ANGEL REAPERS: Agony and Ecstasy In A Constant Tug-of-War

Angel Reapers
Photo by Joan Marcus

Widows, orphans, runaway slaves, asylum seekers, and all manner of troubled souls (with the specified exception of “drones, sluggards, thieves, and liars”) are welcome to join the religious community of Shakers, where they will find surcease in doing the simple tasks of daily life and celebrating the glory of God.    

Thus it is in the blissful opening minutes of Angel Reapers, the dance-theater work born of a collaboration between choreographer Martha Clarke and playwright Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, The Last Night of Ballyhoo), now on view at the Pershing Square Signature Center. 

It is the late 18^th Century in rural upstate New York. A dignified group of men and women in sober attire, followers of Mother Ann Lee (Sally Murphy), sit in a Shaker meeting house, segregated by gender. All is silent mediation, until, surprisingly, one of the women starts to giggle. But rather than look askance at the disruption to their meditation, the others pick up on the laughter, which spreads like wildfire among the congregants, and then morphs into a burst of song, the well-known Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts” (‘Tis the gift to be simple; ‘tis the gift to be free), followed by an explosion of ecstatic dance. Truly, this is what is meant in the Book of Psalms when it refers to making "a joyful noise unto the Lord.” 

But just as you are thinking how refreshing it is to see religion depicted in such an uplifting and un-ironic fashion, there comes a downward turn. For there is a price to pay in exchange for the gift of belonging. To be a Shaker is to abjure bodily pleasures, to spend one’s life celibate and in a constant struggle with temptation, a soldier in the war of soul vs. flesh.  It is this struggle that Angel Reapers focuses on.  When one of the men sings “Old Stiff, you have no business here,” you understand that this is no euphemism for the devil, but a reference to an aroused sexual organ.

There is no central plot to the piece. This is a work that celebrates the visceral – religious fervor, spiritual strife, and, yes, furtive sexual coupling. For despite a lengthy litany of rules of behavior that bind the community, Nature will always find a way, even at the risk of the violators being cast out and shunned. 

Throughout the 85-minute work, it is the dancing that carries the story, an impressive display of gymnastic prowess and stamina, with great bounds of leaping and twirling and rolling on the floor.  All of it is performed with sublime skill by the six women and five men in the cast. The production is greatly enhanced, as well, by Marsha Ginsberg’s encapsulating set, Donna Zakowska’s costume design, and Christopher Akerlind’s lighting, all of which serve the dance elements splendidly and pull the audience into the heart of things.  

Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the new website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics. 

    

WOMEN WITHOUT MEN: Mint Theater Company Does a Bang-Up Job Revitalizing 1938 Play

Kate Middleton, Aedin Moloney, Joyce Cohen, 

Amelia White, and Emily Walton

Photo by Richard Termine

As Jean Paul Sartre famously said, “Hell is other people.” This is most certainly true for the people who are gathered together by necessity in the Mint Theater Company’s splendid production of Irish playwright Hazel Ellis’s 1938 drama Women Without Men, now on view at the company’s new home at City Center Stage II.  

To begin with, what a nice new home the Mint has found for itself after being pushed out of the midtown space it had occupied for two decades, a victim of skyrocketing rental costs. It is sad to be forced out, or course, but the new space at City Center is a lovely one, with lots of room for the wonderful set Vicki R. Davis has designed for this production, the first thing you see when you take your seat in the audience.    

It is the teachers’ sitting room at a private girls’ school -- all polished wood, walls lined with bookcases, a lovely rug on the floor, and comfy chairs in front of the fire.  How cozy and inviting it all looks. Until, one by one, we meet the embittered, backbiting, thin-skinned, and territorial teachers who have spent far too much time with one another over the years.  

They are, in short, trapped. They are “women without men,” as the title says, meaning they have little recourse but to work in one of the few professions where it is acceptable for them to be employed. The school is not a large one, with only fifty students, a headmistress (Joyce Cohen), a matron (Amelia White) and six teachers, including the eager newcomer, Jean (Emily Walton). Except for holidays, all of them live together and work together day in and day out, year after year after year. 

