Review - Glimpses Of The Moon and Two Thousand Years

You would think that Edith Wharton's fizzy little comic novel, The Glimpses Of The Moon, might have been a perfect property for Rodgers & Hart or Kern, Wodehouse & Bolton to musicalize when it was fresh off the presses in 1922. But no, it took until 2008 for New Yorkers to get a glimpse, not to mention a pleasant earful, of a brand new frothy little musical charmer based on her book, courtesy of a couple of moderns, Tajlei Levis (book and lyrics) and John Mercurio (music).

Glimpses Of The Moon is only the second musical I've seen staged in The Algonquin Hotel's legendary Oak Room, the first being the Round Table tuner, Talk Of The Town, which recently played Monday nights for over a year. And while the long rectangular room full of customers eating and drinking at their tables is not exactly an ideal spot to stage a book musical, director Marc Bruni, hot off his terrific job mounting Such Good Friends for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and choreographer Denis Jones skillfully navigate the tricky angles of this atmosphere-infused literary and musical landmark.

Patti Murin and Stephen Plunkett are perfectly delightful as the socially popular, but cash-poor Susy Branch and Nick Lansing. Being charming, young and able to hide their distaste for those who are better off ("I detest people with a balance, though I do like their houses."), Susy and Nick are welcome guests for dinners, weekends and the most fabulous social gatherings of the jazz age. But being charming is a full time job and Nick wants to write a book while Susy wants to nab a rich hubby. So they hatch up a plot to marry each other and live for a year off of pawned wedding gifts and offers of extended honeymoons at holiday cottages. They agree that if one of them does find an actual perfect match, they will gracefully arrange for a mutual divorce.

You know where this is going, don't you?

Well, during the prerequisite time when Susy and Nick decide they hate each other, he finds himself paired off with Coral, a Bryn Mawr archaeologist (hilariously severe Laura Jordan) who has an unexpected wild side lurking beneath her bush jacket, while she hooks up with witty playboy Streffy (a nicely glib Glenn Peters), their equally penniless friend who has suddenly become titled and wealthy after a freak yachting accident wipes out the family line of succession above him. Meanwhile, wealthy acquaintance Ellie (a bubbly Beth Glover) is handling her own affairs behind the back of hubby Nelson (dashing Daren Kelly).

With a second act scene actually taking place in The Oak Room, each performance features a special guest cabaret singer. We were treated to Jana Robbins when I attended and future stars include Jane Summerhays, Susan Lucci, Joyce Dewitt and Alison Fraser.

The lively score has several numbers evocative of The Jazz Age, though much of it leans toward traditional showtune. The title song is a lovely ballad that could find itself being sung at the Oak Room outside of the show. There's some of the typical second act trouble where interest in the plot fizzles a bit and the book can use a little trimming (the idea of a guest star is fun but the scene grinds the action to a halt) but by the time the inevitable happy ending is settled and the tuneful ballad is reprised, Glimpses Of The Moon has already bested most of the current crop of musicals for civilized entertainment.

Photo of Patti Murin and Stephen Plunkett by Katie Rosen

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There's an old saying in theatre, or if there isn't at least there should be, that if grandpa has two emphysema attacks in a play, then he's better die the third time it happens.

But that turns out to be only a minor irritation in Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years, a domestic drama that reduces issues of secular Judaism, Zionism and religious politics into a long and tedious shouting a match, making poor use of the efforts of a fine company of actors.

Taking place from July of 2004 to September of the next year, married couple Danny (Richard Masur) and Rachel (Laura Esterman) are middle class North London Jews (set designer Derek McLane provides a smartly furnished and comfy home) who are passionately opinionated on matters of American involvement in the Middle East and Israeli-Palestinian relations, but never seem anxious to get involved in them. They're horrified when their 28 year old son Josh (Jordan Gelber), who hasn't held a job since graduating college, turns orthodox and has starts wearing a yarmulke. Believing as their daughter Michelle (Cindy Katz) does, that "Zionism has been hijacked by a bunch of right-wing religious nuts," they react as though it is his first step toward becoming a terrorist.

Add a cantankerous grandfather (Merwin Goldsmith), an estranged sister (Natasha Lyonne) and Michelle's new boyfriend (Yuval Boim), who drives tanks for the Israeli army, into the mix and tempers quickly explode into highly contrived wars of words. By the second act the amount of shouting the actors are required to do, either by the playwright's instructions or Scott Elliott's direction, turns the evening ridiculously comic. Gelber, in particular, is made to play little more than a walking fit of rage. Even when in gentler tones the characters tend to speak in op-ed pieces instead of realistic dialogue. (David Cale rounds out the cast in a throwaway role as a genial neighbor having trouble conceiving with his wife.)

Before the play and between scenes we hear a goofy piece of music by The Klezmatics, a sort of sitcom theme. Heard a couple of times, it's cute. By the end of the ten-scene play I developed a violet distaste for klezmer.

Photo of Jordan Gelber and Laura Esterman by Carol Rosegg