Though the team of Richard Maltby, Jr. (lyrics) and David Shire (music) hasn’t had much luck when it comes to book musicals (Baby and Big, despite their admirers, struggled through disappointing Broadway runs.) when it comes to Off-Broadway musical revues, the boys are two-time champs. Their 1970s hit, Starting Here, Starting Now, was topped in 1989 by a 300+ performance run of Closer Than Ever, which is now getting a sparkling revival at the York.
Like its predecessor, Closer Than Ever is an intimate revue; a bookless collection of sharp, witty and incisive songs that stress strong storytelling and vivid characters. Though no specific location is mentioned, in spirit and tone you might find yourself reminded of the late 80s/early 90s middle-class urban landscape (For our younger readers, think less Seinfeld reruns and more Mad About You reruns.) as the evening takes a hip, literate look at getting through being a grown-up, with a focus on the big events we expect to change our lives and the little events that unexpectedly do the same.
Directed by Maltby and with music direction by on-stage pianist Andrew Gerle, the brisk evening features four familiar musical theatre faces, all sporting fine voices and intelligent lyric interpreting skills.
Christiane Noll beautifully handles the show’s more introspective and dramatic moments with textured performances of “Life Story,” about a woman who fought in the trenches for gender equality, later to find doors slammed in her face by the younger women who owed her their chances to succeed, and “Patterns” (cut from Baby, but put back in when the show was revised), where a wife musses over the mundane routines putting stress on her marriage.
Jenn Colella is at her steamy best when flirting with bassist Danny Meyer in “Back On Base,” a vampy number about a woman finding the perfect antidote for her case of the drearies, and gets to stretch her generally underutilized comic chops in “Miss Byrd,” a song that reminds us that the ordinary person you see every day may be a tigress when she's out of her office cubical, and "You Wanna Be My Friend," an angry retort at a lover's attempt to let her down easy.
The richly-voiced George Dvorsky brings the evening to an emotional height with “If I Sing,” a son’s heartfelt tribute to the gifts he received from his musician dad, and is charmingly comic in “What Am I Doin’?,” where a would-be lover stops to consider if his actions constitute stalking.
Sal Viviano gives an endearing performance of “One Of The Good Guys,” where a happily married man ponders what he might have missed by turning down offers to be unfaithful, and in duet with Colella, “Another Wedding Song,” where a couple consider the special joys of second marriages. A terrific comic number, “Fandango,” has Viviano and Noll performing the morning dance of a married couple of corporate go-getters when the sitter cancels and each needs the other to watch the baby.
James Morgan’s set features numerous doors and a pretty blue sky with fluffy white clouds, indicative of an optimistic view of life’s numerous opportunities. The right door can always be closer than ever.
Photos by Carol Rosegg: Top: George Dvorsky, Christiane Noll, Sal Viviano and Jenn Colella; Bottom: Jenn Colella and Danny Meyer.
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Posted on: Monday, June 25, 2012 @ 02:40 AM Posted by: Michael Dale
As You Like It: Into The Backwoods
Backwoods 1800s America proves an unlikely, but ideal setting for Shakespeare’s As You Like It in director Daniel Sullivan’s enormously entertaining Delacorte production that mixes dexterous wordplay with rowdy comedy.
The audience enters to the sight of the exterior of a tall wooden fort with a rifle-toting lookout standing guard. Below is a boisterous bluegrass band plucking and bowing out twangy tunes by Steve Martin. Foreshadowing the wresting aspect of the plot, a poster tacked to a tree displays a hulking fellow grappling with a bear.
The complicated story of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy involves family rivalries, banished lovers, highbrow banter, lowbrow antics and the obligatory leading lady who, for some reason or another, must disguise herself as male in order to win her mate.
That obligation is met triumphantly by Lily Rabe, intoxicatingly masterful at verbal wit and subtle reaction, who, as Rosalind, ventures into the forest with her cousin, Celia (a perky and game Renee Elise Goldsberry) in search of her beloved Orlando (nobly played by David Furr), who she first laid eyes on while watching him getting pummeled in a wrestling match.
