Click, Clack, Moo

GRADE: A

Music by Brad Alexander, lyrics by Kevin Del Aguila, book by Billy Aronson. Dir. John Rando. Chor. Wendy Seyb. Lucille Lortel Theatre. (CLOSED)

Perhaps what it takes to unite critics is intelligent children's theater. Critics are delighted by Click, Clack, Moo, a musical about cows going on strike based on the book by Doreen Cronin. According to the reviews, the lyrics and choreography contain many inside jokes for the adults, while there are enough sight gags to amuse the children. The talented cast and lively sets (Beowulf Borritt) and costumes (Lora LaVon) also charm critics. And with its free admission, the price is right.

Variety A+
(Sam Thielman) The world finally has the musical about computer-literate livestock it deserves -- Brad Alexander, Kevin Del Aguila and Billy Aronson's tyke-tastic tuner, "Click, Clack, Moo," based on the Caldecott-winning kids' book. Hourlong Theaterworks USA show boasts adroit direction by "Urinetown" helmer John Rando and udderly charming turns from a cast that is having at least as much fun as its audience... Concerted efforts pay off big in aud attention. With the actors totally committed to this nutty world, surprisingly few outbursts puncture the atmosphere (although the occasional exasperated adult can be heard hissing "You just went!") -- a major accomplishment for a show with an age recommendation of 4 and up. Piece has plenty to amuse adults, too, especially with the director playing up the politicking between the recalcitrant farmer and his recently unionized pets. Book uses the striking barnyard to teach kids compromise, but with a tweak tweak here and a tweak tweak there, old John Rando gives it a little subversive edge, like a board-book version of "Das Kapital," or maybe "Animal Farm Lite."

Time Out New York A
(Adam Feldman) The premise is cute, and John Rando’s production milks it well. Kristy Cates lends her leathery belt to Maddie, the tough bovine ringleader; her barnmates are played by the fetching Gretchen Bieber and, in drag, the comedically astute Michael Thomas Holmes. Completing the cast are DeMond B. Nason as a saucy duck and Sarah Katherine Gee as the farmer’s granddaughter, whose computer and printer make it possible for the cows to articulate their demands. The light, amusing score and energetic cast make this a pleasant summer diversion for kids, with a worthy social message thrown in: that no worker need be cowed when it comes to speaking up, no matter how low.

Talkin' Broadway A
(Matthew Murray) Think of it as Waiting for Bossy. Click, Clack, Moo, the new TheatreworksUSA adaptation of Doreen Cronin’s award-winning 2000 children’s book, surely must be the first-ever children’s musical about labor organization. Yet despite its uncommon subject matter, this charming hour-long outing at the Lucille Lortel Theatre is so innocent and well-constructed that it won’t need long to sweep away you and your children on its tides of barnyard whimsy... John Rando, seldom light of hand when it comes to comedy, has directed with an uncharacteristically bubbliness that ensures fun infects every part of Click, Clack, Moo. There's an unapologetic Les Misérables homage in one number; one lyric proclaims “God bless the U.S.D.A.”; puppets cleverly represent a tractor and rhythm-filled pigs and geese; and Wendy Seyb’s choreography draws from just as many diverse (and comically astute) influences as the score, quoting everything from a hoedown to the Robot.

TheaterMania A
(Andy Propst) While kids will delight in Billy Aronson's clever book, older theatergoers will glean their amusement from the way in which composer Brad Alexander's music echoes Leonard Bernstein's work for West Side Story as the brawl between the groups unfolds. Similarly, the R&B-infused "Get Down" may amuse younger theatergoers with its infectious melody (and Nason's energetic performance), but lyricist Keven Del Aguila's deft handling of the double-meaning of "down" is really best appreciated by adults. John Rando's staging on the brightly colored-cartoon like set from Beowulf Boritt is fleet enough to ensure that even the youngest theatergoers are never bored while his directorial flourishes -- often collaboratively created with choreographer Wendy Seyb -- are truly for the more experienced audience members. Even Lora LaVon's costume design manages to delight all generations, which is no easy feat.

Backstage A
(Adam R. Perlman) As is usually the case with TheatreworksUSA's summer shows, there's considerable talent in all areas, with Tony Award winner John Rando directing, and Brad Alexander (music), Kevin Del Aguila (lyrics), and Billy Aronson (book) writing. Particularly memorable is the Lee Greenwood–inspired riff in the song "Loretta's Anthem" that goes "proud to be a bovine." My favorite touch, though, is Beowulf Boritt's bright scenic design, which once again proves that effects don't have to be expensive to be special.

CurtainUp A-
(Julia Furay) As anyone who is familiar with Old MacDonald or the Farmer in the Dell can testify, a farm show contains loads of potential for great songs. Though the music (by Theatreworks regular Brad Alexander) may not contain any future children's classics, the songs are tuneful and appropriately lively for this summery show. And the lyrics, by Altar Boyz author Kevin Del Aguila contains some gems likely to please adults as well as kids. "I'm proud to be bovine/God Bless the USDA" is a rousing and witty example. Beowulf Borrit's set is cartoonish fun, and Lora LaVon's costumes have real homemade charm. The cast is as winning and lively as we've come to expect from Theatreworks shows, with some nice moments of goofy stage business to make the kids scream with laughter.

Variety A+ 14; TONY A 13; Talkin' Broadway A 13; TheaterMania A 13; Backstage A 13; CurtainUp A- 12; TOTAL: 78/6 = 13 (A)

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Summer Shorts Series A

GRADE: C+

Series A: Things My Afro Taught Me written and performed by Nancy Giles. Death by Chocolate by John Augustine, directed by Robert Saxner. A Second of Pleasure by Neil LaBute, directed by Andrew McCarthy. The Eternal Anniversary by Bill Connington, music and lyrics by Skip Kennon. At 59E59. (CLOSED)

Critics agree: of the four short plays offered at 59E59's Summer Shorts: Series A, about 1.75 are successful. Nancy Giles's Things My Afro Taught Me gets respectable marks as solo character entertainment, though not necessarily as a piece of theatre. And Neil LaBute's A Second of Pleasure receives unanimous praise for its mature emotional depth, tight craftsmanship, and stand-out performances from Margaret Colin and Victor Slezak. John Augustine's Death by Chocolate receives mostly low marks for being messy and unoriginal - though Aaron Paternoster gets multiple kudos for his supporting performance. And neither Skip Kennon nor Bill Connington get much love for their one-act musical The Eternal Anniversary. From the Critic-O-Meter's standpoint, the combined quartet of shorts shakes out to a series of low B's and C's, depending on how much chaff you're willing to thresh for the good stuff. Editor's Note: It was brought to our attention that there were some mathematical errors in the grading. They have been corrected, and the grade amended.

Variety B+
(Sam Thielman) For their third series of one-act plays, producers J.J. Kandel and John McCormack have rounded up enough talent for one good evening of theater, but they've stuck with their format and padded things out into two distinct bills of fare, containing roughly two good plays (out of four) each ... Then there's LaBute, whose shortform writing is so reliably good that it's a relief to see his name on the program. "A Second of Pleasure" (very close to the title of his surprisingly gentle short-story collection) follows a typically self-aggrandizing creep (Victor Slezak) and his adulterous lover (Margaret Colin), sketches its characters quickly and well and paces its clues about them perfectly ... John Augustine's contribution ("Death By Chocolate") is ... an unfunny comedy. Aaron Paternoster deserves a Purple Heart for his performance ... Slightly better is Skip Kennon and Bill Connington's micro-opera "The Eternal Anniversary," a deeply maudlin ghost story that tries to surprise and fails ... Nancy Giles' solo piece "Things My Afro Taught Me" survives solely on Giles' considerable charm.

CurtainUp B
(Les Gutman) I enjoyed the curtain-raiser, Nancy Giles's "Things My Afro Taught Me," though I am not sure I'd call it a play. Though dressed up in bits of theatricality, it would have a more comfortable fit as a stand-up act at a comedy club. That said, Ms. Giles is terrifically engaging, and just as incisive as she is funny. John Augustine's "Death by Chocolate" bites off more than it can chew, managing to go everywhere without getting anywhere. The best known playwright included in this quartet of plays is Neil Labute, and his "A Second of Pleasure" is just about everything you could hope for in a short play. Labute understands the needs of the short play genre, and fills those needs assiduously. The acting and direction could not be better. Kennon's songs and underscoring (all performed live by him on piano) are fine, if perhaps too period and craftmanlike for some tastes. The book, by Bill Connington, however, is about as creaky as it could be. Stated simply, there's not much here to go on, and what there is doesn't make a lot of sense.

Backstage B
(Mark Peikert) Things get off to a somewhat shaky start with writer-actor Nancy Giles' monologue "Things My Afro Taught Me." A winning and charismatic performer, Giles at first seems ill at ease sitting in a chair (Maruti Evans' scuffed black set looks painfully cheap) and talking to the audience about her struggles to accept her wild hair. But she gradually stands up and warms up, and an extended riff on a former boss at Lifetime is hilariously dead-on. Closing the first act, John Augustine's meandering comic drama "Death by Chocolate," about a woman dealing with the aftermath of her husband's titular demise, repeats many of the same diatribes against the isolation caused by technology that the playwright previously covered in "People Speak," part of "Summer Shorts 2." The evening finally kicks into high gear with Neil LaBute's "A Second of Pleasure," which, happily, finds the playwright writing about real adults instead of callow youths. As lovers arguing at the train station over whether she'll accompany him on a romantic getaway, Margaret Colin and Victor Slezak are both superb. The evening ends with Skip Kennon and Bill Connington's tone-deaf period musical "The Eternal Anniversary," a mind-boggling affair filled with more than its share of glaring plot holes.

