Critic-O-Meter

StageGrade Is Here

2010-02-22T03:09:00.002-05:00

First things first: Here's the new link. Now the letter...

Dear Critic-O-Meter fans:

You may have noticed that for the past month, there's been no new content here, even though the New York season has swung into high gear and we're about to enter the pre-Tony rush. What gives? Has our beloved Critic-O-Meter been put out to pasture? What are Rob and Isaac up to?

Well, the answer is simple: A few months ago we were approached by entrepreneurs Doug and Jonathan Rand (of Playscripts, Inc.) about turning Critic-O-Meter from a wooden puppet into a real boy. We love this blog, but it's cumbersome to edit and to monetize and looks, well, like a blog. We've always been big fans of Metacritic; it was one of our inspirations for creating this site in the first place. The idea of turning Critic-O-Meter into a cleanly designed, easy to browse, post, and update site with the potential for more reader involvement (and the chance to make a little money for our efforts) is a dream come true.

So please enjoy our new site, StageGrade, developed with the invaluable assistance and heavy lifting of the Rands and developer Martin Gordon. There've been a couple of changes, but the basics are the same. It's still Rob and Isaac along with writers Linda and Karl. But now there's a lot more content to explore. You can look up a reviewer and see all the grades they've given. When you look up a show, you'll see the grade distributions much more clearly and get all of the logistics of the show up front, including a link to buy tickets to a show if it suits your fancy. Finally, and this is probably the biggest change, we've switched from using mean (or average) scores to using median scores, as we've collectively decided that this more accurately reflects the consensus of the reviewers and better keeps shows scores from being dragged down or inflated by outliers.

We've also added the shows we've missed since our final post on Critic-O-Meter. We've been so consumed with the data entry and bug fixes necessary to get a new independent website up and running that we haven't been able to keep up with the old site, which we are now putting out to pasture.

Over the coming months, we're going to be improving the interface and look of StageGrade and adding new features as we go. We were just so excited to share it with you all that we present it in its current condition, functional, useable, but still a work in progress. If you have any suggestions or any features you'd like to see, please e-mail us.

We're looking forward to making StageGrade a great one-stop shop for the scuttlebutt on the latest shows in New York theater. Thank you for joining us on the ride.

Coming Soon

2010-02-18T14:27:00.001-05:00

Dear Critic-O-Meter readers: We know we've been silent a while, but stay tuned for big news about a brand new iteration of our play-review-grading enterprise. It will be worth the wait, we promise.

Time Stands Still

2010-01-29T12:23:00.000-05:00

GRADE: B+

(photo by Joan Marcus)

By Donald Margulies. Directed by Daniel Sullivan. Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Through Mar. 14.

Donald Margulies' new four-hander earns its B+, with reviews that are mostly solidly admiring and warm, if not effusive. Telling the story of an injured war photographer, played by the pretty-much-universally acclaimed Laura Linney, and her rocky longtime near-marriage with a sensitive war correspondent, played by Brain d'Arcy James (also praised to the skies for his first post-Shrek performance), the show gets its share of kudos for complexity, thoughtfulness, and subtlety, though some critics credit the actors (who include the unlikely couple of Eric Bogosian and Alicia Silverstone) and director Daniel Sullivan for its success more than Margulies. This point of view--that the actors are better than the material--gets its strongest expression in Elisabeth Vincentelli's withering diss.

The New York Times A
(Charles Isherwood) Mr. Margulies’s finest play since the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Dinner With Friends.” Like that keenly observed drama about the growing pains of adulthood, the new play explores the relationship between two couples at a crucial juncture in their lives, when the desire to move forward clashes with the instinct to stay comfortably — or even uncomfortably — in place...Mr. Margulies is gifted at creating complex characters through wholly natural interaction, allowing the emotional layers, the long histories, the hidden kernels of conflict to emerge organically...Although “Time Stands Still” is deceptively modest, even laid back in its structure and sensibility, consisting of a handful of conversations among just four characters, the range of feeling it explores is wide and deep.

New York A
(Stephanie Zacharek) There’s a mournful tug beneath the surface of Time Stands Still, but the material, directed here by Daniel Sullivan, is also colloquial, lively, and inquisitive without being preachy.

Associated Press A
(Michael Kuchwara) The work is smart, stylish, timely and layered with an intriguing seriousness that inspires discussion after the curtain comes down...It is Linney who galvanizes the production, expertly riding the rhythms of Margulies' insightful writing. There is an unsparing directness to her performance — not to mention a superb sense of timing — that makes this photographer one of the most compelling characters to grace a Broadway stage this season.

Bloomberg News A
(John Simon) Compellingly demonstrates what a master playwright can do with great economy and efficiency, and with four fine actors who conjure up a commanding cross section of our conflicted, compromising or intransigent world...A rare play that encompasses universal issues and personal problems with equal compassionate insight...No actress conveys better than Linney the intellectual and professional woman riven by antithetical needs, wittily pursuing unencumbered freedom while also craving sexual and emotional fulfillment. D’Arcy James excels as a similarly workaholic, thinking and feeling man, discovering from the example of friends his perhaps even greater need for settling down into family life...For orchestrating such dissonances and harmonies, admire Sullivan’s direction.

Time Out NY A
(Adam Feldman) The central figure of Donald Margulies’s prickly, unsettling new drama, Time Stands Still, [Sarah] is played with expert strength and impatience by Laura Linney...Margulies is onto something interesting here: extreme violence as a form of escapism...Once again, the masterful director Daniel Sullivan has taken a solid play—taut and well-constructed, with hardly a single detail extraneous—and given us the smartest version of it possible. All four characters (including Mandy, who could easily have slid into dismissive caricature) are treated with respect and acted with skill. Manhattan Theatre Club’s naturalistic production doesn’t aim to blow you away. But it may well leave you wounded.

The Hollywood Reporter A-
(Frank Scheck) Though this latest work occasionally suffers from a surfeit of themes and a lack of focus, it's a nonetheless absorbing, ultimately very moving piece that is receiving a beautifully acted Broadway production...The playwright's gifts for sharp, witty dialogue and incisive characterizations are well on display, helping to smooth over the play's occasionally bumpy structure...Under the expert direction of Daniel Sullivan, the four performers shine.

Theatermania B+
(Dan Balcazo) Layered and thought-provoking...Linney delivers a powerful performance, demonstrating the grit and stubbornness that makes Sarah admirable but not always likable...D'Arcy James is completely convincing as a principled man with a fervent belief in the good that his work does, who is also tired and wanting a more comfortable life than he's had so far...The play, tightly directed by Daniel Sullivan, is full of interesting ideas, but Margulies wisely avoids making his work solely about issues.

USA Today B+
(Elysa Gardner) Donald Margulies tends to write smartly crafted, accessible plays that tell us nothing we don't already know. Luckily, these works attract actors who can transcend their clichés and mine their intelligence and good-natured humor...The characters and dilemmas are variations on themes we've encountered before—if not in life, then in films and TV dramas...Linney['s]...unmannered lucidity and utter lack of vanity make Sarah more convincing and sympathetic. Likewise, Brian d'Arcy James' natural, vital performance ensures that his role isn't reduced to a sensitive modern male in distress. A winning Eric Bogosian also turns up, ideally cast as Richard, Sarah's wry editor and former lover, now keeping company with the much younger and less cultured Mandy. Though the latter character seems to exist principally as a foil for Sarah, Alicia Silverstone gives her a warmth and gentle substance.

Variety B+
(David Rooney) A thoughtful, absorbing work, its strengths maximized in the crystalline naturalism of Daniel Sullivan's production and the incisive interpretations of four astute actors...Tends to tack on ethical debate points that reveal as much of the playwright's voice as those of his characters. This makes the drama somewhat amorphous and less satisfying than it could be. But there's a ring of truth to the emotional experience being thrashed out onstage that keeps it compelling...Unapologetic Mandy has an integrity that grows as the play and Silverstone's enormously likable performance evolve, which puts the others to shame...As strong as the ensemble work is, it's Sarah's play, and the meticulous Linney reinforces that ownership without ever sacrificing her give-and-take with the other actors.

Backstage B
(Erik Haagensen) Laura Linney proves yet again she's one of our finest actors. Even when others are speaking, we are drawn back to Linney, watching her reveal more and more simply by listening and observing. I can think of no one today who achieves quite the same empathetic translucency, and you can imagine Margulies keeping it in mind when creating her character...But though the play gives Linney resonant opportunity, Margulies' largely well-observed, intelligent four-hander ultimately can't transcend its predictability. While the journey holds our interest, the destination is disappointing...Margulies seems to want this to be a tough consideration of our complacency in the face of documented horrors, but he doesn't gain serious traction...Daniel Sullivan smartly directs as much between as on the lines, but he can't keep the proceedings from feeling slightly static.

Talkin' Broadway B
(Matthew Murray) Though it draws on the hallmarks of the readjustment genre, Time Stands Still has considerably more on its mind and no shortage of interesting ways to broach the topics...When Richard takes center stage, which he does only rarely, the play screeches to a stop. This isn't Bogosian's fault - he brings a mature sense of responsibility and a deadpan humor to his role, but it's not enough to make Richard feel like much more than a functionary.

NY1 B
(Roma Torre) An impressive work that serves as a dynamite showcase for some stellar acting...It's a taut two hours expertly directed by Daniel Sullivan with Laura Linney delivering one of her finest portraits as the seen-it-all Sarah. Margulies is a master at probing the nuances of relationships and he is beautifully served by the entire company...For all its virtues, the play doesn't wholly succeed. It's a situation drama with a narrow premise that tends to contrive its conflicts and the characters don't always seem true to nature.

New York Post D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Had she been written better, Sarah would have been an interesting challenge for the actress -- and she could have handled it -- but author Donald Margulies ("Sight Unseen," "Dinner With Friends") only looks at murky waters, afraid to dive in...Sarah and James argue -- about the ethics of bearing witness to war, about an affair Sarah had in Iraq, about the sacrifices required by coupledom -- as every scene predictably flares up into contention...Under Daniel Sullivan's direction, the cast of this Manhattan Theatre Club production rises above the material it's been handed. Richard is a sketch of a nice guy, but Bogosian fills it with substantial decency. Silverstone imbues Mandy -- a part written with infuriating condescension -- with a kindness and generosity that make Sarah and James look like rude jerks.

The New York Times A 13; New York A 13; Associated Press A 13; Bloomberg News A 13; Time Out NY A 13; The Hollywood Reporter A- 12; Theatermania B+ 11; USA Today B+ 11; Variety B+ 11; Backstage B 10; Talkin' Broadway B 10; NY1 B 10; New York Post D+ 5; TOTAL: 145/13=11.15 (B+)

Venus In Fur

2010-01-29T11:28:00.003-05:00

Grade: B-

By David Ives, Directed by Walter Bobbie. At Classic Stage Through February 21st.

David Ives goes all meta (not to mention Miike) in his adaptaiton "the infamous erotic novel of the same name", setting the S&M tale of the Battle of the Sexes in an audition room where an adapter/director is slowly (and comically) undone by a seemingly-ditzy actress. The reviews are all over the map, ranging from A to D-! General points of consensus: Even those that like the play agree that Ives doesn't quite pull of its ending, even those who dislike the play praise newcomer Nina Ariadna's performance, who gets the kind of notices that actors sacrifice goats for. After that, everything's in dispute.

New Jersey News Room A
(Michael Sommers) You want funny? You want sexy? Then you'll want to see "Venus in Fur." Grab your seats now. Classic Stage Company, where "Venus in Fur" premiered Tuesday, accommodates less than 200 viewers and this bewitching show promises to be one extremely hot ticket.

Just Shows To Go You A
(Patrick Lee) Arianda’s rich, many-layered performance is the kind of debut that makes your jaw drop. You watch her, marveling at her navigation of the role’s changing moods and deepening colors, and think of dozens upon dozens of roles you want to see her play, everything from The Owl And The Pussycat to The Sea Gull. She’s nothing short of astonishing.

New York Times A-
(Charles Isherwood) The gamesmanship gets a little repetitive and confusing as Mr. Ives struggles to keep the suspense building and the mystery of Vanda’s identity — and Thomas’s psychology — elusive. But if Mr. Ives never quite settles on a satisfying solution to the mystery he presents, the play is still nifty, skillfully wrought entertainment, an enjoyable game of kitten-with-a-whip and mouse.

Time Out NY A-
(David Cote)Venus in Fur does lose some of its drive and focus toward the end, but this Classic Stage Company production has manifold strengths: Walter Bobbie’s breezy direction, John Lee Beatty’s chic set and Ives’s witty, nimble dialogue…not to mention the remarkable Arianda. More audiences should have the pleasure of being dominated by a major talent like hers

Associated Press B+
(Jennifer Farrar) David Ives' humorous off-Broadway play, "Venus in Fur," is inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's erotic 1870 novel. Ives has crafted a modern take on a classic tale, skillfully twisting his plot and characters in a fast-paced journey into one man's entrapment by a clever, vengeful female. With taut direction by Walter Bobbie, Ives plays off the novel's eroticism to portray power shifts between an unsuspecting playwright/director and a young actress ostensibly auditioning for his new play, which is also based on the novel.

NYPost B-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) David Ives' new "Venus in Fur" stands out in several ways, and one of them is that it's packed with layers and ideas. So packed, in fact, that by the end it's bursting at the seams. It's exciting, but a challenge: Only masterful actors at the top of their game could keep it all together -- and the ones here struggle to keep up...A more experienced cast may have helped, but Arianda and Bentley aren't ready to handle the hairpin turns their multifaceted characters must negotiate. Her entrance is a triumph of comic timing, for instance, but she's unconvincing as a steely seductress, while he strains to suggest Thomas' sexual epiphany. Alas, they still have a few kinks to work out.

Joe Dziemianowicz D+ if, like me, you've never seen Arianda onstage before...She recalls Tracey Ullman at her most audacious and Barbra Streisand in her "Owl and the Pussycat" days. As she blows through Vanda's various moods — seductive, sweet, scary, among them — she's irresistible. But that's still not enough to recommend the play. The better-known Bentley ("American Beauty") gives such a flat performance that he's no help. But the bigger issue is that Ives' play, though filled with zingers, gets repetitive midway and leads to a lame conclusion.

That Sounds Cool D+
(Aaron Riccio) Relationships don't need to be between equals--they rarely are, and this play knows it--but they require real passion, and too much of Ives's script comes across as artificial, using a classic novel to take swings at modern conventions, and a modern frame to talk about classic psychology. The result is analytic when it should be emotional, and glib when it should be serious, and Venus in Fur is constantly undercutting its struggle by refusing to actually have stakes that are grounded in reality.

Variety D
(Marilyn Stasio) David Ives ("New Jerusalem") and his collaborator, helmer Walter Bobbie, take all the fun out of sexual power games in "Venus in Fur" by talking the subject to death. Nice idea, adapting Leopold Sacher-Masoch's erotic 1870 novel to a contempo Off Broadway theater audition -- notoriously fertile ground for the sado-masochistic dynamic between director and actor. The wit breaks down, though, once Ives starts piling on plot contrivances to support the thematic parallels. Even more of a misfire, scribe allows his protagonist to dilate at insufferable length on his own cleverness. The boot and the whip are too good for this bore.

NY Theatre D-
(David Gordon) The thing about Venus in Fur—David Ives's present-set "adaptation" of Leopold Sacher-Masoch's erotic novel of the same title from 1870—is that if the last 45 minutes weren't as mind-boggling as they are, it would be a fascinating, entirely worthwhile piece of theatre. But as it stands, this production at the Classic Stage Company under the direction of Walter Bobbie is only truly worth it for one thing: the performance of a newcomer named Nina Arianda.

NJNR A 13; JS2 A 13; TONY A- 12; NYT A- 12; AP B+ 11; NYP B- 9; NYDN D+ 5; TSC D+ 5; V D 4; NYTH D- 3; Total = 87/10 = 8.7 (B-)

As You Like It

2010-01-27T14:08:00.008-05:00

GRADE: B

By William Shakespeare. Directed by Sam Mendes. BAM Harvey Theater. Through March 13.

Critics mostly write about Sam Mendes' cold staging of the Shakespeare comedy As You Like It, but their reviews are closer to lukewarm. There aren't glowing raves or scathing pans, though some critics think the melancholy helps the production while others say it might work better when The Tempest joins the play in repertoire. Some critics praise the entire cast, while others say the Brits outshine the Americans, but nearly all pick Juliet Rylance (Rosalind) as the standout.

Backstage A
(David Sheward) The act ends with the death of Orlando's old servant Adam, an addition on Mendes' part. In the original text, the elderly retainer simply disappears after his last scene. Mendes has staged this sequence with a heartbreaking tenderness. After Stephen Dillane as Jaques delivers the famous "Seven Ages of Man" speech, Alvin Epstein's Adam quietly waves goodbye to his young master and silently expires to the strains of Mark Bennett's sweetly melancholic score. This marks the passage of time and the fact that death is an inevitable part of the cycle of life, the cycle that Orlando and Rosalind are just beginning.

The New York Observer A
(Jesse Oxfeld) The actors are less well known—Thomas Sadoski, as Touchstone in As You Like It, might be the most recognizable name to American theatergoers—but their performances, and the production, are no less good. As You Like It is a charming and romantic play—if also, like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, somewhat ridiculously plotted—and it’s a joy to watch the hijinks unfold, especially on Tom Piper’s gorgeous, painterly Arden Forest set.

Talkin' Broadway A
(Matthew Murray) You have every reason to think, watching all this unfold, that Mendes has unleashed another razor-edged reconception that sucks the life and fun from one of William Shakespeare's most characteristic comedies. Not quite. By the time Mendes and his exemplary company are through, he hasn't violated tradition, but enhanced it. The second half restores the play's color and augments its vibrancy with the knowledge that for the city dwellers and countryfolk alike - all of whom are hapless in their own ways - that the dark always precedes the lark. In fact, by the time the rebels and revels have concluded, you may strain to remember exactly what seemed so off about the foray into sadness in the first place. Don't happy endings always need a bit of strife?

TheaterMania A
(Andy Propst) Having an actress who can convincingly play a young man is just one of the hurdles that directors and theatergoers face in Shakespeare's As You Like It, and in Sam Mendes' solid staging of the comedy that's playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre, Juliet Rylance beautifully fits the bill... Uniting the disparate plot lines is another challenge of the play and in Mendes' lucid production, they seem to fit together perfectly, thanks to the hint of hoar frost that pervades both the court sequences and those in the forest. For the former, scenic designer Tom Piper backs the action with an almost bunker-like wall and lighting designer Paul Pyant cuts the space with steep angled white light, creating a sense of a vicious totalitarian state. After the action has shifted, the forest is barren and fog-filled, though ultimately, a spring of sorts comes.

Associated Press A
(Michael Kuchwara) The play may have plenty of laughs, but "As You Like It" is also a tale of separation: the gulf between parent and child, brother and brother and, most importantly, its two young lovers. And Mendes, director of such films as "American Beauty" and "Revolutionary Road," has found the darker elements in a play usually awash in sunnier production values. What softens Mendes' wintry ideas (including a forest of bare trees by set designer Tom Piper) is the warm, thoroughly entrancing presence of Juliet Rylance, who plays Rosalind. She is one of Shakespeare's most spirited heroines, and the actress is a delight, whether swooning over a surprisingly gloomy Orlando or scampering about in male drag as an adventurer named Ganymede.

Lighting & Sound America A
(David Barbour) Leaving Sam Mendes' production the other night, I realized I had never before seen As You Like It taken seriously. It was a shock, to be sure, because, over the years, I've had my fill of William Shakespeare's comedy. At times I've felt that if I had to endure one more boisterous romp through the Forest of Arden, I'd do something desperate with a carving knife. It's because, in most productions, the director hustles the audience through the play's dark early scenes, preferring to concentrate on the mistaken-identity mix-ups and cross-dressing comedy of the second half. It's a perilous decision that can result in an evening of coy and self-congratulatory antics. Shakespeare is many things, but he is never, ever cute. Thank heaven that Mendes understands this; he gives full weight to the early scenes set in a dukedom turned dictatorship.

The New York Times A-
(Charles Isherwood) Mr. Mendes’s arrestingly somber staging of Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy firmly favors adversity over sweetness. The cold snap is not just a case of a British director’s perversely shoehorning shadows into a sunshiney play. For all the spirited comedy of “As You Like It,” true love arrives only after strenuous study and emotional hardship. Although at least half of the lovebirds in Shakespeare’s overstuffed aviary appear to fall in love at first sight, the play makes clear that the human heart is fickle, easily deceived, sometimes perfidious. The mettle of love must be tried and tested, and tried again, before its sweet felicities can be safely indulged.

The Daily News B+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) The staging by Sam Mendes, one of the brains behind this transatlantic theater company, gets off to a glacial start that fails to find traction or pull us into Shakespeare's language. Then, when the talking literally stops, the show finds its voice and its magnetic pull. This is the moment when a lovestruck Orlando (Christian Camargo) can't bring himself to say a word to the fair Rosalind (Juliet Rylance), who's equally smitten. It's a wonderful moment that jolts the show to life.

Bloomberg News B+
(John Simon) One may have doubts about almost postmodern dress here, and about exiles in the Forest of Arden disposing over sundry costume changes, but strict realism was surely not uppermost in Shakespeare’s mind. It may be that Tom Piper’s austere castle facade for the early scenes is a trifle too forbidding, but not even Elizabeth Arden could have made the forest, which it served to hide, look prettier and more alluring. The excellent lighting designer, Paul Pyant, does wonders here, making that fine forest look truly enchanted. Catherine Zuber’s otherwise pleasant costumes have their inconsistencies: Some characters in the woods are shod, some barefoot, some successively both.

Entertainment Weekly B-
(Melissa Rose Bernardo) It takes almost two acts and about an hour for director Sam Mendes' production of As You Like It — now at the Brooklyn Academy of Music through March 13 — to set the right tone. And though it's a comedy, the breakthrough moment comes courtesy of neither the play's cross-dressing antics nor its complex love triangles. Rather, it arrives when perma-pessimist Jaques (the divine Stephen Dillane) begins his famous monologue: ''All the world's a stage/ And all the men and women merely players.'' Though he's describing man's slow march toward death, Dillane couldn't be more dynamic.

Time Out New York C+
(David Cote) Would that the director and his ensemble had let the balmier clime buoy the pacing and performances. Rylance delivers a spunky Rosalind and Camargo is disarmingly earnest, but their wooing-school scenes are played rather too humorlessly and slow. Dillane’s drawling delivery, while dryly amusing, verges on self-indulgent. And despite shrewd direction and many pretty stage pictures, Mendes maintains too stately and somber a tone. You’d think he prefers the cold, gray time of year to hot, frisky months.

The Financial Times C-
(Brendan Lemon) He cites a passage from Ted Hughes, yoking the locations of As You Like It and The Tempest, which is the Bridge Project’s other production this year. Hughes says that “the Devil’s Island where Prospero now finds himself” was “what remained of the Forest of Arden after the holocaust of the tragedies”. Such a reading may make sense to theatre-goers watching the two plays in repertory, but for the rest of us the initial mire can seem a bit thick. Stephen Dillane, as Jacques, presides over the evening’s first half, his Eeyore-ish gloom joined to mordant line readings: his Dylan impersonation during one of the forest court’s infectious singalongs (marvellous music by Mark Bennett) detonated the largest laugh.

On Off Broadway C-
(Matt Windman) Severely out of place with everyone else is the typically excellent Thomas Sadoski, who is too high-strung and manic as Rosalind's clown Touchstone, desperately screaming his lines with a rough delivery. On the other hand, Stephen Dillane is so low-key as the melancholy Jacques, who delivers the "Seven Ages of Man" speech, that you hardly notice him. Let me stress that this is in no way a bad or even mediocre production. In fact, it's quite smart and occasionally engrossing. And I really look forward to checking out "The Tempest" next month. But at least for me, this "As You Like It" just never felt altogether dramatically convincing or emotionally moving.

Variety D+
(David Rooney) Imbalance of another kind also hobbles the production, calling into question the success of the Bridge Project's trans-Atlantic formation. Almost across the board, the British cast members are superior to their American colleagues; their characters are more robustly inhabited and their command of the language more easeful... Shortcomings among the minor players are more damaging, however, particularly Ashlie Atkinson's squawking country shrew, Phoebe, fishing for easy laughs with her contemporary finger-snapping attitude; Michelle Beck's dreary Celia; and Jenni Barber's shrill caricature as lusty wench Audrey, played like Britney Spears off her meds. Even the ever-reliable Alvin Epstein strays from the poignancy of his loyal old servant into cartoonland in his second role as the vicar Martext. The comic mugging, crass pantomime shtick and reveling rustics of act two almost make you long for a return of the earlier lugubriousness.

New York Post C
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Prime among the Brits is Juliet Rylance. To say she does Rosalind justice is an understatement: We're only in January, but it's unlikely we'll see a more insightful, more luminous performance all year. She comes up with one irresistible grace note after another, whether bursting out in girlish excitement or teaching lessons in love with witty, confident poise... And then there's the home team, which seems completely befuddled by the characters, the language -- pretty much everything having to do with the show.

Backstage A 13; Observer A 13; Talkin' Broadway A 13; TheaterMania A 13; AP A 13; Lighting & Sound America A 13; The New York Times A- 12; The Daily News B+ 11; Bloomberg News B+ 11; EW B- 9; TONY C+ 8; The Financial Times C- 6; On Off Broadway C- 6; Variety D+ 5; New York Post C 5; TOTAL: 153/15 = 10.2 (B)

The Orphans' Home Cycle Part III

2010-01-27T09:49:00.004-05:00

GRADE: B+

By Horton Foote, Directed by Michael Wilson. At The Signature Theatre through May 8th

Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle comes to a close, and while every reviewer concedes the journey is worth it, some feel that the third part is most definitely the weakest. Which isn't the same as saying it's bad-- the lowest grade in this set is a B- -- but just that the final trilogy of plays in the cycle lacks focus and seems edited to the point of choppiness. Not everyone feels this way of course, David Cote at Time Out, Jonathan Mandell at The Faster Times, Erik Haagensen at Backstage and Melissa Rose Bernardo are all ecstatic. To put it another way, there's a real split in this crop of reviews. Reviewers who use covering the third part as a way of opining on the whole cycle heap praise on the entire undertaking, while those that consider the third part on its own are left feeling respectful, but hardly over-the-moon.

Backstage A+
(Erik Haagensen) Now that the end of the cycle has been reached, I'm happy to say that what I hoped for after seeing Part One is true: Foote's final gift to the stage is glorious, an essential American masterwork.

The Faster Times A+
(Jonathan Mandell) The characters soldier on through their sorrows without much fuss, just as the playwright depicts their everyday struggles with an engaging modesty and familiarity. It is an approach that contrasts so heavily with the explosive, excessive, confrontational dramas to which we have become accustomed (or deadened) that “The Orphans’ Home Cycle” almost seems like the invention of a new art form. Having now seen all nine plays in three evenings over the last month – plays that will be presented in three programs in repertory at the Signature Theater Company through the end of March — I can say that I have found it the most rewarding theatrical experience of the season and probably one of the most memorable in my life.

Time Out New York A
(David Cote) [Foote has taken] nine plays and resculpted them into something elevated and elemental, like Greek tragedy. It’s not that the final part of his trilogy, The Story of Family, includes any cathartic spasms of matricide and revenge, even if Horace Robedaux (Bill Heck) has stored up a lifetime of resentment toward his mother. I mean the action exists in a kind of suspended reality—not bound by the laws of time and faintly ritualistic. So fine-tuned is the ensemble’s acting, and so precise is Michael Wilson’s direction, this temporal strangeness only heightens the complex pleasures of Foote’s melancholy masterpiece.

Entertainment Weekly A
(Melissa Rose Bernardo)After nine hours of The Orphans' Home Cycle, it seems ungrateful to want more: There are, after all, nine plays and three productions on display at Off Broadway's Signature Theatre; director Michael Wilson and his 22-member cast have done remarkable work, imbuing Foote's epic piece with a delicate intimacy. Even though you can always go back to visit — parts 1–3 rotate in repertory through March 28 — it's hard to leave Home.

New York Daily News A-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Superior acting, direction and design work — hallmarks of the first two segments of "The Orphans' Home Cycle" — are front and center in this final installment. But there are some gaps. "1918" suffers from being compressed to an hour, and having Hallie Foote, so singular in voice and manner, double as a different character is distracting. And the presence of Horton's long-absent mother, Corella (Annalee Jefferies), doesn't quite square with what's come before.

New Jersey Newsroom A-
(Michael Sommers) In editing these nine full-length plays to one-hour versions each, Foote — who died last March at the age of 92 — compressed time significantly to the point where occasionally the action seems oddly choppy. But for viewers who invest their affections in the characters, witnessing the engrossing arc of Horace's personal journey plus the sincere realism of the acting goes a long way to ease such bumps in the text. Truly giving an ensemble performance, some 20-some actors do beautifully by the many people of long-ago southeastern Texas. Maturing believably in sober looks and attitude, Bill Heck's deep-feeling Horace manfully shoulders his burdens. Maggie Lacey positively glows as ever-supportive Elizabeth. The one and only Hallie Foote (the playwright's daughter) not only nicely depicts mournful Mrs. Vaughn but in "Cousins" shines drolly as a nouveau-riche relation who reports her disappointment with Europe.

NY Post B+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Closure at last! With a total running time now up to nine hours, Horton Foote's "The Orphans' Home Cycle" finally draws to an end with the opening of its third and last three-act installment, "The Story of a Family." It's been a long, steady ride since the first one opened in November, and reaching the destination brings a fulfilling sense of completion.

Associated Press B+
(Michael Kuchwara) After already having spent six hours with the man, Horace has, by this third collection of one acts, become an old friend. He anchors Foote's intricately woven tapestry of life in fictional Harrison, Texas, during the first three decades of the 20th century.Part 3, which opened Tuesday at off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company, is called "The Story of a Family," and is directed — like Parts 1 and 2 — by Michael Wilson with stunning clarity. Its themes are pretty much summed up by one of the characters in the evening's second act: "A family is a remarkable thing, isn't it? You belong. And then you don't. It passes you by, unless you start a family of your own."

New York Times B
(Ben Brantley) The three short dramas that make up “The Story of a Family,” which opened on Tuesday night, are both the starkest and most sentimental of this lovingly painted life-and-times portrait, directed by Michael Wilson in a co-production of the Hartford Stage and the Signature Theater Company...That organic balance between things great and small is less assured in “The Story of a Family” than it is in the two earlier groupings, “The Story of a Childhood” and “The Story of a Marriage.” All the plays had to be trimmed — each to roughly an hour — to make the cycle’s presentation possible. And given the steady stream of momentous occurrences in this last section, the telescoping effect can start to feel surreal, with birth, death, disgrace, departure and reunion all happening within absurdly brief stage time. You wish that the poor characters (and sometimes the poor audience) were given at least a chance to catch their breath between deaths.

TalkinBroadway B
(Matthew Murray) So, sadly, does Part 3 as a whole. If “Cousins” fixes the thematic point of the epic, neither it nor its companion plays ultimately contribute as much, as deeply, as those in the preceding two evenings. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t see Part 3 if you’ve already devoted six hours to Parts 1 and 2 - you should. Nor is it to say that Part 3 isn’t basically satisfying - it is. But the payoff is not quite the equal of the investment, and if Parts 1 and 2 spanned the quality gamut from “amazing” to “otherworldly,” Part 3 must content itself with a solid, earthly, qualifier-free “good.”

TheaterMania B-
(Dan Bacalzo) The final installment of what has been a remarkable theatrical achievement -- combining nine of the late playwright's works into one three-part epic that follows the life of Horace Robedaux (Bill Heck), a character based on Foote's own father. However, this last trio, subtitled The Story of a Family, is unevenly presented and only partially fulfills the promise of the material.

North Jersey B-
(Robert Feldberg) After the extraordinarily affecting "Part 2," which followed Horace's courtship of Elizabeth Vaughn (Maggie Lacey) and their marriage, "Part 3" turns out something of a disappointment, although still worthwhile for followers of the story. (All three of the evenings are being presented in repertory, so if you missed the first two parts, you'll be able to catch up.)

Village Voice B-
(Michael Feingold) What significance Foote means us to draw from Horace's story isn't always clear. Taken as a whole, the trilogy shows a steady slippage of focus. Full of group comings and goings that, in Michael Wilson's production, often look mechanical, Part 3 seems awash in the reiterated family data and town gossip that, in earlier segments, function as a dramatic contrast to Horace's embittered silence. Even the climax, in which he finally explodes at his insufficiently caring mother, is overshadowed by a secondary character's having a similar but showier explosion. Still, the work has enough substance to support its three-evening length, especially with performers like Pat Bowie, Annalee Jefferies, Maggie Lacey, and Pamela Payton-Wright to articulate it.

BS A+ 14; TFT A+ 14; TONY A 13; EW A 13; NYDN A- 12; NJNR A- 12; NYP B+ 11; AP B+ 11; NYT B 10; TB B 10; TM B- 9; NJ B- 9; VV B- 9; TOTAL: 147/13= 11.31 (B+)

A View From the Bridge

2010-01-25T14:00:00.012-05:00

GRADE: B+

Photo by Sara Krulwich
By Arthur Miller. Directed by Gregory Mosher. At the Cort Theatre through April 2010.