Although Orlando’s match against the brawny brute Charles (a terrific Brendan Averett) is choreographed by Rick Sordelet with all the fake-violent humor of a good WWE event, I do have to quibble who whoever made the decision to have Orlando win by kicking his opponent in the groin several times, as the move is traditionally considered a villainous cheap shot; especially after Charles is shown to be the kind of gentlemanly sportsman who chooses not inflict further punishment on his opponent when he is defenselessly battered.
Andre Braugher ably doubles as a ruthless duke and the kindly brother he has banished into the forest; thick with trees that set designer John Lee Beatty cleverly provides with hiding places. When Stephen Spinella, hilariously dour as the melancholy Jacques (pronounced “Jake” for this version), beautifully recites the “All the world’s a stage…” speech, it’s done as a campfire story on a peaceful evening.
Oliver Platt is suitably wry as the jester, Touchstone, and Donna Lynne Champlin, who gets a chance to demonstrate her clogging skills, is very funny as the dumb but lusty goatherd who captures his attention. Beloved character actor MacIntyre Dixon is touching as an elderly servant and Will Rogers and Susannah Flood add humor as a love-struck shepherd and the snarky shepherdess who continually rejects him.
With catchy tunes throughout and a hoedown finale, this As You Like It is a merry romp from start to finish.
Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: David Furr, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Lily Rabe; Bottom: Jordan Tice and Stephen Spinella.
Posted on: Saturday, June 23, 2012 @ 07:32 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Love Goes To Press
By the third act of Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles’ 1946 romantic comedy, Love Goes To Press, one of the play’s leading characters, a female war correspondent considered tops in her field, begins discussing marriage with the handsome soldier who has captured her heart. When the stuffy British Major speaks romantically of how his love will, naturally, give up her career and go to Yorkshire to stay with his mother until they get married, the 2012 audience members around me, naturally, smirked and guffawed at the absurdity of his antiquated assumptions.
To his credit, Bradford Cover, the actor playing the stiff upper-lipper, spoke with the utmost of noble sincerity, as though he were Prince Charming granting Cinderella the life she had always dreamed of, making the scene that much funnier. But was it all that comical when Love Goes To Press premiered as a West End hit, when the women who had taken on nontraditional roles in the workforce during World War II were now faced with the assumption that they’d automatically go back to being housewives?
Part of the fun of attending Mint Theatre Company productions is getting immersed in the world of the audiences from long ago. The treasured Off-Broadway company specializes in plays that achieved some substantial degree of popularity – usually from the first half of the 20th Century – but became forgotten with the passing of time. Despite its London success, the only playwrighting effort of Gellhorn and Cowles, who based the work on their own experiences as respected war correspondents, lasted only four performances on Broadway.
Intended by the authors to be little more than a lark, Love Goes To Press, proves an enjoyable museum piece that cruises on its snappy dialogue but stumbles a bit because the story’s most interesting moments either take place in the past (showing up to cover a battle in a smart Schiaparelli number) or off-stage (a dim-witted entertainer being mistaken for a reporter and taken to the front lines).
Heidi Armbruster and Angela Pierce make for a swell pair of smart-talking adventurers as Annabelle Jones and Jane Mason, who are both revered for their skills at getting dangerous stories and resented for being women. They share the kind of camaraderie that comes with being the only people who know what each other is going through. Arriving separately at a battered Italian home serving as a press camp while Allied troops advance on Germany, both are plotting dangerous missions while being surprised by romantic encounters; Jane being courted by the British Major as bombs cause the building to shake and rain rubble on them and Annabelle being reunited with her ex-husband, Joe, the kind of writer whose idea of journalistic inspiration is to get drunk and write a think piece. (Their relationship was no doubt inspired by Gellhorn’s 5-year marriage to Ernest Hemingway.)
The colorful characters surrounding them include Joe’s ditzy fiancée, Daphne (Margot White in a good comical turn), and Jay Patterson and Curzon Dobell as a pair of reporters on the lookout for stories to steal between games of gin rummy and indulging in liquor rations.