Show Business Weekly B
(Ethan Kanfer) Of the four pieces that comprise Summer Shorts, a brisk evening of short works, the most solidly scripted is, unsurprisingly, Neil LaBute’s A Second of Pleasure ... Under Andrew McCarthy’s confident direction, Colin and Slezak hit the script’s poignant and bitingly comic notes with equal precision ... A different kind of unhappy couple can be found in Skip Kennon and Bill Connington’s The Eternal Anniversary ... DuSold infuses the seething score with a brooding intensity, while Rideout eerily embodies the role of a frail beauty doomed to remain forever young as her husband endures the ravages of time and the pain of a guilty conscience ... The title of Nancy Giles’s Things My Afro Taught Me says it all ... Afro feels like a work in progress, with Giles clearly more confident in certain beats than in others. But her agreeable stage presence and rapport with the audience turns this informality into an advantage ... In contrast, John Augustine’s Death By Chocolate is not engagingly raw, but merely half-baked.

New York Post C
(Frank Scheck) Neil LaBute's new play is aptly, if not entirely accurately, titled. His "A Second of Pleasure," part of the "Summer Shorts 3" series at the 59E59 Theaters, actually provides about 15 minutes of pleasure in what is otherwise a choppy evening of one-act plays. "Things My Afro Taught Me" is a comic monologue in which writer/performer Nancy Giles describes her struggles with her unruly hair. Despite Giles' engaging personality, the rambling piece doesn't add up to much. The other efforts are similarly underwhelming.

TheatreMania C
(Dan Bacalzo) Neil LaBute has explored the often charged power dynamics between men and women in several of his works, including his recent Tony Award-nominated play, reasons to be pretty. His excellent new piece, "A Second of Pleasure," which continues this theme, is the clear stand-out ... The two actors, under the surehanded direction of stage and screen star Andrew McCarthy, deliver nuanced performances that track the twists and turns of the characters' emotional journey all the way through to the play's quietly devastating conclusion. The remaining three works on the bill are nowhere near as effective. Nancy Giles' solo piece, "Things My Afro Taught Me," is an identity-based autobiographical story about one African-American woman's experience with trying to tame her unruly hair. Giles is an engaging performer and shares a few funny anecdotes, but the piece follows a too predictable arc. John Augustine's "Death by Chocolate" is a puzzling mess of a play that just goes on and on without saying anything of merit. The evening ends on a strained note with Skip Kennon and Bill Connington's mini-musical, "The Eternal Anniversary."

New York Times C-
(Ken Jaworowski) The first offering, “Things My Afro Taught Me,” is Nancy Giles’s tale of her lifelong battle with troublesome hair. More a stand-up routine than a traditional play, it rests on Ms. Giles’s charm, and succeeds. While “Afro” is friendly and watchable, the next, John Augustine’s “Death by Chocolate,” is manic and unfocused. Other than complaining or screaming, none of the characters care much about anything, leading the viewer to adopt a similar attitude toward the play. You may wonder if Neil LaBute’s “Second of Pleasure,” the third offering, is as compelling as it seems, or if it gleams mostly because of the dull pieces before and after it. No matter — don’t examine the dental work of a gift horse. It’s a minimalist setup with plenty of dark delights, among them Margaret Colin and Victor Slezak, who are pitch perfect as the embattled couple. One longs to praise a one-act musical, but with “The Eternal Anniversary” there is little to extol beyond the effort. Besides the uneven choice of works, Summer Shorts sabotages itself with an ill-conceived set design that fosters long, clumsy scene changes.

Time Out New York D+
(Helen Shaw) Reporting frankly on the knee-high playlets in Series A of J.J. Kandel and John McCormack’s two-part Summer Shorts festival feels perilously close to bullying; you shouldn’t pick on the little guy ... The night starts with a mild pleasure: Nancy Giles gets laughs for her solo Things My Afro Taught Me, a structurally clumsy portrait of the African-American woman’s relationship with her hair ... Throughout, she regards her trials with a wry eye—a fortitude that we need for the subsequent Death by Chocolate, John Augustine’s stunningly unfunny farce ... Of the four, only Neil LaBute’s sketch A Second of Pleasure adequately exploits the form ... The piece fulfills the promise of its title, but its arch sadness soon gives way to the unintentionally hilarious The Eternal Anniversary, a gothic mini musical by Skip Kennon (tunes) and Bill Connington (book).

The Village Voice D
(Jacob Gallagher-Ross) Things My Afro Taught Me is exactly what it sounds like: The author-performer combs autobiography out of coiffure, detailing her misadventures with styling products, her resentment of co-workers with tractable locks, and her childhood envy of celebrity manes. The enriching lesson learned? Life, like an unruly hairstyle, can occasionally be difficult to manage ... It's debatable whether John Augustine's sitcom-inflected farce Death by Chocolate is an exercise in misogyny or crotchety angst—either way, it's deadly theater ... Neil LaBute's A Second of Pleasure provides respite ... With The Eternal Anniversary, the evening ends on a note of pseudo-Gothic camp. In this micro-musical by Skip Kennon and Bill Connington, a penitent wife-killer prepares a sumptuous feast for his spouse's ghost. The pair croons culinary doggerel en route to a loopy liebestod—Edgar Allan Poe meets Andrew Lloyd Webber—that collapses under its own bathos like a mistimed soufflé. By turns cloying and curdled, Summer Shorts' sampler plate leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.

Variety B+ 11; CurtainUp B 10; Backstage B 10; Show Business Weekly B 10; New York Post C 7; TheatreMania C 7; New York Times C- 6; Time Out New York D+ 5; Village Voice D 4. TOTAL: 70/9 = 7.78 (C+)

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Wildflower

Grade: C

By Lila Rose Kaplan, Directed by Giovanna Sardelli. At Second Stage Uptown. (CLOSED)

Lila Rose Kaplan's Wildflower gets decidedly mixed reviews from the NY Press. Winning "Most Divisive Aspect" award? The play's ending (which critics dare not give away) which, depending on your POV, either adds unexpected depth and drama to the sit-com-ish rest of the play or drives the play straight into ludicrous and schematic territory. TalkinBroadway's Matthew Murray turns in a particularly difficult-to-grade review. He is quite enamored with the show, but feels betrayed by (and hates) its final five minutes. I pegged it at C+, due to the amount of space in the review devoted to the positives, but readers might have a different takeaway. UPDATE a late-breaker from the Village Voice has downgraded the show from C+ to C.

CurtainUp A
(Deborah Blumenthal) It seems like the perfect summer play: small town romance, nature, second chances. But what's really going on in Lila Rose Kaplan's Wildflower pulses with a much deeper intensity than its premise initially lets on. It's the kind of plot so unexpected, so affecting, and so daring that you want to tell it all to express how impressive it is, but can't because you'll spoil the experience. It is, in other words, exactly the kind of play that makes Second Stage one of the city's most dependable outlets for unique, provocative new plays.

Variety B
(Sam Thielman) With a little watering and some more sunlight, Lila Rose Kaplan's Wildflower will grow up to be a mighty play about love and death. Short script has excellent roots, with firm characterizations and graceful dramaturgy that combine to give the text a surprising slickness (borne out in the all-pro production)... The less said about the play's big surprise, the better, but it's worth noting that Kaplan's groundwork is hard to criticize. Suffice to say that when the performance is over, you're thinking more about whether you liked the ending than what it means for the characters, and that's not necessarily a good thing. On the other hand, the decision runs gleefully counter to the play's occasional undercurrent of whimsy, which is a good thing indeed.

NYTimes B-
(Ken Jaworoski) The play, written by Lila Rose Kaplan and presented at the McGinn/Cazale Theater as part of the Second Stage Theater Uptown Series, is performed by a solid cast, notably Ms. Smith and Quincy Dunn-Baker as James, a he-man with a tender soul beneath the tough surface. Giovanna Sardelli’s direction is skillful, using small moments and movements to heighten the humor, while Lap Chi Chu’s lighting is equally effective. Still, despite the talented cast and crew, there’s no getting around a final scene that is both incongruent and inorganic; the blunt ending mixes with the rest of the play the way motor oil mixes with fruit juice. It’s conceivable that Ms. Kaplan was looking for a tragic turn in the vein of “Of Mice and Men” or that she decided that her cheery comedy needed a shocking close. Whatever the reason, the move seems mistaken. She was doing just fine before that.

TalkinBroadway C+
(Matthew Murray) Sparkling...loaded with bite-and-run dialogue that’s also weighty enough that you never feel the characters are being sacrificed for laughs....Unfortunately, the play’s myriad successes become meaningless when Kaplan veers off her established course into a darker, stormier direction. Not that there’s anything wrong with that: It’s justifiable, even desirable, in certain circumstances. And as Kaplan’s goal isn’t merely to peddle escapism, but also to show the many ways love can be alternately beautiful and terrifying depending on its participants identities and histories, it’s even worthwhile for this play, which is at least as concerned with the dangers of isolation as it is the benefits of communities. But Kaplan doesn’t just abandon comedy by the side of the road, she kicks it out the passenger-side door at 80 miles per hour. She switches so quickly and so haphazardly to Twilight Zone-style creepiness that it doesn’t feel like the natural evolution of misplaced or misdirected laughs, but a betrayal of the foundation from which they originally sprang.

