So Help Me God!

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)

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Still Life

GRADE: B

By Alexander Dinelaris. Directed by Will Frears. Lucille Lortel Theatre. (CLOSED)

Critics are drawn to the relationship at the center of Still Life, between photographer Carrie Ann (Sarah Paulson), who hasn't been able to take a photograph since her father's death, and Jeffrey (Frederick Weller), a trend analyst dealing with his own mortality. They write that both Paulson and Weller have a tendency to be cold, but for these characters that trait is an asset. Though critics praise Matthew Rauch's performance as Jeff's morally corrupt boss Terry, they find that the character ultimately fails to connect to the story as a whole. The bottom line in most of the reviews is that Dinelaris has written a promising play with believable dialogue, but he is attempting too much and it never fully comes together.

Bloomberg News A+
(Jeremy Gerard) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had it in “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy epitomized it. If you want to see chemistry in action -- the kind that’s equal parts sexual electricity and crackling banter -- get your tickets now for “Still Life.” You’ll find Sarah Paulson and Frederick Weller at the Lortel Theater in New York’s Greenwich Village throwing off hot sparks in the best new American play since “Proof.”

TheaterScene.net A
(Victor Gluck) Alexander Dinelaris’ Still Life is a seminal portrait of Generation X, both in its successes and its weaknesses. The play is witty and clever, bright and fresh, a romantic drama that has something to say and a strong message. This genre is rare today and an endangered species. Under director Will Frears’ taut and sensitive staging, the characters ring true and the play moves with the speed of contemporary cinema. In fact, the play will make an even better film with its many short scenes and quick, bristling exchanges.

The New Yorker A-
(Unsigned) The cast, headed by the superb Sarah Paulson and Frederick Weller, is uniformly expert; the play is well directed by Will Frears. As a writer, Dinelaris is almost too cool for school. He has no problem with presentation; the challenge is penetration. For that, his pithy dialogue would have to be couched in a format that amounted to more than movie scenes and movie problems, performed by movie actors.

Backstage A-
(Adam Perlman) In his sparkling dialogue and its underlying gravity, Dinelaris is like a sad-eyed Aaron Sorkin. (This is meant as a compliment.) He runs into trouble, though, in trying to incorporate a third viewpoint. In addition to Carrie Ann, the watcher, and Jeff, the conflicted participant, we get Terry (Matthew Rauch), the unrepentant doer. He's written and played like a refugee from a Mamet play. Amazingly, this isn't the problem, for Dinelaris nails the bilious, rapid-fire dialogue and Rauch the delivery. The issue is that the character runs out of steam then vaporizes. There's no satisfaction in his relationship to the other characters or the play's themes. Neither this nor the thin writing of two luxuriously cast supporting roles—Dominic Chianese as Carrie Ann's father, Adriane Lenox as a photography teacher—compromises the overall effectiveness of the portrait.

CurtainUp A-
(Elyse Sommer) The playwright is blessed to have Will Frears at the helm. With the play structured to have scenes alternate from one side of the stage to the other, Frears has guided his designers to create the feel of its multiple locations with a de-emphasis on fussy staging and an emphasis on fluidity. Thus a long table and just a few other scenic props serve to evoke a university lecture hall, a conference room, an art gallery, Carrie Ann's apartment, several bar scenes and a dinner. Most importantly, he has elicited believable, powerful performances from the actors. Paulson and Weller are completely convincing as the besotted lovers —funny and sad, but never clawing. Rauch is chillingly smarmy as Terry. Dominic Chianese, best known as "Uncle Junior" in The Sopranos makes the most of two brief dream sequences as Theo, Carrie Ann's father... There's lots of fine, meaningful dialogue here, sometimes too much--as illustrated by the lengthy argument about gender identities during the dinner scene with Carrie Ann, Jeffrey and their hosts Mary and Sean as somewhat too long and extraneous. There are a few other scenes that seem a bit forced but overall this is an absorbing and moving look at living fully no matter what our lucky or unlucky breaks.

Talkin' Broadway B+
(Matthew Murray) Dinelaris metes out the microscopic victories so smartly that each new advance, up until the one that defines the ultimate boundaries of their growing feelings, plays as a cathartic triumph. Both Weller (best known for playing the violent redneck in Take Me Out) and Paulson (Laura in David Leveaux’s misbegotten 2005 revival of The Glass Menagerie) can seem cold and detached onstage, but here that potential liability is a huge asset. In their scenes together, the two form an emotional echo chamber that traps and amplifies what little heat there is, until all iciness has been melted away. Weller floods Jeff’s monumental second-act decisions about control and survival with the pain of losing something precious far too quickly; Paulson alternately blossoms and withers as Jeff’s light finds ever-new ways to touch her. They’re two luminous performances... In conflating issues of emotional and artistic liberty, Dinelaris pulls too many strings to too little effect, at least when Carrie Ann and Jeff aren’t at the center of the frame. In fairness, director Will Frears has not shepherded a supple production: He hasn’t figured out how to make the snapshot-like scenes not feel sluggish, a confusing scenic concept (by David Korins) makes use of too much marble for these workaday people, and generally dim lighting (by David Weiner) contributes to an unnecessarily dreary atmosphere that can’t abate entirely once the characters learn how to escape it. But throughout there’s the inescapable sense that Dinelaris is just trying to say too much.

TheaterMania B
(Andy Propst) Despite Dinelaris' shrewd characterizations and the cast's carefully considered performances, stretches of Still Life seem forced and hollow. The back story and ramifications of Joanne's relationship with Carrie Ann and her father never ring true. Similarly, Terry's brazen come-ons to women seem like pale imitations of macho behavior for the 1990s rather than the behavior of a desensitized man in the early 21st Century. Yet despite its flaws, the play remains interesting, thanks to its sometimes sharp insights and frequently crackling dialogue. It's a series of theatrical snapshots that simply need to be more cohesively ordered.

The Village Voice C+
(Eric Grode) Dinelaris is on a mission to rescue his peers from the (long ago discarded) stereotype of terminally ironic apathy. But by focusing so much on refuting Reality Bites, he and director Will Frears frequently lose track of the vibrant, unpredictable, alluring couple at the center of their play. Sarah Paulson and Frederick Weller generate delightfully cantankerous fireworks as Carrie Ann and Jeffrey; several of Dinelaris's windier explications of Dignity and Purpose are trumped by Jeffrey's furtive sniff of the jacket he had draped over Carrie Ann's shoulders after walking her home. But manifesto-itis constantly threatens to eclipse the play's incidental pleasures. And a late plot twist shines an unfortunate spotlight on Dinelaris's distractingly earnest view of Gen-Xers.

Variety C+
(Marilyn Stasio) Having created his ideal couple for this age of existential anxiety and paralysis, Dinelaris doesn't quite know what to do with them, other than show them together and separately interacting (or not interacting) with their equally disaffected peers. While this results in some idle amusement -- especially in scenes between laid-back Jeff and his hyper-crude boss, Terry (all aggressive energy in Matthew Rauch's wired perf) -- none of this brittle chat advances the plot. Mainly because there isn't any plot until Jeff falls ill and takes the story down its expected path. Dinelaris writes decent dialogue that occasionally puts some real oomph into a scene, as when Theo makes peace with his limitations ("It's cruel to realize your mediocrity at the end of your life") and embraces his daughter's artistic superiority. Or when Carrie Ann's self-effacing assistant, Jessie (in a sweet and savvy perf from Halley Feiffer), erupts into an amusing aria of self-debasement. But like the inert generation it presumes to represent, all that sound and fury about death and dying signifies nothing about life.

