The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

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-)

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Blind Lemon Blues

GRADE: B-

Written by Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde. Direction, musical staging, and choreography by Akin Babatunde. At the York Theatre. (CLOSED)

The major outlier in this show's crop of reviews is The New Yorker's unsigned (and apparently, unproofed) blurb deriding the show as a soporific. Otherwise, notices range from appreciative to borderline-ecstatic. Debate arises over whether or not it was wise to focus on legendary Blues pioneer Blind Lemon Jefferson's music as oppose to his life, and with roughly seventy songs in two acts (including some composed just for the show), some critics admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed. Blues enthusiast Matt Roberson at NYTheatre.com, on the hand is quite happy with the show, in particular its second act.

Nytheatre.com A-
(Matt Roberson) In this two act musical, Act I is structured primarily like a revue, with the story of Lemon never moving far from his carefree days as a small-time blues man. Through the songs, we hear tall tales of Lemon and Lead's many close brushes with the law, angry husbands, and fast moving trains. And while it's an important story, pulled together by some incredible performances... the act as a whole is lacking... The same cannot be said of Act II... Incredibly moving in both its music and its staging, it is a beautiful second act, finally providing the dramatic canvas so well-deserved by this deeply talented cast. Led by Akin Babatunde (Lemon), whose theatre credits show a man deeply committed to preserving the traditions and history of Black America, it will be hard to find more enjoyable singing in New York this season. Moving effortlessly between raucous, Southern-fried blues numbers and old, angelic spirituals, this cast of six more than makes up for the few moments when the script and staging fall short. Special mention is required of Cavin Yarbrough, who, as Lead Belly and Blind Willy Johnson, serves as a proud reminder that America's greatest talents are never found on televised contests... Blind Lemon Blues is a good play, held up by a terrific cast, whose devotion and appreciation for the subject more than makes up for the production's missteps early on.

Assoicated Press A-
The blues can take many forms. It's latest form has taken shape nicely in Akin Babatunde's sweetly enthralling performance as the title character in "Blind Lemon Blues," an inspired, highly original tribute to blues singer and guitarist "Blind" Lemon Jefferson. More than just a revue of Jefferson's countless country blues classics, this abstract narrative tells the story of his rise from a legendary street musician in Dallas to a top-selling recording artist who became a seminal influence on American popular music... thoroughly entertaining.


Theatermania B
(Barbara and Scott Siegel) The show, which is being given a fuller production than the one that the York did two years ago, gives us a long overdue sense of the man's music and his milieu, but offers perhaps a bit less about his life than one might like. The book is a cross between a tone poem and a straight-on narrative, told through the memory of jazz great Lead Belly (Cavin Yarbrough). His tale includes other seminal jazz and blues artists who were working at that time, including Blind Willie Johnson (also played by Yarbrough), who tried to take over Blind Lemon's street corner while the master was in Chicago recording. Their musical duel for the corner is one of the most thrilling moments in the show. The reason it stands out, however, is because it's also one of the few moments of drama in this musical that is otherwise more interested in the man's music rather than the man, himself.

Backstage B-
(David Sheward) Halfway between a revue and a full-fledged biography, Blind Lemon Blues satisfies musical cravings but leaves one hungry for narrative or at least a few more details. In a return engagement by the York Theatre Company after a brief run in 2007, this pastiche offers a sketchy picture of Blind Lemon Jefferson, the legendary blues singer and guitarist who went from performing with a tin cup on the streets of Dallas to being the first commercially successful African-American male musical artist. Creators Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde, who also directs, choreographs, and plays Jefferson, skim over their subject's fascinating life story to concentrate on his music. The show is stuffed with numbers—there are more than 60 listed in the program—boldly performed and staged with brio and vibrancy on the tiny stage. The mood easily shifts from rollicking and rowdy to reverent and reflective and back again. But the star of the show remains a mysterious and unknowable figure.

Time Out New York C+
(Andy Propst) once you get past the cheesy choreography and the irritating conceit of having the ensemble repeat certain lines and musical phrases almost as if this were a call-and-response revival, you find that the creators have brought back some extraordinary music that’s lapsed into obscurity. What’s more, the tunes are delivered with power and passion. Babatunde uses his tremulous falsetto and mellifluous bass to excellent effect, and Inga Ballard, Carmen Ruby Floyd and Alisa Peoples Yarbrough are fierce when they metamorphose into female singers of the 1920s. These performances give us no reason to sing the blues, but the production surrounding them is a low-down crying shame.

