Kristin Salaky - Page 3

Last week we asked which guy musical theatre character you would least like to have as your blind date. Now we have Part 2, for those who date dolls. Vote today!

February of 2008 has turned out to be a heck of a terrific month for non-traditional and daring Off-Broadway musicals. (Do we have any more opening by tomorrow night?) Following the exhilarating Next To Normal and the entrancingly Dadaist The Blue Flower we now have Joshua Schmidt (music and libretto) and Jason Loewith's (libretto) haunting chamber piece, Adding Machine, based on Elmer Rice's 1923 Expressionist drama. To call it 'old-fashioned' would be misleading, but one of the pleasures of Adding Machine is that it recalls a time when political and social protest musicals were not uncommon among Gotham's theatrical offerings.

It took barely a sip of post-theatre cocktail for one of my companions to breathe a mournful sigh in memory of the lost art of letter writing. I imagine this was not the first time such sentiments were expressed following a performance of Vita & Virginia, Eileen Atkins' cerebrally romantic stage piece crafted from nearly 20 years of correspondence between the celebrated Virginia Woolf the her less-remembered fellow Bloomsburyist Vita Sackville-West which began scantly after their first introduction in 1922.

We all know that famous names sell tickets on Broadway. Any one of these ladies would most likely be (or have already proven to be) box office gold, but which of them would you most like to see?

When Tama Janowitz coined the phrase 'Slaves of New York' with the title of her 1986 collection of short stories, she was referring to how the lack of affordable apartments in the city flings people into quick romantic commitments or has them cling onto unhealthy ones for the sake of having a place to stay. In Brooke Berman's cleverly titled Hunters and Gatherers, a reference to societies that seek out food rather than farming, the real estate market hasn't grown less competitive but the computer age (especially Craig's List) has made it easier for people to hop around various short-term situations when the opportunities to plant roots are bleak and to escape the bad ones with a few mouse clicks and a successful interview.

As much as I enjoy listening to some Kander and Ebb anytime, it's very refreshing to see a young performer do a complete show about New York without hearing that all-too-familiar vamp. Making his cabaret debut with a one-night gig at The Metropolitan Room, Ben Cherry shows himself to be an engaging performer with an attractive light baritone, but more importantly, displays a knowledge of the necessities of cabaret performance that often eludes beginners in the field.

'Me Benchley. Benchley bad boy. Benchley go.' Theatre critic and Algonquin Round Table founding member Robert Benchley was heard muttering the above words as he got up from his chair and walked out in the middle of the opening night performance of Jean Bart's 1926 Broadway play, The Squall. What prompted his departure was that Suzanne Caubet, playing the role of a gypsy girl who spends the entire evening speaking in a cartoonish broken English, had just uttered the line, 'Me Nubi. Nubi good girl. Nubi stay.'

Although I was set to see The Little Mermaid shortly after its opening, an actor's absence due to illness resulted in the rescheduling of many press seats to later dates, which is why I'm posting this a good two and a half weeks after the big night. Live theatre, kiddies.

On Monday night Christine Pedi will be receiving a New York Nightlife Award for Great Dames, her 2007 salute to notable ladies of the stage and screen. But as award-worthy as that cabaret show was, her latest, Now I Have Everything: The Lyrics of Sheldon Harnick, is even better. This is a master class in musical theatre acting and a heck of an entertaining night out.

The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's web site sports an unusual parental warning for their upcoming production of Jersey Boys: Jersey Boys is not recommended for children under the age of 16 due to strong 'authentic Jersey' language. Catherine Skidmore, who brought the warning to my attention, says, 'I'm still trying to figure out if 'profanity' is a dialect.'

Michael Dale's review of Memphis, the new Broadway musical. The verdict is positive: Memphis is bursting with gutsy story-telling, convincing performances and exhilarating moments that more than make up for a bit of predictability.