NYPOST C-
(Frank Scheck) THE botanical metaphors are as thick as weeds in Lila Rose Kaplan's new play, which explores hidden passions in a small town. The sort of quirky comedy that would probably knock them dead if it were a film shown at Sundance, Wildflower quickly wilts on the vine in its world premiere production at the Second Stage's uptown home...Under the direction of Giovanna Sardelli, the performers manage to be restrained in their characterizations, and the play has some amusing and tender moments.

TheaterMania D+
(Andy Propst) Nothing in this play about summertime love and teens coming-of-age happens because of human nature or psychology; instead, characters act in ways that are expedient for moving the piece's contrived plot forward...Theatergoers' patience with such machinations in the plot is only shortened by the ways in which Kaplan contorts the characters' behavior. James, whose homophobic baiting of Mitchell borders on assault, demonstrates a vulnerable and sensitive side at moments that can only be described as dramatically expeditious. Randolph, who's characterized as having an above-average IQ, never really exhibits any sort of true intelligence, or even common sense. When he turns to Mitchell for guidance about sex, he seems not so much naively innocent about the awkward position into which he's placing the older man as callously teasing. Further, Randolph's actions that lead to the play's denouement are simply ludicrous.

Village Voice D+
(Eric Grode) This all sounds more subversive and Lynchian than it really is. Not even director Giovanna Sardelli's no-nonsense pacing can mask the tin-eared quality of lines like, "What part of 'I don't want to go, I don't want to go, I don't want to go' did you not understand?" The exception to the play's overall lassitude comes in the last five minutes, when a drastic about-face sends the play into decidedly choppier waters. The initial jolt offered by this final twist, though, is quickly tempered by the realization that it's no less trite and underdeveloped—well, maybe a little less underdeveloped—than the 70 prosaic minutes that led up to it.

Backstage F+
(Leonard Jacobs) Lila Rose Kaplan's Wildflower is a wilted, stilted comedy. Its roots are submerged beneath a writing style lacking in nutrients. Its petals may please, but they die on the vine. Giovanna Sardelli's direction may orient the intertwined tales toward direct sunlight, but it's challenging to identify true beauty among so many weeds.

CU A 13; V B 10; NYT B- 9; TB C+ 8; NYP C 7; VV D+ 5; TM D+ 5; BS F+ 2; TOTAL: 59/8= 7.38 (C)

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Haunted House

GRADE: D+

By Daniel Roberts. Directed by Brian Ziv. Audax Theatre Group at the Irish Arts Center. (CLOSED)

Aaron Riccio of That Sounds Cool goes ga-ga for Daniel Roberts' quirky dark comedy, set in a dilapidated "haunted house" ride on the Jersey shore, while the Times' Neil Genzlinger is a bit more circumspect, finding the script and direction working at cross-purposes and dinging Roberts for some questionable content. Critical opinion drops off sharply from there, with most reviews finding both the play and production tedious, unbelievable, and/or offensive in turn. A few save some kind words for the cast and some aspects of Roberts' writing.

That Sounds Cool A+
(Aaron Riccio) There are no multimedia screens, no experimental dance breaks, no tricky narrative surprises; compared to most new American plays, Daniel Roberts's Haunted House is positively "analog"...Roberts's script...outs him as one of the most talented traditional dramatists working today...Roberts understands that what we assume to be irrelevant is far from meaningless, and so he evokes a genuine sorrow, the sort comes from losing hold of what we don't even realize is precious...A good haunted house is only as good as its ability to secret away its gears, and this is where Brian Ziv's direction plays such a vital role. He embeds every object on stage--from the plastic scythe to the static columns of Dominos--with real life...Above all, he heightens the terrific dialogue by ensuring that the actors each bring quirks to their role...The cast is the other thing Haunted House has going for it--no mere mechanical creepy-crawlies, these...Experience it for the terrific ride that it is: those goosebumps won't be from horror, but from hearing and seeing such sad, beautiful truth.

New York Times B-
(Neil Genzlinger) Daniel Roberts’s “Haunted House” is a when-worlds-collide play, which is both its strength and its problem. Bring two jarringly different entities together and you can get a lot of mileage out of incongruity, as Mr. Roberts does here, but you can also make it impossible for the actors or the audience to find a consistent tone. What you end up with is a work that is sparklingly original on the page but not as funny as it should be in performance...Mr. Roberts brings into the mix Peter (Jason Altman), Cy’s intellectually slow son, a character who sets back the cause of dignity for people with disabilities by a few hundred years, and Wendy (Meghan Miller), Peter’s half sister. You can probably guess what they’re up to, but Mr. Roberts finds some depth in the tawdriness.

Backstage C
(Mark Peikert) Unable to decide on one plot, Roberts has blithely tossed every idea that crossed his mind into the script. So we get a commentary on today's technology-obsessed generation, a past connection between Lucy and Peter, a missing matriarch, a faltering relationship, and the death of the Dunns' dreams—not to mention one very sordid secret relationship. Unfortunately, Roberts wasn't quite able to focus on any of the plots long enough to fully flesh it out. Director Brian Ziv attempts to cover up the play's deficiencies by keeping things moving, but perpetual motion can only accomplish so much...The cast's charisma can't disguise this Haunted House's obvious machinations.

Time Out NY D
(Helen Shaw) A nauseating evening. Roberts does one thing well: crank out snarky geek-speak, which is delivered—chilled to perfection—by an impassive Blaine. Only this actor remains impervious to the awfulness around him; poor Altman must try on his best Forrest Gump, and Miller and Cherkas both have to goggle besottedly at him. Presiding over it all, seemingly from miles away, is the father cum head ghoul (Jordan Charney), who must have shrieked every time another sloppy, wildly contradictory plot point leapt out of his script. Yes, Roberts wants to capture the sad-sack air of a defeated holiday-town entertainment, but you spend most of this show desperate for the end of the ride.

Theatermania F+
(David Finkle) Whatever Roberts is trying to do here beats me -- except that after a seemingly endless 85 minutes, I decided Roberts could be doing anything other than writing a coherent play...Wastes the talents of five apparently competent actors and director Brian Ziv. Or should I says six actors, since the awaited Sorcha (not credited in the program) returns at play's end and begins cleaning the outdoor grill. And all along I'd assumed she had read the play and had gotten out while the getting was good.

CurtainUp F
(Paulanne Simmons) Runs for 90 minutes with no intermission. Even so, four people managed to walk out when they could find a time when their leaving would not be too obtrusive. I was envious...Haunted House sounds as if it was written by a horny sixteen-year-old who spends ten hours a day looking at pornography on his computer and communicating over the Internet with people he hasn't met and doesn't particularly like. There's an extended scene in which Moses uses the bathroom several times, clogging the toilet and smelling up the room. Perhaps this is all in the interest of humor.

That Sounds Cool A+ 14; NY Times B- 9; Backstage C 7; Time Out NY D 3; Theatermania F+ 2; CurtainUp F 1; 36/7=5.14 (D+)

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Levittown

GRADE:C

By Mark Palmieri, Directed by George Demas. At the Theatre at St. Clemens. (CLOSED)

Mark Palmieri's play about a fractured, dysfunctional suburban family attempting a rapproachement in anticipation of an upcoming wedding gets largely negative marks (with the noted exception of the New York Times) Everyone agrees the premise is somewhat shopworn-- do we really need another play about middle class suburban dysfunction? But critics are split on the quality of the execution. Most heap praise on the actors and the sensitive direction of George Demas, even while finding fault with the script. This is also one of the few batches of reviews in which the set-- here designed by Michele Spadaro and mimicing to minute detail the inside of a Levittown prefab home-- gets discussed as much as the acting. David Barbour of Lighting and Sound America discusses the sets' clever ways of providing character detail, while CurtainUp's Deborah Blumenthal finds it impressive but all wrong for the play

NYTimes A-
(Neil Genzlinger) As basic and old-fashioned as the houses in the planned communities of the title, but the top-notch cast sure does sell it. You may feel as if you’ve seen roughly this same domestic drama a zillion times, but you won’t stop watching for a second.... the director, George Demas, has everyone getting the most out of the dynamics. Mr. Dobell walks the edge of crazy expertly, and Ms. Bennett nails her character while avoiding the Long Island clichés. Tying it all together in a delicious performance is Tyler Pierce as a loud and protective cousin.

NYPost B
(Frank Scheck) Tackling more serious themes than he can comfortably handle, the playwright succumbs to melodrama. It's too bad, because he clearly has a firm grasp of his characters and their milieu, and Levittown, despite its excesses, is consistently engrossing. Kudos to director George Demas, who's guided his ensemble into fully lived-in, authentic performances, and set designer Michele Spadaro, who's given us a two-story home that seems ready for occupancy.

TheatreMania C+
(David Finkle) While this drama suffers severely from structural problems, it ultimately remains somewhat powerful in examining how dysfunctional families are far from "just the same," no matter how similar their physical surroundings...Palmieri is aided in his quest by an estimable acting ensemble -- not one of whom, as directed by George Demas, lets a nuance slip by -- and by set designer Michele Spadaro's one-set vision of two identical Levittown abodes in their late 1940s-early 1950s semi-splendor. But in ultimately trying to make the whole family dynamic his subject -- an aim solved much more effectively in plays such as Tracy Letts' August: Osage County -- Palmieri hasn't quite built as strong a house as he intended.

