Upstage-Downstage : THEMES EMERGE AND SOMETIMES CONVERGE IN A LOOK-BACK AT THE FIRST HALF OF THE 2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON

Rather than rehash all of 2023, I'd like focus on some half dozen of the plays and musicals that have opened since the 2022-2023 Broadway season ended and the 2023-2024 season began.

Interestingly, that period has been bookended by a pair of haunted house tales, one literal, with literary roots, and the other satirical/allegorical, with historical roots – the latter being far more successful in disturbing an audience’s equilibrium and which, as of now at least, sits high on the list for one or more likely Tony nominations when the season ends next April.

The season’s opener was GREY HOUSE, whose seemingly innocuous title was never explained, something that was true of the play itself, which went for atmosphere over substance.

Written by Levi Holloway, known mostly for his work as a Chicago-based actor and theater director, GREY HOUSE was an otherworldly excursion built on the familiar trope of travelers stranded during a blizzard, seeking shelter in a mysterious house in the woods. All told, and despite committed performances and excellent direction, this was a mix of predictability and bafflement.

GRAY HOUSE Photo by MurphyMade

On the other hand, there was the final show of the first half of the season, the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ masterful play APPROPRIATE, an Obie Award winner for an Off Broadway run a decade ago. This play, too, is set in a sort of haunted house, though without the presence of actual ghosts. Using biting satire, a most unsavory group of characters, and historical references that are far more disconcertedly creepy than anything cooked up in GREY HOUSE, APPROPRIATE makes for a powerful evening of theatergoing.

Without ever overdoing easy weapons of blame, shame, and guilt, the subject matter gets at the heart of issues of our country’s history of slavery, racism, and white privilege. APPROPRIATE, sharply directed by Lila Neugebauer and boasting a solid acting company and outstanding design elements, is still running and comes as close to must-see as any show that opened on Broadway in recent months. (The other is the revival of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, a production I will discuss in an upcoming post, along with Stephen Sondheim's newest and last show, HERE WE ARE, currently having its first run Off Broadway).

APPROPRIATE Photo by Joan Marcus

Another significant revival of a play with a satirical sting aimed at issues of racism is PURLIE VICTORIOUS: A CONFEDERATE ROMP THROUGH THE COTTON PATCH, written by Ossie Davis and originally produced in 1961. The production, under the discerning direction of Kenny Leon, is an outstanding one, funny, astute, and, unfortunately, still utterly timely.

The play's central character is one Purlie Victorious Judson, an itinerant Black preacher brilliantly played by Leslie Odom Jr., who has returned home to rural Georgia with a grand scheme for buying and revitalizing the community church. Standing in the way is Ol’ Cap'n, the white landowner who runs his cotton plantation as if the Civil War had never occurred, much less been lost by his forebears.

As good as Odom is, it is Kara Young as his partner-in-crime Luttiebelle who nearly steals the show with her glorious comic timing and the most expressive eyes you're likely ever to see. Here's another play that is likely to pick up Tony nominations and that sits high on my list of recommendations.

PURLIE VICTORIOUS Photo by Marc J. Franklin

Plays and musicals with themes tied to Judaism and antisemitism have also been occurring with greater frequency, from last season's LEOPOLDSTADT and PARADE to the more recent JUST FOR US and HARMONY.

JUST FOR US marked the Broadway debut of comic Alex Edelman, who has garnered accolades for his solo show, the central set piece being a story of an evening he spent among a group of antisemitic white supremacists.

My reaction, which admittedly was an outlier to the general praise the show received, was not enthusiastic. Although I was taken by Edelman's engaging performance style, I was less impressed by the overall content of the evening, which I found to be overly practiced and familar, with stories that reminded me too much of those I've heard from other comics through the years or of situations that I and friends and family experienced growing up in our own Jewish homes. I haven't changed my mind, but I regret my hemming-and-hawing published review in which I failed to adequately explain my rationale.

JUST FOR US Photo by Matthew Murphy

More to my liking was HARMONY (still playing and well worth seeing), the musical by pop icon Barry Manilow and his longtime writing partner Bruce Sussman. It is framed as a memory play about the real world of the one-time Germany-based international performing sensation known as the Comedian Harmonists, made up of a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish members whose fame and fall coincided with the emergence of the Nazis.

Another likely Tony nomination or more for this one, with special kudos to actor Chip Zien, whose character remembers every moment -- the good, bad, and the ugly -- of the group's time together back in the late 1920s and into the 1930s, and to director/choreographer Warren Carlyle, who keeps the show totally focused on the rise and fall of the sextet.

HARMONY Photo by Julieta Cervantes

Wrapping up on a final upbeat note, let's recognize the near perfect revival of MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT, Eric Idle and John Du Prez's musical about those unforgettable knights and knaves of the Round Table whose rousing non-sequiturs and merriments remain a high point of theatrical delights. The original Broadway production in 2005 ran for close to 1,600 performances, and I would love to see this revival match or exceed that. Fun. Silly. Weird. Wacky. And joyful as they come. SPAMALOT makes a virtue of digressions and tangential meanderings and will send you dancing and whistling out to the street to the tune of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." It seldom gets any better than this.