Voting Reminder

Broadway By The Year began as two modest concerts that were packaged as a part of Town Hall’s Not Just Jazz series.  Creator/writer/host Scott Siegel would select a calendar year (instead of a season) from Broadway’s past and a small ensemble of singers would perform selections from shows that opened that year, connected by narration that placed the songs in context in regards to developments in musical theatre, popular music and world events at that time.

They were an instant hit and soon expanded into a series of four concerts a season, all with music direction from Ross Patterson, with casts expanded to as many as a dozen and floor space expanded to include choreography.

And while musical theatre history has always been the focal point, loyal subscribers to the series have been witnessing a kind of alternate version of Broadway’s present, as Siegel has assembled an ensemble of performers as regular participants who represent some of the finest musical theatre talent that can currently be offered, yet their names are barely known beyond the relatively small population of frequent Broadway attendees.

Broadway audiences have always loved big-name stars, but for most of the 20^th Century those big names came directly from the theatre and made Broadway the focus of their careers.  Today we have stars like Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone, who are best known to the public for appearing in Broadway musicals and can still attract the valued tourist dollars, but newer names above marquee titles – such as Raul Esparza and now, Carolee Carmello – remain unknown to the general public, despite their proven expertise, while inexperienced celebrities with underdeveloped stage musical skills receive standing ovations for performances that can easily be topped by Broadway regulars who ride the subway home unnoticed.

But when Scott Siegel hosts a show at Town Hall – such as this finale to the 2012 Broadway Cabaret Festival – those lesser-known Broadway regulars are considered stars by the knowledgeable audience members who appreciate seasoned skill above celebrity.  So when Marc Kudisch comes back on stage to sing a standard like “If I Were A Rich Man,” the house responds enthusiastically because a worthy professional is giving a fresh interpretation of an old favorite – playing a robust, demanding Tevye – phrasing familiar lines with unexpected inflections.  And when he teams with Jeffrey Denman, playing romantically frustrated fairy tale princes expressing their “Agony,” their vocal prowess is matched by their pinpoint clowning.

And when Denman teams with Noah Racey for “Educate Your Feet,” the customers respond not only to the delight of watching two top-shelf Broadway song and dance men, but to the fine give-and-take between the snazzy sharpness of Denman and the boyish grace of Racey (who used that boyish grace so charmingly in Golden Boy’s “Yes, I Can”).

It’s expected that a great singing actress like Kerry O’Malley would thrill an audience with a dramatic solo like “I Dreamed A Dream,” but what’s unexpected is that she would take a seldom-heard piece like “Cigarettes, Cigars” (a sort of “Ten Cents A Dance” for a nightclub smokes salesgirl) and provide the same chills by playing its period melodramatics with gutsy honesty.  Exemplary musical dramatic skills were also displayed by Barbara Walsh with Marc Blitzstein’s sobering lesson in Depression Era economics, “The Nickel Under The Foot.”

Christine Andreas was joyously French with “Storybook” and “I Love Paris” and Lari White, the three-time Grammy winning country/gospel vocalist who Siegel plucked from the ensemble of the short-lived Ring of Fire, presented two wonderfully details portraits of troubled women with “Doatsy Mae” and “A Terrific Band And A Real Nice Crowd.”

Darius de Haas wowed the crowd with The Hot Mikado’s “I, The Living I,” Eddie Korbich was heart-breakingly sincere with “There, But For You, Go I” and Stephen DeRosa was slickly vaudevillian with “Is It The Girl Or Is It The Gown?”

Kendrick Jones, who performed in his first Scott Siegel concert while still in high school, frequently sends jaws dropping with tap dancing routines that switch from rapid-fire footwork to gliding moves that seem propelled by water jets.  Through the years his singing voice has matured with strength and confidence, as demonstrated by his fine rendition of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”  The fact that this exciting young performer is not being given opportunities to stop shows cold in featured roles in Broadway musicals can be taken as proof that there’s something seriously wrong with Broadway.

The Best of Broadway By The Year also featured performers better known beyond the musical theatre stage.  Lumiri Tubo offered a smooth and mellow “St. Louis Blues” and Carole J. Bufford beautifully phrased the emotions of “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man Of Mine.”  Christina Bianco, a Forbidden Broadway favorite, lent her hilarious mimicry to “Cabaret,” performing the tune as Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters, Judy Garland, Patti LuPone, Julie Andrews and Celine Dion.