Director Jerry Ruiz makes some odd shifts in tone, playing for realistic laughs most of the time but overplaying some of the romance, but it’s a handsome production, thanks to the excellent work of Steven C. Kemp (sets), Andrea Varga (costumes), Christian DeAngelis (lights) and Jane Shaw (sound). A frisky and entertaining evening that is, indeed, a lark.
Photos by Richard Termine: Top: Heidi Armbruster (above) and Angela Pierce; Bottom: Rob Breckenridge and Heidi Armbruster.
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Posted on: Thursday, June 21, 2012 @ 02:44 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 6/17/12 & Theatre Quote of the Week
"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly."
-- Mae West
The grosses are out for the week ending 6/17/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.
Up for the week was: OTHER DESERT CITIES (15.0%), GODSPELL (12.7%), VENUS IN FUR (11.8%), PORGY AND BESS (5.8%), MARY POPPINS (4.6%), ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (3.9%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (3.4%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (3.3%), A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (2.8%), DON'T DRESS FOR DINNER (2.2%), ANYTHING GOES (2.0%), HARVEY (1.7%), JERSEY BOYS (1.5%), ONCE (1.5%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1.0%), NEWSIES (0.5%), ROCK OF AGES(0.3%),
Down for the week was: END OF THE RAINBOW (-13.4%), EVITA (-9.5%), GHOST (-5.9%), CHICAGO (-3.3%), MEMPHIS (-2.2%), MAMMA MIA! (-2.1%), CLYBOURNE PARK (-2.1%), THE COLUMNIST (-2.0%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (-1.4%), WAR HORSE (-1.2%), WICKED (-1.0%), JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (-0.7%), SISTER ACT (-0.6%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (-0.4%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (-0.2%), THE LION KING (-0.1%),
Posted on: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 @ 01:55 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
The Broadway Musicals of 1987 & Zarkana
The words, “Once upon a time…,” were followed by that familiar Sondheim vamp, and Danielle Ferland skipped onto the stage just as she had 25 years ago as the original Little Red Riding Hood in Into The Woods. Sure enough, there was a wolf there to greet her, but instead of encountering Granny, The Baker’s Wife and The Witch, Little Red found herself in a forest inhabited by a young French revolutionary, an elderly Holocaust survivor, a roller-skating duo and a former President of The United States.
The 1987 edition of Town Hall’s Broadway By The Year closed out Scott Siegel’s 12th season of concerts presenting a year-by-year analysis of Broadway’s songs, placing them in both historical and theatrical context. This was a year dominated by two musicals in particular, and naturally they dominated the evening’s program.
Aside from having Ferland on hand to present her more mature performances of ”I Know Things Now” and “No One Is Alone,” Kerry O’Malley brought back memories of her stint as The Baker’s Wife in the 2002 Into The Woods revival with “Moments In The Woods” and Marc Kudisch (who directed the concert) and Jeffrey Denman lent their robust voices and clowning skills to the princely duet, “Agony.”
Les Miserables was the year’s major blockbuster and with the newly formed Broadway By The Year Chorus – made up of recent college and music school graduates under the leadership of Scott Coulter – stirring renditions of full choral pieces like “One Day More” and “Do You Hear The People Sing?” were able to be included. There was superior dramatic solo work provided by O’Malley (“I Dreamed A Dream”), Kudisch (“Stars”), Ron Bohmer (“Bring Him Home”) and Janine DiVita (“On My Own”).
While the songs from Stardust certainly weren’t new in 1987, that revue of the lyrics of Mitchell Parish was, allowing for the inclusion of standards like “Moonlight Serenade” (romantically sung and danced by Denman and DiVita), “Volare” (Kudisch camping a mock seduction with the female ensemble) and the show’s title song, sung with airy tenderness by Coulter. The novelty number, “Syncopated Clock,” better known as the theme to television’s The Late Show, was an amusing instrumental for Ross Patterson’s Little Big Band.
The underappreciated Teddy and Alice, about President Roosevelt’s stormy relationship with his strong-willed daughter, was represented grandly by Bohmer’s “Can I Let Her Go?,” a sentimental ballad whose melody is an soft rendering of John Phillip Sousa’s “Washington Post March.” And though Roza had its troubles on Broadway, O’Mally’s hearty “Happiness Is” demonstrated the score at its best.