We get to meet everyone as Jean does, and we see their strengths and their foibles through her eyes.  Jean is the lucky one, engaged to be married but postponing her wedding day so she can put her education to good use before settling down.  She is in it to make a difference in the world, while everyone else needs to teach in order to eke out a living.  

And what a crew they are: the pompous and judgmental Miss Connor (Kellie Overbey), the fluttery and vain Miss Ridgeway (Kate Middleton), the hypersensitive and insecure Miss Willoughby (Aedin Moloney), the easily offended outsider Mlle. Vernier (Dee Pelletier), and the above-it-all Miss Strong (Macy Bacon), the closest to a friend that Jean can find. 

A tiff between Jean and Miss Connor, who has taken an instant dislike to the younger woman, becomes the impetus for the central plot, resulting in a couple of surprising turns. There are also a few interactions with some of the students. But really, the play is mostly about the circumstances that have forced these women together, and their reaction to their stifled existence. Indeed, the only comfort each can find is through feeling superior to the others.  

The cast, under Jenn Thompson’s direction, is rock solid, and each of the actresses manages to create a distinct personality for her character. You probably would not want to spend much time with these women in real life, but this portrait of their confined and constrained lives is thoroughly engaging. A special thumbs up, too, to dialect coach Amy Stoller.  

Women Without Men is yet another triumph for the Mint, a company that has made it its mission to unearth and breathe new life into little known works from the past. It is a mission they take on with with the greatest care and with consistently excellent results. 


Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the new website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics. 

CABIN IN THE SKY: Rarely Produced Vernon Duke Musical Gets the Golden Touch at Encores!

Even talented Tony winners LaChanze and Chuck Cooper and Tony nominee Norm Lewis take a back seat to the stunning choreography and choral work in the Encores! production of the 1940 Vernon Duke/John Latouche musical Cabin In The Sky at New York City Center.

Who, for instance, could have predicted that a performance of the traditional spiritual “Dry Bones” (you know it: Toe bone connected to the foot bone/foot bone connected to the heel bone) would be the showstopper over the enduring standard “Taking A Chance On Love?” But it most certainly is, thanks to Linda Twine’s glorious vocal arrangement, Camille A. Brown’s choreography, and a cast that pulls it all together with such precision, you’d think they’d had a year to rehearse instead of the 10 days that is typical of an Encores! presentation. 

Cabin In The Sky, with its all-African American cast, was never a big hit.  It had a decent run of 156 performances on Broadway in 1940/41, with direction and choreography by George Balanchine and featuring Ethel Waters as its star.  Two years later, it was made into a film with Ms. Waters reprising her central role. (The movie co-starred Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson and Lena Horne).

The show is a parable about Good versus Evil, a struggle between God and Satan for the soul of Little Joe, a weak-willed man for whom the temptations of gambling, drink, and womanizing are too alluring for him to ignore. When Joe is killed in a fight, and just as Satan’s minions are about to haul his soul to hell, the heart-rending prayers of his loving and godly wife Petunia lead to a heavenly reprieve. In order to win his way through the Pearly Gates, Joe must redeem himself within six months, though he will have no knowledge of the intervention or the conditions. Throughout the show, Satan’s team and the Lord’s team coach from the sidelines. 

The Encores! production stars LaChanze (Tony winner for her role as Celie in the original Broadway production of The Color Purple) as Petunia; Michael Potts (The Book of Mormon on Broadway) as Little Joe; and Carly Hughes (replacement Leading Player in the hit revival of Pippin) as the sultry temptress Georgia Brown, Lena Horne’s role in the movie.  Chuck Cooper is Satan’s son, charged with capturing Little Joe’s soul, and Norm Lewis is The Lord’s General.  Cooper and Lewis are surrounded by their respective supporters; the Devil’s gang are all in red, and the Lord’s cheerleaders are in blue. Karen Perry’s costumes and Ken Billington’s lighting design help to keep each side well defined, even as they move about the stage. 