The New York Times C+
(Ben Brantley) Mr. Dinelaris spins an appealing line of silky, fraying banter. And his play is at its most affecting when it portrays courtships conducted in the shadow of mortality. On the one hand, there’s the endearing, self-sabotaging chemistry that infuses the dance of mutual attraction performed by Carrie Ann and Jeffrey. (It’s a one-step-forward, three-steps-back pas de deux.) On the other, there’s the brutal, carnally direct approach that Terry (Matthew Rauch), Jeffrey’s macho boss and friend, tries on pretty much every woman who crosses his line of vision. Both forms of pitching woo are equally self-conscious and self-protecting, and all the more affecting for being so. It’s when the show tackles its big subjects more directly that it gets into trouble. In its first act “Still Life” is rather like its characters, camouflaging and betraying its essential seriousness with flippancy, and that tension holds your interest. In the second act, when the veils are pulled off of real life, real death and the psychological motives behind Carrie Ann’s photographer’s block, the play’s tone increasingly suggests an old inspirational weepie.

Lighting & Sound America C-
(David Barbour) David Korins is very possibly the most interesting set designer working Off Broadway today, but Still Life does not feature one of his happiest inventions. It's a fairly generic collection of elements -- a couple of pillars, some ceiling moldings, a window unit, and a long table -- that tries to stand in for so many locations it ends up suiting very few of them. It also doesn't solve the structural problems of a script constructed out of many short scenes; much of the second act is taken up with people moving furniture around in the dark. However, the action is lit with rare fluency and skill by David Weiner. His nighttime sidelight looks are particularly alluring, as is a wash of African sunlight, and there's a shocking moment, late in the play, when harsh morning light is made to pour into a room. Barring an extremely unfortunate cocktail dress for Paulson, Sarah J. Holden's costumes seem accurate and up to date. Fitz Patton's sound design includes some ambient urban noises, as well as reinforcement for the melancholy guitar music penned by Michael Friedman. As it shifts it focus among its leading characters, and shuttles between cynicism and sentimentality, Still Life offers a blurry image of its characters. There's a play in there, but it need a surer hand for its power to be fully brought to life.

Bloomberg News A+ 14; TheaterScene.net A 13; The New Yorker A- 12; Backstage A- 12; CurtainUp A- 12; Talkin' Broadway B+ 11; TheaterMania B 10; The Village Voice C+ 8; Variety C+ 8; The New York Times C+ 8; Lighting & Sound America C- 6; TOTAL: 114/11 = 10.36 (B)

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Coraline

GRADE: B-

By David Greenspan and Stephin Merritt, based on the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. Directed by Leigh Silverman. MCC at the Lucille Lortel. (CLOSED)

While this adventurous Off-Broadway musicalization of Neil Gaiman's dark fairy tale has some full-throated partisans who find it an imagination-stirring romp, most reviews are decidedly mixed on the production's seam-showing, low-tech approach. Many praise Jayne Houdyshell's unlikely turn as the show's 9-year-old heroine and librettist David Greenspan's campy take on the villainous Other Mother, but Stephin Merritt's tinkly piano score gets mostly low marks for melody and variety, and both Greenspan's book and Leigh Silverman's direction get dinged for inconsistency and cutesy knowingness. Even many who are up for the ride and see much to admire in it complain of encroaching monotony.

Village Voice A+
(Michael Feingold) The big, glossy, efficiently tidy musicals often seen uptown, with nary a hair out of place, aren't an eighth as fresh or as much fun as Coraline...An obstinate, adorable, wayward brat of a musical, Coraline is scruffiness personified. And it's the quintessence of fresh—a musical with a score, by a noted rock musician, that's squarely in the musical-theater tradition and manages to pull off the magical double feat of never sounding either like just another piece of musical theater or like another recycled rock album trying to find its place on the stage. Coraline, gratifyingly, never sounds like anything but itself, from the ear-tickling overture, plinked at you by a phalanx of toy pianos as they creep out of the shadows, to the goofball finale, its moral warbled and tootled by the cast as they impersonate a marching band of trained circus mice. Scruffy never had it so good...Leigh Silverman's production not only enhances the work but fulfills it thematically.