Scarlett Johansson gets raves for her Broadway debut. Even the dissenting opinion (Guardian, Financial Times) acknowledges that her work exceeds the celebrity-showcase standard set by other film starlets such as Jennifer Garner and Julia Roberts. Meanwhile, Liev Schreiber's meticulous, aggressively subtle style finds another match in Arthur Miller's working-class tragedy about a Red Hook dock worker whose desire for his niece leads him to betray everyone else. Critics acknowledge some weaknesses in the storytelling -- some want more of a tragic punch by the end while others find the story something-less-than-Greek in its scope and depth. That aside, most applaud Michael Christofer as the laywer-narrator-chorus device/character.

Wall Street Journal A
(Terry Teachout) The play itself isn't even slightly profound, but it is, almost alone in Miller's oeuvre, largely devoid of pseudopoetry and wholly to the dramatic point, and Mr. Mosher, who has returned at last to Broadway after a decade-long absence, has staged it with a lean, clean, deceptively soft-spoken intensity that pulls you straight to the edge of your seat and keeps you there until you get up to go home. Fold in the dead-center acting of a first-string cast led by Liev Schreiber and you get a production so hard-hitting that you'll want to see it twice—assuming that you can get tickets, which I very much doubt.

New York Times A
(Ben Brantley) I had wondered if “Bridge” really needed another revival. New York saw a first-rate production only a dozen years ago, directed by Michael Mayer, with Anthony LaPaglia, Allison Janney and the young Brittany Murphy (who died at 32 last year). But this latest incarnation makes the case that certain plays, like certain operas, are rich enough to be revisited as often and as long as there are performers with strong, original voices and fresh insights ... Mr. Schreiber is such a complete actor that he has often thrown productions into imbalance, highlighting the inadequacy of the performances around him. That is not a problem here. That the excellent stage veteran Ms. Hecht holds her own with Mr. Schreiber is no surprise. That Ms. Johansson does — with seeming effortlessness — is.

Variety A
(David Rooney) Sometimes it's high praise to call a stage director's work invisible. The compliment applies to Gregory Mosher's searing revival of "A View From the Bridge," though it by no means indicates any lack of craftsmanship or insight. Returning to Broadway after a considerable absence, Mosher has instilled in his outstanding cast an unconditional trust in Arthur Miller's text, evoking a time, a place and a 1950s blue-collar community with penetrating integrity. Each scene flows seamlessly from the one before in a production that expertly plants the seeds of inexorable tragedy yet grips with a tension and volatility that make every moment seem unpredictable.

Backstage A
(David Sheward) Now Liev Schreiber, one of the few American star-level actors to return to the stage on a regular basis, sinks his teeth into this meaty steak of a character and has a regular feast. His Eddie has a vulnerability and thoughtfulness often overlooked. You can tell he not only harbors sexual urges for his wife's niece Catherine but also loves her like a father. These conflicting emotions play across Schreiber's face as Catherine explains her growing love for Rodolpho, an illegal immigrant the family is protecting ... Scarlett Johansson matches Schreiber's intensity as the inexperienced but determined Catherine. This film star makes an impressive Broadway debut, clearly conveying what this girl wants—to be a grown woman—and pushing against the only obstacle in her path: her overly attentive uncle ... Director Gregory Mosher wisely keeps the staging simple so the dramatic fireworks blaze all the brighter. Set designer John Lee Beatty's row of brownstones towers over the players like a menacing giant as they enact this modern version of a Greek tragedy.

Time Out New York A
(Adam Feldman) The fateful plot unspools as it must, with a helpless lawyer (the superbly troubled Michael Cristofer) serving as the chorus; the surprises come not from the story, but from the way that Miller conflates the older strains of the plot with newer psychological insights about the strata of masculinity. (Eddie’s obsessive suspicions that Rodolpho is “not right” sexually are projections of his own impotence and guilt.) Johansson does fine work as the ripening apple of domestic discord, and the excellent Jessica Hecht is touching as Eddie’s hectoring wife, Beatrice. But this is ultimately Schreiber’s play, and his hooded emotionality—first guarded, then blubbering—is exquisitely matched to Eddie’s self-deflating sense of manhood: menacing in simmer but pathetic in boil.

Washington Post A
(Peter Marks) Surely the production, which had its official opening Sunday night at the Cort Theatre, is one of the most satisfying evenings of Miller in memory ... Schreiber is nothing short of remarkable as Eddie ... He manages to make Eddie's decisions -- whether to pick up a phone and dial immigration, or to lash out in an act of sexual frustration -- seem the explosive products of an urge beyond the control of the intellect ... The surprising achievement belongs to Johansson, who proves to be capable of far more than collaborating in eyebrow-raising star casting. She's got the broad vowels and engaging innocence for Catherine, and she makes you believe in the teenager's flickering awareness of Eddie's inappropriate attraction. And even after Catherine's allegiance shifts to Rodolpho, the actress allows you to appreciate fully the pull she still feels toward Eddie, how, perhaps, that might have deepened Eddie's confusion. The acumen on display raises the Cort's thermostat from what might have been coolly sobering to positively scorching. You'll leave, happy to have felt the theatrical heat.

USA Today A
(Elysa Gardner) Johansson disappears so completely into the role of Catherine, the plucky but naïve niece of a longshoreman, that you won't stop to consider the qualities that make her distinctly suited to the part. Only afterward will you likely realize the actress's youthful sensuality and capacity for good-natured goofiness constitute a perfect fit for this sheltered 17-year-old struggling to come to terms with her effect on men — her uncle, in particular ... Where some directors wax operatic trying to convey Miller's intricate morality and heated humanism, Gregory Mosher opts for a more naturalistic approach. Michael Cristofer, playing a local lawyer who doubles as the play's narrator, alternately participating in the action and reflecting on it, provides a tone that's at once conversational and theatrical ... Johansson and Schreiber make the tension between Eddie and Catherine excruciatingly poignant, by showing us there's still great affection between this misguided man and the woman he can no longer love like a child.

Village Voice A-
(Michael Feingold) Memorable Eddies have come in all shapes and sizes; the latest, Schreiber, ranks very high on the list. Everything's hidden; Schreiber's gift for letting you see what he's not showing matches this role perfectly, as does his burly physical presence. He gets especially strong support from Johansson, clearly an actress of skill and presence, not merely another two-dimensional puff pastry. Mosher makes one or two odd slips: He rushes the epilogue, slightly dampening the effect of Cristofer's intriguing, broken-rhythmed Alfieri, and he lets Hecht fall into the most common trap for actresses playing Bea, which is playing Eddie's negative view of her. Even so, the staging builds powerfully; John Lee Beatty's set and Peter Kaczorowski's lighting are exceptionally evocative.

New York Post A-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) While it may sound odd to say so of something featuring betrayals and brutal death, the show that opened at the Cort last night is wickedly entertaining: Those two hours fly by. There are flaws (John Lee Beatty's set is literally creaky, for one), but the toned-down approach of director Gregory Mosher and his cast pays off. Largely it's because the performances successfully look inward, avoiding cheap, crowd-baiting histrionics -- and "A View From the Bridge" certainly has potential for those.

New York Observer B+
(Jesse Oxfeld) As directed by Gregory Mosher, this View From the Bridge is intense, emotional, physical and moving. It’s impressively economical—every line, movement, reaction exists only to build the tension to what Miller, in a foreword to the script, calls Eddie’s inevitable “catastrophe.” The only times it slackens—and this is Miller’s fault, not Mr. Mosher’s—is when Mr. Alfieri, Eddie’s lawyer, shows up to once more explain what’s going on. It’s unnecessary, and it takes you out of the story. It also prompts the question: When an attorney follows you around all day to explicate the implicit, does he charge an hourly fee or a retainer?

Gothamist B+
(John Del Signore) Her performance feels wholly authentic and earned, and during her anguished love scene I could see tears streaking her cheeks. You can fake that on film, but not on stage. The rest of the ensemble has soft spots ... Thankfully, Schreiber's portrayal of Carbone is so lived-in, so visceral, that he more than makes up for the cast's weaknesses. Carbone does something despicable, but you never see Schreiber judging his character, and his empathetic take on the role humanizes Carbone's monstrous deed. I'm a standing ovation purist, and think the gesture should be limited to only the most phenomenal performances, but I jumped to my feet along with the rest of the audience when Schreiber took his bow.

The Faster Times B+
(Jonathan Mandell) It is the siren call of Catherine’s beauty that drives what Miller intended as a twentieth century American update of an ancient Greek tragedy, the story of a man who loves his niece in the wrong way, and it is the lure of Scarlett Johansson on the stage that makes “A View From The Bridge” worth seeing. She is not the only reason. The rest of the cast collectively transport us back to the working-class Brooklyn of the 1950’s. Liev Schreiber’s performance in particular is sure to get high marks all around, and there are a number of surprising performances (though at least one was not a good surprise). John Lee Beatty’s set, which shows a tenement skyline that is almost majestic in its grubbiness, and then revolves to reveal the modest interior of the characters’ home, helps to emphasize that this is a story of plain people caught up in high tragedy. In the end, though, it remains a struggle, if not a stretch, to consider this play the unassailable modern classic that some people seem to be proclaiming it.

Theatre Mania B+
(David Finkle) It's a large credit to Mosher that every one of Miller's down-to-earth, yet-larger-than-life characters -- including neighborhood lawyer Alfieri (Michael Cristofer), who narrates the unrelentingly downbeat tale -- is profoundly etched ... From the instant Schreiber's Eddie scuffs in to join a coin-pitching game with two fellow workers (Robert Turano and Joe Ricci), the actor has every nuance in place for his depiction of a morally conflicted man who is imprisoned by illicit desires but damned if he's going to cop to them ... While the play never packs less than a knock-out dramatic punch, it does have its weaknesses. It's one thing to use Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and colleagues as models, but it's quite another to keep calling attention to the tactic.

New York Daily News B+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) If the play's overstated narrative structure and bald symbolism (including a girl fetching and lighting her uncle's cigar) keep it from being on Miller's A-list (and they do), those weaknesses recede in Gregory Mosher's exceptionally well-acted, well-staged revival ... It's an outer-borough tragedy, ancient columns not included. Schreiber may be playing a surrogate Greek hero, but it's down-to-earth honesty that makes his work so gripping. Johansson's acting is dynamic yet understated. Movie stars like her are summoned to Broadway because they draw attention to the box office. On stage, though, she blends in beautifully with the cast.

Financial Times B
(Brendan Lemon) Is there another New York-based actor who can talk tough on-stage better than Liev Schreiber? ... Making her Broadway bow, Johansson generates minimal inner life and looks slightly odd with dark hair. Yet she provides a headier dose of theatrical Viagra than did another Broadway debutante, Nicole Kidman, a decade ago in The Blue Room at this same theatre, the Cort ... Insisting that concerns of basic justice and honour be paramount, Mosher stages Bridge unfussily. His concept, in essence, is his casting. Fortunately for him, Michael Cristofer, as the lawyer narrator, sounds the right notes of tragic inevitability, and Morgan Spector, as the artistic Rodolpho, makes an impression.

The Guardian UK C+
(Alexis Soloski) the neighbourhood attorney Alfieri, played by Michael Cristofer, assures the audience that "this is Red Hook, not Sicily," and that its inhabitants "are quite civilized, quite American. Now we settle for half, and I like it better." Mosher appears to take Alfieri at his word, offering a lucid, no-nonsense version of the script that somehow doesn't give its all. It moves rapidly from scene to scene (though one wishes he didn't so often rely on tacky rotating scenery to get from one to the next), and checks actorly tendencies toward indulgence. Yet Mosher harnesses little of the show's power. One shouldn't fault Schreiber, who lends Eddie a lumbering sensuality, and portrays a man beset by emotions he can't acknowledge or articulate. He's best in his most physical scenes, channeling his malice and despair into violence. He's ably supported by Jessica Hecht, as his careworn wife, and by the grainy voiced Cristofer as his ineffectual adviser. Johansson, who sports tight sweaters and nipped-waist dresses, toils to master her character's speech and posture, ably capturing the flat tones and "wavy walk" of a working-class girl advancing on womanhood. But she never quite conveys Catherine's ambivalence and distress.

Talkin' Broadway C-
(Matthew Murray) [F]or most of the first act, when Catherine is longing to escape the oppression of poor Brooklyn, Johansson convinces as a ripe Italian girl unsure of what options she really has. But when Catherine meets Eddie’s distant relatives from the old country, Marco (Corey Stoll) and Rodolpho (Morgan Spector), and blooms in the light of Rodolpho’s apparent love, Johansson still seems like the same pre-wilted flower. In neither voice nor manner does she progress beyond the lost girl of the opening scenes, which throws the rest of the story into turmoil ... Schreiber cannot cite stage inexperience as an excuse for his own one-note portrayal ... as long as Eddie is no more than the loving but lumbering lout who’s sacrificing everything he is for his family’s future, Schreiber is in complete command of the character’s brusque devotion and resigned world-weariness. The trick of the play, however, is that isn’t the real Eddie. A bigoted nationalist whose feelings for Catherine constantly threaten to transcend avuncular affection, Eddie’s truly an ugly stereotype given skyscraper stature so that Miller’s warnings about the importance of United States unity may unfold unimpeded. Schreiber, unfortunately, never goes the full way. His Eddie gets angrier and darker, yes, but never becomes big enough to consume the whole country. By the end of the play, when Eddie must face down Marco for control over his family (and by extension his homeland), Schreiber’s glimmering smolder is simply not sufficient for consuming him - let alone us - in the mythic conflagration Miller intended.

Wall Street Journal A 13; NYTimes A 13; Variety A 13; Backstage A 13; Time Out New York A 13; Washington Post A 13; USA Today A 13; Village Voice A- 12; NY Post A- 12; NY Observer B+ 11; Gothamist B+ 11; The Faster Times B+ 11; Theatre Mania B+ 11; NY Daily News B+ 11; Financial Times B 10; The Guardian UK C+ 8; Talkin' Broadway C- 6. TOTAL: 194/17 = 11.4 (B+)

Present Laughter

2010-01-22T13:52:00.004-05:00

GRADE:C+

By Noel Coward; Directed by Nicholas Martin. Through March 21

There's a lot of like-- and even a smattering of admiration-- but very little love in the crop of reviews of Nicholas Martin's Broadway remount of his Huntington production of Present Laughter, starring Victor Garber. Speaking of Garber, reviewers are positively dripping with self-loathing and gratitude that he's returned from a sojurn in Hollywood making money, with many reviewers making it seem as if Garber deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor for taking a cushy gig at Roundabout. Martin's straight-up production gets largely high marks, with the most controversial element being Brooks Ashmanskas performance as Roland Maule. The critics are split, one camp praising his over the top antics, one camp saying he ruins the show and a third camp (occupied solely by David Cote) who argue that Ashmanskas' performance makes clear how anemically tasteful Martin's direction is in the first place.

Associated Press A
(Michael Kuchwara) It's not easy maintaining the fizz in the frenzy known as "Present Laughter," Noel Coward's delightfully frantic comedy about a narcissistic actor and the chaos that inevitably erupts in his posh London household.

Village Voice A-
(Michael Feingold) In recent decades, stars of gigantic charisma (George C. Scott) or flamboyance (Frank Langella) have seized on the showy opportunities inherent in Garry's dilemma, but the play's elegant balance of neatly piled successive crises really only comes through when played by a more quietly glowing charmer like Garber. With help from Harriet Harris, acidulating sweetly as Garry's loyal secretary, and Lisa Banes, spreading adorable rue as his estranged but loyal wife, Martin keeps Garber spinning gracefully—style-setter Garry couldn't spin any other way—through the accelerating action. Only Ashmanskas, as the young loon, skillfully but unappealingly makes his craziness seem altogether too real in which everything needs to be touched lightly.

New York Magazine A-
(Scott Brown) Victor Garber, God bless him, can wear the daylights out of a dressing gown. He can even make an old one look...well, not new, exactly, but damned comfortable. And "comfortable" is the word that pops immediately into mind after experiencing the gentle, genial charms of the Roundabout's Present Laughter, a comedy about aging ungracefully, the silken pleasures of decompensation, and the people we choose to grow old with, to the extent that we have any choice in the matter. Under the steady, only occasionally leaden hand of veteran comedy director Nicholas Martin, this faultlessly acted, psychologically pristine, almost excessively grounded production fuses Noël Coward's most bohemian themes—the insupportable nature of marriage, the delicious hypocrisies of polite society—with his most boulevard instincts. It's a sex farce that dismantles its own flamboyance before our eyes and ends up feeling strangely, unaccountably plausible. Laughter is indeed present throughout, but it's a kind of background radiation.

NY Daily News B+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) As the mirror-mad matinee idol, Broadway veteran Victor Garber, famous for films (he went down with the ship in "Titanic") and TV (he shot from the hip on "Alias") is droll and appealing. His Garry is as self-aware as he is self-obsessed. Sure, he sighs, groans and even sings about craving solitude, but we know he knows that he instantly wilts when he's not being coddled or cuddled. A cast of characters is on hand to do that. Harriet Harris is hilarious as Monica, Garry's secretary and sometime dragon-lady gatekeeper; Lisa Banes lends sophisticated calm as his not-quite-ex-wife, Liz, and Pamela Jane Gray plays Joanne, an oversexed omnivore who makes every word from her mouth, especially "latchkey," sound fabulously filthy.

New York Times B+
(Charles Isherwood) In this frothy production, which opened Thursday night at the American Airlines Theater, the stage stalwart Mr. Garber, who has lately traded the boards for a checkbook-swelling stay in Hollywood, eases back onto Broadway as if slipping into a bubble bath, Champagne coupe in hand. As a vehicle for former matinee idols on the wrong side of 40, “Present Laughter” is ideal, a purring vintage Daimler that simply requires a magnetic actor of finely honed comic gifts to work its considerable charms. Mr. Garber fits the role as neatly as those silk pajamas fit him.

TalkinBroadway B+
(Matthew Murray) Martin and Garber, who collaborated on this play in 2007 at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company, elegantly modulate the way Garry navigates all this, as well as the slow-burn immolation he experiences as his compartmentalized affairs (in every sense of the word) begin to consume the world. If the first act could step a bit more spryly, the second and third unfold with the precise pacing and precision of a military invasion. Even the stately beauty of Alexander Dodge’s decadent, two-level set increasingly resembles a shadowy prison, and Jane Greenwood’s glimmering upper-crust costumes straitjackets, as Garry realizes he’s letting the inmates run his own personal asylum.

Financial Times B
(Brendan Lemon) Victor Garber, who portrays Garry in the current staging, is 60. Lost to Los Angeles and television salaries for the past decade, Garber makes a welcome return to Broadway. Gliding exasperatedly across Alexander Dodge’s deco set and inhabiting Jane Greenwood’s elegant dressing gowns, Garber wisely avoids making Coward ostentatiously sophisticated. Coward’s style seemed hopelessly outmoded in the 1950s and ’60s, but now his dialogue sounds less sophisticated than stilted. The revival of sophistication on television (Frasier, Stewie on Family Guy) makes Present Laughter seem laboured: it can take an eternity, verbally, to set up a joke.

Variety B
(David Rooney) The silk dressing gowns and suave airs of aging matinee idol Garry Essendine are a fine fit for Victor Garber in "Present Laughter," as are the quietly melancholy undertones of a charming but vain peacock, too self-absorbed and infantile to appreciate the pleasures life affords him. He's housed in the swankiest of London apartments in Nicholas Martin's elegant production, with its gorgeous, honey-toned deco wall treatments and cascading chandeliers, dominated by a portrait of Garry as Hamlet that leaves no doubt as to who's the center of attention. But those assets can't keep a certain windy fatigue from creeping into Noel Coward's comedy.

Wall Street Journal B
(Terry Teachout) If you've never seen "Present Laughter," go and enjoy yourself: It's a comic gem, and this production is much better than none at all. The set alone, an Art Deco orgy designed by Alexander Dodge, is almost worth the price of admission. If you know the play at all well, though, you won't need to be told what Messrs. Martin, Garber and Ashmanskas are getting wrong, and why it matters.

TheaterMania C+
(David Finkle) For the Roundabout Theatre's current revival, with suave-as-a-pair-of-kid-gloves Victor Garber in the focal role, director Nicholas Martin has ladled on the acting pyrotechnics. Out to pull maximum yuks from the self-deprecating Coward lines, the ensemble does everything short of cartwheels to achieve the sought-after results; but too often, the cast gives the impression they're at a noisy party where they have to exert extra effort just to be heard.

The Faster Times C-
(Jonathan Mandell) Present Laughter certainly had its moments, but Garber is too placid a presence to have kept my interest through a play that lasts 150 minutes over three acts, and while he’s attractive, it seems closer to a Woody Allen fantasy sequence than a Noel Coward parlor comedy that these beautiful women decades younger are swooning from love for him. Still, Garber’s steadiness is a welcome contrast to some odd and unsuccessful efforts to pump up the energy, most noticeably Brooks Ashmanskas, who plays a beseeching playwright in one of the most eccentric performances I have ever seen on Broadway — a herky-jerky whirling dervish who seems imported from the fringe festival. The women fare better, especially Harriet Harris as the wise-cracking secretary, Lisa Banes as his wife Liz and Pamela Jane Gray as the predatory wife of his producer (she is helped along by some eye-catching outfits by costume designer Jane Greenwood).

Time Out New York C-
(David Cote) Alas, this overly polite production’s strengths vanish when Maule literally bounces onstage. Too old for the role (we must intuit that Maule lies about his age), Ashmanskas does endless variations on the twitchy, self-adulating popinjay; somehow he manages to smuggle a grand jété into a stage cross. Ashmanskas doesn’t just steal the show; he locks it in a basement dungeon shackled to the wall and impregnates it repeatedly over 17 years. Such a power imbalance underscores Garber’s and the production’s general lack of comic nerve. Remedying that would require taking this splendidly funny play much more seriously.

New Jersey News Room C-
(Michael Sommers) Usually more dithering than dazzling in manner as Garry, the gray-headed Garber amiably goes along for the ride instead of driving the comedy as a genuine star would and should. This lack of high voltage makes most of the characters appear a bit dim since they are illuminated by Garry's brilliant personage.

NYPost D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) The Roundabout's revival of "Present Laughter" that opened last night hits all of these targets -- Alexander Dodge's lavish deco decor, in particular, gets applause -- and yet it almost never feels right. We're a far cry from "Brief Encounter," the warm-hearted British import that recently proved that one can be both innovative and true to Coward...The performances are fun to watch -- and Garber does have a smooth charm -- except that they belong to different shows.

Bloomberg D
(John Simon) The fine actor Victor Garber is miscast in the Roundabout’s Broadway revival. His problems are age (60 for Coward’s called- for 44), looks (an ingenuous, slightly corn-fed countenance) and a basic bland quality. He toils visibly at being bitchy, rather than having histrionic unnaturalness come naturally. Alexander Dodge, an expert in opulent stage design, provides a sumptuous Art Deco set, a trifle too lavish even for a stage star’s “studio” that Coward calls for. It overpowers a production based by director Nicholas Martin on his 2007, more modest Boston mounting.

North Jersey.com D
(Robert Feldberg) The revival of Noël Coward's "Present Laughter," which opened Thursday night at the American Airlines Theatre, is like a glass of champagne that's been sitting too long: Except for a few lonely little bubbles, there's no fizz. Instead of being a buoyant comic romp, the 1942 play slogs along without much verve or energy. It's frequently revived – it was previously done on Broadway in the 1980s and '90s — but its slightness has never been made more evident.

On Off Broadway D
(Matt Windman) While the play has potential to still pack a punch, Nicholas Martin's production is slow, flat, fake and devoid of any concept or inspiration. This leaves most of his cast desperately scrambling to mug as much as possible.

Backstage D
(Erik Haagensen) This "Present Laughter" is hyped and coarsened, as if Martin doesn't trust American audiences to get Coward's very English humor. An immediate warning is set designer Alexander Dodge's far-too-glamorous Art Deco apartment. Yes, Essendine is a matinee idol of the British stage, but as an upper-class Brit of a certain social standing, it's unlikely he'd be given to such opulent excess, particularly in the late 1930s after the Depression and with the war clouds gathering in Europe. Martin also overrides Coward's sophisticated comic rhythms, encouraging his cast to push as if driving a second-tier Neil Simon comedy. The show is shot through with an American idea of Englishness.

USA Today D
Stage and screen veteran Victor Garber is a dapper Garry, while Harriet Harris, another proven favorite, is a predictable hit as his seen-it-all secretary. Richard Poe, Marc Vietor and Lisa Banes are sturdy, if hardly revelatory, as other members of Garry's protective posse. The interlopers are more self-serving and irritating, particularly as represented here. Pamela Jane Gray's droning femme fatale and Brooks Ashmanskas' flamboyantly idiotic writer/stalker are especially grating. Little wonder that Garry seems exhausted by the end. "I'm sick to death of being stuffed with everybody's confidences," he tells his cohorts. Alas, he has no choice but to endure them. You, however, can avoid this Laughter altogether.

AP A 13; NYMAG A- 12; VV A-12; NYDN B+ 11; NYT B+ 11; TB B+ 11; FT B 10; WSJ B 10; TM C+ 8; TFT C- 6; TONY C- 6; NJNR C- 6; NYP D+ 5; BBD D 4; USA D 4; OOB D 4; BS D 4; TOTAL: 137/17 8.05 (C+)

The Myopia/Plays

2010-01-21T09:57:00.006-05:00

GRADE: B+

The Myopia by David Greenspan, Plays by Gertrude Stein. Directed by Brian Mertes. Atlantic Stage 2. Through February 7.

Most critics are left in wonder of David Greenspan and his ability to transport audiences with the power of speech. He plays dozens of characters in The Myopia, which on weekends he performs in a double feature with Gertrude Stein's Plays. Frank Scheck, writing for the New York Post finds the exercise pretentious, but even he is taken by Greenspan's transformation into the various characters.

Time Out New York A+
(David Cote) In a culture as supersaturated with digital eye candy as ours, David Greenspan’s solo coup The Myopia is nothing short of revolutionary. Greenspan devotees know already that he is a one-man cabinet of wonders, voice fluting up from tenor to falsetto, delicate hands slicing and molding the air as if it were an endless supply of clay, while he navigates 20 characters and half a dozen genres with quicksilver aplomb. And he does it without special lighting or sound effects or even leaving his chair. Sounds low on visual thrills? Then you don’t know how to see.

The New York Times A+
(Charles Isherwood) Strictly speaking “The Myopia” is a one-man show, the brown paper bag of contemporary New York theater. Yet you emerge from this brilliant and bewildering production, directed by Brian Mertes, feeling dazzled and disoriented, as if you’d just seen a splashy Disney musical crossed with a Greek tragedy and a kitchen-sink drama, or maybe an evening of Samuel Beckett plays as staged by Florenz Ziegfeld. With this unique and strangely bewitching work Mr. Greenspan, a quirky downtown actor and an avant-garde playwright, proves himself once again to be a theatrical conjurer of rare gifts. Using just the words he has written and the music of his voice, he fills the imagination of the audience with images of pathos and comedy, of fantasy and absurdity, that do not exactly cohere to create a sensible narrative — au contraire! — but leave a fizzy sense of excitement, the giddy elation that follows a great fireworks display.

Backstage A
(Jason Fitzgerald) Rather than summarize the Tilt-a-Whirl of interrelated stories Greenspan's play tells, it's better to sample some of his more memorable moments. A testy Rapunzel figure sings a haunting rendition of the title song from "Funny Girl" in the shower. Henry Cabot Lodge orchestrates a smoky gathering of senators into giving the dull-witted Warren G. Harding the 1920 Republican nomination. (I didn't know how many varieties of fussy aristocratic male there could be until Greenspan played 13 of them.) A glowing, anthropomorphic orb ruminates over the scattered papers of its dead father. Koreen, a jealous giant, tears down her husband's castle and runs to the ocean, where she converses with her Poseidonlike father. In this new twist on meta-theater—a play-within-a-bunch-of-plays-within-a-playwright—Greenspan contains multitudes.

The Village Voice A
(Alexis Soloski) "Plays," as penned by Stein, is not edge-of-your-seat entertainment. Crafted in Stein's famously recursive prose, it is a drowsy meditation on stage action vs. audience emotion and poetry vs. prose, rendered as a series of cumbersome koans. "It is always the most interesting thing about anything to know whether you hear or you see," declares Stein. And, "All this is very important, and important for me and important, just important." It's certainly important for Greenspan, who in his own writing continues Stein's fascination with language and sometimes adopts her deliberate plotlessness. (Of course, Greenspan also delights in complicated storytelling and lavish characterization, techniques Stein does not embrace.) Here, he devotes himself to enlivening Stein's somnolent sentences.

Variety A
(Sam Thielman) Greenspan has said in interviews that he hates expensive pyrotechnic stage magic. In "Myopia," he explains why, when, after observing teasingly that some extremely successful shows are "inherently untheatrical," he simply tells us about a location and we are there with him -- no FX necessary. This seems simpler than it is. In order to create a place on the stage, after all, the only thing you need to do is describe it adequately. But Greenspan's great gift is the ability to read any line with total conviction. When he employs that gift here, he's able to tell us about crazy, ridiculous things -- a woman whose hand is bigger than her husband! A husband who's writing a musical about Warren G. Harding! Warren G. Harding, frustrated with a donkey named Dearie! -- and we accept them without question.

Gothamist B
(John Del Signore) Much of your enjoyment of this peculiar monologue depends on your appreciation for David Greenspan, but I don't know how one could not be charmed by this inimitable raconteur. If his goal of transporting audiences merely with the incantatory power of words sometimes fails to take flight, it's worth sticking around for the moments that soar.

On Off Broadway B-
(Matt Windman) Greenspan's ability to spin so many story strands at once with relative ease is a marvel to behold, yet it all eventually feels monotonous and physically underwhelming. It would serve Greenspan well to trim the show's 100-minute length and remove the intermission.

New York Post D+
(Frank Scheck) The Myopia" is sup posed to be a clear- eyed look at theater, but only the truly pretentious will see it that way. So dense is David Greenspan's theatrical collage -- which touches on the political machinations of Warren G. Harding, the philosophy of Aristotle and more -- that you feel compelled to present your academic credentials on the way in. Dubbed "An Epic Burlesque of Tragic Proportions," the evening isn't without its entertaining moments, thanks to its charismatic writer/performer.

TONY A+ 14; The New York Times A+ 14; Backstage A 13; Village Voice A 13; Variety A 13; GIST B 10; On Off Broadway B- 9; New York Post D+ 5; TOTAL: 91/8 = 11.38 (B+)

Smudge

2010-01-20T03:25:00.001-05:00

GRADE: B-

Photo by Carol Rosegg
By Rachel Axler. Directed by Pam MacKinnon. The Women's Project at the Julia Miles Theatre. Through Feb. 7.

Critics seem engaged by Rachel Axler's dark comedy about childbirth, in which a couple gives birth to an indescribable deformity; the word "interesting" comes up in even a few of the less admiring reviews. But while a number of critics find no fault with the play's sharp, unpredictable humor, with Pam MacKinnon's brisk direction, or with the performances, particularly Cassie Beck as the horrified new mom, many find fault with the play's craft and execution, with responses ranging from admiring but puzzled to intrigued but dismissive. Axler's background as a writer for the TV shows The Daily Show and Parks and Recreation gets mentioned as either an asset or a liability, depending on the critic.

Time Out NY A
(Adam Feldman) The mysterious newborn in Rachel Axler’s smart, piquant Smudge is not lovable-looking...The remarkable Beck, who has quickly become one of the city’s essential actors, gives Colby an original comic edge and a sympathetic stubbornness, with strong support from Greg Keller as Colby’s earnest, philosophically adrift husband and Brian Sgambati as his frat-boyish older brother. In some sense, Axler’s dark comedy—alertly directed by Pam MacKinnon for the momentum building Women’s Project—is a horror story: a parent’s nightmare rendered with sometimes lyrical surrealism...A meditation on ambiguity and ambivalence, Smudge also illustrates ambition: a parent’s, thwarted, and a playwright’s, achieved.

Variety A
(Marilyn Stasio) For signs of intelligent life in the theatrical universe, I hereby refer you to "Smudge," Rachel Axler's pitch-black comedy about a young couple reacting to the birth of a severely deformed child. In the horridly funny tradition of "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg," the traumatized mother discovers that a dark, despairing sense of humor proves a more effective way of coping with the tragedy than rage, denial or hubby's self-delusional acceptance of the unacceptable...For all the improbability of the play's macabre premise (reflected in the visual severity of Narelle Sissons' stark set), the overall style of Pam MacKinnon's stringently focused production is grounded in realism.

The New York Times B+
(Rachel Saltz) Parenthood never looked weirder or more terrifying than it does in “Smudge”...Ms. Beck plays the freaked-out Colby just right. She is smart, reasonable and wry, and confronted with a nightmare for which she is responsible. Mr. Keller is good too, even if Nick seems more contrived, as does his job...“Smudge,” stylishly directed by Pam MacKinnon and given a spare, almost clinical look by Ms. Sissons, can feel dramatically underpowered at times. Still, it’s nearly always interesting. Ms. Axler has a comic’s gift for language that is precise and imaginative, but never showy. What gives the play its charge is how Ms. Axler taps into a primal fear — giving birth to a monster — and then calmly considers it from all angles. She has a lightness of touch, especially in the scenes with Colby, that makes the dark undertow all the more affecting.