Stepping Out was a play about an amateur dance class and Denman, joined by Anna White and Kelley Sheehan, displayed some snazzy tapping in its title song.
At one point during the evening, Siegel referred to O’Malley, Denman and Kudisch as three of the finest entertainers you’ll see on New York’s stages. While Broadway audiences frequently pack theatres to see lesser-skilled celebrities try their hands at starring in Broadway musicals, for 12 years the Broadway By The Year series has been showcasing some of the highest caliber performers you’ll find in the demanding field of musical theatre.
Photos by Genevieve Rafter Keddy: Top: Danielle Ferland; Bottom: Jeffry Denman and Marc Kudisch.
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Does anybody ever really pay attention to the plots of Cirque du Soleil productions? Or the songs? Sure, their collection of world-class jugglers, balancers, acrobats and daredevils always provide eye-popping and gasp-inducing entertainment, but all too often the evening is loaded down with attempts to connect everything with some convoluted story about a search for serenity or world peace or whatever.
Last year’s 2-act extravaganza, Zarkana, has returned to Radio City Music Hall just in time to push the Tony Awards to the Beacon Theatre once more and, thankfully, the storytelling aspect of writer/director Francois Girard’s "surreal acrobatic spectacle” – something about a magician, his lost love and a doggy duo named Hocus and Pocus – has been trimmed down considerably, allowing the show to clock in at a slick and entertaining 90 minutes. Even the bland English lyrics of the songs have been exorcised, replaced with a made-up language called “Cirquish,” which seems to emphasize dramatic vowel sounds.
But nothing upstages the troupe of aerialists, trapeze flyers and high-wire balancers when they let loose. A more meditative feature, and a real showstopper, is artist Erika Chen, who works from a glass table above a video camera so that the audience sees a projection of her swift hands creating ever-evolving portraits and scenes out of blue sand. Her time on stage is serenely captivating. Hand balancer Anatoly Zalevskiy wears a midriff-baring outfit that makes lovers of the male physique swoon and displays body-bending skills that no doubt set a few fantasies in motion.
But the most eye-popping act on display is Carlos Marin and Junior Delgado seriously seeming to risk their lives on the appropriately named Wheel of Death; two circular cages placed on opposite ends of spokes which spin on an axis thirty feet above the ground. The boys are continually in motion as they pop inside and outside the wheels even skipping rope while in perpetual motion. When finished, they take their bows like they’re the most macho guys in town and I, for one, wouldn’t argue the point.
Photos by Jeremy Daniel, Richard Termine: Top: Erika Chen Bottom: Wheel of Death.
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Posted on: Sunday, June 17, 2012 @ 05:05 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 6/10/12 & Theatre Quote of the Week
"I've been dieting all week. I can't wait to eat some freakin' pizza!"
-- Audra McDonald after winning her 5th Tony Award
The grosses are out for the week ending 6/10/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.
Up for the week was: VENUS IN FUR (17.8%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (15.5%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (14.4%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (14.2%), END OF THE RAINBOW (12.7%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (11.3%), ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (11.1%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (8.8%), GHOST (8.3%), PORGY AND BESS (8.0%), HARVEY (6.7%), SISTER ACT (6.2%), DON'T DRESS FOR DINNER (5.9%), MARY POPPINS (5.6%), WAR HORSE (5.3%), JERSEY BOYS (4.7%), MAMMA MIA! (4.5%), JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (4.5%), MEMPHIS (4.4%), ROCK OF AGES (4.1%), CLYBOURNE PARK (3.6%), EVITA (3.3%), THE LYONS (3.0%), CHICAGO (2.3%), ONCE (1.5%), ANYTHING GOES (1.0%), WICKED (0.2%), THE LION KING(0.1%),
Down for the week was: GODSPELL (-5.7%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (-3.5%), THE COLUMNIST (-3.5%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-3.5%), A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (-1.5%), NEWSIES (-0.2%),
Posted on: Monday, June 11, 2012 @ 03:26 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Food and Fadwa
Fadwa Faranesh, a bright, engaging Palestinian woman living in Bethlehem, hosts a cooking program from her home kitchen, where she prepares delectable dishes like tabouli and baba ghanoush in the traditional manner the women of her culture have been preparing them for centuries. To her, food is an important connection between the past and the present.
