Bookwriter/composer/lyricist Christopher Curtis’ Behind The Limelight, as the show was previously known, seemed extremely promising when it played the New York Musical Theatre Festival six years ago.  But despite the addition of master craftsman Thomas Meehan to co-author the book, Chaplin, though it has its moments of charm, comes off as more of a check-list of events than a dramatically propelled entertainment.

The evening begins symbolically with a recreation of Charlie Chaplin’s high wire scene from The Circus, perhaps not the most iconic image from his career.  As he struggles to keep his balance, characters below yell out lines from conflicts that are yet to come.  While singing on a high wire may not be the easiest task in the world (even when, as in this case, the actor is hooked to safety wires), the moment cries out for a musical reaction from the protagonist, but he remains silent.

We then go back to the man’s London childhood, where his saloon-singing mother (the lovely-voiced and underutilized Christiane Noll) encourages her son (Zachary Unger) to watch the people he passes by every day and imagine the stories that lie beneath their faces.  It’s a strong beginning to the story, but once the grown-up Chaplin (Rob McClure) takes over, we’re told that his comedy act, with his straight man brother Sydney (Wayne Alan Wilcox), is a popular music hall attraction without ever getting a sample of it. 

We suddenly find out that director Mack Sennett (dependable comic tough guy type Michael McCormick) happened to be in the audience one night and has offered him a higher salary than he’s ever imagined to go to Hollywood and make movies.  But when he arrives in California, Sennett finds him completely unfunny on his first day filming.  Under the threat of being fired, Chaplin remembers his mother’s advice and develops his Little Tramp character by thinking about the Londoners he once observed.  And while the sequence climaxes with the creation of the Chaplin we all came to see, the authors have yet to establish any sense of the man who created him, nor whatever talent he had that the film director originally saw.  There’s no thrill in seeing what he became if we have no idea from where he started.

Once we’re told that Chaplin has fast become a popular star (instead of seeing the public’s reaction and learning what it was about the Little Tramp that immediately appealed to audiences), Sennett is out of the picture and Sydney starts negotiating new deals as Charlie’s manager.  Though the relationship between the two brothers is the one with the most dramatic potential – particularly because of issue of their mother’s long-term dementia – the authors instead race through decades of material (four teenage wives, the affect of talkies on his career, his on-screen mockery of Hitler, accusations that send him to exile in Switzerland and, finally, an honorary Oscar in 1972) with a parade of one-note characters.  The first act ends with a ballet of a dozen Chaplins mimicking the star as part of a look-alike contest; well-executed, but meaningless to the drama.

In the second act brassy-voiced Jenn Colella injects some much-needed musical comedy adrenaline into the proceedings as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, who, according to the text, tried to ruin Chaplin’s career because he wouldn’t give her an interview.

Though the material is lacking (the revised score felt much stronger at the festival) director/choreographer Warren Carlyle mounts a handsome enough production, smoothly mixing live action with film clips of McClure.  Designers Beowulf Boritt (set), Ken Billington (lights) and Amy Clark and Martin Pakledinaz (costumes) nicely dress the evening in monochrome visuals.

Through a silent art that defied boundaries of language and a new technology that could quickly distribute that art around the globe, Charlie Chapin became world famous faster than anyone could have imagined when the 1900s began.  And yet this musical conveys none of the excitement of that time, none of the romance of the period and certainly none of the joy of Chaplin’s work.  McClure does an admirable job impersonating the icon, but the gloomy musical he carried on his shoulders offers little opportunity for the actor to shine.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Rob McClure; Bottom: Jenn Colella.

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Posted on: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 @ 08:08 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

-- Charles Dickens

The grosses are out for the week ending 9/23/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (12.2%), PORGY AND BESS (3.9%), WICKED(0.8%),

Down for the week was: CHAPLIN (-14.9%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (-14.9%), GRACE (-12.8%), MAMMA MIA! (-11.9%), EVITA (-10.9%), WAR HORSE (-10.7%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-10.5%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-10.3%), CYRANO DE BERGERAC (-8.1%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (-7.2%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (-6.5%), MARY POPPINS (-6.2%), CHICAGO (-4.2%), ONCE (-3.2%), NEWSIES (-3.1%), JERSEY BOYS (-2.8%), ROCK OF AGES (-2.1%),

Posted on: Monday, September 24, 2012 @ 04:05 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

There are a great many emotions you can imagine when looking into the eyes of Bolick’s depictions: fear, sorrow, confusion and even wisps of relief at having survived a horrifying experience.  But oddly enough, none of the portraits appear to be emoting anger.  There’s a certain stillness in the display that is also very evident in director Bob Balaban’s production of Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen’s play.  Despite the controversies and injustices described, The Exonerated contains no dramatic extremes of emotion, and yet the stories themselves, told simply and quietly, are thoroughly compelling and heartbreaking.

Six stories are told during the course of the 90-minute production; alternating sections so that we follow them simultaneously.  Ten actors sit across the stage in a row, dressed in street clothes and reading their scripts from lecterns.  There are six regular company members, but the play is designed to easily accommodate a rotating cast of name stars who can slip into the show as their schedules allow.  The evening I attended the rotating cast included Stockard Channing, Chris Sarandon, Delroy Lindo and Brian Dennehy.  (A complete schedule of rotating cast members can be found on Culture Project’s web site.)  Nearly every word they speak is taken from personal interviews with those depicted and documents and transcripts of public record.