Bill Daugherty, known in the industry as a vocal teacher, gave a lesson in musical theatre character acting and pathos with a purely Runyonesque “Sit Down, Your Rockin’ The Boat” and noble and dignified “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”

Despite such an abundance of talent on stage, Beth Leavel was the only Tony-winner in the bunch, wrapping up the proceedings with a delectably saucy “From This Moment On.”

Photos by Genevieve Rafter Keddy:  Top: Jeffry Denman and Marc Kudisch; Center: Kerry O'Malley; Bottom: Kendrick Jones.

*******************************************

Douglas Hodge might well make a habit out of successfully injecting rough, working stiff edges into characters traditionally played for their elegance.  He pulled the trick with his decidedly unglamorous performance as Albin in La Cage aux Folles and now scores a palpable hit as the title character of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac.

It’s all in the nose.  The lengthy proboscis describe by its owner as “a peninsula,” and usually crafted with a graceful slope, actually looks more like a pile of rubble in director Jamie Lloyd’s vivaciously rowdy mounting of Ranjit Bolt's invigorating translation.  (Although, what is it these days with adaptors sticking modern phrases into pieces that otherwise evoke a specific period?)

As the lesser-born nobleman who is swift with the sword, eloquent with poetry and nevertheless suffering from an extreme case of poor body image, Hodge’s Cyrano is a man who masks his self-doubt with swaggering humor, though crushed with the belief that his looks condemn him to never being worthy of the heart of his beautiful cousin Roxane, who favors the attractive, but inarticulate soldier, Christian.  In the famous balcony scene, where the poet hides in the shadows to impersonate Christian in feeding her the words of love she longs to hear, Hodge’s Cyrano is in agony, suppressing his longing for the selfless act of giving his love what he thinks she wants.  When the two men are sent to war and Cyrano risks death every day to send her letters of Christian's devotion from the front lines, it’s with a noble sense of duty.  Hodge’s Cyrano is a good guy who needs a hug, or at least a year of therapy.

Kyle Soller's Christian is boyishly callow and Clémence Poésy’s Roxane is suitably naïve, but it’s the lusciously timbered Patrick Page who matches Hodge’s star turn in his brief appearances as the villainously elegant Comte de Guiche.

Soutra Gilmour’s darkly-hued unit set and costumes under Japhy Weideman’s soft lighting give the handsome production the look of a classic oil painting.

Photo of Patrick Page and Douglas Hodge by Joan Marcus.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

Posted on: Friday, November 02, 2012 @ 01:35 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 10/28/12 & Theatre Quote of the Week

 

"Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so."

-- Gore Vidal, The Best Man

 

The grosses are out for the week ending 10/28/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: THE HEIRESS(0.1%),

Down for the week was: THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD (-18.1%), WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (-14.1%), GRACE (-11.1%), CHAPLIN (-10.4%), WAR HORSE (-9.7%), EVITA (-9.3%), MAMMA MIA! (-8.1%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-7.4%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (-7.3%), CHICAGO (-7.0%), SCANDALOUS (-7.0%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (-6.7%), FRANKIE VALLI AND THE FOUR SEASONS ON BROADWAY (-6.1%), MARY POPPINS (-6.0%), CYRANO DE BERGERAC (-6.0%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (-5.6%), JERSEY BOYS (-5.5%), ROCK OF AGES (-5.4%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-4.5%), ANNIE (-4.0%), THE LION KING (-2.7%), AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (-2.4%), NEWSIES (-2.3%), WICKED (-2.0%), GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (-1.4%), ONCE (-0.5%),

Posted on: Thursday, November 01, 2012 @ 12:35 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

House For Sale

The program for Transport Group’s premiere production of director Daniel Fish’s stage adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s essay, House For Sale, tells us that every performance is different, because each actor has apparently memorized the entire ninety minute piece and the sections of the text they perform each night are determined on the spot when the on-stage rows of lights display the color they’ve been assigned.  Unfortunately, audience members don’t get programs until after the play is done, so if you’re not aware that the original piece was written in one voice you have no idea that each ensemble member represents the same person and may wind up spending too much time trying to figure out what the blinking lights are supposed to mean.

Frazen’s essay, published in his 2007 collection The Discomfort Zone, concerns the author’s childhood memories and more recent observations as he prepares the house he grew up in to be sold after his mother’s death.  Unfortunately, Fish’s abstract approach to the material not only does nothing to enhance Frazen’s words, it alienates the audience from whatever value the text may contain.