Theatermania B
(Andy Buck) What better way is there to mark the age of Jon, Kate, and Octomom than with a play that explores the creepy secrets of childrearing? Look no further than Emmy Award-winner Rachel Axler's dark, serious, and very intelligent comedy...The problem, however, with writing a play that centers around a smudge (even one with the elaborate name of Cassandra) is to engage not only the minds of the viewers but their hearts as well, as the couple's marriage begins to crumble under the weight of this tragedy...Director Pam MacKinnon's frequent use of distancing effects, such as when Beck marks the end of Colby's pregnancy by yanking the padding out of her shirt and handing it abruptly to her fellow actor, adds to the problem. Given Axler's already outrageous premise, occasional monologues, and snappy one-liners, such Brechtian moments seem unnecessary.

New York Post B
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) In an era of supermoms, it's rather refreshing to see that lack of motherly instinct, and the show never turns into an against-all-odds love story. Instead, Axler quickly and successfully sets up an ominous mood: Cassandra's big, clunky pram recalls the one from "Rosemary's Baby," and the unseen baby seems able to telepathically control her feeding tubes...Directed with brisk matter-of-factness by Pam MacKinnon, "Smudge" at its best recalls the work of author Judy Budnitz, who brilliantly describes surreal domestic nightmares with a logic all their own. But Axler doesn't go far enough...Mental illness, the expectations placed on mothers, the very issue of what makes someone human are no small topics, but here they're brushed off almost as soon as they're raised.

Village Voice B-
(Alexis Soloski) Though it flirts with satire and absurdism, it ultimately settles for a disappointingly conservative resolution...The play is at its best when Axler uses lively language to detail Colby's ambivalence, as when she torments the baby with a stuffed animal made entirely of arms and legs. "I call him Mister Limbs," says Colby. "He has everything you don't. Plus? Water-absorbent." Alas, the play's arc is rather soppy, and Axler's barbs give way to a sentimental conclusion—trading unsettling dissonance for a stale lullaby.

Backstage C
(Karl Levett) There is a distinctly ambitious imagination at work here, and the effort is certainly brave, if, unhappily, not very successful...Axler is unable to find a cohesive style to express this tricky material. In reaching for a kind of comic edginess, the play walks a rocky path between naturalism and absurdity in its attempt to convey a situation that is unspeakably sad. These two aspects, unfortunately, have a way of neutralizing each other, often resulting in an exercise in uneasiness. Just as the playwright is brave, so are the performers, under the sure direction of Pam MacKinnon.

Nytheatre.com C-
(Martin Denton) I kept wondering: is Cassandra a human baby? Has she a heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, skin, and so on? Is she not as malformed as Colby believes? Is she a thing of science fiction (though the naturalistic trappings of the play constantly argue against that thesis)? Is Smudge some kind of allegory? In the end, I have to say that I gave up trying to figure out what a smudge/baby might be. Axler's primary theme seems to be that people need to listen to each other—to really hear each other—and the play's arc tracks Colby and Nick's movement toward appreciating that idea and the power of their coupling. But Axler and, especially, MacKinnon put a lot of stuff in the way of that simple story of love and discovery, stuff that seems to be important but that I couldn't make much sense of...Axler's ideas here are intriguing and the play has an interesting haunting quality that lingers. But her craftsmanship feels inconsistent.

That Sounds Cool D+
(Aaron Riccio) The cute charms of this awkwardly dark comedy fail to develop--the downside of a background in sitcoms. Nick attempts to parent his intubated, limbless, and non-responsive baby with a stuffed and smiling carrot; Colby tells her child how much she doesn't love it, chopping sleeves off of onesies and downing cheesecakes; and the nerdish Nick's outsized brother--and boss--Pete (Brian Sgambati), shows up in order to verify that the baby is not some Albee-ish metaphor for a failing marriage...It's not that Smudge isn't interesting--it's that it's written sloppily and executed poorly, almost as if Axler were trying to give birth to a good play, only to somehow, well... smudge it.

Time Out NY A 13; Variety A 13; The New York Times B+ 11; Theatermania B 10; New York Post B 10; VV B- 9; Backstage C 7; Nytheatre.com C- 6; That Sounds Cool D+ 5; TOTAL: 84/9=9.33 (B-)

Lear

2010-01-15T09:48:00.008-05:00

Grade: B-

Photo: Sara Krulwich

Written and Directed by Young Jean Lee. At Soho Rep through February 6

Young Jean Lee's latest has sold out its initial run and been extended, all before the reviews came in. And what a mixed bag they are! From Matt Windman's outright disgust to Sam Thielman's glowing enthusiasm, it seems that Young Jean Lee's deconstructed take on the younger generation of protagonists from Shakespeare's tragedy is a bit of a rorschach test. David Cote's review in Time Out makes for juicy reading, given that he folds into a defense of the play an impassioned argument for what he believes theatre in America should be.

Variety A-
(Sam Thielman) Meanwhile, back at the palace, everyone's trying to avoid discussing the way they blinded that one old man and kicked the other one out into the storm. Young Jean Lee's deceptively free-form "Lear" starts out as a bug's-eye view of Shakespeare's great tragedy, exploring some of the Bard's pettiest characters as they pick at each other during the moments they're not onstage in "King Lear." But as the show moves forward, Lee uses that play and some beautifully unconventional additions to flesh out Shakespeare's themes of loneliness, mortality and filial responsibility in gratifying and moving depth.

Time Out New York A-
(David Cote) In Lear, Young Jean Lee’s self-described “inaccurate distortion” of the classic, she banishes the title monarch and Gloucester to the wings and focuses on the younger generation: Goneril (Okpokwasili), Regan (Matthis), Cordelia (Workman), Edgar (Lazar) and Edmund (Simpson). The absurdist, meta-Shakespearean results are by turns irreverent, grotesque and morally harrowing. The writer-director and her outstanding actors plumb the depths of a bona fide existential crisis: hating unto death those who gave you life.

Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) Lee's Lear, it turns out, is indeed both inaccurate and distorted vis-à-vis the original. Its virtues come from its free-hearted willingness to pursue either path—inaccuracy in its version of Shakespeare's story or distortion in its effort to make that story fit the one Lee wants to tell. Its shortcomings, inevitably, stem from trying to follow both roads at once, ultimately shortchanging both Lee and her source. But the zigzagging route she takes to this ultimate failure is full of exhilarating, illuminating moments.

That Sounds Cool B+
(Aaron Riccio) Asking Lee "Hey, what's the big idea?" is exactly the point--what, in King Lear, is the big idea, and does it require any of King Lear, let alone Lear himself, to express it? Instead of struggling with the weight of Shakespeare, Lee chooses to follow the Buddhist leanings of her characters, which is to say: "When a thought runs into your head, you just label it thinking and it helps." So why not have Cordelia (Amelia Workman) whine about bedbugs? The subtext, at least, remains true to the biggest idea of all, the one secretly under all our thoughts: our mortality.

Gothamist B+
(John Del Signore) All in all, it's a slippery, elusive hour and a half, and though her Lear is ultimately baffling, Lee's digressive script is executed with hilarious precision by her all-star ensemble, comprised of some of downtown theater's brightest minds. There are moments of soulful contemplation about the pain of watching parents move closer to death, but the dominant motif is that of eccentric, stream-of-consciousness over-sharing. In the end, the non-narrative Lear dissolves into a verbatim reenactment of the 1983 Sesame Street episode in which Big Bird learns of Mr. Hooper's death. It's as strange and unexpected as it sounds, and while Lear might defy comprehension, it's never boring or predictable

TheaterMania B
(Patrick Lee) Thanks to stretches of textured poetic writing, the show's bizarre novelty, and the wow factor of David Evan Morris' set, the play steadfastly holds the audience's interest even if it's not always as thematically coherent or emotionally fulfilling as one would wish...There are wonderfully vivid flashes of savagery even in the characters' pleasantries -- Lee's gift for lacing language with startling juxtapositions keeps the ears open -- but the overwhelming selfishness of these characters wears thin very quickly in the deliberate absence of dramatic movement. The monologues, strikingly written and performed, afford us momentary glimpses into the depths of the characters' souls, but they are disconnected from the rest of the play's action by design.

Lighting and Sound America B-
(David Barbour) I'm sure there's a rigorous theory behind all this; watching it, however, I was dogged by the image of Young Jean Lee throwing ideas at a wall in order to see what would stick. Sad to say, many of her topics fall solidly into the "banal" category, and none of them are enlivened by their treatment here. It would be easier to dismiss Lear in its entirety if the production wasn't so accomplished.

Backstage C+
(Mitch Montgomery) Lee's able staging presents these detached children within the opulent confines of David Evans Morris and Roxana Ramseur's traditional Elizabethan scenic and costume design. Content to submerge themselves in the excellent fopperies of their lives (who looks fat, who looks old, who's not feminine enough anymore—any signs of age or decline that might one day get them thrown out into the storm), they come across with hilarious catty nastiness. But soon Lee's Shakespearean proxies dissolve, as though she has tired of the exercise, leaving the actors to play themselves in direct address to the audience. Though the cast members acquit themselves with sincerity in this transition, it proves too jarring a maneuver even for Lee, and the overall weight of her material feels diminished.

NYTimes D+
(Charles Isherwood) [an] intermittently funny but mostly flailing attempt to excavate new meanings from the consideration of a celebrated text. From perhaps the most imposing something in the theatrical canon, Ms. Lee has constructed a big, fat nothing...If you set aside any hopes that “Lear” will illuminate Shakespeare’s original, you can enjoy the lurches from loony lyricism to blunt contemporary speech. And there are a few affecting moments, in which we can see glimmers of Ms. Lee’s more general purpose, to write her own meditation on the painful fact of mortality, and the enveloping darkness from which we come and to which we will return.

NYDaily News D-
(Joe Dziemanowicz) It’s a cocky writer, or maybe just a foolhardy one, who crafts a scene in which an actor trots into the theater and pointedly asks the audience: “Is this really what you want to be doing with your life? Being here?” Playwright and director Young Jean Lee creates exactly such a moment in Lear at Soho Rep. And since she’s put the question out there, the answer is no way.

NYPost D-
(Frank Scheck) Lee, the playwright/director whose "The Shipment" was a scathing, periodically brilliant satire of race relations, seems to be foundering here. Although at times deeply felt, particularly in one wrenching monologue concerning the mortality of aging parents, "Lear" often undercuts its thematic ideas with silly provocations. After a while, the relentless onslaught of raunchy behavior, scatological language and period anachronisms is more tiresome than illuminating.

On Off Broadway F-
(Matt Windman) Few moments in drama are so emotionally wrenching as the final scene in "King Lear." Lear, Young Jean Lee's five-person adaptation of the tragedy, is also painful to endure, but in a very different way. You see, Lear is simply a really, really bad play.

V A- 12;TONY A- 12; TSC B+ 11; GOTH B+ 11; VV B+ 11; TM B 10; LSA B- 9; BS C+ 8; NYT D+ 5; NDN D- 3; NYP D- 3; OOB F- 0; TOTAL: 95 / 11 = 8.63 (B-)

Correcting Some Math

2009-12-24T10:28:00.000-05:00

As one of our commenters helpfully pointed out, we miscalculated the grade of The Orphans' Home Cycle II (Electric Boogaloo). Instead of being an A+, it should have been on the lower end of the A spectrum. This has been corrected in both the original post and the rankings for the year end best.

The Year's Best Reviewed Shows

2009-12-22T11:00:00.004-05:00

An anniversary quietly passed a few weeks ago: Dec. 5 marked one year since we beta-launched Critic-O-Meter (though we'd been grading shows for a few months prior to build up our database and hone our methodology). Big plans are afoot for the future of the site--stay tuned for those--but for now we thought we'd harness the awesome power of our (sorted-by-hand) database to present you with a year-end list of the best-reviewed shows of 2009.

It's a surprising and fascinating cross-section of New York's best theater, if we may say so ourselves, and as much for what's included as for what isn't (sorry, Streetcar, too many dissenters to the crack the "A" list). The order below, though grouped by half-grades, reflects the ranking of the raw numbers (The Emperor Jones, for instance, rated a stronger A- than Jailbait).

Without further ado, two Footes, a pair of Souls, and other Krapp:

A
Click Clack Moo
Soul Samurai
Twelfth Night
Avenue Q (reopening)
The Norman Conquests
The Orphans Home Cycle, Part II

A/A-
Krapp, 39

A-
A Boy and His Soul
The Emperor Jones
Everyday Rapture
MilkMilkLemonade
The Lily's Revenge
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
My Wonderful Day
The Provenance of Beauty
The Orphans Home Cycle, Part I
Disfarmer
Jailbait
Mabou Mines Dollhouse
The Shipment
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Les Éphémères
County of Kings
Finian's Rainbow
The Last Cargo Cult
Ruined
Chautauqua
Pure Confidence
Groovaloo
God of Carnage
Circle Mirror Transformation
Fela!
The Late Christopher Bean
Ragtime (the one in Astoria, not the one on Broadway)
Speedmouse
Mary Stuart
Hair

The Orphans' Home Cycle (Part II)

2009-12-19T11:12:00.009-05:00

GRADE: A

By Horton Foote. Directed by Michael Wilson. At the Signature Theater Through March 27th

Bigger really is better Off-Broadway this holiday season. With reviews ranging from an ecstatic A+ to a respectful B, the second installment of Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle has opened to universal acclaim for its staging and its 22-person cast, particularly lead Bill Heck and Horton Foote's daughter, Hallie. The sole complaint (which comes up in several reviews) is that, in trying to edit the nine plays in the cycle down to an hour each, the pieces feel a bit truncated and abrupt.

NY Daily News A+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) The real reason Foote's drama is so big and important is because it's so exquisitely realized — the writing, acting, direction and design. So far, it's a home run for its presenters, the Signature Theatre Company and Hartford Stage.

The Faster Times A+
(Jonathan Mandell) The three plays of “The Story of A Marriage” — “The Widow Claire,” “Courtship,” and “Valentine’s Day” — are in their plain underplayed way so engaging, so moving, that at several moments it can be hard to avoid the embarrassing spectacle of quietly crying in your seat at the Peter Norton Space of the Signature Theater Company. Beware of such a moment, for example, in the speech where the normally taciturn Horace finally opens up, saying lines like “I am no orphan, but I think of myself as an orphan, belonging to no one but you.”... Something extraordinary.

Wall Street Journal A+
(Terry Teachout) The second part of The Orphans' Home Cycle, Horton Foote's family album of plays about a turn-of-the-century Texas family and its struggles with the coming of modernity, has just opened at Signature Theatre Company. It upholds the immeasurably bright promise of the first installment. Not since Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" has so self-evidently significant a large-scale theatrical endeavor come to New York.

TalkinBroadway A+
(Matthew Murray) “Intense” is not a word typically associated with the plays of Horton Foote. But when discussing the second chapter of the Signature Theatre Company’s production of The Orphans’ Home Cycle, none other will do. It’s not just that “The Story of a Marriage,” as it’s delightfully, deceptively titled, is riveting, though it is. Nor is it that it’s leaps and bounds better than the first part of the trilogy, which was already one of the finest evenings of theatre New York had seen in 2009, though against all odds it is. It’s that Foote has captured so many searing emotions and instances of raw-rubbing truth that this gone-in-a-blink three-hour outing isn’t at all about its ostensible subject, the ever-seeking Horace Robedaux (Bill Heck). It’s all about you.

North Jersey A
(Robert Feldberg) There were affecting moments in the first three plays, as young Horace moved around among relatives without complaint, but the works were uneven, and, since the leading character was essentially acted upon, somewhat lacking in drama....The plays are superbly acted by a large cast, and have been directed by Michael Wilson with uncommon sensitivity.

NYPost A
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Rarely has everyday life been so modestly inspiring as it is in Foote's hands. The worst part is that we have to wait another month to see how it all ends.

Backstage A
(Erik Haagensen) Horton Foote's epic nine-play cycle about early-20th-century life in the small fictional town of Harrison, Texas, continues on its winning way. The three plays making up Part Two follow Horace Robedaux into his early adulthood, marriage, and incipient fatherhood, and there's not a wasted moment in them. As with Part One, three hours fly by as this utterly engaging and deeply compelling work unfolds.

On Off Broadway A
(Matt Windman) The Signature Theatre's noteworthy production, which presents the nine plays over three evenings, features 22 actors playing over 70 roles. Directed with cinematic finesse by Michael Wilson, the epic effort displays the gentle playwright at his very best. When other playwrights abandoned traditional storytelling in the mid-20th century, Foote devoted his writing to detailed, complex characters from the viewpoint of his Texas hometown....The entire cast is superb, especially Bill Heck as the forlorn but resilient Horace. But it is the playwright's daughter Hallie Foote, often considered the foremost interpreter of his work, who truly stands out in a wide variety of roles.

NYTimes B+
(Ben Brantley) Directed by Michael Wilson with assured understatement, and acted by a consistently convincing and versatile repertory cast, these plays flow with a sense of everyday life accelerated, moving by us in a blur of dramatic happenings lodged in the fine grit of the ordinary. The stories swapped here include tales of madness, alcoholism, suicide and deaths in childbirth.

Associate Press B+
(Michael Kuchwara) Horace Robedaux continues his journey into adulthood in Part 2 of "The Orphans' Home Cycle," Horton Foote's masterful examination of one man's life in small-town Texas in the first decades of the 20th century.

Theatermania B+
(Dan Bacalzo) There are moments in the script, particularly in Valentine's Day, that teeter on the brink of sentimentality. But Foote wisely undercuts this with a dark sense of humor, as well as a lingering sadness that makes whatever joy the characters experience seem, at best, bittersweet. Foote also includes some odd non-sequiturs in his dialogue that relieves the tension in certain moments, and provides several laughs, as well.

New Jersey Newsroom B
(Michael Sommers) Having written the nine full-length dramas in this cycle at various times during his career, Foote had virtually completed adapting them into hour-long versions for this new three-part epic when he died last March at the age of 92. A lurking suspicion that Foote may have edited his work somewhat too sharply is confirmed by viewing this second group of plays. People abruptly go off to events and improbably return even faster. Gossipy tales are whittled to their essentials.

GRADES:NYDN A+ 14; TFT A+ 14; WSJ A+ 14; TB A+ 14; NYP A 13; NJ A 13; BS A 13; OOB A 13; NYT B+ 11; AP B+ 11; TM B+ 11; NJNR B 10; TOTAL: 151/12 =12.58 (A)

The Great Recession

2009-12-16T10:32:00.004-05:00

GRADE: C

By Various Authors. Directed by Various Directors. At the Flea. Through December 30th.

( UPDATE: Two late breaking reviews say pretty much the opposite of what you'll find in the rest of this paragraph, which was written based on the initial crop of negative reviews.) The Flea resorts to Off-Off Broadway's oldest trick in the ticket selling book, a night of somewhat interrelated short plays by various writers, ensuring larger casts with larger groups of friends needing to see the show while spending less money on labor than a full production with the same cast would cost. This being The Flea, the playwrights are heavy hitters-- Itamar Moses, Adam Rapp, Sheila Callaghan, Thomas Bradshaw and Will Eno-- and the actors are the Flea's non-union apprentice company The Bats. The directors (including Kip Fagan, Jim Simpson and Ethan McSweeney) are no slouches either. The theme is the economic crisis. The results, according to critics, are largely as these things always end up, intermittently entertaining but ultimately less than the sum of their parts. What's left for them to argue about is which shorts work and which don't, with no consensus favorites forming at all.

NYTheatre A
(David Ian Lee) Too often, festival presentations of one-acts play as hodgepodges of intermittently related material, with grievous shifts in tone and quality. Such is not the case with The Great Recession: the evening's connective tissue has been cultivated with fiendish wit and propinquity. Expedient scene shifts are shaped by character (and are sprinkled with good-natured nudity; this brilliantly serves the double purpose of inoculating the audience from the shock of flesh later bared for darker purposes), and though few of the actors appear in multiple roles, the ensemble feels as tight-knit as the tiniest of repertories. Indeed, when the full 50-plus person cast appears for their curtain call, there is additional awe and wonder in the uniformity and collective spirit of such a large company. As a parting salutation, the curtain call itself is staged with humility and genuine gratitude. The Great Recession earned a standing ovation the night I attended, though the production virtually necessitated one after this graceful, final touch.

The L Magazine A-
(Robert Tumas) With six shorts, none harps for too long on any one trope of stereotypically hard times and focus instead on the people involved in experiencing them. There are a few moments in the production that border on a sort of holiday nostalgia and sap that I could have probably done with out, but the total effect was absolutely captivating and left me wanting more. If the recession has affected you in any way, you must go see this play—and if nothing else, they sell Keystone Light cans for a dollar at intermission, so it's the cheapest beer in town.

Backstage B
(David Sheward) In terms of volume, "The Great Recession" is certainly a bargain. Sporting six one-act plays and a cast of more than 50, this program presented by the Flea Theater offers plenty to chew on, though some of the fare is definitely fast food. Played with great energy and specificity by the Bats, the Flea's resident company of young actors, the six plays are fast and furious snapshots of the effects of the world economic downturn. Some are funny and touching; a few are screeds of horror with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Lighting & Sound America B-
(David Barbour) Somebody at the Flea Theatre -- probably Jim Simpson, the inventive artistic director -- had the idea of commissioning a batch of short plays tied to the current economic mess and its effect on today's young adults. It was probably inevitable that the resulting six-pack -- known as The Great Recession -- would be wildly uneven, but it has its moments, and it allows one to get a look at the theatre's talented young acting company, The Bats. The most successful plays are those that get at the theme in sideways fashion, rather than head-on... If The Great Recession is better in theory than in execution, it's an appealing idea, one that I hope the Flea will apply to other themes.

Time Out New York B-
(Adam Feldman)In his recent TONY interview, the monologuist Mike Daisey bemoaned the institutional slowness of American theater, and used the scarcity of responses to the financial crisis as an example of this problem. So the Flea Theatre’s Jim Simpson should be congratulated for corralling six of the city’s best rising playwrights to tackle the subject head-on in The Great Recession, a collection of playlets (each 15 to 20 minutes long) performed by three dozen members of the Bats, the Flea’s below-the-radar acting company...if this topical anthology isn’t always great, at least it is not recessive.

Theatermania C+
(Patrick Lee) For The Great Recession, currently at The Flea Theatre, six of theater's hippest playwrights were engaged to write short plays related to the current recession and its effects on young people. While some are more successful than others, the hit-or-miss evening doesn't cohere nearly as well as one would hope.

Variety C-
(Sam Thielman) Short play collections are always a mixed bag, but rarely are they as mixed as the Flea Theater's The Great Recession. Boasting some of Off Broadway's most popular writers, the anthology varies wildly in tone from dystopian dirge to cynical comedy. The best of the bunch are Will Eno's ruminative "Unum" and Thomas Bradshaw's hilariously biting "New York Living," both of which manage to mine new seams in the much-discussed terrain of the financial crisis.

NY Post D+
(Frank Scheck) Forget the economy. What this well-intentioned but shallow evening shows is that what theater really needs is an intellectual stimulus program.

The New York Times D
(Charles Isherwood) Writing to theme can be challenging, and most of the work here feels sketchy, unfocused or simply banal. Even “Unum” does not represent Mr. Eno, the talented author of “Thom Paine (based on nothing),” at his most inspired.

NYTH A 13; TLM A- 12; BS B 10; LSA B- 9; TONY B-9; TM C+ 8; V C- 6; NYP D+ 5; NYT D 4; TOTAL: 76/8 = 9.5 (B/B-)

A Little Night Music

2009-12-14T12:14:00.016-05:00

GRADE: B-

Photo by Joan Marcus

By Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. Directed by Trevur Nunn. Walter Kerr Theatre.

Full-throated yea-sayers are in the minority for this long-overdue Broadway revival of Sondheim and Wheeler's frothy yet acerbic 1973 musical. Imported from an acclaimed chamber production at London's Menier Chocolate Factory, this Night Music acquired two marquee names along the way: Angela Lansbury, universally praised for her turn as Madame Armfeldt, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, unanimously lauded for her beauty but receiving mixed notices for her earthy take on Desiree, the middle-aged actress at the center of the action. Though a few critics find director Trevor Nunn's mix of stark design and broadly drawn characterizations sobering and provocative, most deplore both the somber sets and the exaggerated, even crude comic style of most of the cast aside from Lansbury, Zeta-Jones, and Alexander Hanson, as Fredrik. And nearly every critic slams the orchestra, a little for its playing (the tempi are apparently sluggish) and a lot for its size (a mere eight players!). For the record, two British papers also sent writers to cover the opening but we found them difficult to grade.

New York A
(Scott Brown) “Perpetual sunset,” the chorus sings, “is rather an unsettling thing.” So is this beautiful re-Bergmanized revival of Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim’s elegiac sex farce (based on Smiles of a Summer Night), with its restored Nordic tilt, its bracing draughts of carnal realpolitik, and its ghostly blue ache of some-requited love...Lansbury, who capsizes the theater with every roll of those outsize eyes, hurls mots from her throne like thunderbolts—not a single line lands askew. ALNM is among Sondheim’s near-perfect creations, but it’s not without its challenges, over and above the complexity of the music: Maunder overmuch and the show’s a drag; shine up the comedy and it risks coming off as a yuppie you-can-have-it-all manifesto. Maintaining that balance is the job of Desiree and Frederik, and Zeta-Jones—a tremendous presence here, in great voice—mates up with Hanson perfectly.

New Jersey Newsroom A-
(Michael Sommers) Looking as elegant as the musical she graces, Catherine Zeta-Jones makes a smashing Broadway debut in a wistful revival of "A Little Night Music"...A sophisticated musical in every respect — don't take anyone under the age of, say, 30 — "A Little Night Music" boasts a wry, well-turned text by Hugh Wheeler and an exceptionally lovely score by Stephen Sondheim that wafts the bittersweet story along in lilting waltz time...Staged more as a rueful comedy with music, this show unfolds quietly against a flexible setting of duskily mirrored panels that later opens to disclose a modest view of birch trees...Zeta-Jones is handsomely partnered by Hanson, a British actor also making his Broadway debut...Scarcely a dancing show in spite of its waltzes, the production moves smoothly at a leisurely pace that allows one to savor the words, music and evolving mix of emotions...Not everyone will enjoy the deliberate moodiness of this revival. Still, like the black gown Lansbury initially wears — gleaming with tiny brilliants on its bodice — the pensive quality suffusing Nunn's low-keyed production serves admirably as a background for a wonderfully iridescent score and a thoroughly adult story.

Backstage A-
(Erik Haagensen) A persuasive and entertaining account of a great American musical. The show runs longer this time around, a good three hours, due to the wealth of subtext being played in the scenes and slower tempos for the songs. The pace may be more deliberate, but the acting is richer, and interest never flags. One dividend is the attention being paid to Sondheim's phenomenal lyrics: I have never heard them get more laughs than in this production, aided by Jason Carr's elegant and supportive eight-piece re-orchestration. The generally excellent company is led by three top-flight performances...Zeta-Jones zeroes in on the fun Desiree and Fredrik had with each other during their affair. It makes for a unique and memorable creation...Alexander Hanson is every inch her equal...Angela Lansbury is enjoying another late-career triumph...Moments such as the soaring finish of "A Weekend in the Country" may not pack as much punch due to the reduced circumstances, but there are plenty of countervailing new pleasures to be found in Nunn's thoughtful take on this Broadway classic.

Theatermania A-
(David Finkle) Mostly effective...Catherine Zeta-Jones is even more beautiful in set-and-costume designer David Farley's Edwardian frocks and in the creamy flesh than she is on screen. Although her stage technique is still a bit rusty, and the role of frustrated actress Desiree Armfeldt is undoubtedly more complex than the song-and-dance parts she played in her earlier career, she does well by the play's pathos and wit...The reemergence of the tuner as a chamber musical...is a smart notion, well realized...No matter who's playing these comic figures immersed in their self-regard and unwitting buffoonery, the evening's heroes will always be Wheeler, who improved on the Bergman screenplay, and Sondheim, who in limiting his composing to 3/4 and 6/8 time rose to the challenge with some of his most beautiful and languorous melodies and some of his most consistently exquisite lyrics.

NY1 A-
(Roma Torre) Beautiful and deeply resonant, hitting every note with stunning honesty...Angela Lansbury's performance as Madame Armfeldt is magnificent. She nails her lines with the precision and killer timing that's likely to make her a contender for a sixth Tony Award. She also captures in Sondheim's music and Hugh Wheeler's book the overriding tone of the work -- a profound sense of longing, regret and sensuality. She is well-matched by Zeta-Jones, making a flawless Broadway debut with a performance that is also destined for a Tony nod...Her co-star Alexander Hanson, who originated the role of Desiree's former lover, lawyer Henrik Egerman in the London production fills out the starry trio with tremendous charisma and talent. Trevor Nunn's direction cut right to the soul of this work meticulously casting great voices all equally adept as actors...The show is long -- three hours with intermission and there are spots that could be cut. Too much of a good thing perhaps. But Sondheim being Sondheim, the virtues far outweigh the flaws.

USA Today B+
(Elysa Gardner) Lansbury, in an incandescent performance, lets us savor her haughty wit and see the fading but still defiant life force behind it. But Lansbury's is not the only marquee name in this production, or even the biggest. Catherine Zeta-Jones is cast as Night's true female lead, Madame Armfeldt's daughter Desiree, an actress facing middle age. The character is often played by older and less robustly sensual women; Zeta-Jones brings great warmth and vitality to the role and makes it easier to see why Desiree's old lover, Fredrik — the male lead, played with suave brio by Alexander Hanson — would vie with a blustering dragoon for her affections. Zeta-Jones is less effective, though, at suggesting Desiree's weary, rueful edges...This might owe something to Nunn's direction, as other performances here flirt with overzealousness...None of them, of course, blend wit and poignancy better than Lansbury — or Sondheim's score, for that matter. They are, without question, the two best reasons to see this revival.

Newsday B+
(Linda Winer) One of the most delectable musicals ever written, by Stephen Sondheim or anyone else. Angela Lansbury is giving a performance that deserves to be part of theater legend. Catherine Zeta-Jones is earthy and poignant in her confident Broadway debut. With all that, it is easier to live with—if not really forgive—the visual drabness and heavy hand of this gorgeous musical's first revival since its Tony-winning 1973 premiere. Director Trevor Nunn's skimpy production, conceived last year for London's tiny Menier Chocolate Factory, arrives with another of those scandalously reduced orchestras that Broadway producers try to pass off these days as innovation.

Financial Times B+
(Brendan Lemon) The intense pleasures of Sondheim’s wordplay and dazzling use of waltz time are expertly conveyed: Hanson and Catherine Zeta-Jones...bite off their lyrics with drilled precision. The roving lieder singers comment on the action with linguistic acumen. A distinct neither/nor quality, however, hovers in the atmosphere. The production is neither on the grand string-of-pearls scale of recent opera-house versions, nor of the one-bright-gem quality of recent chamber versions. The new, sometimes frustratingly dark Broadway set – smoked-mirrored panels in the first act, opening partially to birch trees in the second – is neither clever enough to embed the sophistication nor redolent enough to convey the summer-nights scenario. The costumes are lovely...The actors’ inability to flood the songs with emotional meaning makes the evening satisfying more than magical...Only Angela Lansbury, at 84 an old pro if ever there was one, is exactly where she should be at all times emotionally.

The Faster Times B+
(Jonathan Mandell) I understand some of the criticism. There are just eight members of the orchestra...The set consists mostly of a large wall that folds one way or another depending on the scene...In addition, the lighting is deliberately dark and the costumes lacking color, and some of the minor characters are directed to be broad and bawdy in ways that are at times distracting. Little of this dampens the experience for those of us who appreciate above all three (of course) elements of this production: Sondheim’s songs, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ allure, and Angela Lansbury’s majesty.

Variety B
(David Rooney) Director Trevor Nunn brings a blunt, heavy hand where a glissando touch is required, but the wit and sophistication of the material are sufficient to withstand even this phlegmatic staging. A handful of magnetic leads provides further insurance against the uneven production. At the center of that bright cluster is the luminous Catherine Zeta-Jones...Bewitching, confident and utterly natural, she breathes a refreshing earthiness and warm-blooded sensuality into the part...The production's real jewel is Angela Lansbury as her worldly mother...It's a marvelous role, and Lansbury's sublime performance in it alone makes this production unmissable. There's also a lovely three-generational throughline completed by the charming Keaton Whittaker's preternaturally intelligent Fredricka, who figures as Puck in this Scandinavian "Midsummer Night's Dream"...The monochromatic staging is further encumbered by stiff, presentational blocking that amplifies the operetta aspects but imposes a stodginess on the human drama, even when Nunn leans hard on the comedy...What's remarkable, given its unsatisfying elements, is that this "Night Music" still seduces.

Time Out NY B
(David Cote) Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. The orchestra is small, synthetic-sounding and weak; the set drab and dinky; and the pacing of songs often far too slow. Some cast members have been allowed to mug and simper for comic effect...On to good news: Catherine Zeta-Jones blazes with charisma, verve and wit as Desirée...If you’ve never seen a production of this romantic classic, by all means, go. The principals are suave and poised, and although Nunn seems to have encouraged them to sing their lyrics somewhat pedantically over the music, they sparkle and charm. Not to be missed is the venerable Lansbury putting her personal stamp on another Sondheim character. Alexander Hanson is a dashing figure, the sort of mature leading man we hardly ever see on Broadway. Would someone please steal his passport? Even so, let’s not expect the English to save Sondheim for us.