The spiritual center of the piece is poet Delbert Tibbs (Lindo), who refuses to despair despite being convicted for rape and murder based on evidence that was later found to be tainted.  Sonia ‘‘Sunny’’ Jacobs (Channing) spent 12 years on death row for a murder that someone else confessed to.  When police found the parents of Gary Gauger (Dennehy) murdered, his words were misused to suggest a confession.  Kerry Max Cook (Sarandon) was found guilty of killing a woman when his fingerprint on her doorknob was found by an “expert” to have been left at the time of the murder; despite the fact that determining the time when a fingerprint was left is impossible.  Robert Earl Hayes (JD Williams), a black man, was found guilty of murdering a woman despite the fact that light-colored hair that could not have come from him was found grasped in her hands.  (There’s a bit of comic relief in his interactions with his sassy wife, played by April Yvette Thompson.)  After spending two years in prison, David Keaton (Curtis McLarin) was found to have been beaten into giving a false confession for killing a police officer, but even after being exonerated he was not released until six years later, after the real killer was found and convicted.

Though the stage is dimly lit, designer Tom Ontiveros places each of the characters in a small cell of light while they speak, exemplifying their loneliness.

The circumstances which lead to their original convictions involved combinations of human error, incompetence, inexperience, racism, red tape and, it’s suggested, the pressure to secure a conviction superseding the need to discover the truth.  While this could be seen as a one-sided indictment against the legal system – particularly in the smug, unfeeling way authority figures are portrayed by Jim Bracchitta and Bruce Kronenberg – The Exonerated is not a judgmental piece.  Facts are laid out before the audience to inform whatever conclusions they may make.

At the performance I attended, the actual Sunny Jacobs was introduced to the audience, seeming very sweet and upbeat.  From September 25-30, she is scheduled to appear on stage playing herself.  Expect emotions to be particularly high.

Photo by Carol Rosegg: Bruce Kronenberg, Erik Jensen, Amelia Campbell, Brian Dennehy, Delroy Lindo, Stockard Channing, JD Williams, April Yvette Thompson, Curtis McClarin and Jim Bracchitta.

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Posted on: Saturday, September 22, 2012 @ 02:43 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

Though it debuted with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company two years ago, Lisa D'Amour’s Detroit, a Pulitzer finalist, remains a topical comedy during an election season where unemployment and job creation are hot issues.

The titular city is never mentioned in the play and the program notes describe the setting as a “first ring” suburb outside a mid-size American city; a suburb we eventually find was created as a community of affordable “little boxes.”  The notes also include a quote from architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, teaching us that after 40 years the glue that holds plywood together will dry, causing the wood to buckle and peel until rooms made of the material “morph into trick-or-treat versions of themselves.”  Hence the happy suburban lifestyle that may have raised people like Mary and Ben in the 1970’s has started turning ghoulish.

Ben (David Schwimmer) is a laid-off bank loan officer approaching the end of his severance pay, but insisting his new web-based financial planning business will soon be ready to take off.  Meanwhile, Mary (Amy Ryan) pays the bills as a paralegal and, growing more and more frustrated with Ben’s lack of financial productivity, has turned more and more to alcohol.

Also frustrating them is the patio umbrella that won’t stay open and the sticky sliding door, neither of which faze their new neighbors.  Having fallen in love while both were in rehab, Kenny (Darren Pettie) and Sharon (Sarah Sokolovic) fell into taking the house next door through family, though they lack the money to furnish it with their low-income jobs.  Having nothing to lose actually looks comfortable on them, as they live their lives without inhibitions; happy to dine on the steaks and imported cheeses served by Mary and Ben while burgers and Cheetos are on the menu when they have company.

While the set-up works, the development is lacking, as the playwright presents the ill effects the couples have on one another in a manner that’s too jokey to be empathetic.  Her dialogue is often amusing, but it rarely digs deep into the issues she’s laid out.  And while Anne Kauffman’s direction effectively mixes the play’s potentially volatile combination of funny and creepy, Ryan too frequently lunges into a different plane of reality whenever Mary loses control and Schwimmer tends to overplay his underplaying.  Pettie and Sokolovic are spot-on, though, subtly showing the potential for violence under Kenny’s genial exterior and the combination of sturdiness and vulnerability that alternates within Sharon.

The best work all around comes in the play’s penultimate scene, where Kenny and Sharon’s influence on Ben and Mary comes to a dangerous climax, but it’s followed by a rather heavy-handed thematic summary of sorts by a character making his first appearance in the play.  The fact that the character is played by John Cullum means the heavy-handedness is softened as skillfully as possible, but Detroit, despite being sufficiently entertaining and thought-provoking, feels more like a play of unrealized potential.

Photos by Jeremy Daniel:  Top: Amy Ryan and David Schwimmer; Bottom: Sarah Sokolovic and Darren Pettie.

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Posted on: Thursday, September 20, 2012 @ 09:31 AM Posted by: Michael Dale

"Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage."