Talkin' Broadway C+
(Matthew Murray) Let’s not quibble too much over the colors - there are only so many any songwriter-showcase biomusical can evoke, even under the best of circumstances.... Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde’s whirlwind trip through the real and imagined songstack of blues guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson is limited to sunset violet and sepia, depression and Depression in vision as well as fact. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a bad time at this show, which the York Theatre Company has just reopened (it played an extremely limited run in early 2007), just an unexceptional one. Govenar and Babatunde, the latter of whom directed, choreographed, and stars as Jefferson, have even taken the unusual step of composing well-matched new songs (and quite a few), but it’s not enough. When the primary accompaniment is guitar (played by the admittedly virtuosic Skip Krevens) and a few snatches of piano, and the nearly 70 songs performed are limited in genre to one of either “Southern heartbreak” or “Southern sex coyness,” its originality and your patience don’t take long to evaporate.

New Yorker D-
This cramped production, in which Lead Belly (Cavin Yarbrough), near the end of his life, looks back on the days when he and Blind Lemon travelled [sic] the country playing music, practically puts the audience to sleep with a seemingly endless string of blues numbers performed Broadway-style, without a bit of authentic soul. The co-writer, director, and choreographer, Akin Babatunde, would have been wise to hire a bona-fide blues musician to play the role of Blind Lemon, rather than casting himself in the role.

NYTR A- 12; AP A- 12; TM B+ 11; BS B- 9; TONY C+ 8; TB C+ 8; TNY D- 3; TOTAL = 63/7=9 (B-)

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Things of Dry Hours

GRADE: C-

By Naomi Wallace, Directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. At New York Theatre Workshop. (CLOSED)

Despite respectful notices from the AP and CurtainUp, and generally high marks for its cast across-the-board, critics are downright hostile to Naomi Wallace's new play about race, poverty and communism in Alabama during the Great Depression. Many critics reference the ultimate two words of the play's title in summarizing it: it's dry, and it feels like it goes on for hours. The consensus problem is an overly poetic, overly surreal and overly speechified text. David Cote is alone amongst the reviewers placing the blame squarely at helmer Ruben Santiago-Hudson's feet.

Associated Press B+
A stark, complex drama filled with rich imagery and laced with dark humor...skillfully directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, as the personal and political tension escalates.
Dillahunt is compelling as the disheveled Teel, whose true motives and loyalties are unclear. Though he is likable in many ways, his shifty behavior does not inspire trust in either of the Hogans.

The New Yorker B
(Unsigned) . Delroy Lindo gives a powerful, grounded performance as Tice Hogan, Sunday-school teacher, laid-off steelworker, and dedicated Communist; Roslyn Ruff is fierce as his wry and commanding daughter, Cali, a laundry woman for a wealthy family....Wallace’s dialogue sounds like poetry—rich, nimble, raw, and elevated—and the expert cast delivers it with a focussed intensity that makes it at times spellbinding, and almost convincing.

CurtainUp B
(Simon Saltzman) Intense, emphatically poetic... the text often sounds like a struggle between abstracted naturalism and artistic narcissism, perhaps that is a compliment. However, the result can be a cause for tedium...A triple threat as a playwright, actor and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson is here wearing only his director's hat. He works wonders with the lugubrious and occasionally funny text for optimum effects. A scene in which the white sheets on Cali's bed rise and float around the room (possibly symbolic of the Klan) to the strains of Rachmaninoff is effectively eerie. Much of the play's mood is entrusted to lighting designer Marcus Doshi, whose added atmospherics add considerably to Richard Hoover's simple but effective set design.