The Hollywood Reporter B
(Frank Scheck) Whatever its flaws, it's nonetheless a welcome return of a show that has inexplicably not received a Broadway revival since the original Hal Prince production in 1973...Nunn's minimalist approach contrasts sharply with Prince's original opulent staging, with mixed results. There will be many who bemoan the visually drab sets (largely composed of a large shifting wall and multiple mirrors) and monochromatic costumes, which add an unnecessary level of literal darkness to the proceedings. Even more painful to endure is the reduced, mere eight-piece orchestra which, despite the undeniably skillful orchestrations, simply doesn't do sufficient justice to Sondheim's magnificent, Tony-winning score. On the other hand, this intimate version does a wonderful job of accentuating the emotional complexities and endlessly witty dialogue of Hugh Wheeler's book, even if some of the overly broad performances by the supporting players threaten to overwhelm it. Zeta-Jones, younger than the performers who have traditionally played the role, is captivating as Desiree. The actress has musical theater experience, and it shows; she has terrific stage presence, unlike so many movie stars who tread the boards, and she sings and moves beautifully...Alexander Hanson, the sole carry-over from the London productions, is superb...Lansbury uses her well-honed theatrical instincts to perfect effect.

Lighting & Sound America B
(David Barbour) This melodic high comedy needs a high-style presentation, but style is a thing that comes and goes in Trevor Nunn's hot-and cold-running revival. Act I is enough to drive you to despair...Things improve markedly in Act II...Zeta-Jones relaxes into her role and strikes a real rapport with Alexander Hanson, the production's exemplary Frederik...Throughout the show's many ups and downs, Angela Lansbury's Madame Armfeldt remains in a class by herself...The rest of Nunn's production doesn't make the best case for an intimate staging of A Little Night Music. The pacing, particularly in Act I, is sluggish, and Jason Carr's cut-down orchestrations are a hit-or-miss affair...We don't get A Little Night Music so often that one can afford to ignore a major revival such as this. And, when Zeta-Jones and Hansen connect, or when Lansbury is working her magic, or when Sondheim's score takes flight, the show has its near-heavenly moments. But there's an element of style missing throughout.

New York Post B-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Lansbury's even better--if a tad too broadly comic--than in "Blithe Spirit," and it's a treat to hear her sing on Broadway for the first time since a short-lived "Mame" in 1983. Her "Liaisons" is a marvel of resourceful, inventive interpretation, lyric manglings be damned. But Madame Armfeldt is merely a supporting character. The star here is Zeta-Jones. She's radiant, yet doesn't shed much light on Desirée. Zeta-Jones is one of the few movie stars these days with golden-age Hollywood charisma...This is perfect for Desirée, who traffics in desire, but the character has more than one side. When she lets down her guard on the heartbreaking "Send in the Clowns," the fracture is unexpected here: Until then, we had no idea there were cracks under Zeta-Jones' breezy demeanor. But then Trevor Nunn's murky-looking production (did he and lighting designer Hartley T A Kemp take the "night" in the title literally?) isn't particularly subtle or graceful. Lacking both nuance and energy, it struggles to match the sophistication and gamesmanship of Sondheim's score, which evokes the effervescence of love, the abject pain it can cause, and the melancholy of its aftermath -- sometimes all in the same song.

Talkin' Broadway C+
(Matthew Murray) Catherine Zeta-Jones, as the famed actress Desirée Armfeldt, and Angela Lansbury, as Desirée’s mother, instinctively understand and project what Nunn and most of the rest of his cast do not: This show is not a turgid, angry tragedy, but a saucy lark that’s all about celebrating, as someone sensibly sings, “everything passing by"...Though Desirée is frequently portrayed as straight-up and stately, Zeta-Jones plays her as vivacity personified...Whereas Lansbury and Zeta-Jones land every lyric, line, and emotion, their castmates are lucky to eke out 65 percent most of the time. Hanson, who originated Fredrik in this production in London, is so stodgy and unappealing, it’s unclear why either Desirée or Anne would think twice of him...One suspects that Nunn is downplaying the show’s musical values in order to amplify its intimacy, which he practically confirms by so cranking down the tempos that most of the numbers barely step livelier than hangover slurring...Fortunately, this reconfiguring of the show’s basic nature is somewhat less harmful here than was the case in Nunn’s 2002 solemnizing of Oklahoma!. It’s still possible to have a good time.

The New York Times C
(Ben Brantley) A smirk shrouded in shadows. An elegiac darkness infuses this production...But the behavior of the characters who wander through a twilight labyrinth of passion in early-20th-century Sweden has the exaggerated gusto of second-tier boulevard farce, of people trying a little too hard for worldliness...In addition to being drop-dead gorgeous in David Farley’s wasp-waisted period dresses, Ms. Zeta-Jones brings a decent voice, a supple dancer’s body and a vulpine self-possession to her first appearance on Broadway...Her Desirée, to be honest, is much like her Velma: earthy, eager and a tad vulgar...Such traits lend a not always appropriate edge of desperation to the droll Desirée...Though Mr. Hanson turns in a suitably suave, measured performance as the middle-aged lawyer hoping to reclaim his youth, many of the other cast members exaggerate their characters’ defining traits to the bursting point...[The design's] somber, less-is-more approach could be effective were the ensemble plugged into the same rueful sensibility. But there is only one moment in this production when all its elements cohere perfectly...“Where’s discretion of the heart, where’s passion in the art, where’s craft?” Madame Armfeldt sings in lamentation. Looking at the production she appears in, I’d say she has a point.

Bloomberg News C
(John Simon) The show is based on one of Ingmar Bergman’s masterpieces, “Smiles of a Summer Night,” but the libretto that Hugh Wheeler adapted from it is little more than hack work. There is, though, Sondheim’s great score to balance things out...Lansbury is commanding as always, making Madame’s words, spoken and sung, resonate with multiple meanings...Zeta-Jones, on the other hand, is all artifice, whether in the play-within-the-play, in which Desiree is a notorious seductress, or offstage, when she is supposed to be her irresistible self. Words are delivered in a stilted rubato, oozing self-satisfaction, with affected facial expressions that are smug and patronizing...Alexander Hanson, a British import, is a persuasive, well-sung Egerman, sardonic, fatherly, boyish and mellow by judicious turns. Some other characters suffer from Nunn’s tendency to exaggerate the farcical...A mixed bag, then, made desirable by Sondheim’s music -- far from little and equally good for night and day.

The Daily News C
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Dim and downsized...It doesn't do justice to Stephen Sondheim's most elegant musical...Though the show is mostly well sung, the small orchestra sounds thin. The scenery recalls department store windows - nothing romantic in that. Sluggish pacing makes it feel like "A Lotta Night Music" and performances are too modern for a tale of romantic entanglements in late-19th century Scandinavia...Zeta-Jones, a London theater vet and an Oscar winner for "Chicago," knows her way around a stage and a musical. She looks ravishing, and although she's very emphatic in the show's famous number, "Send in the Clowns," she's got a pretty voice that serves her and the show well. But there's nothing world-weary about her Desiree to indicate she's ready to settle down...Also odd is Zeta-Jones' skittering accent, which wanders from Wales to mid-America to the Deep South.

Associated Press C-
(Michael Kuchwara) A curious affair. There are some lovely moments, most of them supplied by Angela Lansbury, but too much of this adult, sophisticated show, which opened Sunday at the Walter Kerr Theatre, seems forced, boisterous and a little crude...Zeta-Jones...is gorgeous, looking just right as this ripe, alluring woman who has never shirked from the way of all flesh. Zeta-Jones has a throaty, sensuous voice which she uses to good, flirty effect. But her acting, particularly in the first act, seems overdone, too strenuously self-aware...As Desiree's mother, the luminous Lansbury is a wonder...The aging process has never been more eloquently put on display...Hanson gives stalwart, gentlemanly support to the production's two leading ladies, and he plays Fredrik, the weary lawyer, with a just the right amount of knowing resignation...Where this production collapses is in the performances of the young people. True, they are supposed to be impetuous and, of course, foolish, but in this revival, Nunn has allowed them to become extravagantly cartoonish and unlikable.

Bergen Record D+
(Robert Feldberg) This gossamer, cynical look at love, based on Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film comedy "Smiles of a Summer Night," doesn't offer many points of emotional entrance...The mostly tiresome revival...doesn't give much reason for reappraisal...Rather than inducing a concentrated focus on the characters, the scenery is stifling, as well as bland...Whether at Nunn's behest, or on their own, many of the actors, including Zeta-Jones, work too hard to sell their characters. Even outfitted with a generic red wig, Zeta-Jones is a dazzling-looking woman. And playing Desiree Armfeldt, a celebrated actress who's had many lovers, she's amiable, amusing and exudes a very appealing lustiness...Making her Broadway debut, Zeta-Jones seems to feel the need to imprint her character on us. There are lots of over-animated facial expressions, and the frequent use of jagged gestures to punch home dialogue. You want to remind her of the old advice: Don't just do something. Stand there...Lansbury, playing Desiree's elderly, world-weary mother, delivers a sophisticated, delightfully piquant performance. So what else is new?

The Washington Post D
(Peter Marks) An actress radiating youthful vigor and sensuality is not a great fit for Desiree Armfeldt, the soignée Sondheim heroine whose most ravishing days are behind her. So it's an unfortunate truth that Catherine Zeta-Jones is not ideally cast as regretful, wistful Desiree in Trevor Nunn's virtually never-right revival of the suavely farcical "A Little Night Music"...When all is said and done, she is revealed as one of the less ill-suited elements of the production...The very best working part is five-time Tony winner Angela Lansbury...For this elegant Scandinavian roundel of amour, of foolish old lovers and foolish young lovers, of characters who couple for sex or for vanity or for an annuity, Nunn takes us on what feels like a cheap date.

New York A 13; New Jersey Newsroom A- 12; Backstage A- 12; Theatermania A- 12; NY1 A- 12; USA Today B+ 11; Newsday B+ 11; FT B+ 11; Faster Times B+ 11; Variety B 10; Time Out NY B 10; The Hollywood Reporter B 10; LS&A B 10; New York Post B- 9; Talkin' Broadway C+ 8; The New York Times C 7; Bloomberg News C 7; The Daily News C 7; Associated Press C- 6; Bergen Record D+ 5; The Washington Post D 4; TOTAL: 198/21=9.43 (B-)

Groovaloo

2009-12-11T14:06:00.004-05:00

GRADE: A-

By Bradley Rapier, Danny Cistone and the Groovaloos, with additional material by Charlie Schmidt. Directed by Danny Cistone. Union Square Theater. (CLOSED)

Critics call Groovaloo a hip-hop A Chorus Line, as it takes a similar approach with dancers telling their stories (taken from the real-life stories of the company). Critics are entertained by the skilled dancers with the caveat that most of the stories are unoriginal. One story does stand out for them, that of Steven Stanton, who after being shot was told he'd never walk again, and uses his cane as a prop for his dances.

Backstage A
(Lisa Jo Sagolla) Regardless of your age or comfort level with new storytelling techniques and whitewashed hip-hop, you will assuredly relish the show's colorful, cartoonlike set by graffiti artist Toons One, the propulsive original music by a terrifically wide array of pop artists, and, most especially, the first-rate, frequently astonishing dancing. The young men deliver consistently superb solos of acrobatic floor work and imaginative freezes, the women are winningly fierce, and the ensemble choreography is excellent.

Nytheatre.com A
(Russell M. Kaplan) Actually, "impressive" is a pretty gross understatement for these guys: what they pull off with their bodies is at times unimaginable, as they seemingly defy gravity, space, or time like it was no big deal. Their solos and freestyle freakouts are so athletic and off-the-hook, that it's all the more astounding when they lock in with a group precision that implies a pack of funky robots tapped into the same mainframe. But robots they clearly are not. Humanity and truth are what elevate this show above an empty display of virtuosity, because these people really want us to understand why dance is such an important part of their lives. The themes of the dances tap into the members' insecurities as often as their joys: there's the ballerina who's too self-conscious to improvise, a few young dancers dealing with troubled family lives, and the near-fatal shooting of founding member Steven "Boogeyman" Stanton (who performs the bulk of the show with a cane).

Associated Press A
(Jennifer Farrar) All the dancers are excellent, irrepressibly bounding around the graffiti-painted, multilevel set with acrobatic zeal as they perform their own choreographed moves. Their varied styles include funk, head-spinning, lock-dancing (or popping) and many varieties of seemingly impossible somersaults and handstands. The infectious beat, supervised by Stanton and Rapier, is provided by original music from a number of artists, with additional sound design by Lucas Corrubia and Michael H.P. Viveros. Kinetic lighting design by Charlie Morrison blasts Laura Fine Hawkes' graffiti-painted set. Mora Stephens' colourful costumes give individuality to each dancer.

Talkin' Broadway A-
(Matthew Murray) Their stories all take on considerably more distinction once they actively kick up their heels - and most other imaginable body parts - to show that they practice what they preach. Numbers about the harrowing natures of auditions, living up to a father’s dreams (as represented in a challenge-tap mirror number), and making a warehouse lunch break far more musical than it has any right to be, are young, unpolished ideas. But they’re shiningly executed, and more than sufficient showcases for the undeniably talented cast to work out their coruscating kinetic vision of how to overcome life’s little obstacles. So dynamic are they, you wish the stereotypically graffiti-strewn set (Laura Fine Hawkes was the design consultant, Toons One the painter) and headache-inducing lighting (Charlie Morrison) represented as original a vision.

Variety B+
(Sam Thielman) The insta-inspirational plots frequently result in some stellar routines -- a couple of dancers (Jon Cruz and Oscar Orosco) start their duet with a been-done premise (a guy dancing with his reflection) but turn it into a great, multilevel competition that might be the show's highlight. It's tempting to say "Groovaloo" would be better if the performers just threw out the plot altogether and did routine after routine. But its lead creators (Bradley Rapier and director Danny Cistone) clearly believe the show's reason for being is to inspire people. The dancers are pretty impressive all by themselves -- who knew it was possible to spin on your head for that long and live to tell the tale? -- so one wonders what else Rapier and Cistone needed to prove.

TheaterMania C+
(Barbara & Scott Siegel) Conceived and created by Bradley Rapier and Danny Cistone, the show presents itself as a contemporary version of A Chorus Line with the performers dancing and telling their own stories, but the script falls somewhere between banal and pretentious. As much as it would like to inspire, it too often comes off as empty rhetoric and ignores an essential rule of writing: don't tell us, show us. (Most of the personal stories are recorded and told as voice-overs while the dancing happens onstage.)

Backstage A 13; Nytheatre.com A 13; AP A 13; Talkin' Broadway A- 12; Variety B+ 11; TheaterMania C+ 8; TOTAL: 70/6 = 11.67 (A-)

Love's Labour's Lost

2009-12-11T13:05:00.004-05:00

GRADE: B

By William Shakespeare. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre at the Michael Schimmel Center. (CLOSED)

Critics are mixed on this, the first Globe import since Dominic Dromgoole took over the London theater from Mark Rylance: They agree that director Dromgoole has put the focus on the play's bawdy, headling farcical elements but don't universally feel that shows the play in its best light. Only the Times' Ben Brantley and the AP's Jennifer Farrar wholly embrace the show's manic, groundlings-geared sensibility as befitting the play's lustily youthful setting; the rest find the relentless high-jinks, though well-executed and often amusing, to be ultimately tiring or distracting. Critics are even mixed on which actors fare best, though Brantley makes a strong case for Michelle Terry's turn as the Princess of France.

The New York Times A
(Ben Brantley) Extravagantly funny...It is no insult to say that Dominic Dromgoole’s touring interpretation of Shakespeare’s comedy from the 1590s is sophomoric. On the contrary, Mr. Dromgoole, the artistic director of the London-based Globe, is to be commended for revealing that this word-infatuated frolic may well be the first and best example of a genre that would flourish in less sophisticated forms five centuries later: the college comedy...As the ensemble scampers merrily and distractedly in Elizabethan garb (occasionally venturing with charming disrespect into the audience), there’s a feeling of springtime headiness, of fresh sap rising...Mr. Dromgoole makes maximal use of the disparity between trained mind and animal instinct.

Associated Press A
(Jennifer Farrar) "Love's Labour's Lost" is one of Shakespeare's more complicated comedies, full of obscure literary references, wit and puns that could be confusing to a modern audience. Yet the lively, Elizabethan-style production currently at Pace University, who has partnered with Shakespeare's Globe Theatre of London, is so energetic and well-acted that its appeal transcends any possible issues of language. As directed by Dominic Dromgoole, the physical comedy in this lighthearted interpretation almost never stops...Combining witty banter with shameless mugging, comic antics and sprightly choreography, the ensemble has created a thoroughly joyous entertainment...Adorable stuffed deer puppets and charmingly period instruments, plied by an onstage troupe of live musicians, round out the feeling of being transported to the grounds of an Elizabethan castle.

Backstage B
(Leonard Jacobs) There is more farce and honest-to-God shtick than in a half-dozen Feydeau plays or the highest-octane Molière. Dromgoole, chiefly through Jonathan Fensom's design, transforms the stage of the Schimmel Center into something meant to approximate the wooden O that the Globe calls its London home. Instructing the actors to exhibit precision and alacrity, he also frees them to make mirth to excess. Allusions to sex are as rife and ribald visually as those found in the text...To the degree that "Love's Labour's Lost" is a purely rollicking, driving adventure, Dromgoole's foot remains hard on the pedal...Still, there comes a moment in this asthma-inducing production when one must ask if too much shtick is good for the play. It's audacious, yes, to overlay sight gags and physical comedy where the play's most poetic passages occur. But it comes at a price, constantly threatening to cheapen, if not overwhelm, Shakespeare's sweet sentiment. The audience is right to eat up all the high jinks, but they come too close to robbing us of the play's tender and rueful final message.

New York Post B-
(Frank Scheck) With its labyrinthine plotting and intellectual wordplay, "Love's Labour's Lost" is one of Shakespeare's less accessible comedies -- something London's Globe Theatre seems determined to change. Dominic Dromgoole's touring production accentuates the play's bawdy, rambunctious humor. There's so much physical shtick and in-your-face hijinks, the results resemble Shakespeare as filtered through Monty Python...There's no shortage of funny moments, and the ensemble delivers the archaic language with uncommon clarity. But the production stresses the humor to such a degree that it sacrifices emotion and characterizations.

Variety C+
(Marilyn Stasio) Dominic Dromgoole panders exclusively to modern-day groundlings. As an exhibition of low comedy, the show is notable for the cunning design and exhilarating execution of double entendres and vulgar sight gags. But it's thin gruel for more refined theatrical palates...Shakespeare conceived of his romantic comedy as a playful examination of the conundrum that faces all educated, well-born youth -- the delicious struggle between love and duty...But Dromgoole has so drastically restructured the romantic comedy that the royal players are robbed of their wit and reduced to the roles of rustics. And while the youthful performers gamely kick up their heels in stylized dances and athletic movement drills, all that kidding around eventually makes them look foolish.

Theatermania C
(Andy Propst) There's something charming about the freeness of this Shakespeare play, but in director Dominic Dromgoole's production, the quality is so over-emphasized that the piece becomes bewilderingly tedious. Indeed, audiences must endure too much physical comedy that inspires not guffaws, but incredulity...There are other pleasures to be found here, notably from set and costume designer Jonathn Fensom; his gorgeous scenic design mimics the configuration of the Elizabethan theaters and features handsomely painted drops that evoke the imagery of medieval tapestries. A host of fine secondary performances are also on view...Alas, these characters are too seldom at the fore of this labored production.

Nytheatre.com C
(David DelGrosso) Dromgoole's production succeeds in involving the audience and getting a lot of laughs, but this is largely done despite Shakespeare's comedy rather than with it...Instead of rising to the challenge of the play, the solution seems to be to aim low and add shtick. A lot of shtick...An exception to this problem is Paul Ready's portrayal of the Don Adriano De Armado...Ready grounds Armado in sincerity, and as a result I found him to be one of the most consistent and compelling characters in the play, and hilarious without seeming to try as hard to be as some of the other performers. Also good is Michelle Terry as the Princess of France...The rest of the characters, despite what seems to be a very skilled and energetic ensemble of actors, get largely washed out in a production so overloaded with general wackiness. Particularly lost is any chemistry between the romantic couples.

The New York Times A 13; Associated Press A 13; Backstage B 10; New York Post B- 9; Variety C+ 8; Theatermania C 7; Nytheatre C 7; TOTAL: 67/7=9.57 (B)

Fresh "Carnage"

2009-12-11T11:05:00.006-05:00

Photo by Joan Marcus

Does Yasmina Reza's Tony-winning God of Carnage still rock without its stellar original cast? (Original post here.) Apart from Elisabeth Vincentelli at the New York Post, most critics give the new replacements a qualified yes, appreciating anew the play's merits (and flaws) and Matthew Warchus' direction, though splitting hairs over which new performances are best and which are less so. There are mostly kudos for the women, Christine Lahti and Annie Potts, replacing Marcia Gay Harden and Hope Davis, respectively (note: John Simon's review for Bloomberg News transposes the names). A few ding Jimmy Smits for his overly slick turn in the Jeff Daniels role, and there's some dissent on Ken Stott, a Scot who played the role in London but here has the unenviable task of filling James Gandolfini's Shrek-sized shoes. While the Daily News' Joe Dziemianowicz calls Stott "now the most compelling reason to see 'God of Carnage,' " the Bergen Record's Robert Feldberg finds his casting, and his pairing with Lahti, inexplicable and distracting, though he adds that the play "is still one of the smartest and most amusing evenings on Broadway."

Other critics may stop short of that encomium, but seem to agree that the show still works: John Simon at Bloomberg says it "still summons stentorian laughter from new audiences" but advises "would-be repeaters...to hold on to their memories." Theatermania's David Finkle (newly inducted into the New York Drama Critic's Circle, by the way) raves that the new actors are "just as hilariously and woundingly effective as their celebrated predecessors." And Talkin' Broadway's Matthew Murray, also a Stott fan, even thinks that "in spite of the ways it’s stumbled - just a little bit - God of Carnage is stronger for the difference" in casting. At the NY Times, Charles Isherwood reiterates some of his initial misgivings about the play, but pronounces that "the generally excellent new cast brings a slightly blunter edge to this primal rite" and that "under Matthew Warchus’s precise direction, the play definitely retains its appeal as a superficial but potent entertainment." Variety's David Rooney echoes Simon, writing that while the new God may not merit a revisit, "For those unable to score tickets during the mostly sold-out eight-month run, this undignified spectacle is most definitely still worth experiencing." From the headline, we guess that Newsday's Linda Winer seems to share the consensus ("Still amuses but less brutally"), but we can't be sure because her review is hidden behind a subscribers-only pay wall. Finally, for her part, Elisabeth Vincentelli at the Post writes that while the original cast "delivered hits with the precision -- and ruthlessness -- of champion fencers," with the new cast "the agility's gone, and the swords are blunted."

Brief Encounter

2009-12-09T10:53:00.007-05:00

GRADE: B+

Photo by Pavel Antonov

Adapted and directed by Emma Rice (adapted from Noel Coward's Still Life and the screenplay Brief Encounter). St. Ann's Warehouse. Through Jan. 17.

Aside from Newsroom New Jersey's Michael Sommer, who has an affection for the source material, critics rave about Emma Rice's adaptation of Noel Coward's Brief Encounter. Many critics say this a perfect show for the holiday season and find themselves swept away by the blend of film projections, live action, vaudeville, puppets, and music. A few critics even dare to dream of a Broadway transfer. Note: Two more very negative reviews bring the grade down from an A to a B+.

The Daily News A+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) The most blissfully entertaining and inventive show in town isn't running on or off Broadway. Or anywhere near it, for that matter. It's in DUMBO at St. Ann's Warehouse, where "Brief Encounter" opened last night. Whatever gifts come my way at Christmas, none could make me smile more broadly or longer than this beautifully realized charmer by Britain's Kneehigh Theatre Company.

New York Post A+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Indeed, the director pulls every trick out of the theater playbook: The cast syncs up with projections (shot specifically for the show), supporting characters turn into a singing Greek chorus, actors occasionally sit down in the first row -- as if they were watching their own life unfurl. It's a rare case of a show in which form and content mesh seamlessly.

Variety A+
(Bob Verini) In the hands of Kneehigh doyenne Emma Rice, Rachmaninoff is kept to a minimum as subtext takes centerstage: Upon meeting, the swooning lovers fall backward into the empty arms of other cast members; a posh luncheon morphs into a sensual ballet, with heroine Laura (Hannah Yelland, in a deeply felt performance that brooks no mockery) dangling from a chandelier. Yet it all feels proper, as if Rice had merely turned the Coward fabric inside out to reveal its true essence... "Brief Encounter" is galvanized by ensemble energy. The tea girl (dazzling butterball Beverly Rudd) zooms about on a scooter to vamp cigarette boy Stanley (Stuart McLoughlin), while her boss (charming Annette McLaughlin) wiggles a padded bustle at dispatcher Albert (cheery Joseph Alessi, doubling as Laura's husband). The antics are most surrealist yet grounded in character reality.

Hollywood Reporter A+
(Frank Scheck) Upon entering the theater, you're greeted by movie-theater ushers in period garb who regale you with comic banter and musical numbers. This immersion continues with the show proper, which ingeniously incorporates old-style film images and projections that the characters pop in and out of with abandon. The overall effect is visually dazzling, but the neatest trick is that the technological gimmickry never overwhelms the simple power of the tale.

Newsday A+
(Linda Winer) If "Brief Encounter" is typical of Kneehigh's creations, the process makes a hearty combination of dark expressionism and cartoon delight. The show, which had a successful run in London's West End, includes enchanting sets and costumes that Neil Murray designed for touring. All the words come from Coward, but not all are from the movie. The versatile supporting players transform with larky ingenuity from tearoom staff in the train station to characters with their own individual drama. They are also there to catch Laura (the impeccable and luminescent Hannah Yelland) and Alec (the dashingly sympathetic Tristan Sturrock) as they are literally swept backward off their heels by passion.

Lighting & Sound America A+
(David Barbour) Emma Rice, who adapted and directed the stage version, pursues a risky, two-pronged approach. The scenes between Laura, the quiet, gentle housewife, and Alec, the doctor who falls desperately in love with her, are played with utter conviction, albeit with a pronounced patina of period style. Everyone else is amusingly caricatured, using every theatrical trick at the company's fingertips... According to all laws of the theatre, this should result in an unholy mess of knockabout comedy and soap opera emotions, a clash of tones that cancels everything out. Instead, Rice's methodology provides abundant amusement while casting the central story in a heightened, and remarkably moving, light. It also reveals something essential about Coward, a master entertainer who often packaged darker, more unpalatable truths inside his slick comedies and musicals. Later in life, Coward wrote a fan letter to Harold Pinter, expressing his fascination with how Pinter broke every rule of traditional theatre, "except to not bore the audience, even for a split second." My guess is he'd see what the Kneehigh Theatre is up to, and would wholeheartedly approve.

Backstage A
(Erik Haagensen) Adapter-director Emma Rice remains true to Coward's essence while enlivening the work with songs (some by Coward), film sequences, dance, and even puppets (representing Laura's children). Repeated episodes of stylized movement find a moving physical expression of societal constraints and emotional repression. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, so important in the film, surges as scenes of crashing waves roll upstage. Interestingly, the text hews more closely to "Still Life" than the film, which is told in flashback, practically eliminates Beryl and Stanley, and cuts back on Myrtle and Albert in order to focus more on the leading couple and bring in other characters. Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock wisely underplay the central lovers. If they miss the detailed subtext of Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, that seems intentional: Subtext is expressed here through the above-mentioned devices.

The New York Times A
(Ben Brantley) Isn’t the point of the movie, adapted from Noël Coward’s 1930s one-act play “Still Life,” that its main characters keep a tight lid on loose feelings? What are all these little fantasy explosions — of song, dance and acrobatic movement — that have been interpolated into Coward’s script about the divine misery of not committing adultery? Sounds like someone is taking the mickey out of a love story known, above all, for its veddy good manners. But not at all, my dears. While this production may traffic in the antics of classic stage spoofery, its real raison d’être is to love, honor and obey the spirit of the film that inspired it. It also celebrates every moviegoer who has felt personally invested in that cinema classic. The Kneehigh “Brief Encounter” may be the most exquisite set of fan’s notes ever to take form on a stage. Through musical numbers, film projections and vaudeville jollity it spells out not only what the show’s doomed lovers are experiencing but also what we, who have known them for years, experience whenever we watch them on screen.

TheaterMania A
(David Finkle) Kneehigh has deconstructed and reconstructed the classic film as a marvelous piece of post-modern nostalgia, using mixed media that occasionally allows the actors on stage to walk through a screen only to reappear bigger-than-life in filmed scenes (by Jon Driscoll and Gemma Carrington). More surprisingly, adaptor-director Emma Rice adds enough Coward songs to turn her piece into a new and altogether different kind of musical comedy. Into the bargain, she and her skilled colleagues also pay Coward quite a tribute as a lasting cultural icon.

On Off Broadway A-
(Matt Windman) Tristan Sturrock has a restrained charm as Alec, but it is Hannah Yelland who perfectly captures the mannerisms of old-fashioned melodrama and Laura's feelings of desperate longing and moral guilt... It occasionally feels as if Rice's bizarre theatricality is competing against the intimacy of Alec and Laura's story. But more often than not, the bells and whistles and gags of this whimsical deconstruction serve to open up the story and accentuate its romantic poignancy.

Newsroom New Jersey D-
(Michael Sommers) Adapted and directed by Emma Rice, this Kneehigh Theatre venture reportedly won acclaim in London's West End and on British tour as well as at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. But I must confess that the supposed charm of the production left me cold in Brooklyn... Unfortunately Rice directs these lighter moments with a heavy hand, encouraging farcical behavior that clashes weirdly against the deep restraint demonstrated by the two leads. Unnaturally stylized staging bits, such as when Laura and Alec literally fall in love or everyone in the lunchroom violently shakes as an express train roars by, prove to be risible distractions rather than anything that genuinely heightens or informs the essential drama.

The Village Voice F
(Michael Feingold) Director Emma Rice, who apparently hates the idea of theater sustaining any narrative interest, takes the play's celebrated film adaptation as her starting point for an unappetizing plateful of multimedia hash that tosses Coward songs, settings of Coward poems, and slapsticky dance routines randomly into this classic piece of stiff-upper-lip romantic kitsch, its scenes rendered alternately in earnest or as over-the-top camp, with giant projections of pounding surf or rushing trains as imagistic commentary. You can't blame the actors and musicians, all clearly skilled at what they do. Why anyone should care about the pointless, gibbering results is a larger question.

Wall Street Journal F-
(Terry Teachout) The endlessly self-reflexive irony of postmodernism can be hard to read, but I also felt at times that Ms. Rice and her youthful cast of cooler-than-thou hipsters were as ill at ease with the thwarted passions of Coward's middle-class characters as were the characters themselves, and so could express them onstage only through the medium of parody. If so, the joke's on them, for this "Brief Encounter" sucks all its fitful life straight from the veins of the far more compelling "text" that it seeks to illuminate. Such are the vampirish ways of postmodern artists, who bite their parents' necks, then turn up their noses at the taste of blood.

The Daily News A+ 14; New York Post A+ 14; Variety A+ 14; Hollywood Reporter A+ 14; Newsday A+ 14; Lighting & Sound America A+ 14; Backstage A 13; The New York Times A 13; TheaterMania A 13; On Off Broadway A- 12; Newsroom New Jersey D- 3; The Village Voice F 1; Wall Street Journal F- 0; TOTAL: 139/13 = 10.69 (B+)

The Last Cargo Cult

2009-12-08T20:08:00.007-05:00

GRADE: A-

By Mike Daisey. Directed by Jean-Michele Gregory. At the Public Theater. (CLOSED)

Mike Daisey's latest solo show The Last Cargo Cult receives near-unanimous praise for its timely, hilarious, and poignant exploration of the American financial system and the crises and mythologies that have issued from it. Daisey tells the story of his visit to Tanna, a Pacific island nation that worships American consumer goods as holy totems, but which, ironically, doesn't have a monetary system of its own. He weaves details of this voyage with commentary on America's bewildering 2008 meltdown. Some critics want an intermission to break up the 2+ hour monologue, but that's about as far as the negative criticism goes. Frequent outlier Matthew Murray may disagree with some of Daisey's ideas, but that's exactly the kind of confrontation Daisey aims for anyway. As Nicole Villenueve of Backstage puts it, "even if you don't agree with Daisey, the thoughts he churns up will make sure you get your money's worth."

Variety A
(Sam Thielman) Almost nobody brings to mind Noam Chomsky and Oliver Hardy simultaneously, but Mike Daisey can pull it off. With "The Last Cargo Cult," the monologist perfectly balances goofball humor on one hand, and on the other, genuine anger at the financial gamesmen who broke the economy and then made us pay for it. Of course it's more complicated (and funnier) than that, with Daisey interweaving his trip to a tiny Pacific island where they venerate America and "all our awesome shit." In fact, it's an incredibly ballsy and humble indictment of the banking system, American materialism and the audience.