Time Out New York C-
(Raven Snook) Despite the simplistic movie-of-the-week setup, Levittown—which was staged by the Axis Company three years ago—explores complicated themes: the legacy of brutality, the soul-crushing sameness of the suburbs, religious hypocrisy and hereditary melancholia. Playwright Palmieri, who’s also an accomplished actor, crafts keen dialogue punctuated by telling pauses as the emotionally stunted characters try to connect. When the material works, it’s wonderfully witty and evocative, such as when Colleen’s hotelier fiancé and her macho firefighter cousin bond over their undying love of Disney World. But often the feelings fall flat, especially the inevitable climactic showdown between father and son. We’re yearning for O’Neill-like fireworks; instead we get unbelievable fizzle.

Lighting and Sound America D
(David Finkle) Fact is, [the characters are] all a pretty dreary lot, and the burden of being a collective symbol of the shattered American dream doesn't make them any more interesting. (Some awkward wartime flashbacks and from-beyond-the-grave appearances by Jack do little to enliven things.) George Demas' direction doesn't cut through the general malaise, although, on a scene-by-scene basis, he does get some fine work from his cast. For example, Susan Bennett makes Colleen into a touching figure; the pleased, yet embarrassed way she announces her engagement makes for one of the play's better moments. Her disastrous attempt at rapprochement with Richard -- portrayed as a hair-raising mixture of guilt, rage, and affronted dignity by Curzon Dobell -- gives Levittown its one real jolt of dramatic energy. Todd Lawson is appealing as Brian, who just wants to take care of Colleen...In the end, Levittown offers little more than one-dimensional figures in a pre-determined structure of loss and heartbreak. One tragedy can break your heart; half a dozen are merely monotonous.

CurtainUp D
(Deborah Blumenthal) Marc Palmieri's new play takes places in Levittown, New York, the first of the four Levittown communities, in Long Island's Nassau County. Though it is named for and exists in a locale with a fascinating history behind it, the play barely makes good on the tools at its disposal. It's not about Levittown — it merely takes place there. And perhaps a primary reason for its failure to be compelling is its failure to adequately engage with or hinge on the history beneath its namesake. After opening with a brief rumination on the study of history and an explanation, from one character to another about what makes their house unique, the subject is all but completely dropped — swapped for a run-of-the-mill dysfunctional family play that could have taken place anywhere.

NYT A- 12; NYP B 10; TM C+ 8; TONY C- 6; LSA D 4; CU D 4. TOTAL = 44 / 6 =7.33 (C)

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Mother

GRADE: D+

Written by Lisa Ebersole. Directed by Andrew Grosso. At The Wild Project Theatre. (CLOSED)

If you like the show "Two and a Half Men" and would like to sit onstage with one of its stars, gather thirty dollars and head to The Wild Project; there you can sate your celebrity hunger during the summer re-run season. Most critics seem mystified that such a project ever came to be -- so wide is the chasm between Holland Taylor's sitcom cred and Lisa Ebersole's script, evidently. The reviews take pains to protect the bigger names from their undeserving writer and director, but even at their most enthusiastic (Backstage, Curtain Up), they can't quite summon a full-throated recommendation for this dysfunctional family story. Apart from the presence of Taylor and Buck Henry, Mother has only her brevity (75 minutes) and an optional onstage seating upgrade (with alcohol!) to recommend her.

Backstage B-
(Erik Haagensen) What the show has going for it, aside from Henry and Taylor, is Ebersole's ear for dialogue. She knows exactly who these people are and how they interact. Under Andrew Grosso's precise direction, the cast navigates complicated physical business and all that chatter with utter conviction. It's impressive to watch. Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like it's serving any particular purpose. There is a moment, when a handwritten note arrives at the family's table apparently announcing that daughter Kate has been kidnapped, when it seems the play is moving beyond cute hyperrealism to something more interesting. But Ebersole drops the gambit without exploiting it.

Curtain Up C+
(Paulanne Simmons) Ebersole and Grosso work hard to make the play seem naturalistic. Patrons willing to pay $30 are seated at tables onstage and served a glass of Prosecco. And Ebersole, perhaps under the belief that the average American is incapable of articulating a lengthy thought, limits her sentences to about a half dozen words at most. Unfortunately, the staccato effect thus produced seems much more artificial than the longer more evocative sentences of more ambitious playwrights who have some faith in the attention span of the average theatergoer. Although King and Ebersole never manage to do much with their snarky dialogue, Henry has his moments, and Taylor virtually lights up the stage to such a degree that she is sorely missed when the playwright finds some excuse to get her offstage.

Variety C
(Marilyn Stasio) Buck Henry and Holland Taylor are good reasons to see "Mother." Actually, Buck Henry and Holland Taylor are the only reasons to see this mannered comedy. Penned by Lisa Ebersole, who has written herself a role in this production, the play observes an upper-crust family carrying on their traditional ritual of bickering their way through an elegant New Year's Eve dinner at a staid Southern resort. Henry and Taylor snap at their leaden lines like trophy trout, injecting their Mater and Pater roles with transformative vivacity and humor. But how on earth did the scribe ever land these big fish?

New York Post D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) [E]verybody has a habit of getting up and leaving the room under flimsy pretenses, making it hard to keep a conversation going. It's during one of Kate's offstage moments that we're told she was taken by the (unseen) Wilson family. It's an intriguing development, but it's stillborn, like everything else in the play. Jackie dates a married woman -- but nothing is made of it. There's palpable hostility between Kitty and her brood -- but it's as unexplained as it is senseless. Besides the presence of its stars, the other puzzling aspect of this 75-minute-long ordeal is the total absence of anything resembling a point or, worse, laughs. That's a problem for a would-be comedy.

Talkin' Broadway D+
(Matthew Murray) It’s hoary old playmaking, to be sure, but when that final scene arrives - and everyone learns the obligatory important things about themselves and each other - a few bursts of sparks do legitimately fly. Forced to confront issues that wrench them from their self-concerned bubbles, the four characters at last talk and act like a family - and become not only interesting, but even charming. If it’s Ebersole’s point that even the shakiest family can be made blisteringly real when faced with a truly life-altering challenge, she makes it with aplomb once she makes the decision to. But all the dithering that leads up to it does not make for an engaging evening.

Talk Entertainment D+
(Oscar E. Moore) So it was with great and high expectations that I awaited the start of Mother. The decorations and the cast and the background musak, aka “elevator music” put me in a very nice mood. And then it started. And then I thought “What is this?” And then I thought of those lucky people drinking their Prosecco, served by the attractive waiter (David Rosenblatt). And then I thought “what time is it?” Then the entrée was served. And then it was over.

New York Times D
(Jason Zinoman) This odd, meandering new play wastes the talents of its venerable performers Buck Henry and Holland Taylor. I suppose it’s possible that the awkwardness onstage is intentional. After all, this is a play about a dysfunctional family bickering at a restaurant in a refined resort in West Virginia, although the bright red carpeting makes it look more like a den in a suburban basement ... The director, Andrew Grosso, could have clearly used some more time in the rehearsal room, and he might want to rethink the high-risk idea of placing pairs of audience members at tables onstage. It’s hard enough to watch a play that isn’t working, but observing someone else watching the same thing can be even more dispiriting.

Theatre Mania D
(Andy Propst) [D]irector Andrew Rosso has staged Mother with an almost lackadaisical hand. He allows the action to unfurl casually and without a sense of tension, which only accentuates the wandering nature of Ebersole's writing. Taylor, who looks terrific in a tailored cocktail dress from costume designer Becky Lasky, and Henry both do their best to infuse Mother with comedic pungency and drive, but even these two A-list performers can seem as adrift as the material they've been given. And King and Ebersole deliver almost colorless, one-note performances as the younger members of this tiresome and frequently unpleasant group -- which, by the end of the play, still remains a curiously distant cipher.

Light & Sound America D
(David Barbour) Nothing much happens: There's a bizarre subplot about the family's contentious relationship with another, unseen, clan, but it exists only as a reason to get characters on and off the stage. Conflicts are brought up, then dropped, every few minutes, as the conversation heads into another dead end. Kitty delivers two bombshells near the finale, but nothing comes of either one. With so many loose ends, I began to wonder if Mother was originally a longer play -- not that I'm asking for that.

Reuters D
(Frank Scheck) "Two and a Half Men" is not generally considered the most sophisticated of situation comedies. But its level of wit is of Oscar Wilde proportions compared to "Mother," a new off-Broadway play that the series' star, Holland Taylor, has unwisely graced with her presence during the TV show's hiatus. Also featuring the great and too-little-seen Buck Henry, this meandering, would-be comedy by Lisa Ebersole is a sorry waste of its stars' talents.

Nytheatre.com D-
(David Gordon) Ebersole & King provide little support for the estimable Taylor & Henry, who themselves can barely make sense of the nothingness of the script. Yet, the difference between Ebersole & King and Taylor & Henry is that the latter, through years and years of experience, know how to make the most of even a black hole. Smith, who has the most developed part, actually has a character to work with. And he's just as good as the legends above the title ... I was confused as to why the play was produced at all.

Time Out New York D-
(Adam Feldman) After half an hour spent watching a generic family of rich WASPs drink Prosecco and sting each other witlessly—Taylor and Henry are the aging parents, Haskell King is the obnoxious son and Ebersole herself is the bland daughter—I seriously began to wonder if I was missing something. That thesis was briefly supported by Mother’s only clever idea: recurring, unexplained references to an offstage war with a rival family, including an ever-present threat of abduction. But that Pinteresque thread leads nowhere, and the script devolves into a prickly-sentimental paean to family togetherness.