However, the television cameraman she chats with isn’t really there. Neither is the camera or the loyal viewers tuning in every day. No, the central character of Lameece Issaq and Jacob Kader’s Food and Fadwa is not delusional. She just needs an occasional escape from the realities of her West Bank life, which includes being delayed at numerous checkpoints wherever she goes, enduring sudden announcements of curfews where no one is allowed to leave their home and caring for her dementia-stricken elderly father.
As warmly and humorously portrayed by Issaq, Fadwa is a single woman who, with her mother deceased, has pushed her own needs aside become the sturdy support system for her extended family. Aside from her father, Baba, played with sincere pathos by Laith Nakli, there’s her sister Dalal (Maha Chehlaoui) excitedly preparing for her wedding to Emir (Arian Moayed).
Fadwa’s long distance boyfriend is Emir’s brother Youssif (Haaz Sleiman), who has been living in New York. He arrives for the wedding with her American cousin, Hayat (Heather Raffo), a successful restaurant owner and cookbook author. Hayat is quite oblivious to the conditions this side of the family lives under (Her complains that she was held at customs for a whopping 15 minutes is met with little sympathy.) and, among other things, Fadwa is particularly irked at Hayat’s practice of creating non-traditional variations of classic recipes.
The wedding ceremony is threatened when a suddenly announced curfew, where everyone is confined to their homes for an indefinite amount of time, has Emir unable to return from a trip to Jerusalem and, after many days, leaves the family running out of food, water and Baba’s medicine.
While the issues of Food and Fadwa might suggest a heavily political piece with angry speeches denouncing the Israeli government, Issaq, Kader and director Shana Gold take a lighter approach that might remind older viewers of the Norman Lear sitcoms of the 1970s like All In The Family and Good Times. Like those landmark programs, Food and Fadwa indirectly approaches controversial topics by using dark humor to show how the family is accustomed to dealing with oppressive restrictions. A comical highlight has Emir and Youssif smearing dollops of leftovers on the dinner table to create a map explaining the various restricted areas of the city, liberally shaking salt all over to represent the numerous checkpoints. Fadwa’s cooking show begins addressing subjects like food rationing and fasting. There’s even a nutty neighbor; Fadwa’s chain-smoking Aunt Samia (Kathryn Kates), whose lives for watching television episodes of Arab Idol. ("That girl from Kuwait was voted off last week. So sad.”)
With Andromache Chalfant’s large and highly detailed unit set looking not so different from a suburban American home, Food and Fadwa successfully emphasizes the similarities between the on-stage characters and the New York Theatre Workshop audience members; boiling down deeply complicated conflicts to how they affect perfectly nice people just trying to live their lives and preserve their culture. It’s a sweet and tasty evening.
Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Lameece Issaq; Bottom: Maha Chehlaoui, Arian Moayed, Haaz Sleiman and Heather Raffo.
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Posted on: Sunday, June 10, 2012 @ 01:30 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Once On This Island: The Story Goes On
Thomas Kail’s athletic and inventively theatrical directing chops (In The Heights, Lombardi, Magic/Bird) prove a perfect match for Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ Caribbean story-theatre musical Once On This Island. The beguiling new production gracing the Paper Mill stage is full of vibrant performances and colorful stagecraft.
Perhaps a bit overshadowed by large-scale productions like The Will Rogers Follies, Miss Saigon and The Secret Garden when it transferred to Broadway via Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons in 1990 (The 1994 West End production did win the Olivier Award for Best Musical.), Once On This Island is a flavorful charmer suitable for the whole family.
The play within a play structure has an ensemble of villagers from the French Antilles distracting a frightened child (Courtney Harris) from a scary thunderstorm by acting out the story of Ti Moune (Syesha Mercado), an adopted girl from the peasant side of the island where the “black as night” natives live their lives controlled by the whims of the gods of Earth (Aurelia Williams), Water (Darius de Haas), Love (Saycon Sengbloh) and Death (Alan Mingo, Jr.).
Ti Moune’s prayers to find a purpose in life prompt an other-worldly bet to see which is stronger, love or death, and an encounter is arranged between her and the wealthy and handsome Daniel (Adam Jacobs) from the side of the island where lighter-skinned descendants of French planters live. Ti Moune’s love for Daniel tests the social restrictions that forbid a relationship between them and while the outcome of the story is realistic, it is also optimistic.
Mercado’s greatest strength as Ti Moune is a powerful belt that launches the money notes of her character-introducing song, “Waiting For Life.” She’s an appealing performer and Kail surrounds her with a company of well-seasoned musical theatre actors who each claim their moments to shine; particularly Kenita R. Miller and Kevin R. Free, who bring deep feelings and comical warmth to their roles as Ti Moune’s adoptive parents and Williams, completely enthralling in her robust rendition of “Mama Will Provide.”
Donyale Werle's do-it-yourself set pieces inspire a lively “little theatre” atmosphere, with Kenneth Posner's lights and Jessica Jahn's costumes providing the kind of colorful joy expressed through Bradley Rapier's choreography.
The production glides through its ninety minutes on waves of captivating performances, beautiful singing and material that teaches the importance of handing down the traditions and folklore of a community through story-telling. It’s a wonderful night out.
Photos by Jerry Dalia: Top: Darius de Haas, Saycon Sengbloh, Jerold E. Solomon, Kenita R. Miller, AureLia Williams, Alan Mingo Jr., Syesha Mercado and Courtney Reed; Bottom: Courtney Reed, Saycon Sengbloh, Adam Jacobs, Syesha Mercado, Alan Mingo, Jr., and AureLia Williams.
Posted on: Friday, June 08, 2012 @ 04:57 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 6/3/12 & Theatre Quote of the Week
“I think it's, hopefully, liberating. The idea is that they'll walk out loving their body and wanting to eat ice cream.”
-- Eve Ensler, re: "The Good Body"
The grosses are out for the week ending 6/3/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.
Up for the week was: HARVEY (0.8%), DEATH OF A SALESMAN (0.4%), ONCE (0.4%), ANYTHING GOES(0.1%),
Down for the week was: MARY POPPINS (-15.8%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (-15.7%), A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (-14.1%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (-14.1%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-13.2%), JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (-12.8%), PORGY AND BESS (-12.6%), WAR HORSE (-12.6%), GHOST (-12.6%), CHICAGO (-12.5%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (-12.3%), SISTER ACT (-11.2%), EVITA (-10.1%), VENUS IN FUR (-10.0%), ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (-9.9%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (-9.5%), JERSEY BOYS (-9.2%), END OF THE RAINBOW (-8.3%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-7.2%), MEMPHIS (-6.1%), MAMMA MIA! (-5.7%), DON'T DRESS FOR DINNER (-5.3%), GODSPELL (-4.8%), THE COLUMNIST (-4.6%), CLYBOURNE PARK (-4.5%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (-4.0%), ROCK OF AGES (-3.5%), WICKED (-1.3%), NEWSIES (-0.4%), THE LYONS (-0.3%),
Posted on: Monday, June 04, 2012 @ 03:41 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Potted Potter - The Unauthorized Harry Experience - A Parody by Dan and Jeff
When I first heard the title Potted Potter – The Unauthorized Harry Experience – A Parody by Dan and Jeff, my American mind immediately thought of the slang term we use for inebriated and figured Jefferson Turner and Daniel Clarkson’s two-person, 70-minute presentation would be some kind of irreverent adult spoof of J.K. Rowling's septet of Harry Potter novels. But no, “potted,” to our Brit friends, merely means abridged, and the show, which actually doesn't involve much parody, is really more of a wholesome family entertainment; not that there’s anything wrong with that, as we say on the Upper West Side.