Backstage A
(Nicole Villenueve) Daisey calls himself a storyteller, but in the first few minutes of his latest monologue, "The Last Cargo Cult," you get the sense that something much more unusual is happening. Maybe it's Daisey's range as a performer. He travels from comic outbursts featuring trademark facial contortions to moments of such quiet sincerity that you can hear a dollar bill drop in the audience ... Or maybe it's how Daisey constantly asks us to engage, not just with participatory gimmicks but simply through the story itself. After important points, he asks, "Isn't it?"—forcing you to confront your own feelings about the material à la Brecht. And even if you don't agree with Daisey, the thoughts he churns up will make sure you get your money's worth from "The Last Cargo Cult."

Time Out New York A-
(Diane Snyder) Collaborating once again with his wife, director Jean-Michele Gregory, Daisey remains equal parts philosopher, historian and social critic, improvising from an outline and never moving from his table and chair. As moments of serene pontification give way to shout-talking outbursts, he brands bankers “financial terrorists” and our fiscal system a “pyramid scheme,” and intersperses personal anecdotes of his island adventures. At times it may taste like a feast with too many side dishes, but Daisey’s storytelling finesse always guarantees a delectable spread.

Theatre Mania A-
(Dan Bacalzo) Expertly guided by director Jean-Michele Gregory, Daisey pulls out all the stops in terms of pacing, vocal modulation, and facial expression. The look he gives when describing eating fermented yam paste is an image not soon to be forgotten, and the monologue is so lively that you're likely to forget that he spends the entirety of it sitting behind a desk. Peter Ksander's scenic design consists of piles and piles of crates, boxes, and luggage, while sound designer Daniel Erdberg and lighting designer Russell H. Champa incorporate several subtle and not-so-subtle effects to reinforce the rhythms and mood of the performance. While these enhancements add much to the overall production, Daisey hardly needs them in order to get across his excellently crafted tale.

New York Post A-
(Frank Scheck) His rambling digressions are frequently the funniest parts, such as his accounts of his encounters with a friendly baby pig and a potentially financially disastrous auto accident. But they also dilute the show’s impact: Running nearly two hours without an intermission, “The Last Cargo Cult” is as exhausting as it is entertaining. Even so, it’s the most fully realized effort yet in what’s shaping up to be a major theatrical career for Daisey.

New York Times A-
(Jason Zinoman) The way Mr. Daisey makes his arguments, more than the arguments themselves, is what makes him one of the elite performers in the American theater. Sometimes he lays them out straightforwardly, but more often he expresses ideas indirectly through story and, increasingly, through a self-conscious use of language ... In his new show, the seventh that I’ve seen, Mr. Daisey’s longtime director, Jean-Michele Gregory, helped him expand beyond a Spalding Gray aesthetic. For the first time there is an actual set dominated by a mountain of boxes, designed by Peter Ksander. Mr. Daisey still sits down and turns rumpled papers, but he has added more flamboyance to his repertory. He curses more, punctuates several jokes with a Sam Kinison scream; and he really has perfected the art of juxtaposing rubbery facial expressions with absolute stillness.

Curtain Up B+
(Deirdre Donovan) The feisty yarn-spinner new monologue, The Last Cargo Cult, is based on his time on a remote South Pacific island named Tanna, where the natives worship America at the base of an active volcano. At two hours with no intermission, it's long; but Daisey redeems the length by hitting us with some probing questions about American materialism ... It's easy to fall under the spell of Daisey's sense of humor, and powerful story telling. In this latest monologue we learn about the historical origins and development of cargo cults and how cult members still adhere to the same belief system today.

Talkin' Broadway B-
(Matthew Murray) As The Last Cargo Cult vacillates between Tanna and the U.S., it demonstrates some trouble with balance. Daisey’s declamations are more often simplistic than profound. “I think wealth is defined by hunger,” he says, as though “hunger” is by necessity a negative trait ... Daisey makes his case far more effectively when he focuses on the evolution of money from currency to a symbol. His history of money, from its physical advent 5,000 years ago to bonds, stocks, hedging, and the vitally nonexistent derivatives of today, is chilling.

Variety A 13; Backstage A 13; TONY A- 12; Theatre Mania A- 12; New York Post A- 12; New York Times A- 12; Curtain Up B+ 11; Talkin' Broadway B- 9. TOTAL: 94/8 = 11.75 (A-)

So Help Me God!

2009-12-08T10:25:00.013-05:00

GRADE: B

By Maurine Dallas Watkins. Directed by Jonathan Bank. Lucille Lortel Theatre. (CL0SED)

With the exception of Talk Entertainment's Oscar E. Moore and CurtainUp's Simon Saltzman, critics are grateful to the Mint Theater Company for unearthing the backstage comedy So Help Me God! by Maurine Dallas Watkins. While acknowledging some of the play's faults, critics rave about Kristen Johnston's performance as diva Lily Darnley. Though some of the material may be a little dated, critics are sometimes surprised to find how well it holds up. Backstage's Erik Haagensen notes that a conversation about the difficulty of producing serious work on Broadway to the costs is particularly resonant.

TheaterMania A+
(Barbara & Scott Siegel) One of the many victims of the stock market crash of 1929 was the Broadway-bound production of a backstage comedy by Maurine Dallas Watkins (who had earlier written the hit 1926 play Chicago) that never made it to New York. Well, better later than never. The Mint Theater, which has so often in the past discovered lost theatrical gems, has outdone itself by finally producing So Help Me God!, now at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, starring the hilarious Kristen Johnston and directed by Jonathan Bank. The result is a backstage comedy with so much bite you can almost see the blood.

Backstage A
(Erik Haagensen) Bart describes Lily as having "the face of Little Eva and the heart of Simon Legree," and, happily, Kristen Johnston delivers all that and more. She is a symphony of mood swings: melodrama, insincerity, hunger, lust, saintliness, frivolity, and cruelty being just a few. It's a grand creation that Johnston nevertheless keeps anchored in honest emotion, which leads to a startling moment in Act 3 when Lily dispatches her insurgent understudy: "Nobody ever gave me anything! I fought my way up—every inch of the way," snarls Lily. Johnston does it with such sudden feeling that we understand in one moment exactly how Lily became the monster she is. Under Jonathan Banks' rapid-fire direction, the other 15 members of the company support Johnston ably.

NY Post A
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) The egomaniacal, manipulative Lily is a larger-than-life diva -- a perfect fit for the towering Johnston ("3rd Rock From the Sun," "The Skin of Our Teeth"), who takes up a lot of space. Sheathed in Clint Ramos' stylish period gowns, her alabaster skin emitting an almost radioactive glow, the actress goes whole hog and gives Lily a wonderfully demented dimension. She does amazing things with her eyes, for instance, narrowing them in fury or looking heavenward as if desperately searching for divine inspiration.

Newsday A
(Linda Winer) The backstage farce, which predates "All About Eve" by decades, is a knowing, snappy, tough little show-biz trifle. The Mint Theatre, that Off-Broadway haven of lost-play archaeology, has achieved a vivacious resuscitation, and given Kristen Johnston the chance to discover her inner egomaniacal glamour-puss.

The New York Times A-
(Ben Brantley) Ms. Watkins, who had covered murder trials for The Chicago Tribune, brings a journalist’s eye for the compromising detail to this business we call show. (Her portrayal of the working styles of two directors of quite different sensibilities is specific and hilarious.) But she also had a playwright’s musical ear for trade lingo and period slang that rivals that of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur in “The Front Page.” Here’s Belle (Catherine Curtin), a blowsy character actress, as rehearsals begin: “Honest, I’m so nervous I need a new brassiere.” And here’s Lily, explaining to her press agent exactly how the reviews should read regarding everyone else in the cast: “All they should say is, ‘Miss Darnley was ably supported.’" Ms. Johnston, may I say, is ably supported. Actors love few things more than portraying ego-driven actors and their swinish associates, and the cast members here inhabit their roles with zest and, more surprisingly, unforced credibility. No one goes over the top, except Ms. Johnston, and how could she not? She’s Lily Darnley, a gorgeous megalomaniac who combines the less attractive features of Margo Channing and Norma Desmond.

Time Out New York A-
(Adam Feldman) As the ego-, nympho- and dipsomaniacal diva at the nucleus of So Help Me God!, Kristen Johnston is a marvel. Her Amazonian frame sheathed in designer Clint Ramos’s splendid gowns and furs, she speaks in a voice of poisoned honey, occasionally coughing out a husky little chortle. (She laughs all the way to the Bankhead.) The character is Lily Darnley, a Broadway glamour-puss who clings to center stage with sharp, bloodied claws; and Johnston takes her tasty lemon drop of a role and sucks it for all it’s worth.

Talkin' Broadway A-
(Matthew Murray) Because the play isn't as subtle or as biting in its satire of theatre creatures as Chicago was criminals, focusing on the comedy probably helps buoy the show against unruly tides. Other problems remain, however. Bank has admitted to editing the play for modern delicacy, but he allows only one intermission (the play obviously calls for two), which makes the second, final, and most important change of Bill Clarke's modest backstage-and-hotel set take an uncomfortably long time. And the third act makes so little sense, one can only wonder whether Bank, like Lily, excised too much. But in either case, is it that important? Lily would argue that the final product pleasing is all that counts, and she'd probably be right. Bank's final product is an intensely interesting excavation, a sparkling and original comedy from one of Broadway's most underrepresented voices, and worth hearing for that reason. It's also fascinating as a precursor to All About Eve, which it resembles more than slightly. Even so, So Help Me God! has enough unique fire and music to stand as worthy enough on its own.

The Faster Times B+
(Jonathan Mandell) In short, there is no question that “So Help Me God!” is a theatrical find – a revelation! — and the Mint Theater Company was duty-bound by all that remains sacred and seductive in the theater to bring it… finally… to the stage. But what is the actual experience of watching the play? It is a divine diva-thon, a barbed backstage comedy, “A Royal Family” on crack, a “42nd Street” spiked with the cynicism of “The Producers”…if you fall asleep during the dull patches. With a cast of 15 (not including the little lap dog) there was just too much theatrical goings-on for me to absorb.

Lighting & Sound America B
(David Barbour) It would be lovely to say that So Help Me God! is thoroughly worthy of [Johnston], but, in the words of those critics, the star is not always ably supported. This lost work by Maurine Dallas Watkins, author of Chicago (the source material for the musical) is a standard backstage farce of the period (1928), peopled with cardboard cutouts and distinguished largely by a diamond-hard distaste for the hustlers and money-grubbers of the Great White Way. It's loaded with characters and subplots, all of whom come and go at a frantic rate; the one real conflict, involving a starstruck mouse from Cincinnati who grows a few claws after appearing opposite Lily, isn't all that interesting, despite the fine work of Anna Chlumsky as the aspirant with Klieg lights in her eyes. Several promising situations are brought up, then dropped, as Lily is basically allowed to run amok for three acts. (It would be instructive to see The Royal Family and So Help Me God! in the same day; the contrast between Watkins' pedestrian construction and low-down gags and Kaufman and Ferber's pristine high comedy would hardly be flattering.)

Entertainment Weekly B
(Jessica Shaw) Written by Maurine Watkins in 1929, So Help Me God! had all but been forgotten until the Mint Theater Company’s director, Jonathan Bank, found it when searching for abandoned plays. It had been headed to Broadway in 1929 until the unfortunate timing of a rewrite request and the stock market crash. Though the current production’s first half has plenty of sharp and witty moments, you have to wonder if the revises requested back in 1929 could have helped the sluggish second act.

The Village Voice C+
(Michael Feingold) Under Jonathan Bank's direction, Kristen Johnston and Anna Chlumsky, neither one perfectly cast, make a good game try at the roles of manic star and idealistic understudy. Some of the supporting actors catch on to the comic angles, and Kraig Swartz, too briefly, gets great laughs as a ninnyish director who sounds like a prequel to The Producers' Roger DeBris.

CurtainUp C-
(Simon Saltzman) Famous for its revivals, resurrections and restorations of forgotten but worthy plays of yore, the Mint Theater Company is currently taking a rather audacious leap into the more adventurous realm of the not-only-forgotten but the not- quite-good-enough-to-withstand-the-test-of-time genre. All the transparencies and cliches that would eventually define the theater world would be more insightfully and humorously refined by other theater scribes. Does this mean that the playwright who created a stir with her first success Chicago in 1927 (subsequently turned into the hit musical of the same name) couldn’t follow it up with something quite as provocative or pithy? The answer: apparently no and didn’t, although there are moments to savor and laugh at in this tumultuous back-stage farce. Ms. Watkins did enjoy success in the 1930s and 40s writing screwball screenplays in Hollywood, but So Help Me God! shows the stretch marks of a play that is too utterly absurd and implausible for its own good. Whatever liveliness the play has is due to the direction of Jonathan Bank, who, when the dialogue fails to amuse (which is too often) keeps the large and fine cast in a state of commiserating frenzy and/or panic.

Talk Entertainment D-
(Oscar E. Moore) Thinking they had found another “Chicago” a play written by the eccentric Maurine Dallas Watkins while a student at Yale in 1926 upon which the long running hit musical is based the Mint Theater has resurrected “So Help Me God!” written in 1928-29 - a long lost, found in a drawer farce written by the very same playwright. It’s gotten a bit moldy sitting in that drawer all these years. Despite the cuts made by director, Jonathan Bank we get creaky where sleek is called for. What should be fast, frothy and ebullient isn’t. The history of how Bob Fosse eventually got the rights to “Chicago” and the bizarre life that Ms. Watkins lived which is noted in the Playbill is far more interesting than the predictable central casting antics on stage at the Lucille Lortel Theatre where “So Help Me God!” is playing. Sometimes you find a treasure and sometimes the treasure chest comes up empty and in the case of this never produced until now comedy - half full.

TheaterMania A+ 14; Backstage A 13; NY Post A 13; Newsday A 13; The New York Times A- 12; TONY A- 12; Talkin' Broadway A- 12; The Faster Times B+ 11; Lighting & Sound America B 10; EW B 10; The Village Voice C+ 7; CurtainUp C- 6; Talk Entertainment D- 3; TOTAL: 136/13 = 10.46 (B)

Race

2009-12-07T09:11:00.009-05:00

GRADE: C

(Photo By Robert J. Saferstein)

Written and Directed by David Mamet. At the Ethel Barrymore Theater.

The bulk of the reviews land squarely in the C- zone. Critics generally agree that Race does not succeed on its own terms and grows increasingly thin as the evening goes on, leading to some poorly set up revelations at the end and another of Mamet's poorly constructed Feckless Woman parts. They still find it quite entertaining, however, and particularly focus on the performance of James Spader. The play's two unqualified positive reviews come from Matthew Murray and John Simon-- who himself has oft faced down accusations of racism and sexism.

Bloomberg A
(John Simon) Mamet, who also directs, has assembled four talented actors -- James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, Richard Thomas -- and a top-notch design team. We get a high-voltage melodrama that is unafraid to raise painful questions while dispensing prickly ideas and provocative dialogue amid steady suspense. Just as in Oleanna, Mamet latches on to a controversial issue, in this case the problem of race as it has affected American politics, jurisprudence, sexual relations and life in general. He has boldly asserted that our 230-year national experience has been a dialogue about race and that the theme of his new play is “race and the lies we tell each other on the subject.”

TalkinBroadway A
(Matthew Murray) This, then, is the most realistic play on the subject we�ve seen in a long time. It�s also a stunning return to original form for Mamet, who doesn�t abandon the show-biz savvy of his middle period (Speed-the-Plow, Oleanna) or the political awareness of his current oeuvre (School, November) while jumping headfirst in the acidic repartee of his earlier, most defining works (American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross). Race cuts deeper, and more frequently, than perhaps anything else Mamet has written.

Chicago Tribune A-
(Chris Jones) Race is wholly watchable. Gripping, actually. Don't believe anyone who argues otherwise. Granted, it is gripping within a dangerously narrow and familiar palette; Race is like a contrived composite of "Oleanna," "Speed-the-Plow" and a TV legal procedural. There are many holes in its dramatic logic. Mamet doesn't so much write plays driven by characters anymore. His shell-like characters are the whores of his ideas. And for all the dramatic provocations (and the brilliant matching of the richly contrasting Grier and Spader), there's a certain weariness that comes from watching the way that "Race" stubbornly ignores any and all differences in generational thinking and reduces its characters' loyalties to the color of their skin. It's a juicily argued reduction, sure, but also a very troubling one. Which is, of course, Mamet's point.

TheaterMania B+
(Dan Bacalzo) Admittedly, much of the first act seems like a string of talking points or jokes about race with very little character development. However, it does lay the groundwork for the terrific second act, in which things get far more personal for the lawyers. A confrontation between Jack and Susan is one of the production's most powerful scenes, and the rapid fire plot twists that develop as the play comes thundering to its conclusion are nicely handled.

New Yorker B+
(John Lahr) The plot, such as it is, demonstrates the contention of Mamet’s Times piece, that “just as personal advantage was derived by whites from the defense of slavery and its continuation as Jim Crow and segregation, so too personal advantage, political advantage and indeed expression of deeply held belief may lead nonwhites to defense of positions that . . . will eventually be revealed as untenable.” In reality, Mamet would be hard pressed to defend his weasel words; onstage, where his story turns on racial profiling by blacks, he can make it seem plausible, if not persuasive.

Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) More fluid than in some of his earlier directorial attempts, Mamet's staging keeps the action zipping along, and doesn't seem (as in those earlier instances) to inhibit his actors. Spader, suavely sardonic, makes a strong impression; the hint of smug mannerism that always goes with Thomas's air of injured innocence suits his role handily. The cast's weak link, not overly damaging, is Washington, who hasn't yet summoned the power to project her presence fully. (Mamet, who dislikes overt emotional display in his works, probably hasn't helped.) The evening's showpiece performance—grounded, forceful, funny, and smartly shaded—comes from Grier, swallowing unpalatable news and snapping out equally unpalatable opinions with flamboyant finesse.

USA Today B
(Elysa Gardner) Though Race can be bitingly funny, some of Lawson and Brown's comments threaten to veer into speechifying. Lawson, especially, seems at times to be venting on behalf of the playwright, whose disdain for the strictures of political correctness is well known...Mamet deserves credit for a briskly entertaining, if flawed, study. It is indeed a world full of misunderstandings, and Race offers an absorbing glimpse.

NorthJersey B
(Robert Feldberg) David Mamet has said his new play, Race, which opened Sunday at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, is his contribution to the country's never-ending dialogue on the relationship between black people and white people. But although he makes several provocative points, the racial discussion is one of the least involving aspects of the evening. What's most pungent — and terrifically engaging — is the old Mamet, the creator of sharp operators, men who are cynical, profane and morally flexible.

New York Magazine C
(Scott Brown) We open with an O.J. joke—an early indicator of the mid-nineties mindset that informs Race, David Mamet’s fleet, fidgety, focused little Sudoku of a “shock” drama. The facts of the case are these: A wealthy white man, Strickland (Richard Thomas), is accused of raping a younger black woman; he seeks counsel, and perhaps a measure of absolution, at a law firm captained by senior partners Lawson (James Spader, white) and Brown (David Alan Grier, brown). Assisting them is lovely, leggy, leery Susan (Kerry Washington), who is also brown but, suspiciously, lacks a highly symbolic surname—and may or may not have been a (gasp!) affirmative-action hire. (Cherchez la femme, Mamet fans.) “Race is the most incendiary topic in our history,” we are informed early on, lest we doubt the stakes. Yet the case itself is a bluff; what little we learn of it sounds remarkably pedestrian. All Mamet really wants to do is put white guilt on trial, which he does, with gusto, deploying the familiar man-man-woman triad he used in Speed-the-Plow and elsewhere. But the boils prodded here feel pre-lanced, the flash points all too familiar: Did Strickland use the N-word? Well, of course he did! The play is called Race.

Entertainment Weekly C
The shock is that the author (who previously staged a two-person dramatic tap dance about men and women, truth and lies in Oleanna) elicits little more than a shrug once all the thrusts and parries, revelations and reversals are toted up. The foursome bark out short, blunt, rhetorically provocative dialogue intended to demonstrate that black people and white people are doomed never to understand one another. But the arguments feel like moves on a game board, not words from the heart.

Time Out New York C
(Adam Feldman) For all the verve of its neo-Shavian back-and-forth, however, Race falters on its way to the finish line. Adept at articulating the play’s issues, Mamet is less successful at dramatizing them. The play is not unlike an 80-minute episode of a televised legal drama (on cable, where they can use the f-word). Its two lawyers are played well by Spader and David Alan Grier, but they have little dimension beyond their arguments; and the other two characters, who have more opportunity for development, register largely as a ciphers.

New York Times C-
(Ben Brantley) An assured craftsman, Mr. Mamet builds his structure with precision and with what feels like a certain weariness with his own facility. What’s lacking is the fusion of story, theme and character that lends bona fide suspense to his plays. In American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna (which received a less-than-exemplary Broadway production this season), the dialogue is fueled by the desperation of the characters. Much of the excitement in listening to them comes from hearing how their words, initially used as tools and weapons, become their prisons. In “Race” words accumulate less into portraits than attitudes. Obviously there’s a lot at stake for the people of Race, especially for Charles, whom Mr. Thomas portrays with a cunning air of masochistic martyrdom. But there’s only one real character in the play, a paucity you become fully aware of in the second act.

Backstage C-
(David Sheward) it's definitely a mixed bag: At times the dialogue feels like a debate between stick figures representing opposing points of view rather than real people in a situation reflective of our conflicted society. In addition, the setup is somewhat similar to earlier Mamet play[s].

Wall St. Journal C-
(Terry Teachout) The problem with Race is that it's a bit too familiar. Specifically, it plays like a cross between Mr. Mamet's "Oleanna" and his screenplay for "The Verdict." I can't say much more than that without giving away the "surprises" sprinkled throughout the plot, in which two lawyers, one white (James Spader) and one black (David Alan Grier), decide whether to defend a famous millionaire (Richard Thomas) who is accused of raping a young black woman—a decision complicated by the fact that one of their employees (Kerry Washington) is also a young black woman. But those who know Mr. Mamet's work more than casually will likely be able to guess many of the directions in which he takes this conceit, and that's a big part of what's wrong with "Race." In addition, "Race" is didactic in a way I didn't expect from a playwright like Mr. Mamet, whose normal practice is to dramatize the points he wants to make instead of embedding them in lectures delivered by his characters. "Race," by contrast, is full of lectures, most of which are delivered to the younger lawyer by her older bosses, which is logical enough but doesn't make them any less prone to slow down the play's momentum.

Variety C-
(David Rooney) As one of the characters in David Mamet's teasing faux-polemic on the subject says, "Race is the most incendiary topic in our history." The slender play that takes its terse title from that declaration seems hatched more out of an urge to inflame arguments easily triggered in the age of Obama than out of the need to tell this particular story or even to explore the issue with any real conclusiveness. This being Mamet, however, the dialogue is tasty, the confrontations spiky and the observations more than occasionally biting. Slick but hollow, Race entertains as it unfolds, but grows increasingly wobbly as it twists its way to an unsatisfying wrap-up.

NY1 C-
(Roma Torre) All the action in this play seems contrived to justify a convoluted premise. And while I can't give examples without spoiling the plot, I can tell you everyone says and does things that, from both legal and dramatic perspectives, don't make much sense. The good news is that it's very well acted... There's no denying the production under Mamet's direction is plenty entertaining and thought provoking. It's just that when you do think about it you realize, despite all the incendiary talk, they're not saying all that much.

Newsday D+
(Linda Winer) The subject, race, could not be more timely. And yet the confrontations have the urgency of pigtail-pulling provocations in the schoolyard. Are we really meant to be shocked to hear that trials are entertainment or that people of different colors get different treatment? The generalizations - blacks have shame, Jews have guilt - are as inflammatory as a routine by Jackie Mason. The real shock of this Race is that Mamet cannot take them and run.

LA Times D+
(Charles McNulty) The play somewhat misleads its audience into thinking that its plot will revolve around the discovery of Charles’ guilt or innocence. The actual story lies in the inter-office dynamics, which grow complicated (and not in a particularly involving way) when suspicions are raised about Susan’s role in the case. Unfortunately, this character — another of Mamet’s female subordinates seemingly out for retributive payback — isn’t well developed. Washington brings a cool and glamorous confidence to the part (costume designer Tom Broecker dresses her as though for a Vogue law-office spread, but there’s something contrived about her motivation.

The Faster Times D+
(Jonathan Mandell) There are a few plot twists, which are meant to keep the audience guessing at the answer to the question “Is he guilty?” and one or two more questions, such as “Whose side is she on?” They are also meant, more grandly, to show the differing perceptions of the world from black and white. But these twists would not withstand the scrutiny of an experienced dramaturg; they don’t make much sense, and are ultimately not very interesting. In any case, much of the 90-minute play is taken up with what are little more than cynical lectures about the legal system, and observations about race relations – about double standards, about what you can say and what you can’t in polite company, about the different perspectives of black and white in America... “Race” is performed by pros — the stand-out here is David Alan Grier; James Spader seems to be playing his “Boston Legal” character minus the humorous quirkiness, but there is a reason why that show lasted on television so long. I cannot find particular fault in the way that Mamet directed “Race” — quick, to the point — just in the way he wrote it.

NY Observer D
(Jesse Oxley) It's all rendered with Mr. Mamet's expected verbal pyrotechnics, but the inherent pleasure of virtuosity aside, the fireworks fall flat. The play is reveling in its subversive political incorrectness, but political incorrectness hasn't seemed flamboyantly subversive at any point in this new century.

Financial Times D-
With this world premiere on Broadway, Mamet continues his descent into smug cynicism. The characters are representative figures rather than people with personal lives – mouthpieces for Mamet’s ideas about the nature of confession, the difference between guilt and shame, and the lies we supposedly tell ourselves about the relationship between races.

NYPost F+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) The most stunning thing about the David Mamet play that opened last night is how clunky it is. The man's written books about drama and filmmaking, so you'd think his missile against a hot-button issue would at least be well put together. But "Race," which Mamet also directed, is a bewildering muddle. Audiences might expect this type of awkwardly constructed, flailing acrimony from a 15-year-old with a Twitter account, not from a Pulitzer Prize winner.

BB A 13; TB A 13; CT A- 12; TM B+ 11; TNY B+ 11; VV B+ 11; NJ B 10; USA B 10; NYM C 7; TONY C 7; EW C 7; NYT C- 6; NY1 C- 6; WSJ C- 6; BS C- 6; V C- 6; TFT D+ 5; ND D+ 5; NYO D 4; LAT D+ 5; FT D- 4; NYPost F+ 2; TOTAL: 167/25 =6.68 (C)

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

2009-12-04T21:06:00.008-05:00

GRADE: B-

By Rebecca Gilman, adapted from the novel by Carson McCullers. Directed by Doug Hughes. At New York Theatre Workshop. (CLOSED)

An interesting mix of responses for Rebecca Gilman's adaptation of Carson McCullers's debut novel. Each critic singles out a passage or character from the original 400-page novel, and most applaud Cristin Milioti and Henry Stram for their acting work as the precocious 14-year old music buff and deaf-mute confidante, respectively. But the scope and heartbreak of the source material has been diffused in Gilman's treatment and Doug Hughes direction, evidently. According to David Finkle of Theatre Mania, one major relationship has been muted so much it's almost been re-written.

Variety A
(Marilyn Stasio) The lights stay down on the Georgia town where the play's action is set, reflecting lighting designer Michael Chybowski's visual judgement on the mood of small Southern towns during the Depression years of 1938 and 1939. In David Van Tieghem's calculated design, ambient sounds of life are also muted in the detached homes, shops and cafes that silently glide in and out of view on Neil Patel's appropriately cheerless set. The overall mood of isolation is altogether apt for Gilman's dramatic interpretation of McCullers' story, about the profound impact on the locals when a deaf-mute named John Singer (Henry Stram) comes to town. Stram, a Broadway vet and Acting Company stalwart, delivers an extraordinarily centered perf, both self-contained and exquisitely alert to his surroundings.

Bergen Record A
(Robert Feldberg) Rebecca Gilman’s empathic adaptation of Carson McCullers’ 1940 debut novel, which opened Thursday at the New York Theatre Workshop, is a lovely evening of theater. While judiciously paring characters and incidents, Gilman, greatly aided by Doug Hughes’ sensitive direction, and a fine cast, finds a resonant stage equivalent for McCullers’ haunting tale of a deaf-mute man’s effect on a small Georgia town in the late 1930s ... In addition to the characters in the foreground, the production provides a rich sense of the town and the times, with the exotic mix of racism and radicalism, amid Depression poverty. Several of the performances are special.

Lighting & Sound America A-
(David Barbour) In the hands of the meticulous adaptor, Rebecca Gilman, Carson McCullers' novel, about the disfiguring effects of loneliness in a small Georgia town, becomes a quietly moving drama in the Horton Foote mode ... Cristin Milioti, who made a big impression earlier in the season in David Adjmi's Stunning, is equally fine here as Mick, the 14-year-old tomboy who lives on dreams of being a composer ... Gilman deftly keeps all four narratives moving along as the characters interact with each other and with Singer, portrayed with enormous grace and feeling by Henry Stram ... If Gilman deftly recreates these characters and their interlocking stories, she does grapple with certain structural problems; much of the action consists of brief scenes, many of them lasting less than a minute, hopping from location to location. Even in Neil Patel's elegant set design, in which a series of wagons roll into place under a false proscenium, and even with the cinematic crossfades of Michael Chybowski's lighting, there's a certain amount of unavoidable dead time spent waiting to get from here to there.

Curtain Up A-
(Elyse Sommer) The constraints of adapting a book for the stage made streamlining the text and paring down the cast of characters a necessity. The good news is that Ms. Gilman has done both quite ably, and without sacrificing the key characters ... Unfortunately, Gilman's script also doesn't give Singer's relationship with Antonapoulos the attention it warrants and thus fails to convey the darkness and depth of his isolation and final act of desperation. That said, while I didn't see Alan Arkin's much praised portrayal of John Singer in the movie version, I can't think of a more ideal actor to play Singer in this stage version than the unassuming Henry Stram ... Director Doug Hughes has drawn strong, sensitive performances out of everyone here. Christin Milioti, not only imbues Mick with convincing rebellious spirit and optimistic bravado (at least for most of the play) but looks remarkably like Carson McCullers. Andrew Weems does well by Jake, the hard-drinking political organizer and James McDaniel and Roslyn Ruff are outstanding as Dr. Copeland and the pious daughter who loves him despite their opposite beliefs ... Despite the fact that this adaptation is overshadowed by its source, the combination of respectful adaptation, excellent acting and skillfull direction and stagecraft add up to a mostly absorbing evening — especially if you're familiar with the book so that your memory will fill in the scenes and poetry that' have gone missing in the page to stage transition.

Talk Entertainment B
(Oscar E. Moore) Beautifully acted by the ensemble cast of ten the play itself is episodic and problematic ... Perhaps it is the electrifyingly honest and detailed performance of Cristin Milioti as Mick that sets the balance of the play off - in her favor. You cannot wait until she returns for her next scene. Perhaps there is too much to immediately absorb. Perhaps the waiting for John Singer to write down in his notebook to communicate with the others makes one impatient. Perhaps it is the many revelatory monologues spoken taking the place of dialogue between Mr. Singer and the others. Perhaps the letters from him to his friend that are read towards the end should have come sooner. Perhaps Carson McCullers thought that The Heart is a Lonely Hunter made a better novel than stage play. As good as this production is, one wonders why she never adapted it herself. Perhaps she thought it would be too episodic and problematic to do so.

Time Out New York C+
(David Cote) When it fails, it’s like trying to enjoy a gourmet feast by looking at a diligent list of ingredients. Still, you have to give adaptor Rebecca Gilman props for the effort ... Gilman cleverly gives Singer (movingly played by Henry Stram) direct-address monologues at the beginning and end of the show. Her choice is neatly theatrical, but what comes in the middle is too often an episodic summarization of Heart’s plot. And the book is more than plot. Because of Singer’s silence, the lonely outcasts attracted to him unpack their hearts; as a stage device, it becomes too static. Nevertheless, director Doug Hughes has an outstanding cast, including Andrew Weems as a hard-drinking communist agitator; James McDaniel as a stoic black physician trying to maintain dignity in the face of Jim Crow; and the transfixing Cristin Milioti as Mick, a free-spirited teen dragging her heels into womanhood.

New York Times C
(Charles Isherwood) Sadly, little of the furious feeling that consumes McCullers’s characters has made its way into the respectful but lifeless stage version that opened on Thursday night at New York Theater Workshop, a co-production with the Acting Company. The playwright Rebecca Gilman (“Spinning Into Butter”) has written a workmanlike adaptation that draws directly on the novel’s dialogue and moves through most of its major incidents clearly enough. The director, Doug Hughes, provides a tasteful frame (the weathered wooden set by Neil Patel is gorgeous), and the cast is solid. But what’s onstage is a surface sketch of the book, one that fails to communicate any of its emotional substance. It’s a mere blueprint of a cathedral, not the majestic building itself.

The Village Voice C
(Alexis Soloski) [Gilman's] adaptation and Doug Hughes's direction refine McCullers's idiosyncratic novel into a playable, if rather wan, drama ... Hughes's direction also works to smooth and improve any rough edges. Platforms of scenery slide back and forth seamlessly, quick bursts of music disguise set changes, careful lighting lends the scenes a picturesque cast. Hughes's elegance and Gilman's efficiency combine to render the story strangely opaque. All the action ticks along very nicely, but the play doesn't engage, and the actors, though capable, don't make much of an impression.