Backstage B- 9; Curtain Up C+ 8; Variety C 7; New York Post D+ 5; Talkin' Broadway D+ 5; Talk Entertainment D+ 5; New York Times D 4; Theatre Mania D 4; Light & Sound D 4; Reuters D 4; Nytheatre D- 3; Time Out New York D- 3. TOTAL: 61/12 = 5.08 (D+)

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Vanities

GRADE: C-

Music and Lyrics by David Kirshenbaum, book by Jack Heifner. Dir. Judith Ivey. Musical Staging by Dan Knechtges. Second Stage Theatre. (CLOSED)

The most frequent word to come up in the reviews of Vanities is banal. Critics cannot understand why a musical version of the '70s play by Jack Heifner was necessary, especially when even the added final scene feels outdated and false and the score by David Kirshenbaum adds little. Still, critics find that the sets by Anna Louizos, Judith Ivey's able direction, and the trio of actresses--Anneliese van der Pol, Lauren Kennedy, and Sarah Stiles--rise above the material in this ill-conceived musical. The silver lining for most critics is that the recession kept the show from Broadway, where it would have struggled.

CurtainUp B-
(Simon Saltzman) It almost doesn't matter that Vanities, A New Musical is an egregiously simplistic, determinedly sentimental rehashing of Jack Heifner's 1976 play Vanities. It also doesn't matter that the score (music and lyrics) by David Kirshenbaum (Summer '42) is discouragingly unexceptional. And why are none of the musicals numbers listed in the playbill? Nevertheless, what really matters is that you are suddenly hooked on a three-character musical about three life-long friends over three decades because of one stand-out performance: Sarah Stiles, as Joanne. Stiles originated the role of Joanne in both the Theatre Works Palo Alto and Pasadena Playhouse productions, and it is the show's good fortune she is in it for its New York run. Forgive me for gushing, but she gives the kind of dynamic, full throttle musical-comedy-styled performance that hasn't been seen since the heydays of Judy Holiday and Nancy Walker. Stiles is, in fact, as close to being a Walker-double as possible, her diminutive size, endearingly expressive face, powerhouse personality, superior comedic delivery are consolidated in a most wonderful way. She is a joy to watch. This is not to say that Lauren Kennedy, as Mary and Anneliese van der Pol as Kathy are not first rate performers. In step with Stiles from pep rally to penthouse, through thick and thin (thanks to Dan Knechtges's vigorous musical staging), they concertedly help to empower all the corny, cliché-riddled episodes that we are to endure.

Backstage B-
(David Sheward) This new tuner was originally slated to open on Broadway, but the recession put the kibosh on those plans. The economic downturn was probably the best thing that could have happened to Vanities. A Main Stem run for this just-okay, small-scale tuner would have most likely resulted in a short run. It's right where it belongs in a limited Off-Broadway noncommercial engagement. The show has its share of mild laughs and pleasant tunes, but it's not worth a ticket price of over $100. The staging by Tony-winning actor Judith Ivey is smooth and flexible, employing Anna Louizos' carefully detailed sets to create the different time periods. Being a performer herself, Ivey knows when to get out of the way and give her cast center stage. Each of the three has at least one number in which to shine.

The New Yorker C+
(Unsigned) There’s not much time for exploration of story line and character, let alone context: was that the Vietnam War, first-wave feminism, and Watergate that just flew by, or a bobby pin? Despite the trite handling of important issues and the shallow portraits of the women as feisty nincompoops, there are some very funny bits here, and the three actresses—Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Stiles, and Anneliese van der Pol—all with beautiful voices, put everything they have into their performances.

TheaterMania C+
(Andy Propst) After a brief prologue, Vanities transports audiences to November 22, 1963 and the gymnasium of a small town high school near Dallas, one of the many settings marvelously created by Anna Louizos' elegant scenic design. It's where we first meet our three heroines. Cheerleader Kathy (Anneliese van der Pol, who gracefully tracks the character's arc from self-assurance to hopelessness) struggles to get her best friends Joanne (whom Sarah Stiles plays with surface cuteness, but a steely determination), and Mary (imbued with cleverness and later a devil-may-care demeanor by Lauren Kennedy) to concentrate on an upcoming pep rally, but boys and other social issues keep getting in the way. Here, Kirshenbaum's music shrewdly reflects how tight this group is; rarely during the first scene do any of the women sing solos, instead, they perform a variety of girl group-like songs.

Associated Press C
(Michael Kuchwara) The songs primarily mark time, done in by lyrics that often settle for greeting-card sentimentality. You wait for the plot to kick back in and get these girls to grow up and face life.Director Judith Ivey and Dan Knechtges, who's credited with musical staging, smoothly move the show along over an intermissionless 100 minutes... For a small show, "Vanities" has elaborate, colorful settings designed by Anna Louizos. Most prominent are the wooden clothes cabinets that swirl into place when the three ladies change hairstyles and costumes. The actresses don't break stride as they slip into clothes (the work of designer Joseph G. Aulisi) that change them from teenagers to young adults to mature women. It's the evening's most striking transformation.

AMNY C-
(Matt Windman) The musical version of “Vanities,” which has a book by Heifner and songs by David Kirshenbaum, is perhaps too faithful to the original play. Except for a newly inserted optimistic finale, Kirshenbaum’s mildly pleasant songs have quietly replaced the original dialogue. His lyrics are true to character, but not too interesting or exciting... Judith Ivey has respectfully staged “Vanities” as a quiet chamber piece. But in spite of good intentions and much onstage talent, this is a musical that fails to catch fire or spark interest.

The New York Times C-
(Charles Isherwood) Joanne (Sarah Stiles) is the ditzy one, or perhaps I should say the ditziest one, since all three girls are depicted as having little more than boys and clothes and the big dance on their minds. Which does not make them very interesting company, I’m afraid, despite the winking satiric tone the authors take to their petty obsessions. In the three decades since the original play became a runaway hit and regional theater mainstay after opening Off Broadway (with Kathy Bates playing Joanne), the stereotype of the perky cheerleader has been so repeatedly and relentlessly poked, prodded and parodied that returning to the subject almost a decade into another century seems a futile exercise in the debunking of American myths. What’s left to debunk? Maybe it’s time to leave the benighted girls to dream their sweet, trivial dreams in peace... Mr. Kirshenbaum’s serviceable pop score, which nods in the direction of chart toppers like Burt Bacharach at some points and the more ruminative melodies of Stephen Sondheim at others, provides little in the way of defining depth for the characters. Too often it reverts to the same musical moods and self-actualization clichés. The cartoony pep of Mr. Heifner’s book in the first scenes gives way to a similarly on-the-surface examination of the upheavals and disappointments of the women’s later lives. (Although it’s really not much later: the women are presented as having evolved drastically before they’ve turned 30.)

New York Post C-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) There isn't a shred of suspense in Jack Heifner's book, based on his own 1976 play. The only surprise is that Kathy, the unlucky-in-love PE major, doesn't turn out to be gay. In this show, it rates as a daring buckling of expectations. That said, the 95 minutes zip along smoothly in the hands of actress-turned-director Judith Ivey (with help from Dan Knechtges for the musical stagings). The trickiest parts occur between scenes, when Kennedy, Stiles and van der Pol, fishing accessories from the vanities that give the piece its name, change costumes in full view while singing. At least David Kirshenbaum's light score doesn't complicate matters by throwing vocal challenges their way.

Lighting & Sound America C-
(David Barbour) Vanities was always enjoyable because of its refreshing absence of a thesis statement. Instead, through little bits of everyday conversation, we discovered the young ladies' foibles, and their hidebound mores. ("When I found out George Eliot was a woman, I got all confused!") Without editorializing, we saw them grow apart and struggle with realities they could never have imagined as teenagers... David Kirshenbaum's songs consist of pleasant, polished, and thoroughly disposable pop music of no particular character; this is less a comment on his talent than on the difficulties of finding reasons to make these characters sing. Oddly, except for one mildly Burt Bachararch-ish tune, Kirshenbaum avoids period pastiche. A couple of the big pieces -- "Flying into the Future," in which Mary itches to cut loose from the sorority house, and "Cute Boys with Short Haircuts," in which Kathy basically says the hell with men -- are overscaled for this modest comedy. Oddly, Heifner, who wrote the book, has dispensed with some of the script's best and edgiest jokes -- including a memorable shock laugh about John F. Kennedy's assassination. Even more surprisingly, his original point, that all three young ladies were ill-served by upbringings that left them unable to cope with changing times, is now erased by a new finale, set years later in a funeral parlor, when everyone convenes for a big sisterhood-is-powerful hug. I'm the last person to complain if he wants to reverse the point of the play -- it's his play, and he can do what he wants with it -- but I can't help but feeling that the Vanities, a New Musical isn't a patch on just plain old Vanities.

Time Out New York C-
(Adam Feldman) Three Texas cheerleaders mirror their changing times in Vanities, which tracks the girls through 25 years of pom-poms and circumstance. Adapted by Jack Heifner from his own 1976 Off Broadway hit, and outfitted with a modest new score by David Kirshenbaum, this new musical was originally slated to open on Broadway last season; smartly, its would-be producers got cold feet, and Vanities wound up in the supportive arms of Second Stage Theatre, which has given it a solid staging (on a smart set by Anna Louizos). There’s only so much that director Judith Ivey can do, however, with a piece in which characters begin as clichés and then mature into types.

Variety D+
(David Rooney) Whether expressed in dialogue -- much of it lifted intact from Heifner's play -- or in David Kirshenbaum's pleasant but samey showtunes inflected with period pop sounds, the girls' concerns are standard issue. The early talk focuses on boyfriends, sex, parties and popularity, dreams of marriage, home and family or, in Mary's case, of beguiling new horizons. But the show's own outlook is decidedly narrow... Social context is mostly glossed over, and while the play conveyed a sense of women coming of age during the burgeoning feminist movement, albeit in their own hermetic bubble, the musical fabricates a dated, thoroughly anonymous sitcom world. It's a banal version of every femme-centric character piece that's ever played on screens big or small, from "Steel Magnolias" and "The First Wives Club" to "The Golden Girls" and "Designing Women." But its humor has none of the bite or freshness of any of those sisterhood models. The lack of texture is especially a problem in the Manhattan interlude; up to that point, the girls have been cardboard cutouts, so the sudden grit of their animosities doesn't wash. And the show doesn't always ring true. Would a Joni Mitchell-loving libertarian like Mary really have been accepted in the rigidly conservative confines of a 1968 Dallas Kappa sorority house? While Anna Louizos' versatile sets have fun touches and Joseph G. Aulisi's costumes add character definition, Dan Knechtges' choreography is perky but unexciting, and Judith Ivey's listless direction is too by-the-numbers to foster emotional investment. Kennedy, Stiles and van der Pol all bring big, confident voices and likable personalities, but the writing denies them any edge at all.

Bloomberg News D+
(John Simon) All good and well until it becomes a musical. The play contented itself with three scenes in 1963, 1968 and 1974. The musical adds a fourth scene, “years later,” in which the trio, looking hardly older, provides a totally supererogatory -- and improbable -- anticlimax. Poorer yet is the score. Kirshenbaum’s music could give monotony a worse name: Not only is it tuneless, it manages not even to come up with some varieties of tunelessness. The lyrics, which do not move the action an inch forward, prove little beyond Kirshenbaum’s possession of a rhyming dictionary. A further liability is Dan Knechtges’s choreography, which espouses all the well-worn dance cliches. Judith Ivey’s direction, on the other hand, makes a laudable effort to invest basically static situations with as much movement as they can bear.

Talkin' Broadway D
(Matthew Murray) Without the darker, more ominous undertones on which the original play thrived, the fights and reconciliations along the way are meaningless. The first third of the play ended with the girls blithely waving off President Kennedy's assassination by cheering that that evening's football game would go on as scheduled; the corresponding section of the musical climaxes with a song called "I Can't Imagine," in which the three pledge eternal friendship. It's such reconfiguring that makes this Vanities seem like Kirshenbaum and Heifner's attempt to stake a claim to the theatregoing dollars of young women who've outgrown Wicked and Legally Blonde rather than any sort of an artistic or dramatic statement. The score is a particular disappointment, as Kirshenbaum is a major up-and-coming talent. If he miscalculated with his Brazil-tinged, by-the-numbers musical-comedy writing for Party Come Here, his intentionally awkward and emotionally discordant songs for Summer of '42 were alternately hilariously and hauntingly right for an adolescent coming-of-age saga. What he's written here feels like the melodic equivalent of giving up, a too-willing adherence to an instruction in the original script that advises the "music must not make a statement. It should be incidental."

Show Showdown D-
(Wendy Caster) The new musical version of Vanities, adapted by Jack Heifner from his 1976 play, is dated. While the ins and outs of friendship and loyalty are universal, this particular story depends on now-cliché tropes that limit its story to a tiny time and place. The new version has nothing new to say, which might be okay if it said the old things better. The three actresses give it their all, and there are moments that work, but mostly it just isn’t particularly interesting. The songs add little to the mix.

The Daily News D-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Though likable, the actresses are hamstrung by thin material and monochromatic characters. Mary (Lauren Kennedy) is the sexed-up one, Kathy (Anneliese van der Pol) is the organized one, and Joanne (Sarah Stiles) is the goofy one and, weirdly, the only one with a sagebrush twang. To compensate, they all tend to push too hard, so there's an aggressive quality to the performances. It's sometimes a bit unpleasant when they harmonize. The element of the production that gets it (almost) perfect, is Anna Louizos' breezy scenic design, which evokes eras with iconic images, like the album jacket of Joni Mitchell's "Clouds" in the 1968 college scene (so what if the LP came out in '69). Mitchell's mug loomed large for me as a restless Mary sang some jarringly simplistic lines: "Mama is a coward. Mama is a drunk. Mama sleeps with Howard when she gets in a funk." I swear I saw Joni, queen of brainy and incisive lyrics, roll her eyes. It wasn't her. It was me.

The Bergen Record D-
(Robert Feldberg) David Kirshenbaum's songs for the simplistic, unpersuasive narrative – one of the women ends up owning an art gallery, while another becomes a novelist – add nothing to the telling. The heart sinks with the opening number, which sounds like a hundred other perky, personality-free contemporary show tunes. "I don't wanna miss a thing," the women sing. "I know I can have it all … I want the American dream … It's what Mom and Dad both promised." Unless you've just arrived from Mars, you'll recognize the signal that all will not go well. After that, the songs simply express what the women can just say to one another, or even have already said. Only a few times does a number convey someone's deeper feelings... "Vanities" was headed to Broadway last February, when the producers canceled the production, citing the uncertain economy. They owe the recession a favor.

CurtainUp B- 9; Backstage B- 9; The New Yorker C+ 8; TheaterMania C+ 8; AP C 7; AMNY C- 6; The New York Times C- 6; New York Post C- 6; Lighting & Sound America C- 6; TONY C- 6; Variety D+ 5; Bloomberg News D+ 5; Talkin' Broadway D 4; Show Showdown D- 3; The Daily News D- 3; The Bergen Record D- 3; TOTAL: 94/16 = 5.875 (C-)

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Tin Pan Alley Rag

GRADE: C-

By Mark Saltzman. Directed by Stafford Arima. Roundabout at the Laura Pels Theatre. (CLOSED)

Even as an excuse to hear a fair amount of tunes by Scott Joplin and Irving Berlin, Mark Saltzman's high-concept play about an imagined meeting between these musical giants has most critics sounding bum notes. Though many praise the performances and the production, most rag on the play's didactic approach, its dubious historical inventions, its lack of conflict or drama. Almost all are charmed by Michael Therriault's Berlin (special props to AP's Michael Kuchwara for comparing the performance to Therriault's Gollum), though they're more divided on Michael Boatman's Joplin. Universal kudos also go to Beowulf Boritt's set, with Backstage's Eric Haagensen helpfully teaching us the word "periaktoid" (a three-sided scenic unit).

Bloomberg News A-
(John Simon) The likable “Tin Pan Alley Rag,” slightly bigger than a vest-pocket musical, has the unassuming charm of a winsome pet that gently nuzzles you...Some of it is factual, much of it invented, in a partly humorous, partly sentimental way...The show plugs into a favorite American myth, equal parts fact and fantasy, that Jews and blacks shared a collegial empathy and struggle. Certainly what we see onstage -- a black man and a Jew in musical and existential harmony -- is socially and spiritually heartening...All praise to Stafford Arima’s fleet yet unsuperficial direction...The Canadian actor Michael Therriault is a terrific Berlin, droll, bemused, brash or touching, all perfectly apportioned. Michael Boatman invests Joplin with exemplarily quiet dignity and, when called for, stirring indignation.

Financial Times B+
(Brendan Lemon) Entertaining, slightly irksome...Even allowing for dramatic licence there were moments when I wondered if I were watching the narratives of Berlin and Joplin, or the stories of two men who happen to fit into Saltzman's predetermined ideas about art versus commerce and black music versus white music...Exactly how did African and European influences blend to create American popular music? The greatest chroniclers of jazz have been unable to answer that question, so I was happy when Saltzman allowed his notions to emerge from the specificities of Berlin and Joplin's stories rather than from speculative pronouncements. It is also satisfying to hear Berlin and Joplin compositions performed by offstage pianists, and glorious onstage singers giving us snatches of Treemonisha. Under the fluid direction of Stafford Arima, the acting communicates the essence of the composers' parallel lives, especially their marriages, sundered heartbreakingly by the early deaths of their wives. As Berlin, Michael Therriault keeps the proto-Woody Allen impulses mostly in check. As Joplin, Michael Boatman not only registers the depth of his character's aches, romantic and artistic, but also proves once again his brilliance at conveying acidic intelligence.

CurtainUp B+
(Simon Saltzman) An amiable show that is not unlike a primer on Berlin and Joplin, as well as on the circa 1911 era that was set to define American pop music. Michael Boatman as Joplin and Michael Therriault as Berlin are able to credibly personify these unique musical immortals, a primer in performance craft...As you might expect in a show about Berlin and Joplin, the songs are recognizable, delectable and danceable, the latter particularly graced by Liza Gennaro's rag-timed choreography. The show makes generous use of early Berlin songs, as well as Joplin's folk ballet scores as a bridge for flash-backs into their respective lives, but without the songs being consigned to defining character...A loving tribute to the spirit of rag time and to two of the 20th century's most spirited composers.