-- Charlie Chaplin

The grosses are out for the week ending 9/16/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: PORGY AND BESS (17.6%), WAR HORSE (10.6%), MAMMA MIA! (9.4%), WICKED (7.6%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (6.8%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (6.3%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (6.1%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (4.6%), EVITA (4.4%), NEWSIES (4.2%), JERSEY BOYS (3.9%), CHICAGO (2.3%), ONCE (2.2%), MARY POPPINS (1.6%), AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (1.3%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (1.2%), ROCK OF AGES(0.9%),

Down for the week was: CHAPLIN (-6.9%), THE LION KING (-0.9%),

Posted on: Monday, September 17, 2012 @ 04:53 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

The title character (played with noble reserve by Janie Brookshire) is the finest maid ever employed by the exceedingly proper Timbrell family, who quietly confesses in the first scene that she is pregnant by the master’s devilishly irresponsible bachelor son, Leonard (Roderick Hill).  In what may seem a surprising move, the family patriarch, Edward (a gruffly domineering Graeme Malcolm), sympathizes more with the help and insists that his son marry her and accept an annual allowance or be cut off from the family wealth.  Leonard, who fancies himself as a writer (though an unproductive one), accepts the offer, as does Mary, who does have a gent in her life but would not think of asking him to take her now.

Despite the play’s title, it is Leonard who is the central character, and while a British audience of one hundred years ago might have found him more entertaining and sympathetic than a modern audience of yanks would, Hill, under director Jonathan Bank, skillfully gives Leonard some degree of naïve sincerity to go with his glib humor.  If not exactly likeable, he’s not completely abhorrent.

The four talkative acts (delivered in less than two hours) have only a slight plot developing from the marriage and turns mostly into an evening of class-conscious quipping.  A slight reminder of how much better Shaw was at this sort of thing arrives with the entrance of Mary’s very Alfred P. Doolittle-ish father.  Douglas Rees gives a heartily amusing performance as the self-described radical with socialist leanings; a dingily attired horse-drawn cab driver being driven from his income by the new motorized taxis.

But if the play proves less than satisfactory, it still receives the traditional Mint treatment in a handsomely acted production.  Set designer Roger Hanna provides the impression of stately home with a slight touch of modern commentary when an imposing collection of family portraits is used for a very funny sight gag.

Photo of Janie Brookshire and Roderick Hill by Carol Rosegg.

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Posted on: Monday, September 17, 2012 @ 02:53 AM Posted by: Michael Dale

At its best, Normalcy is the kind of play that will make people uncomfortable, in the best possible sense, and stimulate discussion; excellent traits for a new piece.  Theatre East’s Off-Off Broadway production is nicely mounted by Benard Cummings (especially good work by set designer Lea Anello for creating numerous locations on what must be a modest budget and to Scott O’Brien for the uneasy moodiness of his score.) but the play, at this state, is an admirable and ambitious work in progress.

Advertising slogan exec Peter (Judson Jones) and his fashion journalist wife Sarah (Aleisha Force) insist they are not rich as they entertain his father and her mother at their Sag Harbor summer home.  A retired high school teacher, Peter’s outspoken father, Jules (Harvey Guion), is never at a loss for comments about how his son’s profession contributes nothing to society.  Sarah’s mother Marta, who is described by the playwright as being “of vague European descent” (Mary Ann Hay complies with a strong, but vague, accent.) takes an elitist view of her daughter’s profession.  (“I do not understand how so many people are interested in fashion they cannot afford and celebrities they will never meet. That’s very American.”)

Unsuccessful at several expensive attempts to conquer their fertility problem, Peter and Sarah announce that not only do they intend to adopt, but specifically that they plan to adopt a black child.  The hints of their well-meaning but naïve white liberal guilt motivating this choice are evident throughout the play, but when Peter finally explains the long-ago event that set him on a path of making up for the sins of his forefathers, it plays like an unrealistic cliché.

The play picks up significant steam when the couple meets with social worker, Catherine (Darlene Hope), a black woman who encounters August Wilson-loving, Langston Hughes-appreciating white couples like them every day.  Her job is to find suitable homes for countless underserved black children and she is ruthless in her determination to make sure these prospective parents will be prepared for what’s to come.  (“But there will be that word you would never ever use, never ever permit in your house, coming out of the mouth of your adopted black son and testing your liberal Upper West Side sensibilities. Now what do you do?”)  Like the majority of prospective adoptive parents, Sarah and Peter are looking for an infant, but Catherine expertly plays on their insistence that they want to make a difference for a deserving child and convinces them to spend time with a seven year old boy with attention deficit disorder, as he would be available immediately.  We never see the child, but the playwright develops sympathy for him through the conversations of others.

There are broad hints of sexual and romantic tension between Peter and his young black assistant Solonge (Sarah Joyce), who he keeps referring to as Sally, but that subplot never gets fully developed.

Windheim goes for the jugular in the second act when Aiesha (Lisha Mckoy), a guest speaker in front of an audience of white couples hoping to adopt black children, explains how she, a black woman, grew to hate the well-meaning, loving and supportive white couple that adopted her and made it impossible for her to develop a racial identity.  (“My awareness of being African has always been on a theoretical level.”)  Whether you agree with her position or not, her monologue contains the evening’s best writing and Mckoy delivers it for its full, harsh impact.