Theatre Mania C-
(David Finkle) Meanwhile, those who know the book will see a loose version of McCullers' wounding tale -- directed in stately measure by Doug Hughes -- that misses one of McCullers' major points so widely it practically amounts to a travesty ... While Gilman is mostly true to the melancholy tale, the area where she goes horribly wrong -- and where Hughes does little to correct her -- is the depiction of the Singer-Antonapoulos relationship. Whereas McCullers establishes the men as a familiar sight in their town from her opening sentence, Gilman has the sick man barely introduced before being whisked away with a pained parting gesture to Singer. A subsequent meeting and a projection of the two on the wall of Neil Patel's economic set further suggests the two men are happy together. They're anything but. No fault can be attached to the actors -- including Michael Cullen as Mick's ineffective father and Roslyn Ruff as Portia, Dr. Copeland's daughter and the Kelly's maid -- all of whom look and act right in Catherine Zuber's period costumes. Michael Chybowski's moody lighting and David Van Tieghem music also help the production. But they're all working in service of a script that fails to do justice to a singular piece of American literature.

That Sounds Cool C-
(Aaron Riccio) ... the observational style seems a better fit for fiction than for the theater. So much is left to our imagination that what ends up on stage often is as fixed and as awkward as the "party" that Singer attempts to host in his room for these four, and it's hard not to notice how undeveloped the supporting cast is ... Doug Hughes's direction is, unfortunately, too smooth to really portray the loneliness. Neil Patel's square flats, which represent the central locations of the novel, slide as neatly to the front of the stage as the too-tidy characters make their pronouncements. His saving grace is that he is able to linger on in some of those moments, capturing the light in Singer's (Henry Stram's) eyes as he shows off for his mentally unstable ox of a friend, Antonapoulos (I. N. Sierros), or the tears of joy Mick finds in the available fantasy of radio music--and what that must "sound" like to Singer, who can only watch her react.

Associated Press D
(Jennifer Farrar) Despite some outstanding performances, the New York Theatre Workshop's current off-Broadway production feels heavy-handed and flat. Yet the central character, the deaf John Singer, is movingly portrayed by Henry Stram with a sweetness and air of repressed despair. Silent through most of the play, Stram's briskly polite, formal characterization is memorable. Gilman has Singer speak directly to the audience at the beginning and end of the play, which only half succeeds. Hearing him speak initially, the audience understands his intelligence and spirit, and learns what matters to him. However, Singer's negative concluding statement feels jarringly misplaced. Gilman's writing and the direction of Doug Hughes have successfully coloured all the characters' interactions with notes of loneliness and alienation, particularly in their individual relationships with Singer.

Talkin' Broadway D
(Matthew Murray) ... Gilman’s focus on all the attendant matters reduces the impact of John’s silent plight. Running nearly 400 pages, McCullers’s novel has the space it needs to balance everyone’s concerns. The play, running two and a half hours, doesn’t, and isn’t just forced to elide, summarize, and truncate, but also make John a lone voice in a screaming crowd rather than the ear that distills all the sound into music.

Variety A 13; Bergen Record A 13; Lighting & Sound America A- 12; Curtain Up A- 12; Talk Entertainment B 10; TONY C+ 8; New York Times C 7; Village Voice C 7; Theatre Mania C- 6; That Sounds Cool C- 6; Associated Press D 4; Talkin' Broadway D 4. TOTAL: 102/12 = 8.5 (B-)

The Age of Iron

2009-12-03T19:30:00.005-05:00

GRADE: C-

From William Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida and Thomas Heywood's Iron Age. Adapted and directed by Brian Kulick. At Classic Stage Company. (CLOSED)

Apart from some scattered bits of compelling stage moments (a comic character here, a set effect there), the kindest thing critics can say about The Age of Iron is that it is "ambitious." Director Brian Kulick has taken Troilus & Cressida and spliced it with Thomas Heywood's 1610 play Iron Age to offer a complete rendering of the Trojan War. The graft didn't take, apparently. Critics are agitated by the project for a couple reasons. First, it trims Shakespeare to make room for a lesser talent (I imagine Meryl Streep ceding screen time to Megan Fox). Second, the cynicism of Shakespeare's play (perpetual war with no beginning and no ending) has been blunted by Heywood's book-ending so that Kulick may fulfill the arguable achievement of presenting the entire Trojan War on stage in one setting. Dramaturgical experiments aside, the production also appears to suffer from a self-defeating sandbox set design, confusing costumes, histrionic acting, and an alternative casting choice (Patroclus is female) that kills the homo-eroticism of the original.

Theatre Mania B
(Andy Propst) Kulick guides many of his actors to strong performances. Benko's work deepens remarkably as the play moves forward; a moment when she must face both Menelaus (Luis Moreno), the husband she's deserted, and her lover is quite powerful. Steven Skybell offers a gorgeously spoken and exceptionally intelligent turn as Ulysses, and Elliot Villar serves up a commanding portrayal of Hector, which brings to mind a preening sports star. In an intriguing bit of cross-gender casting, Xanthe Elbrick plays Achilles' best friend Patroclus, and she also proves exceptionally moving as Hector's wife, Andromache. Bill Christ as Ajax, the most thuggish of the Greeks, soars to almost heartbreaking heights as this soldier realizes how his compatriots have turned on him. Only Dion Mucciacito's confusingly vague interpretation of Achilles and Graham Winton's one-note rendering of Agamemnon disappoint.

Variety C
(Sam Thielman) One of the great things about seeing Shakespeare staged is that unless you've got the whole canon memorized there will always be some incredible phrase or argument that leaps off the stage at you. Kulick seems to have cast his actors based solely on whether or not they're equal to delivering the bon mots that come their way, and he's found a couple of terrific interpreters in Steven Skybell (Ulysses) and Steven Rattazzi (Thersites, who picks up some of the excised Pandarus' lines). Skybell gets the best monologue in "Troilus" and applies it to the lazy Achilles (Dion Mucciacito) with such force that he makes that scene alone worth the price of admission. Rattazzi also helps perk up some of Heywood's work, which frequently feels a little clunky next to the Bard. One wishes the show's inventiveness outweighed its mistakes, but there are quite a few of the latter. For one thing, Kulick has cast actress Xanthe Elbrick as Patroclus, Achilles' young (male) lover, which undermines "Troilus" being a play about love in all its forms. His removal of Pandarus from the central relationship doesn't really work, either -- it erases the inspiration for some of the most important decisions made by Cressida (a very good Dylan Moore), turning her and Troilus (Finn Wittrock) into a less charismatic Romeo and Juliet.

Time Out New York C
(Adam Feldman) In Rattazzi’s exceptional comic performance, one glimpses an absorbing production that might have been, had director-adaptor Brian Kulick not elected to dualize and duel with his source material ... Kulick has gutted the play of many of its most mordant scenes, replacing them with excerpts, often in cumbersome rhyming couplets, from Thomas Heywood’s inferior 1610 epic The Iron Age. The resulting hybrid is historically wide but dramatically shallow. Many of the actors—including the excellent Finn Wittrock as Troilus, the beautiful Dylan Moore as Cressida and the well-grounded Steven Skybell as Ulysses—manage to offer affecting moments; others are less successful.

Backstage D
(Adam R. Perlman) Rather than develop the classical figures, Kulick paints them in broad comic strokes ... The performances are mostly atrocious, though I've seen enough of these actors do good work before that it's tough to hold them responsible. Watching them, I was reminded more than once of William Finn's tongue-in-cheek "Falsettos" lyric: "Four men marching but never mincing/Four men marching are so convincing." Well, nothing's convincing here, least of all the marching. Neither Menelaus (Luis Moreno) nor Paris (Craig Baldwin) shows any sexual interest in Helen (Tina Benko), yet Kulick denies the play its actual homosexual content by casting an attractive woman (Xanthe Elbrick) as Achilles' beloved Patroclus ... Thankfully, Mark Wendland's massive sandbox set, as boldly lit by Brian H. Scott, gives us something to look at. Their work isn't matched by costumer Oana Botez-Ban.

Village Voice D
(Alexis Soloski) The writing here may help to explain Heywood's obscurity: Paris' seduction employs various clunky couplets, such as, "For let me live, bright Helen to enjoy./Or let me never back re-sail to Troy." Perhaps Heywood should have back re-sailed to his writing desk. The action soon shifts to Troy and to Shakespeare's wonderfully cynical portrait of the drawn-out struggle. But Kulick has cut lots of Shakespeare to make room for more Heywood, and the plight of the young lovers divided barely registers. Kulick has hired some fine actors, though few performances register strongly and miscasting runs rampant: Craig Baldwin is a distinctly unromantic Paris, Elliot Villar an unmacho Hector. Though Brian H. Scott's lighting conjures stark images from Mark Wendland's set, Oana Botez-Ban's wrongheaded costumes trouble one's vision: She dresses the Greeks and Trojans alike and squeezes Tina Benko's Helen into a tawdry beaded cocktail dress. Is that the outfit that launched a thousand ships?

New York Times D
(Charles Isherwood) Were the actors involved naturally commanding and fluent in the language, the results might not be so draggy. But few make strong impressions. Steven Skybell is among the more distinguished classicists; as the smartly politicking Ulysses he is most impressive, although it is hard to believe Shakespeare’s character would participate in a boast-a-thon to win the armor of slain Achilles, as he does in a late scene from Heywood. Bill Christ has his moments as the dunderheaded Ajax. Elliot Villar’s Hector has a convincing fire in his gut. But for the most part the performers go through the motions of battle and retreat, bicker and boast, with little flair and less fluency. After a while you tire of watching them tromping around the clever sandbox set by Mark Wendland.

TheatreMania B 10; Variety C 7; Time Out New York C 7; Backstage D 4; Village Voice D 4; New York Times D 4. TOTAL: 36/6 = 6 (C-)

This

2009-12-03T11:19:00.012-05:00

GRADE: B-

By Melissa James Gibson. Directed by Daniel Aukin. Playwrights Horizons. (CLOSED)

Critics for the most part applaud Melissa James Gibson's witty writing for This, a play about a 30-something New Yorker dealing with the death of her husband, though a few critics write that some of the characters are undeveloped. As is often the case, critics see certain aspects of the play in a different light. Variety's Marilyn Stasio is frustrated by the lack of plot development, but this uncertainty is exactly what New York Post's Elizabeth Vincentelli likes about the play.

Backstage A+
(David Sheward) Gibson wisely keeps them from turning into whiners and gives them such expressive zingers as "I hate the word 'blog'; it sounds like a large accumulation of snot" and "I have no problem with self-involvement, except in others." They fight their battles of raging emotions with words as weapons. The vague title refers to the uncertain state of affairs created by their messy feelings. "What do we do about this?" asks Jane when Tom reveals his longing for her. Fortunately, the playwright is as specific in dealing with her characters' inner conflicts as her title is general. Director Daniel Aukin balances the razor-sharp observational comedy with naturalistic staging. Louisa Thompson's lived-in set, which looks like you could move right in, contributes to the lifelike atmosphere.

CurtainUp A+
(Elyse Sommer) Unlike sic and Suitcase which were staged at SoHoRep, a favorite with downtown theater goers, This introduces Melissa James Gibson to a broader audience at Playwrights Horizons' larger and considerably more comfortable Main Stage. Fortunately, the playwright has made the move uptown together with her SoHo Rep director Daniel Aukin and design team. Much of what makes This enjoyable to watch again owes a debt to their high energy, creative staging. With a larger playing area to work with, Louisa Thompson has created a very detailed and versatile loft apartment that accommodates such varied locations as Marrell and Tom's home, a park, the hallway of Jane's apartment, a jazz club and a TV studio — all mostly by means of some moving panels and a portable door. With the help of Thompson's evocatively lit set (kudos to Mark Frey) and by having the actors move the props as needed, Mr. Aukin achieves the scene to scene shifts quite seamlessly and without time consuming blackouts.

The New York Times A
(Charles Isherwood) The author of the quirky, cult-appeal comedies “[sic]” and “Suitcase,” both seen at the downtown powerhouse Soho Rep, Ms. Gibson graduates into the theatrical big leagues with this beautifully conceived, confidently executed and wholly accessible work, which is not just her finest to date but also the best new play to open Off Broadway this fall. Its confused but lovable characters are drawn with a fine focus and a piercing emotional depth; the dialogue sparkles with exchanges as truthful as they are clever; and as directed by Daniel Aukin, Ms. Gibson’s longtime collaborator, and performed by a flawless cast, the play’s delicate pace, richly patterned wordplay and undercurrent of rue combine to cast a moving spell that lingers in the memory, like a sad-sweet pop song whose chorus you can’t shake. This is entirely appropriate for a play about how we process love, hurt and loss by concocting tidy stories to recall our experience, or reshape it — and sometimes to frame a happier future too.

Associated Press A
(Michael Kuchwara) "This," which opened Wednesday at off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons, is a startling work, canny in the way it slowly draws you into the lives of five people creeping through middle-age. The writing is intellectually quirky yet emotionally satisfying. And if you think the subject matter sounds maudlin, don't worry. "This" is surprisingly tough-minded and funny, too.

Newsroom New Jersey A
(Michael Sommers) Up-and-coming author of the Obie-winning "[sic]" and "Suitcase," Gibson crafts very amusing, very actable conversation that somehow sounds like everyday currency. From a funny verbal party game in the first scene that neatly engages viewers and sets up the story, all the way through to a heartfelt closing monologue by Jane, Gibson's quick, cunning way with words is striking. Of course, viewers who don't care to listen will simply find "This" to be talky.

New York Post A-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) A large part of the play's appeal is that you're never quite sure what it's about or where it's going. The prospective romance between Jane (Julianne Nicholson) and Jean-Pierre (Louis Cancelmi) is quickly dropped. The attraction between married Tom (Darren Pettie) and Jane is revealed, then put on the back burner, though it may or may not have lasting consequences. Alan (Glenn Fitzgerald), craving love, steps to the forefront -- until we go back to Jane, who realized she never properly mourned her husband.

Theatermania B+
(Brian Scott Lipton) While each of the actors adds an invaluable element to the production, This does rest on Nicholson's slender shoulders. There are a few times when one isn't entirely sure if the actress is skilfully underplaying the part and showing us Jane's disconnectedness or if she hasn't grasped the import of what Gibson is trying to convey. Still, she handles the character's most crucial moments with a true sense of what it means to be a human being whose moral compass may have temporarily pointed in the wrong direction, but which is sure to return to its correct position.

Entertainment Weekly B+
(Tanner Stransky) This is a beautifully written, intelligent, and funny two-hour descent into the disarray of life. In some ways, Gibson unearths the plight of thirtysomethings in NYC much as the musical Avenue Q did for the city's twentysomethings — with the same bawdy humor. The subject matter — from the search for love to raising children — should hit home for any feeling person who isn't sleepwalking through life. But the way the friends act and relate — often with overly witty word choices and debates, reminiscent of the way Rory and Lorelai talked in Gilmore Girls — tends to feel inauthentic and fictional.

The Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) Occasionally, Gibson contrives a touch too baldly—her tormented souls just happen to have as their best friend a gay memory expert—or overworks a verbal tactic. Long stretches of beautifully vivid writing fall into brief gray patches of repetition, which might easily have been trimmed out except that her director, Daniel Aukin, was apparently fixated on some peripheral, and thoroughly superfluous, fancy business involving set pieces. Luckily, these minor visual nuisances can be ignored, since Aukin hasn't neglected his central task: getting from his cast five uniformly affecting performances, rich, detailed, and sensibly unshowy.

Time Out New York B-
(Helen Shaw) Oh, how the subversive can be subverted. Melissa James Gibson, author of the delectably weird plays [sic] and Suitcase, finally gets the glitzy production she deserves—and pop! The air goes out of her oddness. Did she deliberately turn her hand to more conventional fare? Or did some alchemy of uptown production convert her linguistic fairy gold into dross? To be fair, Gibson’s relationship drama This is leaden only in places, and joy can still be had from her delicate, pointilist dialogue. But considered in its entirety, This could easily be mistaken for any number of interchangeable thirtysomething-inspired thats.

Newsday C+
(Linda Winer) These people apologize constantly and are always complaining about being sleep deprived. The friends include a gay Jewish sardonic sidekick, a stock character we haven't seen in weeks, and a black woman who stops the action twice to sing plaintive pseudo-Laura Nyro songs. Gibson still writes articulate people, but, this time, her story and its emotional content feel both scattered and slick.

Talkin' Broadway C-
(Matthew Murray) Eleven years after its final episode aired, Seinfeld amazingly maintains its grip on our cultural language. The latest example, This, Melissa James Gibson’s new play at Playwrights Horizons, is one of the baldest yet. Paying adoring homage in every way except the deep seriousness of its underlying intent, it captures exactly that classic TV show’s super-slick aesthetic but not much of its magic... Gibson has chiseled some brilliant jokes and repartee into her play, but they never quite fit comfortably within the plot’s darker, starker dramatic framework. The loss, the anger, and the disintegrating trust that drive these people are conducted apart from the comedy, so the two halves are constantly battling rather than helping each other attain new heights. If pressed, I’d say the drama loses, because it has the furthest to go. But so many of the gags are in-and-out, two-second affairs, it can’t be said there are any real winners.

Variety D+
(Marilyn Stasio) What's not to like about "This," a dark little friendship dramedy by Obie and Kesselring Prize-winning playwright (for "[sic]") Melissa James Gibson? The characters -- a tight group of friends who play well together despite their private griefs and unaired secrets -- are personable and, in scribe's snappy dialogue, extremely articulate. Under Daniel Aukin's direction, the performances in this character-driven play are also virtually flawless. But here's the rub: there's no true "this" about "This," which has little action and less plot, no character revelation worth the wait, and ultimately no cohesive point to emerge from all the clever palaver.

NorthJersey.com F+
(Robert Feldberg) Except for Jean-Pierre, who's presented as a role model of passion and purpose, everyone is anxious, dissatisfied and confused about where life is taking them. Their situation as representatives of a generation isn't terribly original or stimulating. And as individuals, they're so sketchily drawn they barely have identities beyond their names. Director Daniel Aukin warrants blame for not integrating the original moments more vividly into the rest of the play. He can also be called out for the lackluster performances, although Gibson's periodic attacks of the cutes certainly don't help the actors.

Lighting & Sound America F+
(David Barbour) For the rest of two acts, the four characters get together in various combinations for conversation, usually with drinks, while Jane worries about the ticking bomb of her adulterous secret. This would be fine if the talk were more amusing or the people more interesting. Too much of the time, however, the dialogue doesn't get beyond low-level cocktail chatter. "I hate that the word 'blog' sounds like a large accumulation of snot," says Jane. "My career is an American movie and what I've just now realized is it wants to be a foreign film," muses Alan. "I want to pick your brain," somebody asks. "Sounds messy," is the reply. This approach is especially unhelpful in trying to illuminate the reasons why the characters are stuck in neutral. "Death is such a killjoy," says Jane, who can't quite let her deceased husband go. Alan, who capriciously decides he wants to be a humanitarian -- probably because he thinks Jean-Pierre is pretty hot -- wonders, "How do you break into doing good?" When Jane and Tom's little secret is finally let out, the impact is fairly nil, because everybody is too busy trying to crack wise.

Bloomberg News F
(John Simon) Worse than a play that is merely poor is one that is also annoying. Such a play was Melissa James Gibson’s “[sic]” and such now at Playwrights Horizons is her new one, “This.” You may find the title suspect, but what else can you call a play that is about nothing? Gibson reveals herself as a master of cuteness, smugness and pretentiousness. “This” begins with a kind of word game played by the five characters... The word game is stretched beyond our tolerance, as is everything else here. There is infinite repetition, talk about and around talk, jejune word play, not very funny verbal one- upmanship and the least possible action, most of it unconvincing.

Backstage A+ 14; CurtainUp A+ 14; The New York Times A 13; AP A 13; Newsroom New Jersey A 13; New York Post A- 12; Theatermania B+ 11; EW B+ 11; The Village Voice B+ 11; TONY B- 9; Newsday C+ 8; Talkin' Broadway C- 6; Variety D+ 5; NorthJersey.com F+ 2; Lighting & Sound America F+ 2; Bloomberg News F 1; TOTAL: 145/16 = 9.06 (B-)

Streetcar Named Desire

2009-12-03T10:52:00.010-05:00

GRADE: B+

Photo: Sarah Krulwich

By Tennessee Williams. Directed by Liv Ullman(!), At BAM Through December 20th

After a three year absence, Cate Blanchett has returned with yet another outsized performance in a revival of a shopworn classic. Last time, it was Hedda, this time, it's Blanche. Even those critics who don't particularly care for the production (Zacharek, McNulty and Vincentelli) have nothing but effusive praise for Blanchett's performance of the fading southern Belle. Yaysayers (particularly the Times and Backstage, the production's major champions) praise Liv Ullman's at-times sneakily radical take on the play.

NYTimes A+
(Ben Brantley) With this Streetcar, the ghosts of Leigh — and, for that matter, of Marlon Brando, the original Stanley — remain in the wings. All the baggage that any “Streetcar” usually travels with has been jettisoned. Ms. Ullmann and Ms. Blanchett have performed the play as if it had never been staged before, with the result that, as a friend of mine put it, “you feel like you’re hearing words you thought you knew pronounced correctly for the first time.”

Time Out New York A+
(David Cote) Director Liv Ullmann (yes, the Swedish film star) has conjured a haunting, visceral production drenched in jazz, achieving the perfect balance of style and grit to match Williams’s poetic realism. Ullmann’s Australian cast is, furthermore, one of the most fiercely physical you will see. Their sweaty, kinetic repertoire runs the gamut from scarily believable slaps and punches to lusty tumbles in bed. Going forward, this is the Streetcar to which other revivals should aspire

Backstage A+
(Erik Haagensen) One thing's for sure: Liv Ullmann's production of this Tennessee Williams classic is not your parents' "Streetcar." A penetratingly intelligent actor herself, Ullmann brings her keen sense of character to her direction, making bold and unusual choices that nevertheless feel fully grounded in psychological truth. She gets us to look at this story and these characters in fresh ways, and anyone who can accomplish that with a play so embedded in our culture deserves every one of the accolades certain to be tossed her way.

Bloomberg A
(John Simon) This production achieves a more than fair share of the premiere’s luster, and not only in the dazzle of Cate Blanchett’s Blanche, but also in much else, starting with Ralph Myers’s set design, with Ullmann’s indubitable input. The Kowalski dump is now grubbier and more Spartan than ever. But its underfurnished spareness allows the often intensely physical confrontations a more untrammeled arena for rampaging vehemence.

NY1 A
(Roma Torre) Blanchett at first seems a little too put together, too much the movie star to do justice to the role but this approach enables her to unravel in spectacular fashion. And she presents a desperate soul clinging to the barest threads to keep from going under. Her gentleman caller scenes with Mitch, played movingly by Tim Richards, are truly heartbreaking. Robin McLeavy has a fine moment-to-moment earthiness as Stella and Joel Edgerton recalls Marlon Brando's Stanley in voice and manner though he claims the role for himself ultimately with a carnality that is both repulsive and convincing. At three hours plus, this is a streetcar that takes its time, making the journey from simple desire to delusion to abject cruelty. And hopeless as it all may seem, Ms. Ullman and company have us riveted to our seats.

Reuters A
(Frank Scheck) Liv Ullmann's numerous film collaborations with Ingmar Bergman serve her well in her staging of "A Streetcar Named Desire," which has just landed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a limited engagement after sold-out runs in Sydney and Washington. The veteran actress has delivered a knockabout production that beautifully captures the shifting emotional states of Tennessee Williams' classic play, and her expert guidance has elicited sterling performances not only from Cate Blanchett as Blanche DuBois but also by the entire little-known ensemble.

Associated Press A-
(Michael Kuchwara) Subtlety is out, which may be a good thing because, scenically at least, this stripped-down revival with its dour, dingy setting looks a little lost on the wide, expansive Harvey stage. Yet the luminous Blanchett moves as if she owns it. Right from the start, when this pale, blond Blanche, dressed primly in a powder-blue outfit, sits fidgeting on the side of the stage, you can't take your eyes off her.

On Off Broadway A-
(Matt Windman) The Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Tennessee Williams’ 1947 landmark play A Streetcar Named Desire, which is playing Brooklyn Academy of Music for a limited run, marks the American directorial debut of 70-year-old Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann. The detailed production features many nuanced performances and many unexpected and original moments of staging. But too often Ullmann indulges in gratuitous bits of surprise that unnecessarily slow down the drama. For instance, Stanley and Blanche are now seen together in bed just after he rapes her.

TheaterMania B+
(Andy Propst) Theatergoers lucky enough to catch Cate Blanchett's astounding performance as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, now playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre, will find the Academy Award-winning actress has cast this iconic role in an entirely fresh, and ultimately harrowing, light.

Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) Streetcar itself, currently on view in a production from Sydney starring Cate Blanchett (BAM Harvey Theater), demonstrates that it can get along nicely without pathos. Harsh-toned, slow, and occasionally a little crude, the staging, by Liv Ullmann, sometimes magnifies Tennessee Williams's strokes of casual realism, like the elevated train that thunders past the Kowalski residence, into giant symbolic stature, giving the play a slightly stilted air. Instead of hurting, this only makes us realize how iconic everything in Streetcar has become, worldwide.

NY Daily News B+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) By and large, this "Streetcar" is built for one - it's Blanche's story. The casting of Blanchett, one of the heads of STC, has made this show one of the hottest tickets in town. So it's fitting that Blanche's shattered face is the first and last image seen in this three-hour-plus show. It's a haunting sight, and the memory of it lingers long after this vehicle departs.

The Faster Times B+
(Jonathan Mandell) It is safe to say that Joel Edgerton’s performance as Stanley in the current production does not revolutionize acting in America, or even in Brooklyn. The animal is there, but I didn’t see enough of the animal magnetism, which would explain Stella’s attraction to Stanley and bring out the undercurrent of sexual tension in his brutality towards Blanche, or at least make his resentment towards her more understandable. Here he taunts her with rude gestures, throws her radio out the window. Thus Blanche here seems more victimized than self-destructive: We excuse her lies (who isn’t a lush and a fallen woman these days?) , and find her disheveled deterioration almost unwatchable – except of course we must watch, because Cate Blanchett makes us pay attention, in a performance so alive and real it feels painful.

Entertainment Weekly B+
(Melissa Rose Bernardo) That Blanchett is brilliant comes as no surprise. Some may question the casting of the tall, square-shouldered, steely-eyed actress as the fading, fragile Blanche; but her fair skin and beautiful bone structure — which appear so strong on screen — somehow absorb the light on stage, giving her an almost translucent, porcelain-doll look. (And costume designer Tess Schofield has heaps of fun playing dress-up with this doll — a blue ruffle-sleeved chiffon dress, a jade burnt-out silk robe, layer upon layer of taffeta, even a feather boa. This Blanche could be red-carpet ready in an instant.)

New Yorker B
(John Lahr) Thrilling... It’s part of Blanchett’s great accomplishment that she makes Blanche’s self-loathing as transparent and dramatic as her self-regard. She hits every rueful note of humor and regret in Williams’s dialogue....Ullmann’s direction delivers so much pleasure that it’s a shame that, at the finale, she doesn’t deliver the play’s meaning. In her staging of the rape scene that drives Blanche over the edge, Blanche collapses on the bed, only to have her degradation prettified by an invented postcoital dumb show. When, some weeks later, the demented Blanche is taken to a sanitarium, she doesn’t, contrary to Williams’s stage directions, get herself up in the regalia of normalcy, a performance of dignity that, in other stagings, gives genuine pathos to her exit. Instead, still in her slip and bare feet, clutching the doctor with both hands, Blanche is led into the bright light of day like a loony Daisy Mae from “Li’l Abner” ’s Dogpatch. Ullmann’s reductive decisions build to vulgar sentimentality, with Blanche isolated in a spotlight and lost in her own internal music as the curtain falls. Although this doesn’t spoil the evening, it’s a woeful miscalculation.

Variety B-
(David Rooney) Cate Blanchett begins and ends her slow-burning performance as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire pinned in a spotlight. At first, she cowers, frail and terrified upon arrival in an unwelcoming environment; later, she stretches her willowy body into the light, utterly broken yet perhaps strangely liberated. For a woman who has clung so desperately to the forgiving artifice of a paper lantern rather than face the harsh truth of a naked bulb, the radical shift in attitude underscores the cruel irony that her defeat may also be a release. However, such illumination comes only intermittently during the three intervening hours of Liv Ullmann's inconsistent production.

LA Times C+
(Charles McNulty) Erratic...The direction is particularly weak in moving actors across Ralph Myers’ two-tiered set, which is distinguished by a dingy pink depiction of Stanley and Stella’s downstairs apartment. Exits and entrances muddle the stage geography, and logistical miscues (a radio that loses sound before Stanley flings it out the window) only compound the general uncertainty. Equally awkward are the transitions between realism and expressionism, which Williams, like Blanche, thought best to leave unpartitioned.

Wall St. Journal C+
(Terry Teachout) As it happens, this is the first "Streetcar" I've seen whose cast and production team are entirely foreign—Ms. Ullmann is Norwegian, everyone else Australian—and it occurred to me more than once that they were all bending over backwards to give us an idiomatically American "Streetcar," right down to the (mostly excellent) accents. The problem is that seasoned American theatergoers have seen the play and/or the movie many, many times, and don't really need to see it done again in yet another high-strung school-of-Elia-Kazan version. Ms. Blanchett is the chief offender: Her ultraflighty Blanche is so twitchy from the first scene onward that she has nowhere to go but straight into the stratosphere of overacting, and the bottled-in-bond contralto in which she exhales such trademark lines as "I want magic" and "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" sounds as though she were channeling Tallulah Bankhead.

New York Post C+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) If it seems I’m too focused on the show’s star, it’s because there’s not all that much to talk about outside of her performance. McLeavy is a pragmatic Stella, and her scenes with Edgerton’s Stanley are finely realized. He’s a hunk with a chiseled upper body, and you buy their sexual attraction. But when he’s up against Blanchett, Edgerton fares only ably — and “ably” just isn’t enough in this play. What should be a heated clash coursing with hate, resentment and a dash of lust ends up being too one-sided.

New York Magazine D
(Stephanie Zacharek) As Williams wrote her, Blanche is a feather doomed to the painfully ordinary fate of floating down to earth. Ullmann will have no floating here. Unvarnished and dour, right down to Ralph Myers’s aggressively bare Honeymooners-style set, the show is pedestrian when it should be poetic, and the actors rattle around in its spacious emptiness. Joel Edgerton’s Stanley, in particular, can’t find his footing. His well-oiled, eye-popping muscles are right for the part, but he plays Stanley, in all his crudeness, as if he were a lunkhead Edward Burns toughie from South Boston instead of a miserable beast who clings as tenaciously to his fantasy of male superiority as Blanche does to her tattered ideals.

BS A+ 14; TONY A+ 14; NYT A+ 14; BB A 13; NY1 A 13; REu A 13; AP A- 12; OOB A- 12; NYDN B+ 11; EW B+ 11; TM B+ 11; VV B+ 11; TNY B 10; V B- 9; NYP C+ 8; WSJ C+ 8; LAT C+ 8; NYM D 4; TOTAL: 196/18= 10.89 B+

The Starry Messenger

2009-11-24T13:08:00.014-05:00

GRADE: C+

Written and Directed by Kenneth Lonergan. At Theater Row. (CLOSED)

Whenever the Times gives a show a bad review but everyone else likes it, we here at Critic-O-Meter tend to get an appreciative e-mail. This will not be one of those days. Despite numerous highly-positive-to-ecstatic reviews of Kenneth Lonergan's new, rumor-of-disaster-besotted play about a nebbishy academic beginning a half-hearted affair during a midlife crisis, naysayers bring the score down considerably. This is one of those crop of reviews where you begin to wonder if everyone saw the same play. Elegantly staged on Derek Lane's beautiful set or flatly staged on Derek Lane's overly-cluttered and awkward set? Matthew Broderick redeems himself with a nuanced, graceful performance or shows himself to be in a career rut with another identical sad sack? Lonergan as director brings out hidden nuances in his script or is self-indulgent and slows the pace down to a crawl? It depends on which reviewers you trust.

Time Out New York A+
(David Cote) Because The Starry Messenger is a Kenneth Lonergan play (which he also directs with a uniformly excellent cast), his characters don’t follow the typical build-and-release emotional arc, nor does he mechanically twist his plot. Sure, there are moments of crisis and gentle revelation, and a tragic event takes place (offstage), but the genius of Lonergan’s approach is to achieve breathtakingly specific and genuine epiphanies through finely tuned dialogue that flows organically from each situation. He evinces a wry sympathy for his creations, balancing glimmers of kindness against a vaster expanse of gloomy resignation.

New York Times A+
(Ben Brantley) The gentle, compassionate comic drama that opened on Monday night at the Acorn Theater has the sweet taste of redemption. It re-establishes Mr. Lonergan, who hasn’t had a new play on the boards since 2001, as a possessor of all the crucial parts of a good dramatist’s anatomy: a critical mind, an empathetic heart and a musical ear that hears whole lives in sentences. And Mr. Broderick delivers his finest, most affecting performance in years. This kindly reversal of fortune for two beleaguered talents feels of a piece with The Starry Messenger, a work that asks for a little patience in considering fallible, contradictory, lonely souls who can never quite articulate what’s missing in their lives but always feel the void. Placing human desires in the overwhelming and indifferent context of the cosmos, this portrait of a dangerously passive astronomy professor is about — not forgiving, which is too grand a word — but accepting the built-in limitations that come with being mortal.