The Hollywood Reporter B
(Frank Scheck) The show occasionally suffers from a tendency toward clunky speechifying. But anyone remotely interested in American popular music will find much to enjoy in this spirited production from the Roundabout Theatre Company...The show's episodic structure proves somewhat stilted, and it too often resorts to the forced doling out of biographical tidbits. But what saves the evening from its schematic tendencies is the music, both in the generous selections from the composers' output that are presented and in the depiction of the love of making it that they share...Therriault is wonderfully energetic and engaging as the supremely ambitious Berlin, while Boatman lends a moving dignity to Joplin, who is desperate to have his magnum opus published and produced.

NY1 B
(Roma Torre) Scores on many fronts. It's tunefully original, centering on an imagined meeting between music greats Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin; we're treated to some wonderful selections from their songbooks; and the performances are uniformly strong. But while there are flashes of brilliance, this is not an altogether cohesive work. It hits enough high notes to captivate in moments, but there are also times when it feels as if it's running strictly by the numbers...Through an ongoing series of flashbacks, we get biography lessons on each of them that are alternately enlightening and formulaic. This story-telling technique can make for fascinating theater, but Saltzman tends to rush through the facts, which, in turn, flattens the drama. Fortunately, there's so much talent invested here, the show is never less than interesting.

New Yorker B-
Simple, inoffensive, and eager to please. But at moments it resembles a singing encyclopedia entry...The presence of so many timeless songs only reminds us what Berlin and Joplin could do that Saltzman doesn’t: write from the heart without falling back on cliché.

Theatermania C+
(Brian Scott Lipton) If such a tete-a-tete did occur, let's hope it was more compelling than the one Saltzman has imagined for this occasionally entertaining if dramatically unfulfilling play...Mostly, the two bicker -- often in dialogue reminiscent of imitation Neil Simon -- as well as share their music (a particular treat for Berlin lovers), and ultimately bond over their peculiar shared fate...Beyond presenting these mini-bios, Saltzman has a seemingly larger goal, as the mysteriously ill Joplin is actually on hand to inspire Berlin to move beyond his Tin Pin Alley successes into creating great art. Unfortunately, these conversations often have the unpleasant whiff of Obi-Wan Kenobi advising Luke Skywalker...Fortunately, the piece does benefit from the efforts of its hard-working cast.

Variety C-
(David Rooney) Despite Stafford Arima's fluid direction, polished design contributions and an able cast, the material is ploddingly episodic and way too elementary in its presentation, never shaping the two composers into three-dimensional figures...To suggest, however fancifully, that one of the greatest composers of the classic American Songbook only evolved from commercial success into work with a more enduring artistic legacy because Joplin nudged him in that direction is reductive. Dramatic tension is minimal...Many of the episodes are entertaining, and there are charming moments particularly in Joplin's recollections. But the halting momentum of each man's story means neither one of them develops much as a character.

Backstage C-
(Erik Haagensen) Playwright Mark Saltzman clearly loves the work of Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin, and he wants to share it with the world. And, indeed, whenever music takes center stage in The Tin Pan Alley Rag, there is enjoyment to be had. Unfortunately, the play Saltzman has fashioned, about a fictional encounter between the two musical titans, is a thin, unbelievable affair that ultimately plays like dueling episodes of Biography...Director Stafford Arima indulges the script's penchant for sentimentality far too often.

Just Shows To Go You C-
(Patrick Lee) The situation, which has “The King of Ragtime” Scott Joplin paying an initially desperate but ultimately inspirational visit to songsmith Irving Berlin, is contrived and the dialogue is often clunky. (Here’s one groaner: “Maybe you can turn that Tin Pan Alley tin into something greater than gold!”) Yet, when he’s not heavy-handedly making the case for art over commerce, playwright Mark Saltzman is on to a theme that is hard to resist: art lives longer than the artist

The Daily News D+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) A revisionist Wikipedia entry dressed up as a play...Mark Saltzman...has packed his show with snippets of the composers' music (which is good), but too often what it delivers is a superficial history lesson and an earful of corn (not so good)...Stafford Arima, who brought inventive vigor to the mock boy-band musical "Altar Boyz," fails to inject vitality in this staging for the Roundabout. Too bad, since the show, the first musical production at the Laura Pels, starts off promisingly as wanna-be songwriters pitch tunes to Berlin and his publishing partner. The scene had the bouncy energy of a Keystone Kops-era "America's Got Talent." After that, this "Rag" had pretty much wrung itself dry.

New York Post D
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) This 12-year-old "play with music" is plagued with well-meaning didacticism...At times, it feels as if we're taking an audioguide tour of the new "Dinosaurs of American Music" wing at the Museum of Natural History. Which is totally fine if you're out with a school group, but frustrating if you want a little more than educational dioramas.

Associated Press D
(Michael Kuchwara) A soggy, inert examination of what made these musical masters tick...As concocted by Mark Saltzman, this turgid hybrid revolves around a fictional meeting between the two men. But their coming together doesn't offer much insight into either one, although Saltzman tries to drum up some dramatic conflict in between songs and the superficial presentation of facts from each of their lives...There is a relentless quality to the acting, particularly among the supporting players who are loud and surprisingly cartoonish. Yet Therriault manages a moment or two of poignancy when he transforms himself into an elderly Berlin. The transformation is a reminder of the actor's innate physicality, most prominently on display in his portrayal of the Gollum in the ill-fated Toronto and London stage productions of "The Lord of the Rings"...The evening's fleeting moments of pleasure are provided by its musical interludes.

Talkin' Broadway D
(Matthew Murray) Dusty, predictable...The play isn’t, and doesn’t want to be, about the hearts and souls of Berlin and Joplin. It wants to nudge around the border of art and commerce and ask whether a work can ever be a legitimate success if it doesn’t embrace one without the other. This is a difficult approach to make theatrical - forget about entertaining or moving - and Saltzman doesn’t make it easier by treating the characters as little more than robotic avatars...Everything else is too calculated to be enjoyable in any real way. Director Stafford Arima, who brought nonstop jolts of cleverness to the musical Altar Boyz, has provided a lot of static stage pictures that capture all the turgid enthusiasm of Saltzman’s writing.


Village Voice D
(Michael Feingold) If you're unfamiliar with the two composers' lives and works, the inherent falsity of Saltzman's stodgy, static saga does no more harm than the average soggy script for a 1940s MGM songwriter biopic. The more you know of the realities involved, however, the more irritated you're likely to get. The actors aren't to blame: In supporting roles, Michael McCormick, James Judy, and Idara Victor considerably outclass their thin material, but Stafford Arima's production injects no excitement into what is basically a faded library lecture with examples. And library lectures should be factual.

Associated Press D-
(Michael Kuchwara)Soggy and inert... The evening's fleeting moments of pleasure are provided by its musical interludes. It's hard not to be uplifted by Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" or Berlin's "Play a Simple Melody," two songs that at least stylistically link the songwriters. "Catchy doesn't happen by accident," says Berlin at one point in the show to an aspiring songwriter. Quite true. And it's a quality that has managed to elude this out-of-tune Tin Pan Alley Rag.

Time Out NY D-
(Adam Feldman) It should be a clash of the titans, but there’s no clash: It’s a mild, respectful trading of biographical information of the titans...An original musical in name only—its hoary devices include a showbiz audition montage and a snippy librarian—The Tin Pan Alley Rag offers a sampler pack of Joplin tunes, but stints on the Berlin. Don’t expect to hear more than a few stingy bars of the great composer’s best-loved songs...The main actors do fine with the little they are given.

The New York Times F
(Charles Isherwood) If the figures in wax museums could walk, talk and play the piano, they would closely resemble the leading characters in “The Tin Pan Alley Rag”...This stodgy and soporific show...transforms the lives and careers of two of America’s great popular composers into two hours of theatrical elevator music...The relentless rhythm with which the show shifts between story lines, and between past and present, gives it a metronomic quality that grows increasingly wearying...More problematic are Mr. Saltzman’s tinny dialogue and flat characterizations...The music is, naturally, among the saving graces of the evening, although the numbers are so choppy that you never really get much chance to settle into the infectious charms of Berlin’s songs.

AM New York F
(Matt Windman) Something is wrong when an Off-Broadway play feels like little more than an elementary school history report...While Saltzman started off with a great premise of historical fiction, he uses the play simply as an opportunity to digress into flashbacks on their upbringings and a show off their songs...Michael Therriault manages to be convincing and even charming as the nebbish and socially awkward Berlin. Michael Boatman, on the other hand, comes across merely as rigid as Joplin, failing to portray the character’s pain and suffering in a more fully fleshed manner.

Bloomberg News A- 12; Financial Times B+ 11; CurtainUp B+ 11; The Hollywood Reporter B 10; NY1 B 10; NYer B- 10; Theatermania C+ 8; Variety C- 6; JSTGU C- 6; Backstage C- 6; The Daily News D+ 5; New York Post D 4; Associated Press D 4; Talkin' Broadway D 4; VV D 4; Time Out NY D- 3; AP D- 3; The New York Times F 1; AM New York F 1; TOTAL=119/19=6.26 (C-)

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Les Éphémères

GRADE: A-

By Le Théâtre du Soeil. Directed by Ariane Mnouchkine. Park Avenue Armory. (CLOSED)

Only Bloomberg News's John Simon, ever the contrarian, was not swept up by the ephemeral pleasures of Les Éphémères, a series of 29 vignettes. (The two three hour plus parts can be seen as a marathon or individually.) Critics even find that the scenes that drag only add to the realistic feel of the evening. As Charles Isherwood writes in his glowing review for The New York Times, "Nobody would argue that boredom is not a significant — perhaps even a necessary — ingredient in human experience." Critics, including John Simon, like the rotating platforms on which the scenes take place. Though critics like the intimacy of the venue, they warn that the pews are uncomfortable, even with the provided cushions.