The other actors are not as fortunate.  Although the acting ensemble does respectable work, the characters are mostly underwritten types.  The story carries little emotional punch because the go-getting Sarah and the burnt out Peter are rarely seen relating to each other as a couple.

Most of the scenes in the two-and-a-half hour play can use some trimming, as the characters tend to have conversations that go off in extemporaneous tangents.  Perhaps doing so will help streamline focus on the main issue, which is where Normalcy shows potential to be truly exciting.

Photo of Darlene Hope, Aleisha Force and Judson Jones by James M. Wilson.

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Posted on: Friday, September 14, 2012 @ 10:49 AM Posted by: Michael Dale

"The curtain will never go down on New York City." -- Broadway-related commercial airing shortly after 9/11

The grosses are out for the week ending 9/9/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: CHAPLIN (18.8%), MAMMA MIA! (6.0%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (5.8%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (5.5%), EVITA (5.1%), PORGY AND BESS (4.1%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (4.0%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (3.7%), CHICAGO (2.7%), JERSEY BOYS (1.8%), ONCE(0.9%),

Down for the week was: BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (-10.5%), WICKED (-8.7%), MARY POPPINS (-6.0%), NEWSIES (-5.5%), ROCK OF AGES (-3.5%), WAR HORSE (-1.6%), THE LION KING (-0.5%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (-0.2%),

Posted on: Monday, September 10, 2012 @ 03:31 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

Gerard Alessandrini's ever-updated madcap revue satirizing the current Broadway musical scene has had other hiatuses since the show was first conceived in 1982, but the recent three-year absence seemed to mirror the emptiness that was felt in the New York theatre community when The Fantasticks was forced to close, before having the original production remounted uptown at the Snapple.  Like the Jones/Schmidt musical, Forbidden Broadway feels like an indispensible part of this town, like the Empire State Building… or at least Marie’s Crisis.

What began as an intimate nightclub entertainment featuring a company draped in formal wear has evolved through the years into a loud, wacky stage show boasting comical costumes and frequently vicious celebrity impersonations.  But the basics have never varied; two men, two women and a piano player gleefully making bloody carnage of Broadway’s hits through Alessandrini's clever and critical parody lyrics.  And while a great love for the theatre is always prevalent, the material can get somewhat nasty when the author addresses those who soil the stage with what he considers to be inferior artistry or overly commercial crassness.

This time around the strongest venom seems reserved for Book of Mormon writers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Bobby Lopez got a free pass, I guess.), depicted as a pair of smarmy punks who thumb their noses at the Church of Sondheim to cash in on vulgarity (“And I believe / That ancient Jews like Richard Rodgers didn’t write very good musicals.”), with enough left over for Evita’s Elena Roger, described as having an “utter lack of star quality” and hoping that New York audiences would think she’s Chita Rivera.  (“And if ever it goes too high / I distract you and flash my thigh / And use my thin soprano.”)

Roger is mimicked by Jenny Lee Stern, who is just smashing in her many celebrity aliases.  While certainly not the first Forbidden actress to portray Bernadette Peters, her imitation of the star’s voice at this stage of her career (“In Stephen’s ears / I’m still on key a lot.”) is both precise in its vulnerability and loving in its presentation.  She tackles familiar FB targets like Patti LuPone and Sutton Foster with aplomb and is hilariously deadpan as Cristin Milioti.  But perhaps her most interesting turn comes in a very straightforward, non-comical impersonation of Judy Garland singing lyrics critical of Tracie Bennett’s over-the-top End of The Rainbow portrayal.  (“You made me loony. / I wish you hadn’t done it. / I wish you hadn’t done it.”)

Opposite her LuPone and Roger is Marcus Stevens as an attention-hungry Mandy Patinkin desperately emoting through roles he’s outgrown (“My boy Bill / Should be forty by now…”) and a hip-swiveling Ricky Martin playing Broadway to pay for his kids’ braces and school supplies.  His most impressive bit of hilarity is a copy of Matthew Broderick’s unique mannerisms in “Nice Song If I Could Sing It.”

His Kelli O’Hara in that bit is Natalie Charlé Ellis, lamenting the star’s lack of comedic chops (“The laughs are on a roll / But not with me.”), but that’s no problem for her, as evidenced by her Tony-greedy Audra McDonald and musically-challenged Catherine Zeta-Jones.  (“Send In The Hounds”)

Scott Richard Foster is the rocker specialist, with his highlights including an angsty Steve Kazee, an out-of-control Stacee Jaxx from Rock of Ages celebrating the less-refined side of Broadway (“We filled this city with NASCAR shows”) and a frustrated Bono, who, in an especially inspired move, sings a certain, very appropriate Guys and Dolls duet with Ellis’ Julie Taymor.

Another inspired moment has Stephen Sondheim expressing his “Agony” from watching the Central Park production of Into The Woods while Donna Murphy echoes the sentiment for having to perform in a tree costume.  (Hmm… “Someone In A Tree” might have been a nice choice for that spot.)

Longtime Forbidden Broadway director Phillip George keeps the show at its usual brisk and silly pace and music director David Caldwell, also a vet of the show, provides the peppy on-stage piano accompaniment.  For fifteen years the brilliant Alvin Colt costumed the show before his death in 2008.  One of his classics, The Lion King’s Rafiki, accessorized in plastic spoons and Disney souvenirs, remains with the show.  Philip Heckman’s new designs are less cartoonish than his predecessor’s, but still charming and effective.

As can be expected with any production of Forbidden Broadway, some bits are more smile-inducing than laugh-out-loud funny (The Annie routine stretches its one joke too thin and the spoof of Norm Lewis’ octave-jumping, melody-changing performance in Porgy and Bess doesn’t quite hit its mark because the singer doesn’t seem to be instructed to do enough of what the lyric is describing.) but the production is always so meticulously mounted and executed that even during slower moments there’s always the feel of something very funny about to happen.

Smash and Newsies also figure in the mix, as do revived routines spoofing Wicked and Jersey Boys, but the new Bring It On seems to have been egregiously overlooked.  Perhaps it will leap into the proceedings after one or two recently closed shows have been axed.  Same goes for the upcoming Chaplin.

The new entry is billed as a limited run.  Let’s hope it’s the same kind of limited run Newsies had planned.

Photos by Carol Rosegg:  Top: Jenny Lee Stern and Scott Richard Foster; Bottom: Marcus Stevens and Scott Richard Foster.

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Posted on: Friday, September 07, 2012 @ 12:06 AM Posted by: Michael Dale

"There is an art to playing the straight role. You must build up your man but never top him, never steal the laughs."

-- Margaret Dumont

The grosses are out for the week ending 9/2/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (26.1%), CLYBOURNE PARK (6.5%), WICKED (5.7%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (5.4%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (3.8%), CHAPLIN (3.6%), EVITA (3.1%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (2.6%), PORGY AND BESS (2.1%), ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (1.9%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (1.6%), ROCK OF AGES(0.9%),

Down for the week was: MARY POPPINS (-8.8%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-5.8%), MAMMA MIA! (-4.3%), ONCE (-2.2%), JERSEY BOYS (-1.2%), CHICAGO (-0.9%), NEWSIES (-0.2%), WAR HORSE (-0.1%),

Posted on: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 @ 02:16 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

 -- Groucho Marx

The grosses are out for the week ending 8/26/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (9.2%), CLYBOURNE PARK (8.4%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (6.0%), PORGY AND BESS (3.1%), SISTER ACT (2.8%), ROCK OF AGES(1.1%),

Down for the week was: NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (-14.3%), MARY POPPINS (-8.6%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (-6.4%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-5.6%), MAMMA MIA! (-4.6%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (-4.1%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-2.9%), WICKED (-2.6%), EVITA (-2.0%), CHICAGO (-1.0%), JERSEY BOYS (-0.9%), ONCE (-0.7%), WAR HORSE (-0.7%), NEWSIES (-0.2%),

Posted on: Monday, August 27, 2012 @ 07:31 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

But nowadays, it seems common for “mindless fun” to be used as an excuse for less-than-inspired writing mounted and designed with lots of professional polish and performed with talent and gusto.  And when those mean ol’ New York theatre critics suggest that the material could stand to be a bit stronger, they’re chastised with the claim that their lack of enjoyment comes from an inability to just kick back and have fun.  Or even worse, someone will say, “It’s just a musical, not Shakespeare.”

The artists who wrote the bit of mindless fun now playing at the St. James, Bring It On, have previously been responsible for three of the brightest musical theatre offerings Broadway has seen in this young century.  Tom Kitt is the Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning composer of Next To Normal, an audacious musical about a family dealing with one member’s bipolar disorder.  Lin-Manuel Miranda won a Tony for his music and lyrics for the Pulitzer finalist In The Heights, a musical that applied traditional Rodgers and Hammerstein techniques to a contemporary story set in a Latino community of Washington Heights, with a score utilizing the sounds of a beautiful mosaic of cultures.  Jeff Whitty’s Tony-winning book for Avenue Q united a score full of novelty and satirical songs into a very human story told in the form of a television show that teaches twentysomethings the realities of post-college life in the style of Sesame Street.  And while Amanda Green has no Tony or Pulitzer to her credit, her career as a lyricist has displayed a talent for the kind of breezy intelligence you’d expect from the offspring of Adolph Green.

The news that this quartet has collaborated on a new Broadway musical should be a huge deal.  The further news that the score to their musical involving two very different high schools will be split by having Kitt and Green write for the predominantly white school and Miranda write for the predominantly black and Latino school should be credited as a bold and innovative move.  And yet Bring It On, though not a bad show at all, is not a particularly interesting one.  That said, it’s probably exactly the musical its creators intended it to be and will most likely be greatly enjoyed by the audience it’s intended to please.

The title comes from the 2000 film depicting the world of competitive high school cheerleading, but the story is new; though familiar and predictable.  Perky Campbell (Taylor Louderman) achieves the first half of her dream of becoming cheer captain of white, upper middle class Truman High and leading her squad to victory at the nationals, but a sudden redistricting of her neighborhood has her transferred to urban Jackson High.  Also redistricted is the chubby and gregarious Bridget (Ryann Redmond), who finds that the qualities that regulated her to outcast status at Truman make her popular with the cool kids at Jackson, but Campbell’s attempt to fit in by suggesting she help create a squad for the cheer-less Jacksonians is seen as a patronizing attempt by the skinny blonde white girl to help the underprivileged minorities.  Instead of a cheer squad, Jackson has a hip-hop dance crew, led by the tough, but emotionally guarded Danielle (Adrienne Warren), the slang-spewing Nautica (Ariana DeBose) and the confident and sassy transsexual La Cienega (Gregory Haney).  (In the upbeat world of Bring It On, La Cienega seems completely accepted by the entire student body and the worst abuse Campbell suffers is being called “Cream of Mushroom” and “Chicken Noodle.”)