Time Out New York B-
(David Cote) Earnest, lyrical, idea-driven theater ought to be medicine for the mind but taste sweet as liquor, right? Or maybe I’m just a middlebrow poseur-booster. If a play has severe moral intentions, shouldn’t it be performed with gravitas and slowness, with respect for the potentially sacred and transformative art of theater? But…won’t people feel bored and preached at? Such worries nag the viewer of Things of Dry Hours, Naomi Wallace’s gorgeously written and philosophically rich celebration of a black Communist agitator in Depression-era South. Things is worthy stuff, yet I can’t guarantee a good time at Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s overly somber, gray and measured production.

Newsday C+
(Linda Winer) At its best, this is a passionate, intimate, historical reclamation of the little-known intersection of Southern racism and the black-led Communist Party in '30s Alabama. For all the intensity, however, Wallace does not manage to keep the politics from sounding like flowery lectures. Still, Delroy Lindo - like the director, an August Wilson specialist - is marvelous as the widower committed to the promise of two books, the Bible and the Communist Manifesto.

Just Shows To Go You C+
(Patrick Lee) If poetic dialogue alone made a play, this one (at NYTW) would be one of the best shows in town. The language is so rich and evocative that it's transporting, and the cast (under Ruben Santiago-Hudson's direction) deliver it with the precision and sensitivity of finely composed music. The play (by Naomi Wallace) opens up the soul through the ears. It's a pity then that it is weakened by its narrative construction - it's hard to track the logic in the shifting dynamics between an African-American father and adult daughter and the mysterious white fugitive who forces them to give him shelter, circa the early 30's in the Deep South.

Village Voice C-
(Michael Feingold) I wish...somebody would steal in to light a fire under Naomi Wallace's Things of Dry Hours... Here, the cast has power enough: Delroy Lindo, Garret Dillahunt, and, most of all, the lambently convincing Roslyn Ruff provide solid-pack truthfulness from start to finish. But Wallace, abetted by Ruben Santiago-Hudson's somber, stately direction, makes the hours dry ones indeed with the meandering route she takes through what boils down to be a small, fairly predictable anecdote

NY Daily News C-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) In spite of a terrific three-actor cast and the author’s undeniable flair for evocative language, “Things of Dry Hours” at New York Theatre Workshop makes for an arid trek during its two-plus hours.

TalkinBroadway D+
(Matthew Murray) The acting, too, is largely first-rate: Lindo, in particular, is magnetic as a faultlessly devoted father, man, and fellow traveler whose faith in God, humanity, and Marx knows no boundaries, but never preaches above the character he’s playing... Whether Wallace was more interested in writing a Communism commercial or a playwriting grant application is difficult to tell, but she has only completely committed herself to empty theatricality. A scene in which Cali watches her sheets literally dance around the (blacklit) stage yanks the play into a mystical realm it has no reason to visit. Cali and Corbin engage in an eye-rolling game of dress-up so obvious a pandering statement about racial equality that it seems to parody August Wilson with every second it lasts. And the florid writing... is hopelessly at odds with the gritty determinism Wallace thinks she’s employing and championing throughout.

NYTimes D+
(Charles Isherwood) It’s not looking good when the most compelling writing in a new play comes from Karl Marx. “Things of Dry Hours,” a drama by Naomi Wallace that opened on Monday night at New York Theater Workshop, is about the straitened but dignified life of a poor African-American Sunday school teacher committed to his political ideals. It is a potentially promising subject, but the writing is so static, lifeless and achingly literary that the selections from “The Communist Manifesto” are like sightings of wildflowers among expanses of dead scrub...Under the restrained direction of Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the actors are convincing without managing to create fully compelling portraits from these two-dimensional figures. This is dismaying, considering Mr. Lindo’s imposing presence and potential for mesmeric intensity.

Variety D
(Marilyn Stasio) Helmer Ruben Santiago-Hudson... does not try to impose a naturalistic framework on this shapeless material. But neither does he find a cohesive form for its disjointed varieties of style, from biblical bluster to poetical poppycock. And while he generally works well with actors, you can't blame him or fault the thesps for occasionally stumbling over incoherent images like "a chickadee with a cow's tongue, a wheelbarrow hauling a city, and my own bare ass flashing by in the eye of a beetle."