The lightweight banter (“the asbestos chariot is waiting,” Cooper’s character razzes the dying Little Joe), Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s snappy directing, and the dancing and singing by a very talented company elevate what could very well have been a clunky production of a show that eschews subtlety in its simple plot. The score, orchestrated for the production by the great Jonathan Tunick from an extant piano version, contains a mix of numbers – some forgettable, some that feel oddly shoe-horned into the show, and some that are real gems. One of the latter is the well-known “Taking A Chance On Love,” which LaChanze belts out at full throttle (though her voice was a little raggy at the performance I attended).  She also does a fine job with “Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe,” and she sizzles with a song called “Savannah” in a scene in which Petunia – disgusted with what she believes to be Joe’s backsliding – gets back at him by vamping it up at a nightclub. Carly Hughes matches LaChanza sizzle for sizzle with her performance of “Honey in the Honeycomb.” 

The excellent on-stage orchestra, a hallmark of every Encores! production, performs masterfully under the highly competent hand of music director Rob Berman, who also contributed to the vocal arrangements. But truly, it is the dancing and the singing by the ensemble that bring the gleam to this old musical, and it is there where the creative team has done its strongest work. Camille A. Brown, the choreographer, brings out a graceful strength in the dancers, reminiscent of her work with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. And while “Dry Bones” is the stunner of the evening, the chorus does a majestic job of performing another spiritual, “Wade In The Water,” and provides first-rate harmonies on Vernon Duke's swing-inspired songs. 

Other than renting the movie, it is unlikely you will see another staged production of Cabin In The Sky any time in near future, so catch it while you can. The run ends Sunday night. 

Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the new website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics. 

CHINA DOLL: Getting Its Act Together As It Prepares to Close

Who would have thunk it?  China Doll, a play that has been ripped to shreds for both its content and the performance of the superstar at its center, is now pretty much ready for prime time – just as it is about to close.

Let’s take a look at the two chief complaints that have been lodged against China Doll’s playwright, David Mamet, and its star, Al Pacino, and see where things stand as of earlier this week when I saw it. (These criticisms, by the way, did not hurt box office receipts; the show’s lead producer recently announced that the play has recouped its $3.7 million investment). 

Complaint Number One:  That the play itself is barely comprehensible. That was then; this is now.  Now it is comprehensible. It is about an aging high-power businessman who is getting ready to bail out, marry his much younger girlfriend, and enjoy his golden years with the lucre he has been gathering over a lifetime of wheeling and dealing. Most of the play consists of one-sided phone calls during which the businessman is trying to wrap up loose ends.  It also becomes clear there are several vultures hanging around eager to pluck out his eyes when it appears to them he has lost some of his edge.  

           

David Mamet, who arguably has lost some of his own edge since the brilliant days of Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-The-Plow, comes close to that level of writing (great snappy lines that allow Pacino to show his character’s business acumen as well as his ability to coerce or to turn on the charm at the drop of a hat).  Mamet also gives us something new – the creation of fully-realized characters whom we only ever know through Mr. Pacino’s one-sided conversations, yet who seem to be as real as if they were onstage.   

Complaint Number Two:  That Al Pacino has no idea of how to play the role, and, at 75, he cannot sustain the performance.  That was then; this is now. Now Pacino's character, Mickey Ross, is also fully realized, on stage as well as on the page.  This has emerged as a Tony-worthy performance by Pacino. (Yes, he now is that good, though conceivably Tony voters who saw the play earlier in the run may not agree.)

In any event, Pacino brings the unseen and unheard characters to life just by the way he shifts his voice and body language as he talks to them on the phone.  We know when he is talking to or about his girlfriend, when he is talking to people involved in selling him a new airplane, when he is talking to his attorney or to a longtime “frenemy” of a business associate, even when these phone calls swirl and spin together with such rapidity that Pacino comes close to presenting us with the impossible phenomenon of the one-man overlapping dialog.  And if he had trouble learning his lines in time for the play’s opening, it is not surprising; it is a marathon of words he must run for every single performance. If there remain prompters of any sort, they are not visible, at least not from where I sat in the orchestra section.  

