Michael Dale - Page 14

Without knowing any better, one might easily mistake the new stage adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer-winning 1960 novel 'To Kill A Mockingbird' for a revival of a classic Golden Age Broadway drama. So earnest in tone and full of plainspoken poetics is Aaron Sorkin's thoroughly engaging text. So old-school honest are the performances given by director Bartlett Sher's 24-member cast, beautifully framed in rural elegance designed by Miriam Buether (set), Ann Roth (costumes) and Jennifer Tipton (lights).

The inherent problem with trying to craft a book musical around a score made of previously-existing hit songs is that the lyrics rarely match the character/situation specifics enough to keep the story moving. So film director/screenwriter Amy Heckerling tries finagling around that challenge in the new musical based on her 1995 coming-of-age romantic comedy, CLUELESS.

It was fifteen years ago when over forty million people tuned into the season two finale of 'American Idol' to see Rubin Studdard win the crown over runner-up Clay Aiken.  This reviewer wasn't one of them.  And aside from Aiken's stint on Broadway as a replacement in SPAMALOT, he'll admit to not having paid much attention to the careers of the two vocalists.  But, based on the enjoyable antics now on display at the Imperial titled RUBEN & CLAY'S FIRST ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CAROL FAMILY FUN PAGEANT SPECTACULAR REUNION SHOW, the fellows have definitely found an interested viewer if they ever hosted a television variety show.

The lack of visible doors in our view of the home of the title character of Heather Raffo's drama of an immigrant Christian Iraqi family in America, Noura, appears more and more to be a symbolic gesture once it becomes apparent that her story takes its cue from Henrik Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE.

It was over fifty years ago when designer Boris Aronson famously let a large mirror hang from the set of CABARET, forcing audience members to see their own reflections to bring home the point that what was happening in 1930s Germany could very well happen in America. And while that symbolic gesture may have become a bit of a cliche in the ensuing decades as it got used by other artists for other plays and musicals, designer Clint Ramos ads a provocative twist with the fully mirrored upstage wall in his design for Jeremy O. Harris' extremely daring, highly original and undoubtedly thought-provoking satirical drama, SLAVE PLAY.

For the past five holiday seasons in a row, savvy New York playgoers have been filling the upstairs parlor of East 4th Street's Merchant's House Museum for a warm and intimate evening of Christmas cheer; Summoners Ensemble Theatre's delightful production of actor John Kevin Jones recreating Charles Dickens' solo readings of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Their 2018 engagement is the third time this reviewer has attended, and Jones' thoroughly engaging performance keeps getting better and better.

The audience loudly booed at the end of last Saturday night's preview performance of the new Broadway offering based on Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1976 film classic "Network."  Seriously, the great majority of viewers at the Belasco Theatre angrily booed what they were seeing onstage, a good many of them yelling out profanity-laced objections.  Undoubtedly, playwright Lee Hall and director Ivo van Hove must have been delighted.

From the moment the houselights dim and the music cranks up on The Cher Show, Broadway's newest bio-musical, the message is clear. Surrender to the fabulousness ahead and brace yourself for a show just as gutsy, glitzy and glam as the icon it ravishingly celebrates.

Since family-friendly entertainments tend to dominate the holiday performing arts scene, it's especially cheery that for the past nine years that scandalous crew called Company XIV has been offering grownups an option that's decidedly more naughty than nice.

If there's such a thing as subtlety in the world of The Illusionists, that band of touring magicians that have frequently been making Broadway their winter home, it's evident in their latest visit, titled MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS.

'If you have to choose between family and flying, I hope you would choose the flying,' a father tells his children as the lesson behind a bedtime story involving an angel and a woodcutter. 'And don't tell mommy I said that,' he's quick to add.

Yes, in the world of Tom Stoppard, post-coital pillow talk can be a debate about human consciousness and whether or not altruism truly exists.  After all, nobody said anything about THE HARD PROBLEM was going to be easy.

The lack of permanence that allows new artists endless chances to bring their own interpretations to classic material is the most significant aspect that separates live theatre from movies and television. But in musical theatre, it's sometimes the case that a director/choreographer such as Jerome Robbins or Bob Fosse may create visuals that become so indelible in the public's mind that they become fixtures of most remountings. In the case of A CHORUS LINE, it's the whole show.

Let's cut to the chase. The Prom is a great musical comedy on the same level as HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM and THE PRODUCERS. Brooks Ashmanskas, the flamboyantly-styled song and dance man with a razor-sharp comic flair who has spent over twenty years on Broadway stealing scenes in supporting roles, is now giving a great musical comedy star performance that should rank up there with the classic turns given by Robert Morse, Zero Mostel and Nathan Lane in those smash hits.

No, director/designer John Doyle does not have Raul Esparza wearing a blonde wig when he delivers his climatic oratory at the close of CSC's revival of Bertolt Brecht's 1941 allegorical satire, THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI, but listen closely to the chant of the crowd provided by sound designer Matt Stine and the production's message is ever so clear.

For those of us of a certain age, the phrase "good grief" has been a part of our vocabulary since childhood as simply an expression of exasperation, thanks to the influence of Charles Schulz and his Peanuts gang.

Steve Rosen and David Rossmer's pop rock musical charmer THE OTHER JOSH COHEN has been hitting the regional circuit a bit since its 2012 Off-Broadway production that picked up Drama Desk, Lortel and Off-Broadway Alliance Award Nominations for Best Musical.  It's great to have this very funny, very tuneful and very uplifting show back in town.

Though it often involves individuals speaking prepared material into a microphone in front of paying customers who may be enjoying a libation or two, and though generating laughter is usually a good sign of success, the art of storytelling should not be confused with stand-up comedy.

'We are a great country,' presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy assured his supporters in a speech given moments after winning the Democratic Party's 1968 California primary and moments before he was assassinated while leaving the celebration at Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel.

Using Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's 1933 cinema classic 'King Kong' as the inspiration for a musical theatre piece really isn't such a bad idea. Among the film's notable achievements is the extraordinary dramatic underscoring music by Max Steiner, that supplied the title character's tragic death plunge from atop the Empire State Building with the kind of heartbreaking emotion that would make any operatic tenor jealous.