Broadway Blogs - Our Town & Fade Out-Fade In and More...

"Exciting" is not a word normally associated with productions of Thornton Wilder's Our Town.  Heartwarming?  Sure.  Chilling?  When its climax is done well, certainly.  But director David Cromer's non-traditional take on the play - which remains completely faithful to the author's text and themes - is one of the most exciting theatre events of the season.

Wilder's gently experimental 1938 classic, where issues of love, marriage, community and our purpose in the universal scheme of things are presented through the everyday life occurrences in the unremarkable town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire is perhaps the most familiar of all American dramas, being studied in public schools and performed by student and community theatres for decades.  And while the countless number of times this play has been produced makes it impossible to guess if Cromer's vision is a completely untried idea, I think it's safe to say you're not likely to run into another Our Town that so vividly connects contemporary audiences with material from over seventy years ago.

And as the author makes clear in the script, this Our Town uses the traditional setting of a bare stage with nondescript tables and chairs serving as scenery.  (It may seem like scenic designer Michele Spadaro hasn't much to do, but trust me, she earns her paycheck with this one.)  The actors, as usual, mime their props while going about their daily routines of housework, homework and playtime.  But while Cromer's production still takes place in the early years of the 20^th Century, the director utilizes simple, but clever ideas to make a modern Manhattan audience feel a part of this sleepy little rural community.  Customers at the reconfigured Barrow Street Theatre are seated on three sides of the small playing space, with wide room between the first and second rows where scenes are also played out.  Costume designer Alison Siple dresses the company in contemporary clothing, though avoiding anything that may be distractingly modern, blending the appearance of those on stage with those watching.  Lighting designer Heather Gilbert even keeps the house lights on for the first two acts.

The evening often feels more like a town hall meeting than a night at the theatre, emphasized by the decidedly non-actory performance of Cromer, who plays the narrating character Wilder calls the Stage Manager.  He sets the scenes and comments on the action with the terse, emotionless delivery of an actual theatre stage manager simply laying out the facts for you.  The early scenes echo his emotional distance as we witness the daily morning clockwork in the homes of newspaper editor Charles Webb (Ken Marks) and his neighbor, Dr. Frank Gibbs (Jeff Still).  Their wives, Julia Gibbs (Lori Myers) and Myrtle Webb (Kati Brazda), are machinelike in their routines of waking up the children, preparing breakfast and tending to their husbands; both of whom seem significantly older.  In a town where "women vote indirect," nearly everyone is a member of the same religion and political party and 90% of the high school graduates stay put to live out their lives, Myers and Brazda nicely communicate the frustration their characters must feel with the sameness of their lives.  Myers' Mrs. Gibbs seems especially acerbic toward her husband, a man who ignores her dream to visit Paris in favor of yearly vacations to the famous battle fields of the Civil War.

That same sense of dissatisfaction is evident in young Emily Webb, played with aggressive no-nonsense authority by Jennifer Grace.  Despite being the smartest student in school, her Emily no doubt sees little future for herself beyond being someone's wife, so when neighbor George (played with thick-headed shyness by James McMenamin) reveals that he's set to inherit a farm after graduating high school she gradually softens her approach to this nice, but intellectually inferior guy who can bring her financial security.

All of this may seem a bit cold by description, but Cromer's interpretation perfectly leads to Wilder's third act warning to truly value the simple everyday things in our lives.  And while it's perfectly acceptable to remind readers that this act has the now deceased Emily, who died in childbirth, accepting a chance to visit one day in her past, you'll have to experience for yourself the surprising and oh, so perfect way the director utilizes at least four, if not all five, of the audience's senses to pack an extra wallop into the play's climatic scene.

With Donna Jay Fulk's chirpy Mrs. Soames, Jonathan Mastro's acidic Simon Stimson and Wilbur Edwin Henry's amusingly dry Professor Willard among an outstanding ensemble, this Our Town is mixes great character-driven humor, decent heart-tugging sentiment and stunning theatricality into a production that is truly - gotta say it again - an exciting event.

Photos by Carol Rosegg:  Top:  David Cromer; Bottom: (in chairs atop tables) Jennifer Grace and James McMenamin

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For a show that's now considered a Broadway flop, Fade Out-Fade In got some pretty serious raves from the critics when it opened at the Hellinger in 1964.  For many weeks tickets were scarce for the Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical spoof of 1930s Hollywood and it could be argued that its star, Carol Burnett, gave the best reviewed musical theatre performance in a season that boasted Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl and Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!  The original Broadway cast recording (featuring co-stars Jack Cassidy, Lou Jacobi, Tiger Haynes Dick Patterson and Tina Louise) reveals a bright, peppy score filled with sock-o musical comedy numbers.

So what went wrong?  In short, everything.  The intended 1963 opening was delayed when Burnett got pregnant, sending Styne off to work on bringing Funny Girl to Broadway before the show's rescheduled 1964 opening.  However, production delays and the need for out-of-town revisions pushed the Streisand vehicle's opening to just two months before Burnett's show, leaving little time for the composer to work on improving some of the score's less-effective material.  While the reviews were great, it's been said that Burnett wasn't completely happy with the score, especially when compared with Funny Girl, and when the star began missing performances because of a neck injury suffered when a cab she was riding in stopped short, audiences weren't completely happy when offered a chance to see understudy Mitzi Welch.  When Burnett's doctor insisted she would need an extended leave from the show in order to heal properly, the producers rushed Betty Hutton into the star's role.  Ill-prepared and too old to be playing a fresh-faced kid who gets a crack at Hollywood fame, Hutton lasted only a week before the producers decided to temporarily close the show until their star could return.  But when Burnett started making weekly television appearances as co-star of The Entertainers (produced by her husband) it took legal action to get her back on Broadway.  After a 3-month hiatus and little money left for advertising, Fade Out-Fade In struggled on for two months before closing for good.

The funny thing, however, is that during that three month period the authors made cuts and revisions that made Fade Out-Fade In a better musical during its final months than it was during the sold-out beginning of its run.  And as presented by The Opening Doors Theatre Company - those greasepaint-in-their-veins kids who have quickly established themselves as a valuable part of New York's musical theatre scene by mounting clever and energetic and pocket-sized productions of rarely seen shows like Bring Back Birdie and The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public - Fade Out-Fade In is a funny and delightful charmer that bubbles over with that Comden and Green sense of fun and the Broadway pizzazz of Jule Style.  Fans of the show will notice that Opening Doors uses the newer version of the script, which omits the belty blues number "Go Home Train," but the opening "Oh, Those Thirties" has been retained, though now it's used as an ensemble number.  The only other major change is that the dream ballet, which combines Freudian psychology with frolicking wood nymphs and fairies - and would never fit on the tiny stage of The Duplex - has been understandably cut.

Instead of casting an out-and-out comedienne for the lead role of Hope Springfield, the young usherette who, by way of a wacky mix-up, is flown to Tinseltown as the personal "discovery" of movie mogul Lionel Z. Governor, director Suzanne Adams has opted for Sarah Lilley, a spunky ingénue type with a silly side.  Since the performance I attended was her first in front of an audience, I imagine the silly side will get a bit sillier as Lilley grows into the role, but on opening night her Hope was still a loveably awkward, starry eyed kid who can deliver energetic tunes like "It's Good To Be Back Home" (a terrific charm song about America's familiarity with Hollywood through movies and fan magazines) and the mock-seduction, "Call Me Savage," with a startlingly strong mezzo belt.

As self-centered matinee idol Byron Prong, Rob Ventre hilariously oozes cheap charisma and puts his rich baritone to good use in the comic gem, "My Fortune Is My Face."  Warren Freeman sings and acts with geeky appeal as the film exec who falls for Hope's wholesome attractiveness and Hector Coris is a blustery hoot as the bombastic producer who fears that one of his executives (all of whom are his nephews) is out to take over his studio.

Lawrence Street nails Comden and Green's most critically satirical scene, playing a role based on film actor Lincoln Perry (a/k/a Stepin Fetchet), a professional, well-spoken black man who was regulated to playing comic stereotypes of his race.  Later on he and Lilley provide the evening's song and dance showstopper, spoofing Shirley Temple and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in the mock-optimistic "You Mustn't Be Discouraged," which reminds us that whenever you think you've hit the bottom, "there's always one step further down you can go."

There are fun performances all throughout the cast, including Sarah Cooney as a painfully droll gossip columnist, Jean McCormick as a sex-obsessed Viennese psychiatrist, Lexi Windsor as an air-headed sexpot starlet-to-be, Brian DeCaluwe as a smarmy executive and Patrick John Moran as his spineless colleague.

Choreographer Christine Schwalenberg has little room to work with, but she and director Adams keep the funny visuals coming at a bright and peppy pace.  Fade Out-Fade In is one of those shows that musical theatre geeks just love.  And if you're not one already, the enthusiastic joy that propels the Opening Doors production just might make a musical theatre geek out of you.

Photos by Catherine Skelly:  Top: Sarah Lilley; Bottom: Patrick John Moran, Sarah Cooney, Hector Coris, Lexi Windsor, Warren Freeman, Sarah Lilley, Rob Ventre, Jean McCormick, Lawrence Street and Brian DeCaluwe

Tony Award nominee Oliver Platt stars as Nathan Detroit in this brand new production of Guys And Dolls, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Des McAnuff, with choreography by Sergio Trujillo.

Packed with such classic hits as "Fugue for Tinhorns," "A Bushel and a Peck," "Adelaide's Lament," "I'll Know," "Guys and Dolls," "More I Cannot Wish You," "Luck Be A Lady," and "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," Guys and Dolls features music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows.

David Rooney, Variety: "The opening image in Des McAnuff's strangulated revival of "Guys and Dolls" is of Damon Runyon pounding his typewriter, framing the production unequivocally in a fictional world. But the unintended effect has been to process the author's richly slangy, flavorful valentine to a vanished New York demimonde of hustlers, gamblers, floozies and gangsters into a cartoon of manufactured colors. Fronted by four likable leads whose collective charisma never rises above medium wattage, the production sucks the personality out of an American musical-theater classic. The consolation is that even in this misconceived presentation, the show itself is too good not to be at least minimally entertaining."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "Sadly, Sky and Sarah aren't the focus for more than a couple of scenes at a time. It doesn't help that the supporting cast is inconsistent, or that Des McAnuff's direction can suffer from acute cuteness. Some of Sky and Nathan's colleagues seem more like suburban dads than lovable street types. Mary Testa, otherwise winningly droll as a Salvation Army general, is forced to interrupt Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat with a tacky mock-diva solo. Given such transgressions, this Guys and Dolls never stays afloat long enough to transport us."

Ben Brantley, New York Times: "Whatever special substance it is that makes old shows feel new-born and artificial musicals ring truer than life, this "Guys and Dolls" left it behind in the laboratory. Instead this production, which opened Sunday and also stars Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham, provides a valuable lesson in the importance of chemistry by demonstrating what can happen without it - even to a show as seemingly foolproof as "Guys and Dolls." With grade-A songs by Frank Loesser and a book by Abe Burrows (who officially shares credit with Jo Swerling), this 1950 classic is widely regarded as the paradigm for a well-made musical comedy."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "Director Des McAnuff has put together a perpetual-motion, high-concept, high-tech revival of "Guys and Dolls." Unfortunately, the curiously bland results don't translate into high entertainment."

Frank Sheck, Hollywood Reporter: "'Guys and Dolls'  is a nearly perfect musical, which it has to be to survive the frequent mistreatment it receives in the new revival staged by Des McAnuff. Filled with lavish directorial touches that add little to the proceedings and featuring several surprisingly pallid performances, the show still manages to provide a good time thanks to the brilliance of Frank Loesser's score and the hilarity of Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows' book. But those with strong memories of the superb 1992 revival starring Nathan Lane, Faith Prince and Peter Gallagher will find much to quibble about here.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: "Broadway has always been a floating crap game. But as this show-killing recession deepens, beleaguered producers are clearly feeling like every new opening is like attempting a Hail Mary pass against Big Jule's crooked dice. The first Broadway revival of the musical "Guys and Dolls" since Nathan Lane and Faith Prince cracked up the Rialto with their follies nearly two decades ago offers a sense of what it must have felt like to been one of the victims during the St. Valentine's Day massacre. You're on the wrong end of a whole lot of intense, desperate scatter-shot."

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: "The show's leading ladies fare much better. Gilmore Girls veteran Lauren Graham - making her Broadway debut as Miss Adelaide, nightclub singer and Nathan's perpetual fiancée - has a sure, strong voice, and wins some fresh laughs out of her durable solos like 'Adelaide's Lament.' But Graham, who follows such superlative recent Adelaides as Faith Prince (in the 1992 Broadway revival) and Jane Krakowski (in a remarkable 2005 London run) hasn't yet managed to fully inhabit the role. It's hard to play a simpleton, and the strains of the effort (and Graham's underlying intelligence) too often flash on her face. Meanwhile, Kate Jennings Grant employs her nimble body and lovely soprano to lovely effect as Sarah Brown, the missionary who falls for Sky."

Adam Perlman, Backstage: "Did someone forget to baptize Guys and Dolls? Seems unlikely - but how else to explain why a nigh-perfect musical entertainment has been plunged into limbo, suspended between cartoon and noir in director Des McAnuff's appalling revival. Of course, there are worse places than limbo - but we go there too. Perhaps McAnuff thought he was directing The Divine Comedy?"

More Reviews to Come...