Meanwhile, back at Truman, the popular diva Skylar’s (Kate Rockwell) role as new cheer captain is endangered by shy sophomore Eva (Elle McLemore), who turns out to be an Eve Harrington with lots of school spirit.  (But she’s never referred to as an Eve Harrington in the script.  This is not a Douglas Carter Beane musical.)

Eventually Campbell earns the trust of her Jackson schoolmates and they do form a squad to compete against Truman.  I suppose I’m not giving too much away by revealing that the losing team loses because they stayed true to themselves and played by their own rules (instead of, um, the rules of the competition) so really, everybody wins.

Close to every member of the Bring It On cast is making his or her Broadway debut, which can be expected when the show demands the kind of specialized cheerleading skills required.  Choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, making his Broadway debut as a director, keeps his cast flying and flipping through their numerous routines, which are fun to watch, but after initially introducing the styles of the competing schools, do little to keep the story moving.   And perhaps the need for people who can execute the routines is the reason why much of the cast seems to be lacking in the acting and performing departments.  Whitty’s book seems sufficiently funny but much of the company plays their broad-stroke characters without the details needed to bring out its comic potential.  Nobody’s bad, but expect more raw talent and youthful enthusiasm than stage savvy.

Kitt’s pop rock melodies get overshadowed by the more interesting urban mix composed by Miranda, but Green’s lyrics – when they’re not overwhelmed by the hyper-active staging – contain some smart comic gems.  (“My name is Skylar, I rep the Bucs with pride / I’m probably too cool for you, so friend request denied!”)  A second act rouser that has Eva celebrating her killer instinct stands out as a refreshing blast of old school musical comedy.  (“I’m the girl to beat, the high school queen! / Seniors kiss my ass and I’m just fifteen!”)

No doubt the amount of room needed for the twisting leaps and high kicks is the reason David Korins’ set consists primarily of easy-to-move projection screens, where video designer Jeff Sugg supplies some clever moments.  If nothing else, this will be known as the first Broadway musical to have scenes take place as video-projected Skype conversations.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Adrienne Warren and Taylor Louderman; Bottom: Ariana DeBose, Ryann Redmond and Gregory Haney.

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Posted on: Monday, August 27, 2012 @ 03:21 AM Posted by: Michael Dale

I could use up a paragraph explaining the plot of the evening’s same-named source – an 1893 comedy of a love and sex triangle – but really, none of it is the least bit recognizable in Royston Coppenger’s clichéd stylized adaptation featuring language that has the actors continually sounding like they’re speaking in italics.

There’s no program, so it’s hard to tell which of the 14 actors is playing who, especially since they all take turns during the performance in playing the piece’s six characters.  Let’s just say there’s a lot of talk about sex and love alternating with scenes of seduction and a good deal of clothes-on dry humping.  For the record, the only nudity I caught was one bare breast, but there are lengthy periods of under-the-clothes fondling accompanied by very heavy breathing. 

But where Playing With Fire succeeds nicely is in creating a fun, atmospheric environment well-suited for enjoying a cocktail or two.  The Box, a venue known for its late night erotic vaudevilles, is a lovely jewel box, looking like a miniature one-balcony opera house.  The least expensive tickets give you one drink and standing room at the back bar and at the higher end there’s table service up front that includes a bottle of champagne.  Although there’s a stage, director John Gould Rubin places the action all over the space so nobody gets a full view of everything, but video designers Ian Brownell and Raj Kottamasu have four camera operators following the actors so that the entire piece is visible on monitors.

With composers Kwan-Fai Lam and Sam Kindel supplying a techno soundscape and Bronwen Carson providing some frenetic, sexed-up choreography, there’s always something to grab your attention, either on the screen or inches away from you.  And at merely an hour long, Playing With Fire manages to sustain a flame bright enough to get you through the closing credits.

Photo by Lilly Charles.

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Posted on: Thursday, August 23, 2012 @ 02:52 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

Posted on: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 @ 04:31 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

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Click here for the latest example of how Eve Ensler is, quite simply, one of the most important writers of my lifetime.