Wall Street Journal A+
(Terry Teachout) The Starry Messenger is an engrossing study of the toll that prolonged disappointment exacts on the human spirit, performed with consummate skill by an ensemble cast led by Matthew Broderick and staged with unassuming finesse by Mr. Lonergan himself...It says much about the nature of Mr. Lonergan's gifts that for all the seeming obviousness of the plot of The Starry Messenger, you'll never be able to guess what happens next. He is a theatrical alchemist who transforms the commonplace by portraying it with quiet honesty and charging it with moral complexity.

Newday A+
(Linda Winer) The Starry Messenger is a quietly marvelous play - rambling, perhaps, but engrossing, thoughtful and richly believable. Lonergan...returns to the theater after eight movie years with a sprawling, mature, leisurely profound serious comedy about everyday desperation and cosmic mysteries. Broderick gives an exquisitely detailed portrayal of yet another of his passive characters, a disappointed middle-aged astronomer named Mark who has almost disappeared inside the discomfort in his own skin. Instead of doing "real" astronomy, he teaches the beginning adult-education course at the Hayden Planetarium - the old building, about to be replaced by the modern one in 1995.

TalkinBroadway A-
(Matthew Murray) Is the final product perfect? By no means. Preview articles spun horror stories of Lonergan’s almost constant cutting and rewriting, and his three-hour play still feels unbalanced, with noticeable stretches of dead air. And no honest assessment of Broderick - who’s better here than he’s been in years - is possible without admitting that, likely because of those constant changes, he’s still somewhat shaky on his lines in almost every scene. But to grant undue attention to these problems is to overlook a legitimately lovely piece of writing that entertains, enlightens, and engages throughout. Mark’s saga is a pointed and sobering one that highlights the debilitating malaise that can overcome all of us when we discover that our adulthood is neither what we’ve planned nor what we’ve tried to make it. And as this milquetoast professor tries to balance a career looking at the stars with being too timid to rise to walk among them, Lonergan even points the path to a solution.

NYPost A-
(Frank Scheck) It's sluggishly paced, overflowing with sub plots and nearly three hours long. So why is "The Starry Messenger" so moving? Maybe it's because there's so much empathy for its characters that all of them, even the unseen ones, seem to possess a deep inner life. Kenneth Lonergan's tale of the unlikely affair between a morose, middle-aged astronomy teacher and a vibrant younger woman may be a rambling one, but its messiness is the messiness of life.

Variety B
(David Rooney) "Nobody knows anything," says a character who has spent time staring into the abyss in The Starry Messenger. "We're all just guessing." That may be true, but playwright-director Kenneth Lonergan sure knows how to enrich the process of fumbling reflection, lacing questions large and small, about ourselves and the cosmos, with characteristic sensitivity, compassion and humor. While it's frustrating at times and too unhurried, this melancholy, resolutely non-judgmental mid-life crisis drama creeps up on you. It smartly refuses forced epiphanies in favor of quiet contemplation, with an intimacy that reverberates across the night sky blanketing the walls of Derek McLane's set.

Lighting and Sound America B-
(David Barbour) Even with its lively cast and multitude of amusing lines, there's no getting around the fact that, at three hours, The Starry Messenger is desperately in need of cutting. (It doesn't help that, after all that time, the play ends on an unresolved note.) It plays like an extremely promising first draft. The script, by all accounts, has been around for a long time, and had a difficult time during previews. Is it too late to take a second look, prune away the excess details, and find the touching, melancholy comedy inside?

The Faster Times C-
(Jonathan Mandell) This, I hope, is a fair summary of The Starry Messenger and it probably took you two minutes to read. The play itself, which has opened on Theater Row, runs three hours. If there is much to admire in it, from some fine acting to a number of witty exchanges, “The Starry Messenger” as a whole seemed less than the sum of its parts, promising me a far more rewarding experience than it delivered.

TheaterMania D+
(Dan Balcalzo) There are several poignant and compelling moments scattered throughout Kenneth Lonergan's overstuffed new play, The Starry Messenger, currently being presented by The New Group at Theatre Row. Unfortunately, lackluster lead performances from Matthew Broderick and Catalina Sandino Moreno work against the subtle layering of emotion within the playwright's script. And with a running time of nearly three hours, the production -- directed by Lonergan -- tends to drag.

Associated Press D
(Michael Kuchwara) There's enough material for several plays in The Starry Messenger, Kenneth Lonergan's sluggish, soggy, mid-life-crisis tale starring Matthew Broderick as an ineffectual astronomy instructor, husband, father and lover. The drama, which The New Group opened Monday at off-Broadway's Acorn Theatre, is awash in meandering talk, conversations that push toward the three-hour mark without much resolution — or relief. And Lonergan has directed his own play, set in 1995, at such a dawdling pace that its actors might be accused of loitering.

NY Daily News D-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Matthew Broderick needs to call a moratorium on middle-aged mopes. His doormat du jour, Mark, an astronomy teacher in The Starry Messenger, blurs with the ones he played in The Philanthropist and The Odd Couple. Broderick is a likable actor, but these inert performances are depleting the goodwill he's banked from better stage and film work. Kenneth Lonergan...is the brains behind this three-hour misfire. Lonergan also directs, and the pace is dialed to "snail."

New Jersey Newsroom F+
(Michael Sommers) Boosted to Off Broadway prominence in part by premiering This Is Our Youth back in 1996, The New Group apparently repays the author by permitting Lonergan to produce this show exactly as he pleased. Had Lonergan been convinced to edit down his often repetitive text — by like an hour or so — a better play might emerge from under the excessive weight. Although it's nice in theory to see a theater company give an established artist the room to fail creatively, it's a pity audiences still have to watch the unfortunate results.

New York Magazine F+
(Scott Brown) With no gravitational center, The Starry Messenger drifts, character orbits loosen and unmoor themselves, and the best moments (most of which involve the superb supporting cast, notably J. Smith-Cameron as Mark’s fussy, fixating wife) spiral off into the dark. Large swaths of dialogue become mere talk. I’ve never heard theatrical speech sound so dispiritingly, stupefyingly mimetic of actual human conversation, in all of its droning tedium. It’s too bad Lonergan doesn’t trust his own silences. Instead, he nervously fills the space (bounded by a pitiless black-walled star-chamber set that instantly suffocates what little light and heat the play gives off) with maundering yammer, false starts, and, deep in the second act, a shockingly miscalculated Hail Mary of melodrama. When he gets stuck—and he gets stuck a lot—Lonergan shows us the stars, but what little we can actually see, through all that writerly debris, is nebulous.

Backstage F
(David Sheward) This script meanders, and the crises faced by its characters come across as either mundane or forced. In addition, Lonergan should have turned the staging reins over to another director. The pacing is glacial, and there are several blocking problems on Derek McLane's cluttered set. Broderick repeats his hangdog, lifeless limning from The Philanthropist, only this time his character's subject is astronomy rather than the history of words.

NorthJersey F-
(Robert Feldberg) One-quarter of the scenes could have been eliminated, and the rest severely pruned, and the core story would have remained intact. The play might not have been better, but at least the audience could have gone home earlier...Broderick and Lonergan have been friends since boyhood, and Smith-Cameron is Lonergan's wife, which explains their involvement. Why the respected New Group chose to produce the play is something their subscribers might want to know.

NYT A+ 14; TONY A+ 14; ND A+ 14; WSJ A+ 14; TB A- 12; NYP A- 12; V B 10; LSA B 9; TFT C-6; TM D+ 5; AP D 4; NYDN D- 3; NYM F+ 2; NJNR F+ 2; BS F 1; NJ F- 0; 122 /16 = 7.63(C+)

Zero Hour

2009-11-24T11:54:00.011-05:00

GRADE: B+

By Jim Brochu. Directed by Piper Laurie. St. Clement's Theatre. Through Jan. 31.

Jim Brochu's spot-on impersonation of Zero Mostel in Zero Hour wins over most critics, but a few say that the writing suffers from cheesy jokes and a weak conceit--an interview with an offstage reporter. Edit: a few more positive reviews have come in, praising Brochu for revealing multiple sides of Mostel.

The New Yorker A
(Unsigned) The artifice of theatre is especially fragile when it comes to one-person shows, but the writer-actor Jim Brochu and the director Piper Laurie have navigated all the potential hazards in this production.

Theatermania A
(David Finkle) In the entertaining Zero Hour, now at St. Clement's Church, writer-performer Jim Brochu impersonates girthful, mirthful actor Zero Mostel so accurately that his performance is tantamount to a reincarnation. From head to toe, he's got it right; he has Mostel's ludicrous yet somehow distinguished pushed-forward hair-do; he moves with Mostel's light-footedness; he has the facial expressions that include eyebrows traveling far up the forehead; and he has those famed busy-busy hands and booming voice.

Time Out New York A
(Adam Feldman) From the moment that Brochu spins around to face the audience, he is a Hirschfeld drawing come to pulsing life: the paradoxical lightness of his bulk, the bulging eyes beneath rolling brows, the garish comb-forward of hair. There is a good deal of aggression built into Mostel’s humor; he rim-shots many of his Borscht Belt one-liners by snapping into a comic mask of mischievous challenge, somewhere between a grin and a snarl. In Brochu’s account, he has many grapes of wrath to stomp, stemming from two traumatic rejections: by his parents, after his marriage to a non-Jewish woman, and by much of the entertainment world when he was blacklisted for his Marxist sympathies. Brochu limns these episodes nimbly in his script, but under Piper Laurie’s sharp directorial eye, his performance never grows maudlin.

New York Post A
(Frank Scheck) By most accounts, the actor was an outrageous and often surly individual, traits Brochu certainly doesn't ignore in his mostly admiring portrait. In fact, "Zero Hour" does an excellent job of resisting caricatures and conveying Mostel's hidden depths. Especially strong are the sections detailing his blacklisting in the '50s and his friendship with actor Philip Loeb (TV's "The Goldbergs"), who committed suicide when his career was destroyed by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

CurtainUp A
(Simon Saltzman) It would be easy to forget perhaps that Brochu's play and his perceptive performance owe much to the precisely paced direction of Piper Laurie. Although Laurie is known to many of us of a certain age as a lovely B-films star in the 1950s, it is her subsequent theater and TV career that brought her accolades and a long overdue appreciation of her talent. She has been a guiding force for Zero Hour from its inception in 2005, through its development stage and its initial runs in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. There is no question that the force was with her as it is with Brochu's portrayal.

Backstage A
(Erik Haagensen) The centerpiece of "Zero Hour" is the McCarthy era and the blacklist, of which Mostel was a target and which led a dear friend, actor Phillip Loeb, to suicide. Brochu delivers this part of the evening with caustic wit and striking passion, making us understand in the most visceral way the price Mostel and many others paid for their convictions. It also provides an effective first-act curtain, something generally hard to come by in one-person shows. Brochu's writing is necessarily bold considering his subject, but there's also a welcome subtlety. After Mostel has related the tale of Loeb's suicide, the reporter questions the means of the actor's death, having found differently in his research. Mostel's response: "You're asking an actor for truth?" Later, we see Mostel inventing his legacy when he discusses "Forum" and says that Harold Prince hired authors Larry Gelbart, Burt Shevelove, and Stephen Sondheim only after Mostel deemed the script submitted to him "god-awful." Not true, of course.

Associated Press A
(Jennifer Farrar) Whether sitting at a table or hurling himself around a re-creation of Mostel's beloved watercolor-painting studio, Brochu gives an enthusiastic, unrestrained performance as the outsize, opinionated, triple Tony Award-winning actor. He looks uncannily like Mostel, complete with weirdly forward-combed hair, bulging eyes and a wide range of expressive stares and wild gesticulation. With wonderful comedic timing, Brochu covers highlights of Mostel's life by having his character give an often intense, occasionally true interview to an unseen, unheard newspaper reporter. Brochu repeats the question, then launches into his version of the answer.

NY1 A
(David Cote) What a shame "The Producers" closed back in 2007. I’ve found the perfect actor to play Max Bialystock: Jim Brochu. He’s chubby, funny, and has killer comic timing. Okay, I admit this casting idea is a no-brainer. In "Zero Hour," Brochu does an uncanny impersonation of legendary comedian Zero Mostel, the original Max Bialystock. In this solo bioplay directed by Hollywood veteran Piper Laurie, writer and performer Brochu is freakishly convincing as the blustery, brilliant Mostel.

Variety A-
(Sam Thielman) The screechy, bellowing cadence Brochu uses to blast the audience with this punchline gives us pretty much everything we need to know about the show's version of Mostel in less than a second: willfully obnoxious, obscene whenever it suits him, but oddly anxious to please people even if -- maybe especially if -- it makes him look like a buffoon. Brochu's knack for characterizing Mostel is somewhat more interesting than his avatar's hand-wringing over the blacklist, which comes off as a little sanctimonious, discussing it in the same breath as the Holocaust. Which is not to say that section of the play lacks interesting, eerie moments. When Feds walk into Mostel's apartment and stand there looking around, saying nothing, Brochu evokes the kind of prickle on the back of the neck usually delivered by David Lynch movies.

The New York Times B-
(Jason Zinoman) I don’t know how many hours Mr. Brochu, who also wrote the script, has spent in front of a mirror practicing his eye rolls and bellowing quips, but it has paid off. He’s the spitting image of the bearish Mostel, down to the strands of hair barely covering his head. His wildly expressive gestures are particularly spot on. Of course this is not a performance designed really to get at the private life of the actor so much as it’s a cranky version of the Mostel we know. It brings him back to life, just the way his fans want him.

Talkin' Broadway D
(Matthew Murray) Whether Mostel is sawing through the air with his hands, raging against those who’ve done him wrong or the infelicities of fate, or warmly rhapsodizing about his marriage or painting pursuits, Brochu fully embodies his character’s irrepressible and unpredictable spirit in his portrayal. If only there were some in his writing. Brochu has loaded his play with one-liners that seem intended to identify Mostel as the ultimate always-on comedian, but they hardly portray him as a dynamically original comic genius. Examples include “Close the door behind you, you’re letting the flies out”; referring to London: “God, that’s going to be a beautiful city when it’s finished”; “My life is an open zipper”; and, when answering the phone, “Palestinian Anti-Defamation League, this is Yasser speaking.” And that’s just the first half of the first act! Are you laughing yet? Timing, as they say, is everything, and Zero Hour doesn’t have it.

Lighting & Sound America D-
(David Barbour) First of all, there are the lame jokes -- bushels of them-- that come thick and fast. "My life is an open zipper," he reassures his interrogator. Answering the phone, he coos, "Palestinian Anti-Defamation League....Yasir speaking." Dismissing his first wife, he says, "Clara had the sense of humor of a grapefruit." Comparing her to his second wife, he adds, "Katie had the face of a Rockette. Clara had the face of a rock." Brochu hurls these would-be zingers with remarkable force, a strategy that only further exposes the poverty of the gags. Which brings us to the second problem: Mostel was, by all accounts, a bizarre personality -- bitterly contentious one moment, seductively charming the next. His moods came a mile a minute, which, I suppose, was part of his fascination. But Brochu plays him on a single note of accusatory rage, a strategy that becomes increasingly wearying.

The New Yorker A 13; Theatermania A 13; TONY A 13; New York Post A 13; CurtainUp A 13; Backstage A 13; AP A 13; NY1 A 13; Variety A- 12; The New York Times B- 9; Talkin' Broadway D 4; Lighting & Sound America D- 3; TOTAL: 132/12 = 11 (B+)

Fela!

2009-11-24T11:02:00.020-05:00

GRADE: A-

Photo by Monique Carboni
Book by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones. Music and lyrics by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Choreographed and directed by Jones. Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

The wallflowers are few at Bill T. Jones' exuberant Afrobeat dance party, transferred triumpantly from last year's Off-Broadway run at 37 Arts. Critics go wild for the choreography, music, costumes and the charismatic lead performance of Sahr Nguajah (with some props for his alternate, Kevin Mambo), and most don't mind the nonlinear book or the show's political and spiritual digressions. A few naysayers, though, are left cold, and even many cheerleaders voice a big caveat: Will Broadway audiences take this blunt-smoking 1970s African revolutionary to their hearts?

The New York Times A+
(Ben Brantley) The hot (and seriously cool) energy that comes from the musical gospel preached by the title character of “Fela!”...feels as if it could stretch easily to the borders of Manhattan and then across a river or two. Anyone who worried that Bill T. Jones’s singular, sensational show might lose its mojo in transferring to Broadway can relax...It has...acquired greater focus, clarity and intensity...There has never been anything on Broadway like this production...Doesn’t so much tell a story as soak an audience to and through the skin with the musical style and sensibility practiced by its leading man...Irresistible music is always more than its individual parts, though. The sum of them here captures the spirit of rebellion — against repression, inhibition and conformity — that dwells within all of us, but which most of us have repressed by early middle age...The astonishment of “Fela!” is that it transmits the force of this musical language in ways that let us feel what it came out of and how it traveled through a population...By the end of this transporting production, you feel you have been dancing with the stars. And I mean astral bodies, not dime-a-dozen celebrities.

Time Out NY A
(David Cote) Although Jones proved in 2006’s Spring Awakening that he could play the Broadway game, adapting his modern-dance aesthetic to musical storytelling (and garnering a Tony), who knew he was this much of a showman? Working with book cowriter Jim Lewis, a fierce dancing corps and the sexy, commanding Ngaujah, Jones has orchestrated a soul-scorching mash-up of pounding African dance, political protest and intoxicating Afrobeat...Fela! is more than a musical; it’s an ecstatic phenomenon. The piece is also more than the sum of its overlapping genres: dance party, musical bioplay, agitprop rally, tribute concert.

The Faster Times A
(Jonathan Mandell) Now Fela! has opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, giving to those who had only heard about Fela a chance to learn as if first-hand the life of this extraordinary man and a chance to see a musical that is unlike any that has been on Broadway.Theater people like to say things like that, and of course some of the best musicals in Broadway history were unlike any that preceded them in some ways. “Fela!” is so awesomely different that even to attempt to describe it in Broadway terms risks being laughed off the Internet –“Lion King” meets “Rent”? That doesn’t contain it.

The Daily News A
(Joe Dziemianowicz) As rowdy as it is rousing...Blends irresistibly catchy music, explosive dance and a dramatic personal journey to tell the story of a songwriter and political activist who died at age 58 in 1997. Since its run at 37 Arts, writers Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones, who also directed and choreographed, trimmed about 15 minutes but have kept its ferociously infectious spirit intact. And, wisely, the same dazzling actor Sahr Ngaujah, who makes a big, bold and ridiculously sexy Broadway debut as Fela (as he came to be called)..."Fela!" doesn't unfold in a neat, linear narrative. It's more freeform, like Afrobeat itself..."Fela!" is one of the most original and exciting shows to come around in a long while. It deserves its berth on Broadway — and that exclamation point.

New York Magazine A
(Dan Kois) As an evening’s entertainment, Fela! is without peer: two and a half hours of electrifying music, astonishing dancing, and virtuosic stagecraft, anchored by a star turn as charismatic, and as taxing, as I’ve ever seen on Broadway. How charismatic? Fela’s a ringmaster, a bandleader, and the cult guru of the Shrine. And how taxing? He rarely leaves the stage, singing and dancing and joking like a demon—oh, and visiting his dead mother in the underworld. It’s draining enough that two actors alternate the role.

Bloomberg News A
(John Simon) A great humane and transcendent fable come to life, with everything “fable” implies: mythic, fabulous and a supreme lesson in living, here supplied magisterially by choreographer Bill T. Jones and his star, Sahr Ngaujah...Less structured than your typical Broadway musical but surely more encompassing than most...As perfect a concert as it is a show. Then there is the dance recital. Jones, who also directed, has devised spectacular African-inspired dances that fill every centimeter of the two-tiered set, repeatedly spill into the auditorium and seem barely containable by the theater’s walls. They are performed by 20 dynamic, amazingly athletic dancers, among whom I found Nicole Chantal de Weever outstanding for innate talent, ample ballet training and sheer beauty...But the great overarching and overwhelming performance is that of Ngaujah...He transmutes a 1,200- seat house into an intimate cabaret as he elicits vocal and kinetic involvement from the audience.

Los Angeles Times A
(Charles McNulty) The most exuberant new musical I’ve seen this fall...Teaches the American musical new moves. And I’m not just referring to what happens onstage. Like the current Broadway revival of “Hair,” directed by Diane Paulus and choreographed by the cutting-edge Karole Armitage, “Fela!” doesn’t permit theatergoers to sit by passively...As much a concert and a dance piece as it is a musical, “Fela!” is perhaps best described as a work of total theater. More visually and aurally mesmerizing than dramatically stirring, the work achieves a unique build by focusing on the emotion that galvanized this iconic performer to battle political oppression in his African homeland, no matter the colonial or post-colonial source...Jones’ choreography never lets us lose sight of a fundamental source of our shared humanity, a locus of reliable ecstasy and inevitable suffering: the body.

CurtainUp A-
(Simon Saltzman) It looks sensational...The musical still plays a bit confusingly with time. It remains, however, a testament to the visceral energy of all the performers as they appear to revel in the imaginative Nigerian-based dances created by the Tony award-winning Jones...Although Jones’s gift as a dance modernist is visible, it is his instinctual grasp of Fela’s unique music — a fusion of African rhythms, jazz, and funky harmonies — that makes the dances so exciting. I still find the nightmarish ballet, in which Fela dreams of going to the land of dead spirits to be comforted by his dead mother, a bit too grotesque and pretentious...The earnest passion that drove this show a year ago has been feverishly re-activated.

Theatermania A-
(Dan Balcazo) There's no better dancing on Broadway...The sheer exuberance of the performers makes this bio-musical about Nigerian activist, composer, and performer Fela Anikulapo Kuti an exciting and richly rewarding theatrical experience...The move to Broadway has resulted in a tighter show, with its unwieldy three-hour Off-Broadway running time shortened to a more manageable two and a half hours. However, all the main narrative beats remain intact, and sometimes seem even clearer than before. Portions of Fela's life still come off as overly romanticized (particularly his wedding to multiple women, here played more for comic effect), but overall the character of Fela appears to be more fleshed out. Much of the credit for this should be shared with Ngaujah, whose already energetic and charismatic performance has gotten even better...Marina Draghici's eye-popping African-influenced costumes are as effective as ever, but her still vibrant and colorful scenic design that extends into the house of the theater doesn't work as well with the O'Neill's architecture as it did at 37 Arts. The larger venue has also resulted in a loss of intimacy, and the interactive moments within Fela! now seem forced.

Bergen Record A-
(Robert Feldberg) Infectious...The show's setting is a club in Lagos, Nigeria, and this is the greatest floor show you'll ever see...Even in a show that's a tribute to Fela, Ngaujah, in a rich portrayal, suggests the considerable egotism that was also a part of his personality...While soaring on its musical numbers, the show's chief problem off-Broadway was a rambling book. For Broadway, the story's been trimmed and is more tightly focused, but it remains the lesser part of the evening. It's understandable that much book time is devoted to Fela's politics. That's who he was and what many of his songs, such as the hit "Zombie," were vibrantly about. After a while, though, the generalized condemnations of oppression and exploitation become repetitious. We feel the heat, but there's not much light...All of that, though, is Broadway-musical trimmings. Go to "Fela!" anticipating a super-stimulating, world-class song-and-dance concert, led by a remarkable performer, and you won't be disappointed.

Variety A-
(David Rooney) Breaks bold new ground in musical theater...Rather than a straight-up chronicle of the life of late Nigerian musician-activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the show is about vividly conjuring a specific atmosphere. It provides a full-immersion experiential ride through the artist's heady, hermetic world, from his formation as a musician to his spiritual and political awakening. Crafting a show that's more impressionistic than informational has its limitations as well as rewards. Despite minor tightening since it premiered Off Broadway last fall, "Fela!" remains undershaped; at times, it's repetitive and self-indulgent. It leans more toward celebratory tribute than warts-and-all portrait. However, Fela's egomania and retrograde attitude toward women, which ran contrary to the example of his feminist mother, are by no means glossed over...Such reservations are secondary to the tremendous raw authenticity and electric energy of this dance-heavy bio-musical, and the dangerous sensuality of Sahr Ngaujah (alternating performances with Kevin Mambo), who inhabits the title role with a cool command that never loses intensity...As much as the hit Broadway revival of "Hair," this is a show that defies an audience to remain outside the experience, particularly as the dancers and musicians shimmy and weave through the aisles.

Wall Street Journal A-
(Terry Teachout) The music and dancing are so good that if Fela! had been a half-hour shorter, I wouldn't have been overly troubled by its shapelessness. Alas, it plays for 2½ hours, and by the time the festivities draw to a close, you'll feel as though you'd lingered too long at a Thanksgiving table piled high with goodies. Even so, Fela! is tremendous fun, and anyone with curious ears and an eye for first-class dancing won't want to miss it. Warning: Fela! is loud. Bring earplugs—and use them.

New York Post A-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) There's enough energy in the first act of "Fela!" to short-circuit Con Ed. It spills over from the stage and into the orchestra seats, boundless and joyous: This is as close as Broadway gets to fully immersive theater...Directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, the biography is at its most thrilling when it blurs the line between life and art, performers and viewers. A pedagogical deconstruction of Afrobeat's musical components turns into a party, and the show is so cocky that it doesn't even save a big audience-participation number for the finale: It comes half an hour in. It's a tough act to keep up, and "Fela!" does struggle after intermission. In the second act, the pretense of being at a concert falls by the wayside, and a dream sequence involving Fela's mother, Funmilayo (Lillias White), drags on forever...For such a boundary-busting project, it's oddly conventional in the way it glosses over the cause of Fela's death (of AIDS) and smoothes out his misogyny -- his embrace of polygamy wasn't nearly as endearing as it's portrayed. But then, the intensely charismatic Ngaujah played the lead when I saw the show. Whipping his band and followers into a frenzy, he's fully aware of his power -- and you finally understand how an entertainer can be a human weapon.

New York Observer A-
(Jesse Oxfeld) Raucously fun...[Jones] creates a dizzying party onstage, giving his performers athletic, frenzied, propulsive and suggestively butt-centric dances...The show’s weakness is its book, by Mr. Jones and Jim Lewis. It’s a straightforward recounting of Fela’s life, integrated around his songs, but it never develops any characters other than Fela himself, not even his apparently sainted mother...It also seems to lack an ending, cutting off the story of Fela’s life for no real reason except that two and a half hours are up...But if the story isn’t entirely satisfying, the evening is. With its ’60s kids singing of revolution, its general Be-In feeling, even its dancers coming down the aisles, Fela! is sort of a funked-up, African Hair. And if it didn’t quite make me want to read up on my Nigerian history—I know, I know, I should—it did make me go home and download a few of Fela’s albums.

New Jersey Newsroom B+
(Michael Sommers) While its unique charms certainly are powerful, one frankly wonders whether this unusual show will catch on with the mainstream public...This tumultuous production staged and choreographed by Jones conjures up a vivid impression of a runaway country and an outlaw musician who tried to make sense of it. The non-traditional nature of this musical's format and score certainly reflects Fela's revolutionary ways. For all of such artful chaos churning onstage, the story is relatively easy to follow thanks to occasionally projected supertitles and a fierce, transfixing performance by Sahr Ngaujah as Fela...Backed by that rowdy band, a 20-member ensemble shakes their rumps and the rafters as they madly perform amid the sweaty atmospherics of Jones' production. Garbed and treated like a goddess, Lillias White provides a mighty voice and an impressive presence as Fela's ill-fated activist mama. The show will prove a stretch for conservative Broadway tastes, but anybody desiring something more adventurous than the same old musical stuff should check out "Fela!"

NY1 B+
(Roma Torre) It remains a unique art piece. Or is it a dance concert, or perhaps story theater set to music? Whatever it is, "Fela!," much like its late namesake and subject, Nigerian performer Fela Kuti, defies definition...Set in The Shrine, Kuti’s famed club, on a summer night in 1978, the action is seemingly spontaneous. The amazing dancers, though clearly disciplined, are rarely synchronized and when Fela’s not performing a number, he talks to the audience in what comes off as stream of consciousness...The magnificent Sahr Ngaujah, who alternates with Kevin Mambo in the lead role, embodies Fela Kuti’s passion as if possessed...Jones works wonders on that stage alongside the musicians of the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, crafting a new dramatic language. Melding music, story and dance, he’s enabled Kuti’s unique artistry to live on. Despite a bigger budget and some reshaping, the show is still too long and challenging for many of those with more traditional tastes. But "Fela!" speaks to Broadway’s next generation, whose embrace of the work gives hope for the theater’s future.

The New Yorker B
(Joan Acocella) There are two great things in it. One is Sahr Ngaujah, the man who, for most of the week, plays Fela. How did the producers find a performer who matched Fela in charm, wit, and insolence?...In some respects, Ngaujah may actually be better than Fela...The second glory of “Fela!” is the dancing, created by Bill T. Jones. It’s hard to make West African dance look bad—this is one of the great dance cultures of the world—but oh, how good Jones and the dancers, more than half of them American-born (the others are African or Caribbean), have made it look...I should add that the costumes, by Marina Draghici, could not be more perfect...Like most Broadway musicals these days, “Fela!” is assaultive. The music is loud; lights are beamed in your eyes. The show’s Fela insists on audience participation, as did the real Fela, in keeping with the African tradition of call-and-response. We were supposed to shout “Yeah! Yeah!” when he told us to...As the show moves along, the dance peters out a bit. After the opening section, the dancers often wear shoes—jazz shoes, with a little heel. This is a terrible idea. You can’t do proper West African dance without the foot’s contact, artistic and symbolic, with the ground...In “Fela!” the obligation to tell another man’s story prevents Jones from putting his own story in our face. I hope this happens to him more often.

Talkin' Broadway B
(Matthew Murray) Off-Broadway, Fela! played like a protest rally that didn’t want to pretend to be a musical; now it plays more like a musical that barely wants to be a protest rally...Take the fierceness out of the man, and there’s not much left except a marathon of a role - Fela is hardly ever offstage - that’s now denied its deepest emotional payoff. Tone down the rabble-rousing specter of his mother and inspiration, Funmilayo, and you have a one-two punch of deflation. That’s also happened, due to some questionable recasting: Talented as she is, Lillias White is too mainstream and predictable a voice to convince as the otherworldly woman behind this world-changing man...The same philosophy has also seeped into the rest of the production, making safe, slick, and smooth what used to be coarser and densely realistic...Marina Draghici’s sexy costumes burst with tribal and reverential color (almost Techni, at some points), but her set feels like a hodgepodge collection of junkyard items designed to both suggest danger and reassure you there’s no chance of harm...You’re more aware than ever that you’re in a theater that’s trying not to look like one...Luckily, there’s no similar problem to be found with the performances, which aside from White are hard-core theatrical fusion.

Village Voice B-
(Michael Feingold) White, woefully underused, gives the show such elegance and star wattage as it has; Ngaujah's authority and nonstop energy supply the motor that keeps it running. Matching him in the energy department when required, the dancers are spectacular in their flamboyant acrobatic feats. And the band, asked to play almost constantly throughout, is sublime. What was wrong with the Off-Broadway edition, however, is still wrong here: For all the fierce enthusiasm that Ngaujah brings to the evening (presumably equaled by Kevin Mambo, who plays the strenuous role at selected performances), the end result still seems scattershot and disconnected, a scrapbook with high points rather than a theatrical event.

Newsday B-
(Linda Winer) I know I should feel hard-wired to enjoy - no, to love - "Fela!"...The show - a multicultural hipster magnet during its celebrated tryout Off-Broadway last year - would seem to push some of my most closely held buttons. The nonlinear form and music are meant to take Broadway into unconventional places. The worldview is humanist, anti-colonial and, despite the setting - 1978 in Lagos, Nigeria - brutally timely. And the ersatz-African dances, which snake down the aisles and up a side runway, are electric. But I am untouched...The songs, with Fela's potent pidgin-poetry in subtitles, are a jubilant, subtle mixture of Afro-Caribbean rhythm, jazz brass, Yoruban chant and R&B. But they were never meant to carry a story on their back, and they do not. Director-choreographer Bill T. Jones, the modern-dance master who won a Tony for his snaky, enchanting movement for "Spring Awakening," creates an ebullient party atmosphere for the mass-market mythmaking of Fela...Sahr Ngaujah has the oversized presence to overcome the more incoherent parts of his story.

On Off Broadway B-
(Matt Windman) It's hard to imagine any place more lively than Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre, where the new musical "Fela!" just opened...Director-choreographer Bill T. Jones has staged seemingly untamed, vibrant choreography that perfectly matches the percussive music. Sahr Ngaujah, who plays Fela along with Kevin Mambo on alternating nights, almost never leaves the stage...But in spite of so much to admire visually, "Fela!" has absolutely no storyline besides some vague biographical details and quickly turns into a repetitive bore. It plays like a one-man show with backup dancers and singers giving off explosive energy. Some more intriguing moments later in the show include a hallucinatory experience with his mother and the graphic details of a 1977 attack on his home. The show's producers took a huge risk bringing a show with a relatively narrow niche appeal to Broadway. But in spite of its overflowing theatricality, "Fela!" falls short of providing a solid night of drama.