Variety A
(David Rooney) Hand-tooled, proudly low-tech and endearingly mad...Whether or not the musical theater crowd warms to this wildly unconventional piece, it succeeds fully in harnessing the essence of three distinctive talents. It has Gaiman's magical blend of old-fashioned storytelling, modern fantasy, tight plotting and sly humor. It furthers the fascination with theatrical illusion that runs through Greenspan's work. And the voice of Merritt's music as frontman for bands including the Magnetic Fields and the 6ths comes through loud and clear in the droll lyrics and atonal melodies...Leigh Silverman's production is a bizarre but devilishly funny pantomime, its presentational style recalling John Doyle's stagings of "Sweeney Todd" and "Road Show." Design elements of the latter are echoed in Christine Jones' marvelous bric-a-brac-choked set, with the mountain of suitcases here replaced by a jumble of pianos and doors, doused in Ben Stanton's eerie lights...Even when it borders on the precious, the show is mesmerizing and original.

Backstage A
(Adam R. Perlman) A polished work of theater that feels marvelously like a bit of child's play. The production, presented by MCC Theater, hasn't been lavished with expensive special effects but with that special brand of make-believe that can turn a dreary afternoon magical...Age, gender, and race are like the bricked-up door in Coraline's flat—no obstacle for an imaginative young girl. Like her, you embrace the players and their game. The story they enact—a ghoulish tale of faded thespians, childless parents, and parentless children—seems ripe for musical treatment...Merritt's songs are like the spontaneous ditties you might have made up in your childhood backyard: singsongy, lilting, and sometimes taking unexpected turns...The stakes can feel a bit lightweight if you step back, but there are usually more than enough theatrical pleasures to keep you firmly invested in the present...Adults will find much to love in this child's entertainment, and, unlike in most overblown efforts, they'll be responding to the same things their kids do. There are no winking double-entendres, no references lobbed over the kids' heads. The joy of this family entertainment is seeing a superb group of theater artists exercising their imagination—and getting you to do the same.

The New York Times B
(Ben Brantley) Droll, dry and very cerebral...Less like a full-bodied show than the idea of one. It’s an intricately articulated skeleton to which flesh only occasionally adheres...A grown-up exercise in story theater that asks its audience to take a childlike leap of faith into fantasy. But the invitation is couched with such self-conscious craftsmanship that you wind up frozen in admiration of its elegance and inventiveness instead of taking that necessary step into make-believe. Though steeped in off-kilter charm, Coraline is too cool to be truly seductive...For me the most completely drawn character is a cat. Portrayed by Mr. Fleisher, who isn’t remotely feline-looking, this yawning, stretching Cat...has all the compelling self-containment and capriciousness of his species.

Theatermania B
(Dan Balcazo) Stephin Merritt's charming score to the new musical Coraline, presented by MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel, is played largely on toy piano. That's just one of many bold choices in this adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel, featuring a book by David Greenspan and stylish direction by Leigh Silverman. While not every choice works, enough of them do to make the show a memorable and worthwhile experience...Christine Jones' set calls to mind a cluttered backstage, and indeed the production emphasizes its reliance on stage conventions...Greenspan's book is quite faithful to Gaiman's plot, but occasionally gets too bogged down in expository narration...It's easier to suspend your disbelief about some details more than others. The gender-bending done by Jue and Greenspan are easy enough to buy into -- particularly as both actors have such an overwhelming stage presence, and play their parts with panache...However, it's much more difficult to accept the central conceit that veteran actress Houdyshell is a small little girl. She pushes too hard, particularly towards the beginning of the piece, indicating her girlishness in too forced a fashion.

The Daily News B-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Offbeat and partially intriguing...Greenspan's story faithfully follows Neil Gaiman's best-selling novel and has written himself the juiciest role as the sinister Other Mother who terrorizes Coraline. Her/his defeat is a hoot, if not a yodel. Merritt, of the Magnetic Fields, is known for his quirky style and has come up with clever lyrics and an interesting plinkety-plinking piano score (including a toy spinet) that fits the kooky, spooky story...For all its virtues, the MCC presentation has issues. It's naggingly repetitive and, at 90 minutes, long outstays its welcome. This Coraline is wise, brave and tricky, yes. By the end, though, it's become trying.

The Wall Street Journal B-
(Terry Teachout) Previews generated so much buzz that the show’s limited run has already been extended for two weeks. Whether the musical version has any future beyond its current run is another matter. I think it does—but only if future productions slice away the obscuring coyness that keeps this exceptionally promising show from living up to its full potential...Stephin Merritt...has written a self-assured score that is easily the best thing about the show...David Greenspan’s book is for the most part equally effective, a few overcompressed transitional passages notwithstanding...So far, so good—so what’s wrong? The biggest problem with “Coraline” is that the title role is being played not by a girl but by a 56-year-old woman, Jayne Houdyshell, a talented actress whose performance here is inexplicably, exasperatingly twee...I had so much difficulty with the way “Coraline” was performed that I’m not absolutely sure how good the show really is. Even so, I think it more than likely that it will be taken up by regional theaters looking for a small-scale children’s musical that appeals no less strongly to adults, and I offer two pieces of advice to the directors of these companies: (1) Cast a child as Coraline; (2) cut back sharply on the archness.

Bergen Record B-
(Robert Feldberg) Fascinating in its attempt to find a theatrical equivalent to the imaginative experience of reading the story...The songs, written by Stephin Merritt, are small and strange and often quite clever. They complement a book by David Greenspan that sticks closely to Gaiman’s account of the adventures of Coraline, a young English girl who passes through a corridor in her apartment to an evil parallel universe, and must struggle to return to her real parents. The story, full of psychological excursions into the meanings of home, family, independence and need, will reverberate with children of all ages. Most magically, there’s the remarkable portrayal of Coraline by Jayne Houdyshell, a plump actress in her 50s. From the moment she first appears, we unquestioningly accept Houdyshell as a young English girl..Coraline, however, doesn’t sustain its early promise. Alongside some murky storytelling, whimsy creeps in and becomes the tiresome monster that takes over the show. There’s also the feeling that a self-conscious devotion to process becomes more important than communicating with the audience.

The Hollywood Reporter B-
(Frank Scheck) Although this version of Coraline is unlikely to have the widespread appeal of the recent hit 3-D animated film, those with a taste for the decidedly offbeat could well turn it into a theatrical cult hit...Book writer David Greenspan's adaptation is choppy and disjointed, failing to compellingly capture the source material's narrative tension and making the evening feel much longer than the 100-minute running time. Merritt's score is equally problematic. Although the musical numbers demonstrate the prolific composer's ability to craft endless catchy melodies, many of the brief songs fail to cohere. And the fact that they're played mainly on such instruments as toy piano and "prepared" piano tend to give them a monotonous sameness...Director Leigh Silverman has staged the proceedings in an imaginatively low-tech fashion, with Christine Jones' abstract set design consisting of numerous pianos of different shapes and sizes, several doors and various pieces of antique bric-a-brac. The performers do well by their multiple roles, and Houdyshell is utterly winning as the vulnerable Coraline. For all the musical's inventiveness, however, audience members might ultimately relate all too well to the title character's growing unease with her bizarre surroundings.

Talkin' Broadway B-
(Matthew Murray) Lights up the Lucille Lortel Theatre with invention but, like its heroine, proves that not all adventures have entirely happy endings...Rather than writing a spiritless point-for-point adaptation like those so frequently seen on Broadway these days, or radically rethinking the style or locale for easier assimilation on these shores...Greenspan and director Leigh Silverman have mined the novel for the quirky and unpredictable spirit that so artfully captures imagination, elation, and terror as only children can experience them...Each of the seven performers in the production's nonstop cavalcade of an acting troupe are terrific...The only thing Coraline lacks - and it's unfortunately a biggie - is musical necessity...It's not just that the songs give you nothing to take away, it's that they take in nothing to give you...Coraline obviously isn't trying to be a conventional musical - and how could it ever be one? - but it still has the obligation to be listenable rather than merely bearable.