Backstage D
(Erik Haagensen) In her determination to write a complex, poetic, political drama about neglected subject matter, Naomi Wallace takes a potentially fascinating situation, story, and characters and, sadly, drains the life out of them. Things of Dry Hours is studied, manipulated, opaque, and, well, dry...Wallace is more interested in poetry and symbolism than action or character. Her attempts to lift the play out of realism through poetic language only succeed in making it difficult to understand what her characters mean. She's also too willing to force them to behave in ways she wants in order to make her points. Tice, Cali, and Teel never take on lives of their own. And wrapping it all in a sort of faux magical realism—Tice comes back from the dead to narrate the story, and Cali has a dream about floating sheets—only seems pretentious, not organic.

TheaterMania D
(David Finkle) What an observer unfamiliar with the elusive [title] (never explained by Wallace) is more likely to conclude by the time this two-and-a-half-hour, two-act play draws to a close is that the title is the first tip-off to the poetic pretension in which playwright Wallace indulges herself from start to finish -- and with which she severely undercuts any hold she hopes to achieve on the actual behavior of recognizable human beings caught up in genuine dramatic byplay. Not even the undeniably gritty and truly committed performances director Ruben Santiago-Hudson has extracted from his trio of staunch players can do anything more than lend some credulity to the proceedings.

Lighting and Sound America F+
(David Barbour) To take such an incendiary premise and drain it of anything like drama is, in its way, a remarkable achievement, albeit not one to be encouraged... having seen four of Wallace's plays... t seems clear that she's not so really a playwright at all; she's a word-drunk poet with little interest in character or action...there's nothing here to convince one that Wallace is a prose writer who thinks she can bend the theatre to her own purposes. The result is a dramatic standoff. But that's the dramatic world of Naomia Wallace: Just offstage, the world is in upheaval. On it, stasis rules.

NYPost F+
(Frank Scheck) An arid, airless drama whose serious ideas are undercut by pretentious poeticizing, laborious metaphors and a pace so lethargic, you may want to slap yourself to stay awake...The terrific actors do what they can with the difficult material, with Ruff particularly fine as the fiercely self-possessed Cali. If only the playwright, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship winner, didn't take herself so seriously.

AP B+ 11; CU B 10; TNY B 10; TONY B- 9; SSD C+ 8; ND C+ 8; VV C- 6; NYDN C- 6; TB D+ 5; NYT D+ 5; V D 4; BS D 4; TM D 4; LSA F+ 2; NYP F+ 2; TOTAL: 77/13 = 5.92 (C-)

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Enter Laughing

GRADE: B+

Music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, book by Joseph Stein. Dir. Stuart Ross. York Theatre at Saint Peter's Church. (CLOSED)

The York Theatre production of Enter Laughing, a musical reworking of the 1976 flop So Long, 174th Street, in turn based on a semi-autobiographical play by Carl Reiner, opened to very strong reviews in September 2008, with some dissent centering on the gap between the hilarious book and the so-so score. The show, about a young Jewish man from the Bronx who wants to become an actor, reopened January 29, with two cast changes (Bob Dishy, replacing George S. Irving, who received raves back in September, and Marla Schaffel in for Janine LaMama). Not replaced: The charming young lead, Josh Grisetti, who gets across-the-board kudos. Some publications have re-reviewed the production, and others didn't; even with the changes, we've deemed the production similar enough to group last fall's reviews with the new ones (reviews of the Sept. run are designated with a *).

BroadwayWorld.com A+
(Michael Dale) When the York Theatre first presented its mainstage mounting of "Enter Laughing" back in September I wrote that, while far too early to tell, it might well wind up being the funniest, most entertaining production of a musical we'll see this season. Four months later, I must admit that it has indeed been topped... by itself. After taking a hiatus while the space was committed for another show, director Stuart Ross' slam-bang mounting returns to the York a little funnier, a little snazzier and featuring the best male leading performance in a musical the season has seen thus far.

*New York Post A+
(Frank Scheck) "Enter Laughing: The Musical" is the funniest tuner to hit town since "The Producers." And why not? Like Mel Brooks, both Carl Reiner and Joseph Stein ("Fiddler on the Roof") wrote for "Your Show of Shows," the greatest incubator of comedic talent in the history of show business. And composer Stan Daniels created another TV show you may have heard of: "Taxi"...Stuart Ross' inspired staging for this decidedly low-budget production by the York Theatre Company fully exploits the show's witty humor. Stein's book contains guffaw-inducing one-liners aplenty, and Daniels' score is even funnier.

Time Out New York A
(Raven Snook) The main event here is [Josh] Grisetti. A virtual unknown, he gives the kind of performance that makes you wonder what else he’s capable of. With any luck, we’ll find out.

*New York Times A
(Neil Genzlinger) Josh Grisetti wasn’t even born when the musical version of “Enter Laughing” flopped on Broadway in 1976, but he was certainly born to play the lead in the hilarious second-chance staging of it being presented by the York Theater Company. Mr. Grisetti, a 26-year-old with few New York stage credits but an expressive mug that suggests he’ll have many more, delivers a smashing comedic performance as an awkward young man who has grand visions of being a famous actor. With a gung-ho supporting cast and nutty songs wittily staged by Stuart Ross, all you can do is wonder, How did this thing fail so badly the first time around?

*TheaterMania A
(Barbara & Scott Siegel) The sprightly arrangements and orchestrations are by the show's musical director, Matt Castle, who also doubles (very effectively) as an actor in an extremely inspired bit of comic business. The set design by James Morgan is elegantly simple; the lighting design by Chris Robinson is bright and sometimes even funny in its own right; and costume designer David Toser captures the period with aplomb. With any luck, "Enter Laughing" will have many extensions, transfers, and a long regional life. It's a perfect example of classic musical comedy -- something that's very rare to find these days.

Associated Press A-
(Michael Kuchwara) Daniels' score is serviceable, but several numbers are more than that--most melodically "So Long, 174th Street," a jaunty farewell to the Bronx neighborhood that David wants so desperately to leave. "Enter Laughing" aspires to nothing more demanding than a good time. With the invaluable Grisetti leading the charge, that's practically guaranteed.

AM New York A-
(Matt Windman) Quite a few changes have been made since the fall. While much of the ensemble choreography has been cleaned up and set pieces have been added (including a brightly lit “Kolowitz” sign inspired by “Gypsy”), one of the cutest songs, “I’m Undressing Girls with My Eyes,” has been mercilessly cut. Stan Daniels’ songs are cute, character-driven and catchy, especially the showstopper “Butler’s Song” (“He’s screwing Dolores Del Rio…”). Though we’d prefer to hear the score played by a bigger orchestra than merely three musicians, this remains a fairly large production for a theater located in a church basement.

*Wall Street Journal B+
(Terry Teachout) A few years later, Stan Daniels, a much-admired comedy writer who worked on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Taxi" but longed to write songs, collaborated with Mr. Stein on a Broadway musical based on "Enter Laughing." It opened in 1976, closed two weeks later, and has now resurfaced in a modest but hugely effective production that makes the most of the show's manifold comic virtues, nearly all of which are to be found in Mr. Stein's just-about-perfect book. If only Mr. Daniels's score were better! His songs are both undramatic (most of them are cabaret-style specialty numbers that stop the action dead in the water) and unmelodic (the tunes are reminiscent of Mel Brooks on an off day). But Mr. Stein's book is so well made that you'll laugh anyway, and Mr. Ross's cast is so fine that you'll laugh even harder.

*New Jersey Star-Ledger B+
(Michael Sommers) Built upon old-school Broadway lines, Stein's script packs plenty of easygoing laughs. Daniels' stack of 16 short, upbeat songs features often humorous lyrics and a light '30s air among the melodies...Director Stuart Ross nimbly fields York Theatre Company's energetic off-Broadway premiere with 14 actors and three musicians. While James Morgan's scenery conveys a backstage atmosphere, don't expect million-dollar visuals. Do expect to meet a swell cast.

*CurtainUp B+
(Elyse Sommer) The best and funniest part of this new "Enter Laughing" is still Stein's book. But thanks to Stuart Ross's sprightly staging, musical director Matt Castle and his combo's superb musicianship, and a cast that sings as well as it acts (and, when needed, even dances) those so-so songs somehow manage to sound oh so much better. All's well with the show that began so poorly in a more lavish venue on Broadway, now that it's landed in the York's modest underground theater.

*Nytheatre.com B+
(David Gordon) And "Enter Laughing" isn't the greatest musical ever written, either. Stein's script is very funny; Daniels's score is very catchy and memorable, but it seems like the whole thing works better as a small play. The first act is a bit overlong; the second is considerably stronger and funnier. Yet Stuart Ross's skilled production, filled with one of the strongest casts I've seen in a long time, truly makes a case for "Enter Laughing" as an undiscovered gem of American musical theatre, rather than a 16-performance flop.

*Village Voice B
(Michael Feingold) Thin and harmless, though not charmless, the second-rate material is enlivened by its largely lovable cast, and by director Stuart Ross's many imaginative strokes, which keep tickling the less-than-great jokes and tunes into bouncy vividness.

*Variety B
(Steven Suskin) At the York, the play portions border on the hysterical, with patrons rocking back and forth in their underupholstered seats. When Irving "directs" Grisetti, and when the latter rehearses tortured love scenes with Janine LaManna (as the great director's daughter of a certain age, lusting after the youngster), "Enter Laughing" plays as well as 91-year-old Stein -- who has been in constant attendance -- could desire. But the problem with this tuner is the tunes. Composer-lyricist Daniels was a TV man known as one of the producers of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and later of "Taxi." In his only musical attempt, Daniels turned out a steady stream of one-joke songs in which the single joke is so overworked, it makes Mel Brooks look like Frank Loesser.

Backstage B
(David Sheward) Stuart Ross stages the madness with invention and speed -- this is especially impressive given the small size of the Theatre at St. Peter's playing space. But the songs by Stan Daniels are too often repetitive dream sequences from David's adolescent imagination or one-joke punch lines reiterating points that have already been made in Stein's book. The main pleasures are derived from Ross' loony pacing and Grisetti's limning of the inept David's attempts at acting. It takes a good actor to play a bad one.

*NYMag B-
(Christopher Bonanos) But once you get away from the couple of genuinely funny songs, the show’s pretty thin and glib. It’s all the more dispiriting because there’s not a bad actor onstage here.

*Talkin' Broadway D+
(Matthew Murray) Boring is boring, whatever it's titled. Whether you want to call the revival that just opened at the York Theatre Company by its original name, "So Long, 174th Street," or by its artless new moniker, "Enter Laughing: The Musical," you're still referring to the same Joseph Stein-Stan Daniels tuner that flopped after 16 performances in 1976… What should be a breathless look at a young Jewish man in 1930s New York, David Kolowitz, who disregards his parents' ambitions for him and instead strives to become an actor, is so encumbered by its songs that it's never able to focus on its latent funny. Stein's dialogue pulses with hilarity as David battles his guilt-tripping parents, his three eccentric girlfriends, and the demented theatre denizens he encounters; and the antics comprising David's onstage escapades, border on the slapstick, but with enough affected gentility to never get tiring. The show, however, stumbles whenever it starts to sing.

BroadwayWorld.com A+ 14; New York Post A+ 14; TONY A 13; New York Times A 13; Theatermania A 13; Associated Press A- 12; AMNY A- 12; WSJ B+ 11; CurtainUp B+ 11; NJ Star-Ledger B+ 11; Nytheatre.com B+ 11; Variety B 10; Backstage B 10; Village Voice B 10; NYMag B- 9; Talking' Broadway D+ 5; TOTAL: 179/16 = 11.19 (B+)

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The Grand Inquisitor

GRADE: B

Adapted from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov by Marie-Helene Estienne. Dir. Peter Brook. New York Theatre Workshop. Through Nov. 30. (CLOSED)

Theatrical legend Peter Brook makes a rare appearance in New York as the director of Marie-Helene Estienne's adaptation of a famous chapter from Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Several critics were admiring if not overjoyed, and most were cool, if not outright hostile (John Simon, of course), to the bare-bones production.

Talkin' Broadway A
(Matthew Murray) Peter Brook...has a knack for making an idea too small for a closet feel too big for a stage...Myers is as avuncular as he is devious...He's all but challenging you on that old saying that evil can flourish when good people do nothing...The Grand Inquisitor theorizes, however, that even such deeply rooted cancers can be removed with the proper treatment: All is not lost, even when those in charge would have you believe nothing else. That makes this show, so seemingly insubstantial, one of the most inspiring and uplifting offerings currently to be seen in New York.