The New York Times A+ 14; Time Out NY A 13; TFT A 13; The Daily News A 13; Bloomberg News A 13; NYMag A 13; LAT A 13; CurtainUp A- 12; Theatermania A- 12; Bergen Record A- 12; Variety A- 12; New York Post A- 12; NYO A- 12; New Jersey Newsroom B+ 11; NY1 B+ 11; NYer B 10; Talkin' Broadway B 10; Newsday B- 9; On Off Broadway B- 9; VV B- 9; TOTAL: 232/20=11.6 (A-)

Dreamgirls

2009-11-23T09:47:00.007-05:00

GRADE:B

Book and Lyrics by Tom Eyen, Music by Henry Krieger, Additional Material by William Reale Directed by Robert Longbottom at the Apollo Theater. (CLOSED)

I'll admit it, dear reader, I'm quite flummoxed by this crop of reviews of Dreamgirls, the new touring version of the musical that just opened at The Apollo. The majority of the reviews damn with faint praise at best (except in regards to Chester Gregory's performance as Early, which gets universal raves), and yet enthusiastically recommend the show. You get a real whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts from this crop of reviews. Either that, or the standards of our criterati are slipping mightily. The New York Post's Elisabeth Vincentelli struggles to find anything positive to say about the show, and yet finds it thoroughly entertaining. Ditto Joe Dziemianowicz at the Daily News and Linda Winer at Newsday, who writes that Longbottom's choreography is lackluster but also calls his work "capable" and says it almost makes you forget Bye Bye Birdie, his recently-staged disaster at Roundabout. Part of the key to this revival's success is that it performs in the Apollo, where the musical's opening and closing are set, which adds a layer of meaning and resonance usually reserved for experimental site-specific work. Or perhaps the key lies in this sentence from the Variety review: " as a road property, it's top-tier," raising the question... does this Dreamgirls benefit from low expectations as its not performing on Broadway, despite having a Broadway design team and director?

Backstage A
(David Sheward) National tours are often viewed as knockoffs of Broadway originals. The limited run of Dreamgirls at the Apollo Theatre may be the first stop of a national tour, but this electric revival is anything but second-rate. The location alone provides an added zing, as many of the crucial moments take place at the Harlem landmark. But real estate only goes so far. Director-choreographer Robert Longbottom has rebounded from his misfired staging of the Roundabout Bye Bye Birdie with a dazzling and energetic production. In no way beholden to the 1981 premiere edition by Michael Bennett or Bill Condon's 2006 Oscar-winning film version, this "Dreamgirls" is fresh, alive, and bursting with talent.

Newsday B+
(Linda Winer) Most important, this Dreamgirls has the young singing actors it needs to deliver both the music and the meaning of the Tom Eyen-Henry Krieger score. Moya Angela, as the most talented but overweight Effie, takes hold of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with such power and subtle phrasing that we're forced to stop comparing her with Jennifer Holliday and Jennifer Hudson, who made their names on this role and this song.

Time Out New York B+
(Adam Feldman)
Much of the recitative is not first-rate, and although this revival is well designed—from Robin Wagner’s mobile metallic panels, often swathed in video, to William Ivey Long’s droll period costumes—it is not always well directed; Robert Longbottom adeptly handles the many cinematic fades between onstage and backstage drama, but the more intimate scenes lack finesse. The weaknesses melt away, however, under the heat of the show’s standout songs, especially as performed by Angela and the extraordinary Chester Gregory, a walking lighting bolt as the irrepressible James “Thunder” Early. The show may not always be dreamy, but I am telling you: Go.

Bloomberg B
(Jeremy Gerard) Bennett invented a staging vocabulary that advanced the form while still paying tribute to his predecessors. Robert Longbottom, the revival’s director and choreographer, is a hack; every dance sequence is a cliche, every dramatic scene soap- operatic and lacking imagination. Yet what Angela, Gregory and their colleagues (especially the other Dreamettes, Adrienne Warren and Syesha Mercado) supply for the ear via Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger’s expansive score, Ivey Long supplies for the eye: a dizzying succession of ever more spectacular gowns (can there be any sequins left in the Western hemisphere?). So yes, this Dreamgirls is a show with killer looks, music to spare and a couple of new stars in its pocket.

Hollywood Reporter B
(Frank Scheck) Although Longbottom's staging and choreography pales next to the original, he's done a fine job with several numbers, especially Steppin' to the Dark Side, which employs those LED screens with imaginative flair. And the nifty quick costume changes produce the desired dazzling effect. Henry Krieger (music) and Tom Eyen's (lyrics) score remains an effective pastiche of '60s styles. It has here been augmented with two additions: What Love Can Do, the second-act opener, and the Effie/Deena duet "Listen," written for the film, which serves as a strong 11:00 number. The production also gains immeasurable resonance from its being presented at this intimate and historic venue, where the opening and (for this version) closing numbers are actually set.

TalkinBroadway B
(Matthew Murray) The mere fact that Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger’s 1981 musical has been given an 85-percent production after the heavier stumbles of the 2006 film adaptation is almost gift enough. Granted, given the original’s four-year run, its almost immediate revival on Broadway, and the starry 2001 Actors’ Fund concert, the show has never really gone away, but Longbottom, despite a few lapses in judgment, has taken significant steps to ensure that it stays at the forefront of our consciousness for the foreseeable future.

TheaterMania B
(Brian Scott Lipton) There's no doubt that the role of Effie White in the Henry Krieger-Tom Eyen musical Dreamgirls, now launching its national tour at the Apollo Theatre, is a star-making one. Just ask Jennifer Holliday, Lillias White, and Jennifer Hudson! But there's no guarantee that whoever portrays the fiery singer will end up as a lasting luminary in the firmament. Still, my money's on relative newcomer Moya Angela, whose intense, deeply-felt performance as Effie is the red-hot center of Robert Longbottom's enjoyable if slightly too cool revival of this timeless backstage musical.

New York Post B
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) A touring production hatched in South Korea, it feels spare not by design but by necessity. William Ivey Long designed hundreds of costumes, but the wigs look kinda cheap, the orchestra is too small and the basic set consists of five floor-to-ceiling rotating panels that double as LED screens...And yet, this Dreamgirls is incredibly entertaining, even when the seams are showing...Despite some missteps -- using the ensemble as fake orchestra members is cheesy, and the projections evoking a tour are somehow garish and banal -- the show plows through with gusto, grit and guts. Perfect for Dreamgirls.

New York Daily News B
(Joe Dziemianowicz) If you've never seen Dreamgirls on stage, it's worthwhile. And though it doesn't hit euphoric heights, there's an exciting vibe that the hit film can't capture. Plus, you can't beat the added you-are-there bonus since the Apollo is where the show's plot begins and ends.

Variety B-
(David Rooney) There's bad news and good about the much-anticipated revival of "Dreamgirls," kicking off, like the action of the show itself, on the storied stage of Harlem's Apollo Theater before a national tour. Cultists of the 1981 musical about an African-American girl group's rise to success might have been hoping for a Broadway-caliber production that would demand a midtown New York return. In most ways that count, this staging falls short of that wish. But as a road property, it's top-tier, packaged to travel and stuffed with vocal talent that does justice to Henry Krieger's sensational songs and helps compensate for stiff acting and a shortage of emotional clout.

NYTimes C-
(Ben Brantley) The show’s opening scene, Amateur Night at the Apollo, pulses with the plethora of talent onstage, of raw and enthusiastic performers who may well acquire polish and star shine. The people playing those amateurs are much more advanced than that. But their characterizations cry out for greater texture and variety. This show’s greatest asset and deficit is its momentum, which is too relentless for comfort. To feel fully — and Dreamgirls is a show that can make you cry real tears — you have to be able to breathe.

Village Voice D+
(Michael Feingold) Robert Longbottom's new production, sadly, won't erase any memories of Bennett's. Visually ineffective despite its fancy digital displays, and featuring loud, one-dimensional performances, the new Dreamgirls loosens the show's grip till it might seem to be just another extravaganza, though the writing still grabs you. Only Chester Gregory, spectacularly effective as an egocentric r&b star, breaks through the production's built-for-touring torpor.

BS A 13; ND B+ 11; TONY B+ 11; TM B 10; BB B 10; HWR B 10; NYP B 10;TB B 10; NYDN B 10; Variety B- 9; NYTimes C- 6; VV D+ 5; TOTAL: 115/12=9.58 (B)

The Orphans' Home Cycle (Part 1)

2009-11-23T07:57:00.005-05:00

GRADE: A-

(photo by Gregory Constanzo)

By Horton Foote. Directed by Michael Wilson. Signature Theatre. Through Mar. 28.

In a bittersweet irony worthy of the playwright himself, Horton Foote is receiving possibly his warmest embrace less than a year after he died at 92, with the first installment (subtitled "The Story of a Childhood") in a nine-play epic of small-town Texas life. Most critics echo Ben Brantley's observation that Foote's plays, which individually can seem like well-turned miniatures, take on gratifying heft and scope when stacked together. Though a few critics knock the first play, Roots in a Parched Ground for being mostly expositional, and some others see the second play, Convicts, as an outlier (for better or worse), all but the Bergen Record's Robert Feldberg are thrilled with anticipation for the journey ahead, when Parts II and III open (Dec. 13 and Jan. 24, respectively). Most-used adjective for Michael Wilson's direction: cinematic.

Wall Street Journal A+
(Terry Teachout) It will, I suspect, be remembered as the most significant theatrical event of the season, the kind of show you tell your grandchildren you saw...Nothing much happens in "The Story of a Childhood"...nor do the characters have anything especially memorable to say. In place of studied eloquence, Foote offers us a Chekhov-like poetry of place and atmosphere, as homespun as a hand-me-down quilt. Yet this group portrait of small-town life, like "The Trip to Bountiful" before it, is neither comfortably nostalgic nor tiresomely bitter. Instead Foote shows us the world as it really is, subtly heightened by lyricism but always true to experience..."The Story of a Childhood" has the narrative sweep that you look for in major novels, coupled with the electric immediacy that only live theater can supply...Mr. Wilson, who also directed "Dividing the Estate," has staged "The Story of a Childhood" with supple, near-cinematic fluidity, moving from scene to scene so easily that you almost forget you're watching a play.

Backstage A+
(Erik Haagensen) By the time director Michael Wilson's bone-deep production of the first part of Horton Foote's "The Orphans' Home Cycle" is over, nearly three hours have passed in the blink of an eye. I wanted the second part to begin immediately...Foote based his work on the life of his father, which he learned of through numerous family stories told repeatedly to him in his youth. He certainly listened well: The writing is wise, deeply observant, and impressively detailed. Deceptively small-scaled and naturalistic, the work is really epic in scope, placing the lives of these modest people against the sweeping forces of social change and the vagaries of time. There is more genuine myth evoked in a single moment of Foote's simplicity than in all the self-consciously poetic strivings of the Public Theater's current "The Brother/Sister Plays." There's not a weak link in the 22-member company, which serves the writing beautifully under Wilson's piercingly clear-eyed direction...What we are being served here is nothing less than an American masterwork.

The New York Times A
(Ben Brantley) Promises to be the great adventure of this theater season...Directed with cinematic fluidity and novelistic detail by Michael Wilson, “The Story of a Childhood” leaves you as eager as a kid who has just started his first fat work of fiction by Charles Dickens, say, or Mark Twain, when putting down the book, even for an hour, feels like punishment...It’s a thrilling demonstration of an artist long regarded only as a miniaturist soaring into the realm of the epic...The exposition-heavy “Roots” is, on its own, the least interesting of the plays, but a necessary (and painless) initiation into the family trees that shade the cycle. “Convicts,” on the other hand, is a juicy slice of Lone Star gothic...The basis for a 1991 film starring Robert Duvall, “Convicts,” here acted by a uniformly excellent supporting cast, is the evening’s glorious and pathetic ghost story, in which people are doomed to haunt themselves...Anchored by geography and genealogy, Foote’s characters are nonetheless unmoored travelers in forever uncharted lands. That their creator has shaped them with such warm compassion and cold clarity makes us eager to accompany them on every step of an odyssey that is somehow as surprising as it is familiar.

Associated Press A
(Michael Kuchwara) An impressive introduction to Foote's three-part, nine-play marathon...Foote has a particular gift for time and place, expertly capturing the era and that area of southeast Texas where he grew up...While it may not seem as if there is an abundance of plot, Foote is quietly building a collection of finely etched characters. And director Michael Wilson has marshaled a fine cast to portray these people. There is an innate melancholy to Heck's performance, a sadness that suggests there will be enough material for several more evenings of drama...If Part 1 of "The Orphans' Home Cycle" is any indication, we are in for a remarkable journey.

Time Out NY A
(David Cote) Yes, these three one-act plays include leisurely strolls down memory lane, but there is so much life compressed here: greed, disease, murder, cruelty to children, the bitter legacy of slavery and a sad, ambivalent hero—Horace Robedaux, alienated observer of a family that abandoned him...As in most Foote plays, the terse, quietly suffering characters are caught between the past and the future, hoping to reinvent themselves but also ensnared by a dimly remembered past. Director Michael Wilson and his versatile, highly talented ensemble (including the radiant Hallie Foote, the late author’s daughter) wrestle their material into shape, delivering three hours of episodic narrative spanning 1902 to 1910 without a dull moment...Foote’s understated epic is an authentic American classic about the birth pangs of the 20th century. It’s told with humor, deep sadness and great writerly craft. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

The Faster Times A
(Jonathan Mandell) On the evidence of the three plays of Part I, I am already hooked...These first three hour-long plays, presented together under the title “The Story of A Childhood,” offer a committed cast of 21 actors in a splendidly fluid production that promises to turn Foote’s character studies (most of which had been produced previously) into a theatrical epic that recalls such past stage marathons as the Royal Shakespeare Theater’s Life and Adventure of Nicholas Nickleby or Robert Shenkkan’s The Kentucky Cycle–-all at a cost of just $20 per ticket.

Entertainment Weekly A-
(Melissa Rose Bernardo) There's much melancholy beauty to be found in The Story of a Childhood...No one is better equipped than director Michael Wilson to handle the delicate rhythms of this writer's work...The pace is appropriately, achingly languorous. Anyone not familiar with Foote's light-on-plot, heavy-on-character storytelling style — if it's important, it happens off stage, and we hear about it 10 different ways — might find themselves getting anxious. Foote's particular brand of poetry can seem old-fashioned, even simplistic. But with its tales of harsh times, social and economic change, Reconstruction, education, and industry in small-town America, The Story of a Childhood heralds the beginning of something extraordinary. And you'll be waiting with baited breath for Foote's next chapter.

Talkin' Broadway A-
(Matthew Murray) This could be the event of the season. But more than that, it could well become another grand theatrical epic, in line with O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra or Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia, but based on places, people, and feelings that don’t draw their inspiration from Greek tragedy or 19th-century European politics, but instead from the very fabric of America...As Horace’s story unfolds, the depth and insight of Foote’s milieu - and its potential when spread across the better part of three decades - reveal and distinguish themselves. The problems of Horace and his family, though small in the grand scheme of things, read large for the reason similar trials in Foote plays so often do: they intimately treat the experiences and fears with which we all grapple...“The Story of a Childhood” can often seem more like a promise than a delivery, background information for the more probing visions of the past to come. The first and third plays are captivating because of their devotion to family drama, but the second is a rocky digression that - at least at this point - seems necessary more for thematic than plot reasons...But don’t let that deter you...If the rest of The Orphans’ Home Cycle lives up to this first installment, it will be a true joy discovering the answer over the next few months.

Edge Boston A-
(Jonathan Leaf) I’d be very surprised if a hundred years hence it isn’t more and more fondly recalled than the first production of Eugene O’Neill’s torpid and pretentious epic, Strange Interlude, for instance - or even than Tony Kushner’s Angels in America...The faults of Foote’s vastly broad but utterly intimate study of life in rural Texas in the first decades of the last century are many, and they are abundantly on display...The performances of the actors, working under Hartford Stage director Michael Wilson, also vary widely in quality. But the strengths of both presentation and of the plays are very considerable. Foote has the humanity and the knowledge of people that lie at the essence of the important artist, and the comparisons made between Foote and Chekhov are hardly unjustified...In bringing the cycle to the stage, both Signature and Hartford Stage, as the joint producers, deserve our praise. For the production is both handsome and immense...Is this great theater? It is at least very, very good.

New York Post B+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Rarely has something so epic been so unassuming. A lot happens in Horton Foote's three-hour-long "The Story of a Childhood," set in the rough and tumble world of early 20th-century Texas. The tone never wavers from a certain humble plainness, even when scenes deal with jealousy and alcoholism or allude to tragic deaths...Few authors write pettiness as well as Foote does, and few actors play it as well as his own daughter Hallie, brilliant as always in relatively short parts. Granted, there are times when you wish the plays could be pricklier, messier. Doesn't anyone ever scream in this world? But then you realize that by not raising his voice, Foote gives his melancholy a subversive edge.

Bloomberg News B+
(John Simon) A magnificent cross-section of a great playwright’s career...Michael Wilson’s fluid staging helps to tie together three somewhat disparate acts. But what most justifies the three-hour duration, which includes two brief intermissions, is Foote’s uncanny ability to empathize with his characters, regardless of how marginal or unsympathetic they are.

Theatermania B+
(Dan Balcazo) An excellent start to this epic undertaking...The first piece on the bill, Roots in a Parched Ground, is the weakest, primarily because it is overladen with exposition...Things pick up considerably in the second play, Convicts, set on Christmas Eve, 1904. The teenage Horace has entered the workforce, clerking at a plantation store and occasionally watching over the African-American prison laborers who work the fields...The piece is also full of macabre humor and terrific supporting performances...The third play of the evening, Lily Dale, is set in Houston in 1910...The entire cast delivers nuanced performances, but the clear stand-out in this section is [Annalee] Jefferies...Wilson has directed the evening with a cinematic eye, aided by Jan Hartley's projections, the lush original music and sound design by John Gromada, and the sliding units from scenic designers Jeff Cowie and David M. Barber.

Village Voice B
(Michael Feingold) Remarkably bleak. Far from exploiting period nostalgia or sentimentality, Foote's account of Horace's childhood is an epic of negativity, in which expected kindness or decency constantly get withheld...In decades past, Foote's longer plays used to infuriate me: They seemed nothing but wall-to-wall recitation of family connections. His new distillation juxtaposes these thick blocks of chatter with the deadly silences of despair and isolation, making the family tree seem less a source of inheritors' pride than a set of mental handgrips to cling to against the void. Powerful as Foote's material is, it still contains static sections, particularly in the second half of "Convicts," where the expository motor seems to hum without moving anything forward; director Michael Wilson's cast sometimes adds to the hum by simply passing the data along rather than stamping it with any individual character. Many in the large cast do better than that, however, and Foote's legacy to his daughter, Hallie, now includes another of the showy, sharp-tongued roles she seizes with such vigor, as the skinflint plantation owner's nasty, drunken niece.

Bergen Record B
(Robert Feldberg) Anyone who's seen Foote's work knows that nothing terribly dramatic is said or done...The second play, "Convicts," the evening's weakest link, has 14-year-old Horace working at a plantation store in order to earn money for his father's headstone. It focuses, however, on the plantation's owner, Soll Gautier, a demented, violent, alcoholic old man who runs his spread with the aid of indentured convicts. Gautier, who takes a liking to Horace, is a nasty piece of work, and it's hard to figure out why he gets so much face time. Feeling and nuance return with "Lily Dale," as Horace, now 20, accepts his mother's invitation to visit her and Lily Dale in Houston for a week...You might anticipate that the succession of the three plays – or, at least, the first and third – would deepen our involvement with the earnest young hero. But that doesn't really happen. The main reason, I think, is that Horace is essentially an unchanging victim, a passive figure – it's hard to get a handle on his inner life — to whom bad things happen. The production has been nicely designed, and efficiently staged by Michael Wilson, but few of the performers – most of them playing multiple roles – give their characters much oomph.

Wall Street Journal A+ 14; Backstage A+ 14; The New York Times A 13; Associated Press A 13; Time Out NY A 13; Faster Times A 13; Entertainment Weekly A- 12; Talkin' Broadway A- 12; Edge Boston A- 12; NYPost B+ 11; BN B+ 11; Theatermania B+ 11; VV B 10; Bergen Record B 10; TOTAL: 169/14=12.07 (A-)

In The Next Room or the vibrator play

2009-11-20T05:38:00.005-05:00

GRADE: B-

By Sarah Ruhl, Directed by Les Waters. At the Lyceum Theater. (CLOSED)

It's odd that a playwright as good natured as Sarah Ruhl would end up being so controversial, but perhaps this is what happens when you're given a MacArthur "Genius" Award before making your New York Debut. In The Next Room or the vibrator play is Ruhl's first play written post-MacArthur (both Passion Play and Dead Man's Cell Phone were written just prior) and this time she's on the Great White Way with a comedy about the medicinal uses of the vibrator in the 19th Century. The play earns generally high marks, with critics admiring the way she and director Les Waters have simultaneously pulled off a hilarious comedy and a probing look into female sexuality and our relationships with our bodies. John Simon, who normally hates Ruhl, is shocked (shocked!) to find himself thoroughly charmed by the play. Not everyone is so content... Matthew Murray finds the play overstuffed, Linda Winer finds it overly slight and Terry Teachout hates it so much, he impugns the taste of anyone who likes it (leaving out his F- grade, the score jumps to B+).

Hollywood Reporter A
(Frank Scheck) The playwright, responsible for such works as The Clean House and Dead Man's Cell Phone, mines her subject for suitably bawdy humor without resorting to vulgarity. But what really gives the work its distinction is its sensitive exploration of the physical and emotional repression suffered by the women of the era, which has yet to disappear entirely. Nor does Ruhl neglect the male side of things, as evidenced by the beautifully staged final scene in which Mrs. Givings provides her husband with a lesson about the beauty of his own body. The play, seen at the Berkeley Rep, has been given a pitch-perfect Broadway staging that beautifully balances its humor and pathos. Under the sensitive direction of Les Waters, the ensemble delivers sterling performances, with Benanti a particular delight as the woman for whom electricity turns out to be a marriage saver.

New York Times A
(Charles Isherwood) In the Next Room, a Lincoln Center Theater production, is directed by Les Waters with a fine sensitivity to its varied textures. Insightful, fresh and funny, the play is as rich in thought as it is in feeling. It is also Ms. Ruhl’s most traditional work, taking place as it does in a single setting (realized with warmth by the set designer Annie Smart) and hewing closely to naturalism. Nonetheless, admirers of Ms. Ruhl’s fanciful imagination and flair for surreal imagery, given free rein in plays like The Clean House and Eurydice, will be gratified to know that she imbues her heroine, Mrs. Givings, with a penchant for flights of lyric fantasy and a tendency to speak her thoughts almost before she has formulated them.

NY Post A
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Ruhl presents something a lot more intimate and a lot more daring: women's discovery of their own bodies and their own pleasure. It may be the first time we've seen characters repeatedly reach orgasm on a mainstream stage -- in a Lincoln Center Theater production, no less -- and it happens in a play that's smart, delicate and very, very funny...As well written as the play is, it could easily have gone astray in the wrong hands. But director Les Waters and his cast proceed with great sensitivity. Cerveris' earnest, slightly stiff physicality is put to good use here, while Benanti and Dizzia brim with a contagious glee in their shared scenes. Excited and curious, they giggle, whisper and intrigue. After all, their characters are on the cusp of a marvelous discovery: They were already adults. Now they can become women.

TheaterMania A
(David Finkle) If Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde had decided to collaborate on a post-modern drawing-room comedy, the hotsy-totsy twosome surely would have turned out something very much like Sarah Ruhl's genuinely hysterical new work In the Next Room or the vibrator play, now being presented by Lincoln Center Theatre at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre... Handed material that theatergoers stuck in a bygone age might find unsavory, director Les Waters has honed it to a fare-thee-well. (He also helmed the piece for its Berkeley Repertory Theatre debut.) And his actors are certainly a game lot. Dizzia, Benanti, and Williams are obliged to present several approaches to orgasms, a requirement that may have evoked second thoughts on initial readings of the lubricious script. But they leap in. Cerveris, as a detached man of science, is adept at stripping his emotions bare and then some. Bernstine gets to deliver the play's longest speech -- a confession of her resentment at wet-nursing an infant after her own son died at 12 weeks -- and she breaks hearts with it. Ryan's thick-skulled Mr. Daldry and Stetson's secretly unhappy and longing Annie are additional assets.

Bloomberg A
(John Simon) Wonders will never cease. Sarah Ruhl, whose previous work I execrated, has written a smart, charming, iridescently funny-serious jewel, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play...As Ruhl traces it with wit and insight, and without the slightest prurience, the birth of this new era gives rise to colorful events, astute psychological revelations and endearingly apt dialogue. A parallel plot line centers on the black wet nurse, Elizabeth: Catherine is as jealous of her success with Lotty as her husband is of his male patient Leo Irving, a bohemian, Paris-based painter with whom Catherine is unrequitedly smitten.

Time Out New York A-
(David Cote) This premise could easily devolve into a silly sex farce or a strident feminist critique; in fact, Ruhl samples from both without becoming indebted to either. In a way, In the Next Room is unabashedly antiscience; Ruhl has noted in interviews that she’s not impressed by psychological realism or rationality in contemporary plays. In the battle between reason and wonder, she comes down firmly on the side of dreamy awe. By restricting her genre to aphorism-peppered 19th-century drawing-room comedy, Ruhl tempers her tendency toward twee whimsy and delivers a compelling yarn with engaging characters who evolve. And director Les Waters doesn’t gild the lily of Ruhl’s heightened but period-respectful dialogue, setting a comical but grounded tone.

Associated Press B+
(Michael Kuchwara) This provocative, often quite funny play, which Lincoln Center Theater opened Thursday at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre, is Ruhl's most entertaining work to date. Not only because of its sexual subject matter but because she has created a parade of appealing, fully drawn characters, starting with the husband and wife at the center of her play. And Ruhl is dealing with some serious issues, too, most prominently the often difficult relationships between men and women and their misreadings of each other

Variety B
(David Rooney) Victorian repression gets a rude poke in Sarah Ruhl's typically idiosyncratic rumination on women's struggle to understand and explore their sexual selves, In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play. While the signature 19th century ailment being treated is "hysteria," the chief weakness is the bipolar disorder of the inconsistent second act, which shifts uncertainly between serious developments and the more farcical business of romantic cross-currents. But there are so many lingering moments of emotional truth, and even more of daring comedy, that the play amuses and charms even if it doesn't quite satisfy.

NY Daily News C+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) In the Next Room clicks, or hums, when it's at its silliest and most titillating. As characters shed corsets and knickers for some good vibrations, the play surges with laughter. The merriment ceases in the second half, larded down by so many themes concerning life, light, love, lactation, lesbianism - and that's just the L words.

Newsday C-
(Linda Winer) In the Next Room or the vibrator play is a great big idea with a mildly amusing play tacked onto it. The comedy is more substantial and less self-consciously whimsical than the three previous Sarah Ruhl plays that also have been luxuriously produced in New York in the past three years. But I still wish I understood the appeal.

TalkinBroadway C-
(Matthew Murray) Unfortunately, even these added layers of context and depth make the story difficult to sustain over two and a half hours. Sight gags about the stimulating devices - including the horrific “Chattanooga vibrator” to which Leo is subjected - and Catherine’s borderline conspiring to treat herself when her husband refuses may satisfy in the short term. But because the side plots and subsidiary characters aren’t especially compelling, you focus on the play’s coarser aspects more than they’re capable of bearing - and ultimately, they’re not much more than the sort of lame sex jokes most people get tired of after middle school. Counting adultery, classism, lesbianism, racism, artistic inspiration, the disintegration of social prudishness, the landscape of scientific progress, and a modern history of wet nursing in addition the dual-headed main story of vibrator theory and the accidental collapse of a marriage, Ruhl has loaded In the Next Room with too many expansive topics to do any of them justice. Neither she nor her director, Les Waters, is capable of drawing your attention to the threads of greatest importance, which instead of elevating everything only increases the insignificance of each individual portion.

The Faster Times D+
(Jonathan Mandell) All this is so clearly put forth that we get it within the first 15 minutes of the play — a half hour, tops. The problem is that the play is two and a half hours long. In that time, we watch nearly a dozen sessions with a vibrator (or maybe the better verb is hear, since they are conducted under discreet covering.) There are variations to be sure — one time it’s a man, a couple of times it’s two women. There are also tiny subplots, frustrated little efforts among various of the characters to make connection, and a fanciful ending that is at odds with the tone of the rest of the play, intentionally so. But much time is taken with the smug little joke that these naifs did not even understand that what they were experiencing was sexual pleasure, which might have been better-told as a 12-minute skit; allow the two musically-talented leads the chance to sing, and it would have been firmly in Monty Python territory. Instead, In The Next Room, or the vibrator play is a tease without titillation; it has the rhythm of pornography without the pleasures of pornography; most theatergoers would probably not find it very shocking, but for all the expressed intention to offer insights into attitudes towards sex and electricity, it is also not all that stimulating.

Wall Street Journal F-
(Terry Teachout) Believe it or not, this is actually a pretty good idea for a play, one that might have been both smart and provocative had it been treated in the astringent manner of "Topsy-Turvy," the 1999 film in which Mike Leigh showed us Victorian England through the eyes of Gilbert and Sullivan. "In the Next Room," by contrast, is a sentimental wallow studded with sniggering jokes that too often appear to be made at the expense of Ms. Ruhl's innocent characters, none of whom is believably Victorian in speech or carriage. The result is the theatrical equivalent of a jelly doughnut with vinegar-flavored frosting, a dish fit only for the tasteless.

HR A 13; TM A 13; NYT A 13; NYP A 13; BB A 13; TONY A- 12; AP B+ 11; V B 10; NYDN C+ 8; TB C- 6; ND C- 6; TFT D+ 5; WSJ F- 0; TOTAL: 123/13=9.46 (B-)

My Wonderful Day

2009-11-19T10:41:00.008-05:00

GRADE: A-

Written and Directed by Alan Ayckbourn. At 59E59. (CLOSED)

Alan Ayckbourn directs his own dark farce in this Brits off Broadway Production, and the reaction is overwhelmingly positive, with a couple of quibbles. Both Elisabeth Vincentelli and Ben Brantley find the goings-on a bit too familiar and a bit too formulaic, having seen plenty of Ayckbourn's farces over the years (perhaps this formula helps explain the scribe's terrifying prolificness--he's written 73 plays!). Terry Teachout--on record as a huge fan of Ayckbourn as a writer and a director--can't sing the praises of the show highly enough. Everyone gets a big kick out of the premise--a middle-class sex farce watched over by a nearly silent-year-old played convincingly by 28-year-old Ayesha Antoine. (For a bonus Q+A wiht Sir Alan, point your browsers to this interview conducted by David Cote)

Wall St. Journal A+
(Terry Teachout) Not only is My Wonderful Day one of the wittiest and most pristinely crafted of Mr. Ayckbourn's dark farces, but the Brits Off Broadway festival has wisely imported his own production, which was first seen in October at Mr. Ayckbourn's home base, Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre. Like the play, it's a gem, a textbook example of how to stage a comedy effectively, and anyone fortunate enough to see it will wonder why Mr. Ayckbourn's parallel career as a director is largely unknown on this side of the Atlantic.

TheaterMania A+
(David Finkle) Alan Ayckbourn's new bittersweet comedy My Wonderful Day, now at 59E59 Theaters as part of the Brits Off Broadway festival, is among his best and most touching works -- which really says something considering it is his 73rd play...Ayckbourn wants to show the world of adults as seen through a child's innocent eyes. He's not the first to take the approach, but he's one of the funniest. Character-based laughs keep coming even as anxiety accumulates about the burdens children are asked to bear by the supposedly mature. For instance, Winnie knows that eager Kevin and willing Tiffany have gone off alone to the bedroom, but how should she respond when Paula, returning unexpectedly, asks about her husband's whereabouts?

NYTimes A-
(Ben Brantley) All of this is per usual for Mr. Ayckbourn, whose comedies have always held more than a trace of melancholy. I can’t say I cared very much about the fates of these selfish adults, though they are portrayed with enjoyable wit and style. What makes My Wonderful Day so moving is your awareness of the grim spectacle of the life to come that they present to Winnie. She already knows that promises are inevitably broken and that stability of any kind is an illusion. No wonder Winnie worries that her mother could die any minute, though of course Laverne, as an Ayckbourn adult, fails to grasp the depths of her child’s fear.

Associated Press B+
(Jennifer Farrar) Some adults still believe that children should be seen and not heard. But what if that quiet child is writing down every foolish thing the adults are saying and doing? That's the delightful premise of Alan Ayckbourn's latest comedy, My Wonderful Day, making its New York debut as part of BritsOffBroadway 2009 at 59E59 Theaters. Ayckbourn wrote and directs this witty, thoughtful farce, which includes the original British cast from the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Yorkshire, England.

NYPost B
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Ayckbourn's written more than 70 plays' worth of this stuff, and he knows what he's doing. But this one also feels by-the-numbers...just as we seem to be cruising toward an uneventful finish to an uneventful play, Ayckbourn introduces a new character in the final stretch. When brisk, acerbic Paula (Alexandra Mathie) enters, it's as if someone had opened a window and let a bracing wind blow in. Paula helps end the show in a delicious high note -- but also makes you wish she'd come in much, much earlier.

TM A+ 14; WSJ A+ 14; NYT A- 12; AP B+ 11; NYP B 10. TOTAL: 61/5 = 12.2 (A-)