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Posted on: Monday, August 20, 2012 @ 10:55 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

-- Phyllis Diller

The grosses are out for the week ending 8/19/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: WAR HORSE (14.1%), END OF THE RAINBOW (10.4%), GHOST (5.9%), CLYBOURNE PARK (2.9%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (2.6%), PORGY AND BESS (2.4%), THE LION KING (1.1%), EVITA(0.7%),

Down for the week was: SISTER ACT (-8.1%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (-6.6%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-6.5%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (-5.6%), CHICAGO (-4.7%), WICKED (-4.1%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-3.9%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (-3.7%), MAMMA MIA! (-2.6%), ONCE (-2.4%), JERSEY BOYS (-1.5%), ROCK OF AGES (-1.2%), MARY POPPINS (-0.9%), NEWSIES (-0.1%), ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (-0.1%),

Posted on: Monday, August 20, 2012 @ 07:21 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

As with most of the playwright’s work, all three pieces take place in Harrison, Texas, a fictional version of his childhood home, Wharton, where he grew up listening to a family full of story-tellers amusing each other with gossip and news.  Set in 1928, Blind Date has Hallie Foote as Dolores, a former beauty queen trying to cure her young niece, Sarah Nancy (Green) of her lack of success with potential suitors, despite the fact that the independently-minded Sarah Nancy clearly has no interest in traditional courtship, or in the boys who come a-calling.  To prepare for a visit from the hopeful Felix (Evan Jonigkeit), Dolores tries coaching her on a list of questions to ask her potential beau, because boys like girls who can have a conversation.  (“Who is going to win the football game next Friday?”  “What is the best car on the market today, do you think?”)

Well-experienced in keeping her spirits up, Dolores remains peppy and upbeat despite her mounting disappointment in Sarah Nancy’s sullen, deadpan disinterest, and the continual interruptions of her helpless and hungry husband Robert (Devon Abner), frustrated that she’s not making his dinner.  The date with Felix is a disaster until the pair winds up ditching conventions and starts being themselves.

Also set in 1928, The One-Armed Man, is a tense drama; not typical fare for Foote.  Alexander Cendese plays a mentally unstable man who worked for a cotton merchant (Jeremy Bobb) until his arm was severed by a picking machine.  He makes weekly visits to the boss’ office demanding his arm be returned.  The annoyed owner offers him $5 a week to stop bothering him with his irrational demand but this time the title character intends to settle the debt his way, once and for all.

The evening ends with the kind of quiet, character study Foote is more known for.  Set in 1952, The Midnight Caller takes us to a boarding home populated by the decidedly girlie “Cutie” Spencer (Green, in a nice reversal from her previous role), the easily-annoyed moralist Alma Jean (Mary Bacon) and the clever and gregarious retired schoolteacher, Rowena (a happily charming Jayne Houdyshell).

The comfortable uneventfulness of their lives is interrupted when the owner (Foote) rents rooms to two new boarders, the divorced Ralph (Bobb) and Helen (Jenny Dare Paulin), a introverted woman disowned by her mother for her relationship with a drunkard (Cendese) who starts desperately calling for her outside the home every evening at midnight.

Ralph’s desire for female company and the scandal created by Helen’s suitor brings up issues of loneliness and morality that affects each character in different ways.

Under Pam McKinnon’s gentle and sensitive direction, the three very different pieces are united by the theme of traditional ideas of class and morality being challenged; sometimes rationally, sometimes not.  The simple elegant design is highlighted by Marion Williams' wood-paneled set that quickly converts into three different interiors.  Graced by an exceptional acting ensemble, Mr. Foote’s modest trio makes for an extremely satisfying time.

Photos by James Leynse: Top: Andrea Lynn Green and Hallie Foote; Bottom: Jayne Houdyshell and Jeremy Bobb.

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Posted on: Saturday, August 18, 2012 @ 05:39 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

Still, the question that haunted many Americans at that time was, “Why do they hate us?” as the country grew less confident in the traditional belief that we have always been the world’s good guys.  It was during this uncertain time that Broadway audiences watched a childless baker and an abandoned Cinderella comfort an orphaned pair of children, Red Riding Hood and Jack, of beanstalk fame, with a quiet lullaby that summarized the second act’s theme of the subjectivity of right and wrong.

“Witches can be right.  Giants can be good.  You decide what’s right.  You decide what’s good,” instructs the lyric of “No One Is Alone,” as they prepare to kill an enemy whose only offense is the desire for justice against the boy who stole her property and murdered her husband.

There are many such discomforting moments in the often-brilliant text of Into The Woods.  Little Red Riding Hood is depicted as a precocious child who disobeys her mother’s instructions because the cunning wolf brings out early pangs of pubescent sexual awareness she’s too young to understand or control.  An elderly woman is impulsively killed in an attempt to keep her from acting in a manner that was putting her community in danger and the person who killed her defends himself to those who might have died if not for his actions by saying he was thinking of the greater good.  A wife cheats on her husband when a handsome prince arrives, only to be dumped the next morning and left to debate the morality of stepping out of your vows, just for a moment of fantasy fulfillment.

In America, our fairy tale culture is most familiar as presented by the Walt Disney Company, which tells us that wishes come true.  Lapine and Sondheim caution us that, “Wishes come true, not free.”

The new Delacorte production of Into The Woods is New York’s first high-profile mounting not directed by its bookwriter, Lapine.  Co-directors Timothy Sheader and Liam Steel have based this one on their Regent's Park Open Air Theatre production, though with a new cast and new design elements it’s not exactly a copy of what played in London.  And while it’s always nice to have new ideas and new interpretations injected into old favorites – and New York audiences have learned a lot in recent years about how our British friends like to inject new ideas and new interpretations into our musicals – “nice,” as Sondheim has Red Riding Hood sing, “is different than good.”

In many ways, it is a perfectly nice production, featuring a talented company of actors and several delightful surprises.  Someone who has never seen the musical before, and who appreciates serious-minded and literate musical comedy, would certainly find it a worthwhile evening just for the sake of being exposed to the material.