Michael Dale reviews Bye Bye Birdie and focuses on the positives in the production: dance ensemble numbers sparkled with real show-biz energy and livened up the production, Allie Trimm's solid performance, and Dee Hoty's presence.

Michael Dale reviews Oleanna and Circle Mirror Transformation. In 1992, when David Mamet directed the premiere production of his controversial play, Oleanna, the name 'Long Dong Silver' was still fresh in the minds of Americans who followed the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings. Susan Faludi's bestseller, Backlash, was urging women to stand up to 'The Undeclared War Against American Women' while Camille Paglia criticized the feminist movement for teaching women to see themselves as victims. Take Back The Night rallies on college campuses encouraged women to publicly announce the names of men who have raped them, though the definition of what exactly constituted a rape was still being publicly debated.

Those four Jews were in a room bitching again last Sunday afternoon. No, I don't mean The Marvelous Wonderettes. I mean Whizzer, Jason, Mendel and Marvin, also known as Stephen Bogardus, Jonathan Kaplan, Chip Zien and Michael Rupert. As any fan of neurotic, gay musical theatre will tell you, they were the quartet who first opened the 1992 Broadway production of Falsettos with William Finn's frenetic patter, 'Four Jews in a Room Bitching.'

No, that steady rumble you may hear and feel beneath your feet as you walk along 50th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues these evenings is not the A train making its way to Columbus Circle. It's the sound of laughing audiences having a swell time in the underground quintet of auditoriums called New World Stages. The former movie multiplex turned Off-Broadway house seems to be experiencing a happy renaissance, with its long-running anchor production, Altar Boyz, having been joined by laughter-inducing hits like The Toxic Avenger, Naked Boys Singing, My First Time and The Gazillion Bubble Show (which I haven't seen but I'm sure brings out many giggles from the youngsters). The hilarious Love Child, which previously ran at 59E59 will be moving in shortly, but first the welcome mat (and perhaps a red carpet) has been set for the center's new crown jewel as the Tony-winning Avenue Q completes its successful Broadway run and returns to its Off-Broadway roots.

In the 1920s, George S. Kaufman was one of the primary reasons New York was firmly establishing itself as the nation's capital of wit. Until his death in 1961, Kaufman could be called the quintessential New Yorker; continually working on Broadway as a playwright and director, reluctantly venturing out to Hollywood on occasion and regretting every moment of it and frequently quoted for his crackling cleverness ('I understand your new play is full of single entendres.').

If you're a frequent theatre-goer who has seen a decent number of Hamlets, or just a decent number of contemporary Shakespeare productions, chances are you'll get that old feeling of déjà vu watching Michael Grandage's Donmar Warehouse import, now parked at the Broadhurst for a limited run. While the mounting has its highs and lows, several directorial choices - once considered edgy, now pretty standard - keep this Hamlet draped in familiarity. The evening is lean, professional, fast-moving and not particularly interesting.

The old cliché says that New York audiences will always bow in awe and rampage box offices whenever a play from Great Britain washes upon its shores. But in recent seasons it seems that type of grandiose reception has been reserved for productions that land on our stages by way of Chicago. I have no idea what the new black may be but I have a strong hunch Steppenwolf is the new Old Vic.

If you take a whiff of air somewhere in the vicinity of the Schoenfeld Theatre these days and sense a slight essence of Mickey Spillane, it's undoubtedly due to the presence of Keith Huff's hardboiled police melodrama, A Steady Rain. A crackling good story told with potent language and a couple of terrific performances, this is a hearty plateful of good old fashioned meat and potatoes theatre.

Michael Dale reviews Charlayne Woodard's new solo piece The Night Watcher. From Jess Goldstein's flowing and flattering wardrobe to Geoff Korf's embracing lighting to Obadiah Eaves' jazzy sound design to the soft images in Tal Yarden's projections, everything about the production surrounds Woodard in a sweet and pretty atmosphere, perfectly framing the already irresistible words and performance.