The five-member ensemble (Rob Campbell, Lisa Joyce, Merritt Janson, Christina Rouner and Michael Rudko) occupies a lengthy playing area that the audience looks down on from seats on risers.  A fourth wall lies horizontally between the stage and the seats and has a mounted video screen that projects directly upward and upside down from the audience’s vantage point.  Long rows of folding chairs give the playing space the look of an airport waiting room.  Inexplicably connected projections, like the bloody conclusion to the film Bonnie and Clyde, are shown on the upstage wall.

The play begins with each actor taking turns delivering the same monologue, speeding up each turn until the words are gibberish.  They sometimes sing the text.  There’s a point where they speak in unison while all jog furiously in place.  Soon after, there is text where each actor speaks one word at a time.  One cast member is dragged across the length of the stage while speaking of economic matters.  Another dons a Minnie Mouse costume while telling of a family trip to Disney World.

What is done is done very well, but what the production has to do with the text is baffling.

Photo of Lisa Joyce, Rob Campbell, Christina Rouner, Michael Rudko and Merritt Janson by Carol Rosegg.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

Posted on: Saturday, October 27, 2012 @ 03:35 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

Wild With Happy

Don’t tell God, but for some people pop culture not even a century old can provide the same kind of spiritual inspiration and comfort as the ancient texts and traditions of organized religion.  Just ask Adelaide, the central character of Colman Domingo’s wonderfully joyous, sweet and funny adventure, Wild With Happy.  No, wait, you can’t.  Because she’s dead when the play starts.

Adelaide was the mother of Gil, played by Domingo himself, a smartly sardonic New York Yalie who hasn’t set foot in church since he was ten years old and Adelaide, after finding her boyfriend cheating on her the night before, woke her sleepy boy one Sunday morning determined that they had to “get up and get us some Jesus!”

But this isn’t a play about grieving.  It’s a bit more about how examining the life of someone who’s gone can affect you own life for the better.  But that message only creeps in toward the end of director Robert O’Hara’s clever and imaginative production, when the series of sometimes farcical/sometimes sitcomy scenes start blending into something of heartwarming sentimentality.

Frustrated by the responsibility of having to make funeral arrangements – not to mention the flirtations and sales pitches of the attractive funeral director, Terry (Korey Jackson) – Gil considers cremation, to the horror of his sassy-tongued, traditional Aunt Glo.  (“Black people don't do that!  You don't do that unless a person was burned or mutilated or too fat to fit in a coffin!”)  Sharon Washington doubles up on the female roles, projecting radiance as Adelaide in flashback moments and acting hilariously over-the-top as her domineering sister.

When Gil’s diva-ish friend Mo (Maurice McRae) learns of Adelaide’s past fascination with the Walt Disney version of Cinderella, he kidnaps his pal on an impromptu road trip to Orlando (with Terry and Aunt Glo hot in pursuit), finally settling into the room that Gil’s mother always dreamed of, Disney World’s Cinderella Suite.

Set and costume designer Clint Ramos, who spends much of the play dreaming up fun and unexpected ways to turn coffins into set pieces, presents a perfect interpretation of the Cinderella Suite as a cathedral of wonder, bringing out Domingo’s themes of faith and fantasy, spirituality and the magic of human imagination.

Wild With Happy is a delicious charmer about finding the heaven that’s right for you and forever keeping it in your heart.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Colman Domingo; Bottom: Colman Domingo and Sharon Washington.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

Posted on: Friday, October 26, 2012 @ 09:59 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

Broadway Originals & Grace

“We should not do a show more often,” quipped Ryan Silverman as he an Jill Paice took in the appreciative applause of the Town Hall audience before even singing a note of the Broadway musical they were expected to star in this season, Rebecca.  Host Scott Siegel had just recapped the story of the show’s numerous delays, fake investors, missing funds and the fact that an estimated 150 theatre professions had either turned down work or stopped seeking immediate employment because of their expectation to be working on Broadway by Christmas.

The pair grandly tore into three selections of what is apparently a dark, gothic, power ballad heavy musical: “Help Me Face The Night,” “Free Now,” and “Oh, My God.”  Ryan tried setting up that final song by explaining at what point it appears in the story before realizing he didn’t know.

Sunday’s concert, created by Siegel with music direction by John Fischer, was the 8^th edition of Broadway Originals, a favorite feature of Town Hall’s Annual Broadway Cabaret Festival, which traditionally presents musical theatre stars who have actually made it to opening night, singing selections from roles they either originated on Broadway or played in the first company of a Broadway revival.

In past years Broadway Originals has trotted out some beloved older performers like George S. Irving, Anita Gillette and Nancy Dussault, recreating triumphs from fifty or sixty years ago, but this year the accent was on youth and more recent productions.  The most senior of the citizens was the vivacious and still very active Tovah Feldshuh, swiveling her hips to the title song of Sarava, the 1979 musical that, before Spider-Man, was the model of a show that tried avoiding the critics by continually delaying its opening with a then incredable 38 previews.

Perhaps the least familiar face on stage was Kelli Rabke, who played the narrator in the 1993 revival of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and fiercely belted out “Jacob and Sons” with sizzling power.

Tonya Pinkins displayed supurb vocal dexterity and dynamics in interpreting Duke Ellington and Don George’s “I Ain’t Got Nothing But The Blues,” which she sang in the Harlem version of Twelfth Night called Play On!, and showed why she’s one of musical theatre’s top dramatic actresses with “Underwater” from Caroline, or Change.

Another outstanding musical theatre actress, Barbara Walsh, sang her Big solo about clinging to parental moments, “Stop, Time,” and honored us with a sparklingly wry “The Ladies Who Lunch.”

Alice Ripley repeated her Next To Normal highlight, “I Miss The Mountains” and assumed both roles for Side Show’s “Who Will Love Me As I Am?”

Laura Osnes, one of Broadway’s fastest rising stars, brought back her Bonnie & Clyde number, “How ‘Bout A Dance?,” and was reunited with her Grease co-star Max Crumm for “You’re The One That I Want.”

Elizabeth Stanley seriously steamed up the place while barely moving with an intensely sexual “Fever,” which she soloed in Million Dollar Quartet, and them assumed all three roles for Company’s Andrew Sisters-styled “You Can Drive A Person Crazy,” which helped make the character seem truly bonkers.

Mandy Gonzalez reminded us of both the lows and highs of her career, singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” from Dance of the Vampires – with the concert’s director, Scott Coulter, filling in for Michael Crawford with backup vocals – and “Breathe” from In The Heights.

Matt Cavenaugh contribulted some breathtaking moments as he delicately held those lengthy high notes in West Side Story’s “Maria,” then kicked back a bit for Urban Cowboy’s “It Don’t Get Better Than This.”

Lindsay Mendez had only one spot in the show, joyously belting Godspell’s “Bless The Lord.”  Perhaps she can do more another time if someone will move her memerable performance from earlier this season in Off-Broadway’s Dogfight to Broadway.

Photos by Genevieve Rafter Keddy: Top: Tonya Pinkins; Bottom: Tovah Feldshuh.

**************************

Craig Wright certainly isn’t the first playwright to open with an attention-grabbing final scene and then flash back to the beginning to show how the characters got there.  But what really grabs attention at the beginning of Grace is that the opening/final scene is actually played backwards, with the closing action beginning the play and all subsequent lines and staging moments reversed, only to be done again realistically at the evening’s conclusion.

The march to that conclusion is a muddy one, however, as Grace touches upon various aspects of faith – in both the spiritual and secular senses – without introducing anything particularly fresh about them.

Naïve and ambitious Steve (Paul Rudd) and his dutiful wife Sara (Kate Arrington) – both devout Christians – have uprooted from Minnesota to Florida, inspired by promised financial backing for Steve’s new business venture, a chain of gospel-themed hotels.  Their slogan:  Where Would Jesus Stay?

Their reclusive neighbor, Sam (Michael Shannon), is a NASA computer guy whose face was severely disfigured in a car accident that killed his fiancé.  Set designer Beowulf Boritt provides a cookie-cutter development condo meant to represent both their homes, which the actors occupy simultaneously.  Above them, lighting designer David Weiner’s skyscapes are appropriately inspirational.

The cynical Sam has the sharpest lines when first encountering Steve’s faith-driven sales pitches, but he opens up emotionally to the lonely Sara.  A pair of whimsical breaks are provided by, of all people, Ed Asner, as a Holocaust-surviving atheist exterminator with a cancer-stricken wife.

Director Dexter Bullard’s production is certainly competent, as is the quartet of actors, but Grace’s hundred minutes of romantic triangle wrapped in theaological discussions is hardly inspired.

Photo by Joan Marcus: Kate Arrington, Paul Rudd and Michael Shannon.

 Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

Posted on: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 @ 12:37 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 10/21/12 & Theatre Quote of the Week

 

"I believe in censorship.  I made a fortune out of it."
-- Mae West

The grosses are out for the week ending 10/21/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: THE HEIRESS (6.4%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (6.1%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (5.4%), ANNIE (2.9%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (2.9%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (1.8%), JERSEY BOYS (1.4%), RUNNING ON EMPTY (1.0%), ROCK OF AGES (0.8%), WAR HORSE (0.8%), ONCE (0.6%), NEWSIES (0.5%), EVITA (0.5%), CHICAGO(0.1%),

Down for the week was: SCANDALOUS (-22.8%), CYRANO DE BERGERAC (-11.8%), WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (-5.4%), AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (-3.8%), MARY POPPINS (-3.0%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-2.2%), GRACE (-2.0%), CHAPLIN (-1.7%), MAMMA MIA! (-1.5%), WICKED (-0.1%),

Posted on: Monday, October 22, 2012 @ 03:27 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

Morning Observation

The only trouble with these 90-minute musicals that start at 7pm is that I really can't get all that enthused over the big 8:15 number.

 

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

Posted on: Monday, October 22, 2012 @ 11:49 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

Loni Ackerman's Next To Ab-Normal

I suppose there’s nothing unusual about a little kid waking up one morning to see a group of her parents’ friends socializing around the family piano.  It’s just that when you’re young Loni Ackerman, those friends include Mayor John Lindsay, Ted Kennedy, Ralph Nader, several members of the Black Panthers and, playing the piano, football star Rosie Greer.

But hey, what would you expect from a kid who spends her 13^th birthday party singing duets with Gwen Verdon, as directed by Bob Fosse.

Musical theatre fans know Ackerman as the girl with the big, belty voice who played the feisty maid in George M!, the Boston gold-digger in No, No, Nanette and the torchy Bronx teenager in So Long, 174^th Street before graduating to replacement leading lady stints in Cats, Evita and Sunset Blvd.

But in her delightfully quirky cabaret evening now playing at the Metropolitan Room, Next To Ab-Normal, Ackerman explains how, as the daughter of two of New York’s most prominent philanthropists (Her mother, Cyma Rubin, produced No, No, Nanette and Doctor Jazz on Broadway.), casual dinners with family friends might include passing the salt to Dennis Hopper or Leopold Stokowski.  (“I called him Skokie.")

Her funny anecdotes – like how Bobby Van inadvertently helped her lose her virginity – are accented with a collection of songs from her career and assorted American Songbook classics, charmingly sung with strong mellow vocals, accompanied by music director Paul Greenwood’s ensemble and directed by Barry Kleinbort.

“Crossword Puzzle,” which she introduced in David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr.’s Starting Here, Starting Now, is given a stellar treatment as she recreates the breakdown of a neurotic New York woman who keeps intimidating her boyfriend with her advanced vocabulary.  And when she brings back Stan Daniels’ “Men,” her big So Long, 174^th Street number where a frustrated teen recalls the boys that did her wrong, she pops in some of those high shrieks of adolescent angst that made her original performance so memorable.

Hugh Martin’s “The First Girl In The Second Row,” which introduces stories about her dubious career as an aspiring ballet dancer, is followed by a gentler moment, a lovely rendition of Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ “Pink Taffeta Sample, Size 10,” a ballad cut from Sweet Charity, that Ackerman first heard when the lyricist sang it at her home before taking the show for pre-Broadway tryouts.

While spending time in Paris (a good excuse for David Yazbek’s “Here I Am”) Ackerman was asked to translate the original French lyric for a Joe Ricotta melody, resulting in the dramatic ballad, “Come Back, My Love.”  She was told the song was being used for a film but she didn’t find out until later exactly what kind of film.

“My career with Andrew Lloyd Webber can be summed up in three hand gestures,” she quips, demonstrating the classic poses for Grizabella, Norma Desmond and Eva Peron before a dynamic medley of “Buenos Aires,” “New Ways To Dream” and “Memory.”

Married to sound designer Steve Canyon Kennedy, Ackerman says she’s happily settled into a more normal suburban life, but a visit to her abnormal past provides a perfectly charming evening.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

Posted on: Sunday, October 21, 2012 @ 02:43 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

Falling

When 18-year-old Josh pulls the string hanging from a box propped up on a shelf in his family’s living room, he gets showered with dozens of soft white feathers.  The mile-wide smile and limitlessly joyful expression on his face, and the happy tingle you can imagine must be tickling his body all over, tells you that playing with this homemade toy is something he does frequently to bring him comfort and momentary, completely innocent happiness.

And when Josh nearly chokes the life out of his mother, easily lifting her from the ground in his powerful arms and effortlessly dragging her across the room, it’s also something he has done before, though not as frequently.  The frightened expression on his face tells you he is defending himself against something he can’t comprehend, but as soon as he can be distracted with a puzzle or his beloved marbles, all fear is gone and his attention is focused on a new activity while his mother tries regaining her breath and puts her hands on the places where the new bruises will show up.

Josh is autistic and while his degree of autism may differ from that of others, playwright Deanna Jent has based her beautiful, heartbreaking, complex and desperately hopeful drama, Falling, on her experiences with her own autistic son.

Daniel Everidge, the actor who gives an outstanding performance as Josh, balancing the character’s pathos and unintentional menace, is an imposingly large and tall man who scoots about with a stiffened upper body and blurts out responses to questions in short sentences.  He can seem like a gentle angel when relaxed on the sofa watching his Jungle Book DVD until he starts masturbating to it.  Common noises like the blender running or a dog barking outside scare him into a panic and throughout the evening Everidge realistically keeps the audience braced for any unexpected reaction.

Jent says that Falling is about loving someone who is difficult to love.  Bearing the brunt of that difficulty is Josh’s mother Tami, rivetingly played by Julia Murney with a desperately weary cheerfulness.  Murney has made a career of giving excellent acting performances in musicals and while Falling doesn’t require her to sing, what makes her characterization so tragic is that Tami is continually required to give a performance for her son; making a happy game out of each everyday situation in order to keep Josh under control and quickly improvising to counter any resistance without scaring him into violent outbursts.

In many ways, Tami reacts like a victim of domestic abuse; turning to alcohol for quick comfort and being the first to defend her attacker when others fear for her safety.  Her obligation to love and protect her son outweighs any concern for herself and she rejects any intimacy with her husband, Bill (Daniel Pearce), who has also learned the routines of entertaining Josh in order to get through the day.  Their teenage daughter, Lisa (Jacey Powers), has given up trying to deal with her brother, afraid of his strength and resentful for being deprived of a normal childhood.

There’s no plot in Falling; just a finely detailed portrait of this family’s life played in ninety thoroughly intriguing, sometimes shocking, minutes.  What stands out about director Lori Adams’ subtle production is how the family members see the intricate system of code words and distractions they’ve developed to help handle Josh as just a normal part of everyday living.  They’ve been at this for so long that, instead of immediacy, we get the emotionless daily routine.  This is especially apparent after Bill manages to pacify his son and diffuse an attack on Tami.  It may seem like he doesn’t do enough to comfort her once the immediate threat is calmed, but most likely this has happened enough times that she has made it clear to him what she needs when this happens.

The play is set on a day when Bill’s mother, Grammy Sue (Celia Howard), comes for one of her infrequent visits.  Never having seen the fully-grown Josh in action, the character becomes the audience’s eyes and ears, taking in the experience for the first time and becoming a sounding board for Tami, Bill and Lisa to talk about home life issues and express their feelings.  Eventually, the playwright introduces a situation that allows them to think of how much happier they would be if Josh was no longer there; a thought that’s painful to consider, but understandable nevertheless.

Grammy Sue is established as someone who believes that prayer and the church can solve any problem, but Howard does a fine job in showing her gradual understanding of the situation’s complexities.  Pearce's Bill is determined to be a good father and husband, despite the fact that he receives little joy from family life and although Lisa has detached herself from any relationship with her brother, Powers keeps the character sympathetic as she yearns for a reasonable amount of parental attention.

With two memorable central performances, a very strong supporting cast and a script that earns every tear it jerks from you, Falling is one of the finest theatrical productions currently offered in New York.

Photos by Carol Rosegg:  Top:  Daniel Everidge and Julia Murney; Bottom: Daniel Pearce, Celia Howard, Daniel Everidge, Jacey Powers and Julia Murney.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

 

Posted on: Thursday, October 18, 2012 @ 06:16 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback

---

Next 10

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.