New York C+
(Stephanie Zacharek) The set, by Christine Jones, is a pleasing jumble of steampunky Victoriana, stocked with a selection of tired old pianos of all sizes and colors, which make a smart visual counterpart to Merritt’s eerie, plinky prepared-piano melodies...But the show’s modest, clever touches work only part of the time. Elsewhere, they have the DIY quality of a crude Christmas pantomime, winsome only to a point. As Coraline, Jayne Houdyshell (a 2006 Tony Award nominee for her role in Well) relies too much on that shoulder-shrugging, toe-stubbing “I don’t wanna grow up” affectation adopted by adults when they’re trying to act like little kids. Greenspan himself appears as Coraline’s “other” mother, flouncing about like a nightmare June Cleaver whose hair is inexplicbly done up in dreadlocks bedecked with tinsel. Campy touches like that only dilute the material’s delectably creepy undertones, an instance of fanciful vision giving way to button-eyed shortsightedness.

Time Out NY C+
(Adam Feldman) Given the dim-wittedness of so many modern musicals, it may seem churlish to find fault with this one for overthinking itself. But watching Coraline is a frustrating experience, precisely because a good deal of it is quite wonderful. Faithfully adapted by David Greenspan from Neil Gaiman’s delightful book, the show has a witty, elegantly evocative score by Stephin Merritt...Christine Jones’s set has an appealing antique junkiness, and much of the stage imagery is memorable. But Silverman can’t leave quirky enough alone. Treated more or less straight—as the National Theatre of Scotland did in its superb adaptation of Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls—this might have been an oddball triumph. Here, however, it’s hobbled by a deliberately poor choice of actors, almost across the board, to suit a fussy-cute conception of the material.

Just Shows To Go You C+
(Patrick Lee) You think of words like “uncompromising” and “integrity” as you watch Stephen Merritt’s musical of the enormously popular children’s tale. The score’s strange, angular melodies as primarily played on a single tinkling keyboard, the casting of mature Jane Houdyshell as the adventure-seeking nine year old heroine, the avoidance of anything that smacks of gratuitous crowd-pleasing: a unique artistic vision has been rigorously followed and realized. But it’s hard to feel anything besides detached appreciation for the show’s uniqueness: despite a uniformly wonderful cast and many isolated performance moments that tempt the imagination, the production is curiously remote and short on the inventive theatricality that would showcase the very special material to advantage.

CurtainUp C+
(Simon Saltzman) As the titular character, the courageous Houdyshell is not only totally believable in a role significantly far from her own age but also delightful...She is the heart and soul of a musical that unfortunately is constructed around too many incredulously conceived and performed characters...If [Silverman] has purposely blurred the boundary that separates a dream from reality, she has succeeded. Where her direction falters is in not keeping a tighter rein on the essential group of supporting actors who unfortunately drift in their portrayals between the amateurish and the acquiescent...There is evidence that Greenspan has labored rigorously to grace the short novel (first published in 2002) with a conspicuously audacious sense of theatricality. Much of it, however, falls as flat as the singing, with Houdyshell the notable exception...Set Designer Christine Jones and lighting designer Ben Stanton have done a super job creating a basic environment of musty fixtures and relics that transposes itself from the mundane to the mysterious and foreboding with a minimum of ado and fuss...In considering Merritt's score, in which the soured notes follow one another gainfully and mercifully without bumping into each other, there is occasionally something to admire in the lyrics.

AM New York C+
(Matt Windman) Rather than turn “Coraline” into a conventional children’s musical, rock singer-songwriter Stephen Merritt and downtown playwright-performer David Greenspan have opted for a decidedly off-kilter, otherworldly and openly theatrical production that resembles John Doyle’s creepy actor-musician revival of “Sweeney Todd” more than perhaps “Shrek"...While the score itself is not enjoyable and tends to slow down the story rather than build upon it, it at least manages to be unique...Houdyshell, who is a wonderful actress, captures Coraline’s plucky youthful spirit, but it makes no sense for the actress playing Coraline to be as big as everyone else. Meanwhile, Greenspan is awkward and unthreatening as Coraline’s nemesis. The rest of the small ensemble – which plays multiple roles including mice and ghosts – keeps the production grounded in a spirit of theatrical ingenuity. Regardless of whether they agree with its artistic choices, fans of the story will probably get a kick out of this unconventional musical treatment.