But “good” would be a production that allows for the intimacy needed for Sondheim’s intricate, razor-sharp lyrics and Lapine’s fantasy-deflating dialogue to pull the audience in. The Delecorte’s large stage and semi-circular arena style seating is not the kind of space designed for rapid wordplay, especially when set designers John Lee Beatty and Soutra Gilmour place a vertical maze of trees – making up stairways, walkways and a tower – so far upstage that the actors lose any connection with the audience during the numerous scenes played there.  And even when playing further downstage, Ben Stanton’s too dim lighting made facial expressions difficult to take in, even from my second row seat, until the brightness was finally turned up for the bows.  In what seems to be an attempt to cover all angles of the stage, ensemble scenes are so spread out that it’s often difficult to tell who is singing or speaking solo lines.  This Into The Woods may be heard, but it isn’t felt.

This is an actor’s musical, but more thought seems to have gone into stagecraft.  It is very impressive stagecraft, though.  The beanstalk created out of green umbrellas is rather fun, as is the puppetry involved in creating the giant (voiced by Glenn Close), though choosing to have the giant wear glasses does raise a question about the feasibility of the story’s ending.  And the technique used to climb up Rapunzel’s hair would probably be quite enjoyable to see, if I could see it.

Sheader and Steel have thrown a hodge-podge of ideas into the text, many of them very entertaining, though not all of them make complete sense.  The most daring move was to change the character of the narrator from a grown man to a contemporary young boy, perhaps around 12, who, by way of a brief prologue, we find has run away from home to some wooded rural area.  Perhaps as a way to alleviate his fears, he takes an assortment of dolls out of his knapsack and begins reciting the story of a baker and his wife who could not bear children because the witch next door placed a curse on their family as punishment for an act of theft.  To lift the curse they must deliver to her, "the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold.”  This task, of course, leads to encounters with Jack, Little Red, Rapunzel and Cinderella, as they lie, steal, double-talk and deceive in order to be blessed with a child.

The second act, which deals with the cost of having wishes come true, is presented as a nightmare the child is having while sleeping outdoors on the wood chips.  Those familiar with the show may question if that choice is consistent with what the book eventually tells us about the narrator character.  Nevertheless Noah Radcliffe, who alternates in the role with Jack Broderick, has a fine stage presence and a strong, clear singing voice.

Costume designer Emily Rebholz, who makes Cinderella’s step-family look like club kids from Boy George’s Taboo, dresses Sarah Stiles’ Little Red Riding Hood as a sort of punked out biker chick.  A very talented and funny performer, Stiles plays the role broadly in a boisterous little girl voice and gets her laughs.  Having the role played by an adult allows for some graphic comedy between Red and the wolf (a lusty and macho Ivan Hernandez, dressed like he’s about to go on a road tour of Hair), such as the scene where the wolf eating Red is presented to mean that he’s giving her oral sex, but not having the role played by an actual little girl, as was done in the musical’s two Broadway productions, takes away Red’s naïve inquisitiveness about her sexual awakening, which is written so charmingly and subtly into her lyrics.

As the baker’s wife, Amy Adams shows some strong singing pipes but she’s barely playing a character, reducing a role that’s loaded with witty moments into a bland, humorless cipher.  As her husband, Denis O’Hare seems almost too grounded in a grim reality, though he does play his familiar pattern of flatly speeding through lines sprinkled with sudden blasts of emotion.

Donna Murphy’s witch is designed to look like a human tree, but her impressive costume pretty much leaves one of Broadway’s top comical leading ladies unable to perform, buried under a concept. 

Fortunately, Chip Zien’s Mysterious Man costume allows the ingratiating actor free reign to work his gently humorous charms.  The original baker in the musical’s initial run, Zien captures the spirited mixture of urban sophistication and innocence that makes Into The Woods work.  His skillful touch with the material will make you believe the magical kingdom is an upper west side apartment with a view of the Hudson and within the delivery range of Zabar’s.

Photos by Joan Marcus:  Top: Donna Murphy and Tess Soltau; Bottom: Sarah Stiles and Ivan Hernandez.

Posted on: Thursday, August 16, 2012 @ 08:09 AM Posted by: Michael Dale

"I am no more humble than my talents require."

-- Oscar Levant

The grosses are out for the week ending 8/12/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: EVITA (13.9%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (8.8%), GHOST (7.8%), PORGY AND BESS (5.6%), JERSEY BOYS (4.9%), MAMMA MIA! (4.5%), SISTER ACT (4.1%), WAR HORSE (3.7%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (2.4%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (2.0%), CHICAGO (1.7%), WICKED (1.4%), HARVEY (0.9%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT(0.8%),

Down for the week was: FELA! (-22.6%), GORE VIDAL'S THE BEST MAN (-5.6%), END OF THE RAINBOW (-5.1%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (-3.8%), MEMPHIS (-3.1%), MARY POPPINS (-3.0%), CLYBOURNE PARK (-1.9%), ONCE (-1.5%), ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (-0.8%), ROCK OF AGES (-0.8%),

Posted on: Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 03:13 PM Posted by: Michael Dale

Posted on: Sunday, August 12, 2012 @ 07:06 PM Posted by: Michael Dale