The New York Times A+
(Charles Isherwood) The acting is of that sublime but unshowy order generally only achieved by true theatrical collectives, companies of men and women who have worked together for years. (And in the case of Le Théâtre du Soleil, practically lived together.) The precision of the actors’ technique would be awe-inspiring if it were not so casually presented, with almost every performer offering vibrant details that sting with their truth. The cast numbers almost two dozen, not including the (exceptionally skilled) children. It would be easy enough to single out several for praise, and all are exemplary... The musical score by Jean-Jacques Lemêtre is among the finest I’ve yet heard for a theatrical production and is beautifully integrated. It flows under almost every scene and is played with sensitivity by Mr. Lemêtre himself, ensconced on a platform above the stage. (Some of the music comes from recordings.) Mournful and elegiac in scenes of reflection, it turns astringent and chilling, with tensely plucked strings of various instruments, during the more dramatic moments. Of these there are many, although there is no use pretending that Ms. Mnouchkine’s dramaturgy resembles in any way the more narrative-driven model of American theater. Do not expect the frequent fireworks displays of, say, Tracy Letts’s “August: Osage County.” The aim here is not to shape life into taut dramatic form but to present lived experience intimately and without evidence of artists’ interpretation and manipulation. That requires great artistry, naturally, but it is of the traceless kind born of a compassionate feeling for the way people are, not the way they normally appear onstage.

Variety A+
(Marilyn Stasio) The life stories don't always interconnect; but when they do -- often out of the blue and without comment -- the effect can be electrifying. Jeanne Clement (an extraordinarily self-contained perf by Delphine Cottu), the depressed young woman who has to sell the house and the wonderful garden where she grew up, finds a buyer in a man who is ecstatic about the birth of his first child. The emotional contrast between them is striking in itself. When we meet both characters again in part two, the happy father is wild with anger because his ex-wife is failing to honor his visiting rights to his beloved child. But in a bittersweet reversal, the grieving daughter has "found" her mother by tracking down the grandparents she never thought to ask her mother about -- at the same time that her own daughter finds her way back to the wondrous old house and garden. Too many of these connections and reversals would be too schematic, and Mnouchkine is far too strong a theatrical force to sway with that wind. So, many of the vignettes remain just that -- brief moments of everyday life caught in glimpses as they roll by, swept away in the swift and ruthless passing of time. So pretty. So sad. So soon over.

Time Out New York A
(David Cote) Mnouchkine and the actors’ control of tone and atmosphere is simply masterful, while the stagecraft is elemental yet refined: Actors glide in and out of the narrow playing space on small, wheeled platforms that stagehands slowly rotate, creating the theatrical equivalent of 360-degree camera pans. In this sense, Mnouchkine gives the audience an omniscient perspective. But no one plays God here. We can empathize with every character and their complex, all-too-human dilemmas. Warning: Given the long duration and often slow pacing of Les Éphémères—not to mention the charming but hard wooden benches—even Mnouchkine fans may grow restless. The entire work is beautifully crafted, but in truth, not every single moment is equally memorable.

The Daily News A
(Joe Dziemianowicz) From the instant you enter the armory, Mnouchkine envelops you in a theatrical universe, one in which the large, wonderful cast can be seen reading and putting on makeup as you make your way into the theater, whose look is part of the grand design. Walls are draped in red fabric; the seating arrangement recalls both an operating theater, with its bird’s-eye views, and a church, with its wooden pews. Even the intermission, where treats and water are served to the audience onstage, in the communal spirit of Soleil, is special.

Newsday A
(Linda Winer) There is a sublime tenderness in "Les Ephemeres," the extraordinary portraits of ordinary people that Ariane Mnouchkine and Le Theatre du Soleil seem to be living for us at the gorgeous, historic Park Avenue Armory... Each scene is ingeniously set on a rolling dolly, which gets pushed passed us and slowly spun by company members in deep, strenuous but stealthy squats. The result is dreamlike, yet so specific that the events feel more lifelike than realistic theater. Some people overlap, possibly as their younger selves. But each scene is its own short story - meticulously dressed as a kitchen, a living room, a garden - down to real food and just the right booze for its class.

TheaterMania A-
(David Finkle) The thrilling paradox of Ariane Mnouchkine's Lincoln Center Festival 2009 entry, Les Éphémères, now at the Park Avenue Armory, is that it's not like anything you've seen before and yet you've somehow seen it every day of your life. The revered French director has put together a two-part, seven-hour-or-so pageant in which vignette after vignette documents the sort of daily events that no one traditionally marks as sufficiently memorable to be chronicled in a theatrical enterprise; it's as if Mnouchkine had decided to be fabulously mundane by expanding on the third act of Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

Backstage A-
(Mitch Montgomery) The fact that Le Théâtre du Soleil presents the two-part piece in its native tongue (with English supertitles) might scare off everyone save the black-tie, Lincoln Center crowd, but it really shouldn't. Conceiver-director Ariane Mnouchkine's compelling stage pictures and the company's affecting performances make the storytelling quite accessible, except for a few cluttered scenes. In fact, language seems inferior to the frantically spinning set when a woman receives CPR after a car accident; paired with a spinning ambulance siren, the whirling tableau creates a dizzying sense of panic that mere words could not. Also transcendent: the way Shaghayegh Beheshti shakes and fidgets endlessly as the senile Madam Perle, whom we first meet when the poor old woman has confused a gastrointestinal ultrasound with a pregnancy ultrasound. As we track Perle's pitiful dementia through several progressively worse scenarios, Beheshti's fierce, squinting performance comes closest to sublimity of everyone in the large and doggedly committed cast.

Associated Press A-
(Michael Kuchwara) The vignettes are fleeting, and it takes time to build rapport with some of the characters. But a few shine through. One of the most appealing is an American transsexual (Jeremy James) who has found a safe haven in Paris. It's a more hospitable environment than Oklahoma, he tells his mother in a phone call. And the expatriate, now known as Sandra, builds a touching relationship with a solemn little girl. Two of the troupe's most extraordinary actresses — Juliana Carneiro da Cunha and Shaghayegh Beheshti — are paired in two heartfelt sequences involving a doctor and that combative, cranky elderly woman. Their relationship builds slowly and unsentimentally, changing from professional to personal with a naturalness that is astonishing... Yes, "Les Ephemeres" requires a large commitment of time, but the final effect is exhilarating if a little exhausting. But at what other theater event does the cast offer cookies — along with pitchers of water — to the audience at intermission?

New York Post A-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) What really makes "Les Éphéméres" memorable is Mnouchkine's main staging device. Each of the various sets is neatly positioned on a small mobile platform that's fluidly maneuvered by crouching handlers. These moving Lazy Susans allow the director to constantly alter our perspective. In one vignette, for instance, a solicitous man brings tea to a woman. But as the set slowly rotates, we see bruises on her face, and realize the man likely beat her. Mnouchkine uses these "chariots," as she calls them, brilliantly, introducing flashbacks by going from one to another, and creating a smooth sense of dynamics. Other elements struggle to reach that level of invention, especially in the second half. Jean-Jacques Lemetre's nonstop score can be intrusive and, at times, cheesy. Worse, a few of the multitasking cast members -- notably Delphine Cottu and Juliana Carneiro da Cunha -- are much better in some parts than others.

The Village Voice A-
(Michael Feingold) An undertaking as large as Les Éphémères inevitably has its lapses. Some—not many—of Mnouchkine's scenes exploit the facile tropes of vaudeville sketch and melodrama; some—very few—of her actors overplay coarsely. Rather than weakening the work's overall point, the flaws reaffirm it: Life is imperfect. Naturally, so is Les Éphémères. But to evoke such a vast range of life in seven hours, and to impose it on the audience's imagination with such a degree of effectiveness, requires care, passion, and artistry to an extent that most theaters can barely dream of. Les Éphémères may fatigue you; it demands constant attention. Its sly interconnections, puzzles, and false trails may perplex and frustrate you. But it does what the theater's meant to do: leave you with your sense of life's wonder enhanced.

Bloomberg News D-
(John Simon) The mode of presentation is more interesting than the relatively sparse dialogue, or even the music by Jean-Jacques Lemetre. He performs it himself on a balcony above, playing a variety of odd instruments and accompanied by an assistant on some sort of synthesizer. For garden scenes, Lemetre whistles bird sounds. More often we hear the near-monotonous drone of a cello. There are some major problems. The episodic structure prevents us from getting seriously involved with anyone in this passing and rotating parade. Though performed mostly in French with English surtitles, it can be hard to watch far-flung action along with reading the often fast-changing titles... There are brief scenes in English and Spanish with no translations, and one where a man in a bar sings a Jewish song, and the surtitles are in Hebrew. No less bothersome to me was the unsightliness of most of the adult performers, made more striking by contrast with the appealing youngsters. The setup does not allow most of the actors to develop significant characterizations. The ones who get the best chances, and make good use of them in several parts, are Delphine Cottu and Juliana Carneiro da Cunha, Mnouchkine’s partner. It would be interesting to see them and several others in richer roles.

The New York Times A+ 14; Variety A+ 14; TONY A 13; The Daily News A 13; Newsday A 13; TheaterMania A- 12; Backstage A- 12; Associated Press A- 12; New York Post A- 12; The Village Voice A- 12; Bloomberg News D- 3; TOTAL: 130/11 = 11.82 (A-)

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