NY Press A-
(Leonard Jacobs) The piece...leaves you simultaneously energized and paralyzed by fear, qualities that would normally work in opposition to each other. Seeing The Grand Inquisitor during the same week we elected president a man that some call a political messiah, this tale of a mandarin of the Spanish Inquisition interrogating, mocking and lambasting Jesus Christ isn’t just timely, it’s ironic...There are substantial segments of the play that are dry, talky and tangential.

Variety B+
(Marilyn Stasio) Technically, it doesn't get more basic than this. Slightly raised platform, couple of stools, clarifying light and two men in black—one of them entirely speechless. Even the adaptation, by Brook stalwart Marie-Helene Estienne, feels elemental, compared to the more elegant Constance Garnett version...Poised to land on the head of a pin, Brook's directorial focus becomes narrower and more pointed, until the jaw-dropping timeliness of Dostoyevsky's message becomes inescapable.

Back Stage B+
(David A. Rosenberg) Although this is more a rhetorical exercise than a play in the traditional sense of that word, the evening engages willing listeners as two men challenge each other, one speaking as he walks about on a platform surrounded by a brick-walled empty space, the other silent and still until almost the end...Longtime Brook collaborator Bruce Myers is the inquisitor, his sonorous voice now mocking, now demanding. His 55-minute monologue is hypnotic and provocative, requiring listeners to pay close attention.

TheaterMania B+
(David Finkle) It's not an easy 50 minutes to sit through—and many patrons may be wise to choose not to do so—but this monologue proves to be a rapt and challenging experience, thanks in large part to the work of Bruce Myers as a 16th-century cardinal confronting the returned Jesus...As befits the stark tale, Brook gives it a stark production.

Newsday B
(Linda Winer) Peter Brook is back with another of his astonishing yet simple, radical but accessible and riveting experiments in basic storytelling...Imagine Beckett's austerity but with showy acting and a linear narrative.

NY Times B-
(Ben Brantley) [Brook's] Grand Inquisitor is less an interpretation than a straightforward presentation of Dostoyevsky's immortal parable of worldly and spiritual power. Though it has a hypnotic central presence in Bruce Myers, who slides between the roles of narrator and Inquisitor, this 50-minute play offers little in the way of revelation. Instead it asks us only to listen again, closely, to a story many have heard before and, presumably, to consider its implications in the world that exists more than a century after it was written...As it is, Mr. Brook's production never transcends the status of an elegant intellectual puzzle play.

Time Out NY B-
(Helen Shaw) When directors dabble in radical reductionism, dozing theatergoers are a major risk. But The Grand Inquisitor, an ascetic retelling of the chapter from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, at least has the courage of its convictions. What else could explain the holy folly of leaving enlightenment up to an audience?...Brook experiments with the very smallest amount of production that a stage can sustain, and yet the rigor reads as many things—including arrogance...Sometimes even austerity is self-indulgent.

Curtain Up B-
(Jenny Sandman) The Grand Inquisitor is an excellent introduction to Brook's style, a rare chance to see his work since he doesn't direct new works very often. Bruce Myers' performance is flawless...But a 55-minute monologue, even one delivered by an impresario, can only be so active and exciting, especially since the role never really calls for any emotion or any sort of inner (or outer) revelation...It's very well-written and executed but ultimately it's a purely intellectual exercise.

Bloomberg News F
(John Simon) What is meat for a Russian novel is poison for the stage. A mere 48 minutes to perform, it's a season in hell to endure. Brook is, of course, one of the stalwarts of the avant- garde, but all that is avant here, and to be guarded against, is the pretense that this is theater, either in quality or quantity...Even Brook's staging fails to show the slightest inventiveness...Sitting through The Grand Inquisitor is admittedly preferable to being burned at the stake, but only just.

Talkin' Broadway A 13; NY Press A- 12; Variety B+ 11; Back Stage B+ 11; TheaterMania B+ 11; Newsday B 10; NY Times B- 9; Time Out B- 9; Curtain Up B- 9; Bloomberg News F 1; TOTAL: 96 / 10 = 9.6 (B)

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