I haven’t read any of the books nor seen any of their film adaptations, but despite the insistence of the show’s promotional material that you need not know the difference between a horcrux and a Hufflepuff to find yourself roaring with laughter, as insurance I invited a Harry Potter enthusiast who was very excited to see the show to be my guest, figuring she could fill me in on any insider references I wouldn’t get and to give me her perspective as a fan. However, her educated reaction seemed to mirror my novice one and the biggest compliment she could muster was that the boys were certainly “energetic.” But we both did notice that the children in the audience seemed to be very much into the show.
The evening begins with Turner, wearing those familiar round specs, sitting in a corner of the stage quietly reading while Clarkson glad-hands his way through the audience. It seems straight man Jeff claims to be the world’s foremost authority on all things Potter and plans an extravagant presentation summarizing the entire literary series, averaging ten minutes per book. However Dan, assigned as the goofy one, has foolishly wasted the budged on some less-than-appropriate set pieces and a costly dragon. The crux of the attempts at humor primarily stem from Turner’s frustration in Clarkson’s ignorance of the source material (“Dumbledore... Is he important?”), rather than deriving humor from the books themselves. Instead of cleverness, there’s a lot of frantic silliness as Clarkson plows his way through a multitude of characters, using makeshift props and costumes, while Turner remains the title wizard, a role that he concludes “is so boring!”
The marquee moment comes when a pair of young volunteers is plucked from the audience to assist in a game of Quidditch, which consists of a large inflatable ball being smacked across the auditorium by audience members while Clarkson complains about how poorly we’re playing. And while I did detect some mild enjoyment being had by my fellow viewers, Potted Potter had me wishing I’d stayed home with seven good books.
Photo of Jefferson Turner and Daniel Clarkson by Carol Rosegg.
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Posted on: Monday, June 04, 2012 @ 03:34 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 5/27/12 & Theatre Quote of the Week
"I enjoyed the courtroom as just another stage but not so amusing as Broadway."
-- Mae West
The grosses are out for the week ending 5/27/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.
Up for the week was: MARY POPPINS (14.7%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (6.7%), VENUS IN FUR (4.7%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (4.4%), DON'T DRESS FOR DINNER (4.2%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (4.2%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (2.2%), CLYBOURNE PARK (2.0%), WICKED (1.2%), ROCK OF AGES (0.6%), NEWSIES(0.6%),
Down for the week was: GODSPELL (-15.9%), PORGY AND BESS (-10.9%), ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (-10.3%), MEMPHIS (-10.0%), ANYTHING GOES (-9.6%), WAR HORSE (-8.8%), MAMMA MIA! (-6.2%), GHOST (-5.0%), SISTER ACT (-4.5%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (-3.8%), A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (-3.5%), END OF THE RAINBOW (-3.2%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (-2.8%), HARVEY (-2.7%), CHICAGO (-1.8%), JERSEY BOYS (-1.3%), EVITA (-1.1%), ONCE (-1.0%), JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (-0.8%), THE LYONS (-0.6%), THE COLUMNIST (-0.5%), DEATH OF A SALESMAN (-0.4%), OTHER DESERT CITIES (-0.2%),
Posted on: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 @ 04:42 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
About Michael: After 20-odd years singing, dancing and acting in
dinner theatres, summer stocks and the ever-popular
audience participation murder mysteries (try
improvising with audiences after they?ve had two hours
of open bar), Michael Dale segued his theatrical
ambitions into playwriting. The buildings which once
housed the 5 Off-Off Broadway plays he penned have all
been destroyed or turned into a Starbucks, but his
name remains the answer to the trivia question, "Who
wrote the official play of Babe Ruth's 100th
Birthday?" He served as Artistic Director for The
Play's The Thing Theatre Company, helping to bring
free live theatre to underserved communities, and
dabbled a bit in stage managing and in directing
cabaret shows before answering the call (it was an
email, actually) to become BroadwayWorld.com's first
Chief Theatre Critic. While not attending shows
Michael can be seen at Shea Stadium pleading for the
Mets to stop imploding. Likes: Strong book musicals
and ambitious new works. Dislikes: Unprepared
celebrities making their stage acting debuts by
starring on Broadway and weak bullpens.
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