Entertainment Weekly C
(Jeremy Medina) Something got lost in translation: The characters and plot might be the same, but the tone is inconsistent and off. Thanks to the sharp but distinctly exaggerated performances — particularly Greenspan as the Other Mother, whose bizarre affectations are grandiosely over-the-top — this version has much more humor. The humor lends the production its own identity, but it does not capture the spirit of Gaiman's work...The serviceable music by Stephin Merritt, best known as the frontman for avant-garde indie rock group The Magnetic Fields, is well integrated into the story, but ultimately lacks punch. The lone element that's truly memorable is the haunting toy piano score used throughout. As the play advances toward its anti-climactic finale, the songs are tossed aside in favor of far too much exposition. Much is told, and too little is shown. For a story that celebrates imagination, that's a serious shortcoming.

New York Post D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) The single greatest idea in Coraline was to cast middle-age Jayne Houdyshell in the title role, a 9-year-old girl...Her characterization of a bold, resourceful little heroine is spot-on...Aside from that coup, however, Coraline is surprisingly unimaginative. With David Greenspan penning the book and the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt in charge of the score, this musical had an intriguing creative team. That the show turns out so flat and timid is a crushing letdown...Gaiman's droll, matter-of-fact creepiness is completely lost in this diffident translation. Despite occasionally clever rhyming schemes, Merritt's songs aren't all that interesting melodically, a problem compounded by their being played exclusively (by Phyllis Chen) on various pianos. This burdens the tunes with a monochromatic sonic palette they just aren't strong enough to overcome. Director Leigh Silverman only makes things worse. It boggles the mind that such a project would be entrusted to someone with zero visual sense. Her staging of the various worlds is completely confusing, and she can't even render the novel's best, most macabre invention (the Other denizens have buttons for eyes). Silverman also shows little control over the supporting cast, which flails in a variety of roles.

VV A+ 14; Variety A 13; Backstage A 13; The New York Times B 10; Theatermania B 10; The Daily News B- 9; WSJ B- 9; Bergen Record B- 9; The Hollywood Reporter B- 9; Talkin' Broadway B- 9; New York C+ 8; TONY C+ 8; JSTGY C+ 8; CurtainUp C+ 8; AM New York C+ 8; Entertainment Weekly C 7; New York Post D+ 5; TOTAL: 157 / 17 = 9.24 (B-)

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Catch-22

GRADE: B-

Adapted from Joseph Heller's novel and directed by Peter Meineck. Aquila Theatre Company at the Lucille Lortel Theater. (CLOSED)

Critics admire the bravery of the Aquila Theatre Company and director Peter Meineck in attempting to bring Joseph Heller's classic anti-war novel to the stage, but only a few vocal champions feel that the piece has survived the transplant with all of its tone and message intact. Even among the harsher reviews is some solid praise for the hard-working cast, particularly lead actor Joseph Lavelle as Yossarian (who, nearly every critic dutifully reports, has a full-frontal nude scene).

Nytheatre.com A
(Martin Denton) The quick changes add energy and theatricality to a piece that moves effortlessly from scene to scene under Meineck's taut, smart direction. The principal style of the show is farcical, but Meineck shrewdly interrupts the quick comic pace for stylized renderings of the bombing missions and, occasionally, a character's death...We do need to meet Yossarian again, and to hear his whisper of sanity from within the cacophony of lunacy that we are somehow still stuck in.

That Sounds Cool A
(Aaron Riccio) Considering how much has to be cut, how much needs to be contained, the only question is whether or not Aquila is crazy enough to pull it off. Yes, emphatically so. Director Peter Meinecke [sic] might as well be wearing a straightjacket, for he channels the best sort of madness: one which, as paradoxically as anything in Heller’s world, makes perfect sense...Save for a few overlong set changes, carefully choreographed by Desiree Sanchez, the pace of the play matches Heller’s breakneck prose.

Newsday B+
(Linda Winer) Joseph Heller's brilliantly absurd novel--a sort of anti-war "Catcher in the Rye" for the '60s and '70s--really should not be able to be told by six actors and an actress on a tiny stage. But here it mostly is...John Lavelle has a boyishly poignant incredulity--and a few minutes of full-frontal nudity--as Yossarian, the World War II bombardier who claims to be crazy in order to stop flying missions...The storytelling gets a little windy. But the handful of actors are eerily unrecognizable from character to outrageous character. And the staging--scarcely more than parachute silk and a few cots--ingeniously reminds us about how much can be done with pure imagination.

CurtainUp C+
(Paulanne Simmons) Meineck's [sic] adapted text is remarkably true to the spirit of the novel, and his direction surely captures the madcap reality of Heller's world...The problem is not so much the dramatization as the work it is based on. Heller's novel was non-linear and episodic. It was held together by a central idea, Heller's wonderful sense of the ridiculous and the eccentric characters that populate his remarkable world. This works well in the novel but not so well in the play. Despite the enormous energy exhibited by the cast, often in multiple roles, and the fast pace of the action, this production seems to get mired in its own message...Perhaps a novel can be built around a central tragic joke. But not a play.

The New York Times C+
(Wilborn Hampton) While Mr. Meineck’s staging is imaginative and faithful in spirit to Heller’s novel, it ultimately proves an uneven effort...Mr. Meineck has selected salient episodes from the novel and using Heller’s dialogue woven them deftly into a coherent plotline...The weakness in the Aquila production comes from some of Mr. Meineck’s directorial choices. Several performances are pure caricature, and others are so overwrought that the humor is lost in pure volume. As Yossarian, John Lavelle achieves mixed success.

Variety C+
(Marilyn Stasio) Pivotal scenes are more or less faithfully rendered, but the piecemeal production fails to capture the anarchic comic energy of the original--or to come up with a unifying style of its own...As filtered through the comic prism of Yossarian's imagination, these people inflate into grotesque caricatures, making everything they say and do sound sinister or ludicrous...But Meineck finds no stage worthy equivalent of that maniacal laughter...The players perform their parts earnestly (no winking at the audience from this company) and whenever a truly comic moment comes along, they grab it with both hands.

Theatermania C
(David Finkle) Too often an unsatisfactory reduction of the print incarnation...Editing Heller's sprawling narrative isn't a bad idea. Meineck's problem is that in reducing the book to 11 scenes over two acts, he's not only excised many characters and subplots, he's also lost the heft of Heller's hilariously addled prose...More often, what he's retained and how he's directed the scenes is no more than loud and obvious. This puts his hard-working and often-doubling actors under pressure.

Backstage C
(Andy Propst) Adapter-director Peter Meineck's reductive and overly broad stage version of Catch-22 never succeeds in navigating the fine duality of Heller's original or certain satires that have followed...Like Heller's novel, Meineck's script zigzags nonlinearly through events, and sometimes it can all seem nightmarish. This dreamscape feeling is enhanced by Meineck's colorful, almost circuslike lighting design, as well as his use of six actors to play all the other characters. Sadly, though, the staging and some of the performances are so antic that the gravity of Yossarian's plight is never fully felt.

New York Post C-
(Frank Scheck) Unsuccessfully attempts to condense the sprawling narrative, with its huge cast of characters, while preserving its essential themes. But the book's madcap looniness doesn't translate well to the stage. Instead, it lurches from episode to episode without translating the action into compelling theatrical terms...Despite some imaginative touches - Yossarian's flying missions are presented in an effectively minimalist manner - the production is more lumbering than satisfactorily absurd.

Time Out NY C-
(Drew Toal) The small cast does an admirable job of covering as much ground as possible...What the actors display in terms of élan is overcome by a lack of matériel. It’s difficult to get a good sense of the industrial horror of war when the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber that Yossarian (John Lavelle) sees as a flying coffin is depicted as a turret-shaped cage, a small platform and spotlights...Fans of the book will take some satisfaction in seeing Heller’s characters brought to life, but others will be lost in a fog of bore.

Nytheatre.com A 13; That Sounds Cool A 13; Newsday B+ 11; Curtain Up C+ 8; NY Times C+ 8; Variety C+ 8; TheaterMania C 7; Backstage C 7; NY Post C- 7; TONY C- 7; TOTAL: 89/10=8.9 (B-)

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