[I pause here to mention that China Doll also has a director, and a very good one, too, in Pam MacKinnon (the Obie-winning Clybourne Park and a Tony-wnning revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). Her ability to shape things during all of the early mayhem of this production is not clear, given the two powerhouses she was dealing with in the playwright and the star.]

Although he dominates, Mr. Pacino is not entirely alone onstage. Christopher Denham gives a very efficient performance as a very efficient assistant named Carson who is able to keep up with Mickey Ross’s demands and provide him with the information he needs always to be able to rattle off on a moment’s notice.  Keep an eye on Carson as the vultures start to close in on Mickey. Indeed, my only real criticism of the play lies with its very last scene involving the pair of them. It is logical and in keeping with Pacino’s character, but it comes off as a clumsy way of bringing things to a close.

But make no mistake about it.  This is David Mamet’s play, and this is Al Pacino’s star turn, and, now at the end of its run, they show they that they have what it takes. If this should wind up to be Mr. Pacino’s swan song on Broadway, he has done himself proud. Too bad we had to wait so long for things to jell.  

Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the new website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics. 

THE CHANGLING: Rare Production of Jacobean Drama Tries to Capture Grand Style of Blood and Lust -- With Mixed Results

Red Bull Theater Presents THE CHANGLING

Red Bull Theater and its founding artistic director Jesse Berger are well known for their over-the-top productions of blood soaked Jacobean dramas. So it surprises me to have to say that its current presentation of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s 17^th Century play The Changeling is rather tame in its staging and rocky in its embrace of heightened language. 

Oh, there is plenty of stage blood, and even a severed finger in the mix, but this is a play that is drenched in secrets, lies, treachery, and unbridled lust along with the gore, and it needs to engulf us in a tale of a pair of hell-bound souls who are beyond redemption.

The Changeling begins almost as if it were going to be a romantic comedy.  Beatrice-Joanna (Sara Topham) is betrothed to Alonzo (John Skelley), but is smitten at the very first sight of Alsemero (Christian Coulson), a handsome stranger who crosses her path. How will she dump the fiancé in order to get her heart’s desire? 

This could be the lead off into a madcap romp, perhaps one involving wily servants, that ends happily with the lovers united.  But things quickly veer in another direction altogether when Beatrice-Joanna concludes that the only way to rid herself of Alonzo is to have him killed.  

Without giving a thought to possible consequences, she enlists the aid of De Flores (Manoel Felciano), a servant in her father’s household, a man she despises but who has long lusted after her and is primed to do her bidding.  When the deed is done (the severed finger is the proof he offers to her), De Flores declines the gold she throws at him and insists that she give herself to him instead. Before you know it, the two are mutually bound together in their shared guilt, while Beatrice-Joanna tries to figure out how to hide what she is doing from Alsemero, whom she is now free to wed.

There is also a comic subplot that takes place in a madhouse and a clever bit of chicanery (involving another servant) by which Beatrice-Joanna contrives to hide her loss of virginity. But for all intent, this is still a moral tragedy, and tragedy steeped in utter corruption is what should be at the core of the production. 

Instead, what we get is more like melodrama, with an underplayed sense of sexual madness (we hear quite a bit about it, but see very little of it). Even the play’s dark humor has been mined for laughs rather than for the way its sardonic quality reflects the overall tone.  And while the cast generally performs, projects, and enunciates the unfamiliar dialog well enough for the audience to understand, there is an unfortunate mix of elocution styles.  Some of the actors (Sam Tsoutsouvas as Beatrice-Joanna’s father is a prime example) manage to make the 17^th Century language seem most naturalistic, with the words falling “trippingly off the tongue,” as the playwrights’ contemporary William Shakespeare put it in Hamlet. Others, however, speak with unfortunately modern cadences, so that, once more, the production lacks consistency.

Admittedly, it does feel as if there are two different plays that were cobbled together long, long ago.  (Presumably, Middleton was responsible for the traditional Jacobean tragic scenes, while Rowley tackled the comic elements.) What is missing here is a clear enough vision to bring the two sides together. 

Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the new website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics.