maid serves as a kind of comfort food for me.  And while the discomfort in class, racial and gender issues experienced by the LeVay family in Lydia R. Diamond's funny and quite heated family drama, Stick Fly, may seem a bit too familiar at times, director Kenny Leon and his terrific ensemble help deliver a lively evening.

While you probably wouldn't expect period recordings of 'Let's Do It' and 'St. Louis Woman' to be part of the pre-show soundtrack for a family friendly production of Snow White, director/choreographer Austin McCormick's Company XIV has never been a group to provide the expected.

'We began this production with the simplest and most time-honored of theatrical practices,' writes New York Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis.  'We were looking for the next great role for Jay O. Sanders.'

The new musical inspired by the careers of Depression-era outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow begins with stars Jeremy Jordan and Laura Osnes, as the infamous title duo, sitting dead from multiple bullet wounds in the front seat of a Ford.  I resisted the temptation to give them entrance applause.

For many Americans - okay, white suburban middle classers into traditional gender roles - the 1950s was an idyllic time when the country could rest easily with our post-war status as the world's super-power before the internal unrest of the 60s began exposing the ugly imperfections.  For stressed out, caffeinated 21st Century urbanites, a trip to the world depicted in period sitcoms like Father Knows Best and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet or the nostalgic recreation, Happy Days, might offer a welcome mental vacation to a less-complicated era of structured roles and lower expectations.  Or perhaps even a permanent lifestyle change.

No matter how early you enter the house for New York Theatre Workshop's production of Once, the play is already well underway.  Most of the thirteen-member ensemble, all of whom play musical instruments, seem to have long been gathered inside designer Bob Crowley's cozy Dublin pub, playing traditional folk songs, dancing a bit and singing their hearts out.  The festive mood resembles the kind of improvised jam session you might luckily stumble upon some night and never want to leave, especially since audience members are welcome to join them on stage, purchase a drink or two and linger a while.

Whether it's historic Off-Broadway theatres being replaced by chain stores and condos after their rents are tripled or beloved long-time Coney Island businesses facing eviction if they don't conform to the bland, antiseptic vision of new planners, New Yorkers are very familiar with the culture vs. commerce issues Anton Chekhov was writing about in The Cherry Orchard.

Jacques Brel is dead and buried and entombed in French Polynesia and the Zipper Theatre, home of the very satisfying revival of Jacques Brel is Alive and Living in Paris several seasons back is now a beloved memory, but the producers of that mounting have been keeping the 'ol carousel madly turning for nearly a year now with regular presentations of Jacques Brel Returns, up at The Triad.

In The Book of Mormon, the young Ugandan ingénue sings of a fantasy world she imagines where all the warlords are friendly.  And while in J.T. Rogers' intriguing drama of 1980s American foreign policy, Blood and Gifts, Afghan warlord Abdullah Kahn isn't exactly depicted as a saint, the author paints him as a man deeply dedicated to his family and the culture of his people who, like a typical American father, has job-related headaches (trying to secure weapons to defend his soil against the Soviets) and can't understand the music his son listens to (Rod Stewart's 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' and Tina Turner's 'What's Love Got to Do with It').  As played by Bernard White, he is a humble and patriotic man of dignity.

White Christmas is just too good a musical to be limited to holiday-time productions.  Especially when you have Larry Blank's ultra-snazzy swing orchestrations vibrantly delivering a gold-plated assortment of Irving Berlin classics and Randy Skinner's dancers heating up the floor with some sensational tapping.