The People in the Picture: The Wrong Music and Messy Storytelling Mar a Potentially Moving Story

A tender moment from 'The People in the Picture'

Here’s a quick quiz:

Say you were putting together a musical about a Yiddish theater troupe in 1930s Poland.  In order to capture the flavor of the times, you would:

A.  Use authentic period Yiddish music.
B. Hire a klezmer band to write and perform original pieces.
C. Turn the job over to the guy who wrote “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,”and “Love Potion #9.”  

If you answered C, congratulations!  You have the honor of knowing you are in synch with the folks behind The People in the Picture, an earnest if klutzy take on the recollections of a Jewish woman haunted forever by memories of a life upturned by the rise of Naziism.   

Don’t get me wrong.  I am a big fan of Mike Stoller’s rock era songs, written with his partner Jerry Leiber—the soundtrack of my youth.  Mr. Stoller is responsible for half of the music in the show.  The rest of the songs were written by Artie Butler, the music arranger for Joe Cocker’s “Feelin’ Alright,” among other hits.  I have no doubt that both are talented songwriters, but, please, not for this show, and, do pardon me if I say “oy vey!”  

The People in the Picture stars Donna Murphy (undoubtedly the first name that pops into your head when you think of a Yiddishe mama), who jumps back and forth in time portraying an elderly bubbe in 1970s New York and her younger self in Warsaw during the Nazi years.  Remember, though, this is Donna Murphy we’re talking about here; to her credit, the two-time Tony Award winner gives it her all against the ineffective music and messy book and lyrics by novelist Iris Rainer Dart, best known as the author of Beaches.

The premise of the show is that a grandmother, Bubbe Raisel, is passing on the story of her life to her granddaughter.  As she speaks, her earlier years as a star of Yiddish theater unfold on the stage.  Ms. Murphy does a fine job of moving between the two roles so that the transitions are clear.  But the potentially compelling storyline, which might have worked with more appropriate music, is further lost when the framing device encompasses a separate plot about the stormy relationship between Raisel and her daughter. 

The single truly authentic moment in the show occurs when the songwriters step aside, and Ms. Murphy sings a tender and popular Yiddish children’s song (Oyfen Pripitchik, written in the 19^th century by Mark Warshavsky) a tune you might recognize from its use in the movie Schindler’s List.  I could hear members of the audience, who undoubtedly remembered the song from their own childhoods, quietly singing along.

Of the rest of the performers, I would like to tip my hat to some old favorites:  Chip Zien, Lewis J. Stadlen, and Joyce Van Patten as members of Raisel’s Polish acting company.  Victims of the Holocaust, their spirits surround Raisel in her old age and offer peace and comfort against a troubled heart. 

These few effective elements suggest lost possibilities and make one wish for a better showcase for this story.  As it stands, the People in the Picture fades quickly from memory—the exact opposite of what Raisel would want to see happen.

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High: Can Faith See Us Through the Pain of Life?

Kathleen Turner and Even Jonigkeit

Question: Is playwright Matthew Lombardo planning to specialize in writing three-character dramas with complicated alcoholic foul-mouthed women at their center?

Just asking. Cuz last year he gave us Looped, a three-character play starring Valerie Harper as the complicated alcoholic foul-mouthed Tallulah Bankhead. And now, he is offering High, a three-character play starring Kathleen Turner as a complicated alcoholic foul-mouthed nun/drug counselor. Both plays, incidentally, were helmed by the same director, Rob Ruggiero. These guys may have quite a little franchise going.

In any event, High, like Looped, is a downtown play that got on the wrong subway and landed in the midtown theater district. As such, it has all of the markings of a vanity production in which a well-known actress rather past the ingénue stage of her career is brought on board to chew up the scenery and bring in the paying customers.

Oddly enough, this doesn’t mean that High isn’t interesting or compelling. It is actually both, thanks to some sharp dialog and strong performances by the two main characters: Ms. Turner as Sister Jamison Connelly, and Evan Jonigkeit, making his New York debut as Cody, a teen-aged gay hustler and drug addict undergoing court-ordered counseling. (The third character, a Catholic priest, is gamely played by Stephen Kunken, but the role itself is little more than a plot device that, unfortunately, takes away from the veracity of the play).

Despite the play’s shortcomings, it is fascinating to watch Turner and Jonigkeit dance around the boxing ring as they face off. Life has made Sister Jamie, as she is called, as tough and nearly as street-wise as Cody, and his efforts to psych her out lead him nowhere. As the play progresses, there are enough revelations about both characters to keep us engaged, and while the ultimate outcome is predictable, it is predictable in ways that are honest, if sadly inevitable.

Along the way, the playwright encourages us to consider questions of trust, faith, guilt, forgiveness, and even the routines and responsibilities of life that compel most of us to pick ourselves up and forge ahead, even during those times when we would just as soon chuck it all.

Had High been ensconced at a small off Broadway house, it might have fared better than it is likely to at the Booth Theatre. This is no grand enterprise about nuns and priests and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, like Doubt; it is a domestic drama of the sort that doesn’t draw the Wednesday matinee crowds or the accompanying must-see buzz. Still, it has the ring of truth (Mr. Lombardo has dedicated the play to his “sponsor,” which suggests he may know a thing or two about the subject matter of alcoholism and/or drug addition) and two solid performances at its core that make it worth a visit.

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Where's Charley: A Sparkling Delight from Encores!

Lauren Worsham, Rob McClure, Jill Paice, and Sebastian Arcelus

Thank you, Encores!

Ever and ever, I have wanted to be part of an audience of happy theatergoers singing the bouncy and infectious Frank Loesser tune, “Once In Love With Amy.” Yesterday evening, it finally happened, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

The sing-along, famously introduced by Ray Bolger during the original run of Where’s Charley? back in 1948, is the highlight of the sparkling production of this cotton candy of a show that just concluded its run at City Center. And what a treat it was!

Where’s Charley? is a piece of fluff, a farce based on the 1892 play Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas. When Charley’s wealthy, widowed, and long-absent aunt plans a visit to her nephew, Charley (Rob McClure) and his pal Jack (Sebastian Arcelus) want her to chaperone a rendezvous they have planned with their respective sweethearts, Amy (Lauren Worsham) and Kitty (Jill Paice)—who, being respectable young ladies, would not otherwise join them. When the aunt postpones her trip, the only way to save the day is for Charley to pretend to be her. He dons a costume he has on hand for a theatrical production, and the rest is what you would expect it to be: lots of running around, complications, and the triumph of love.

Farce isn’t easy to pull off; indeed, the sillier the premise, the more difficult it is to carry the audience along. And Where’s Charley? is about as silly as they come.

Happily, the cast, under the direction of John Doyle, is perfection. They land every line with perfect comic timing, and they sing Loesser’s songs with such panache that every tune comes off as a polished gem, whether it be a straightforward love song like “Lovelier Than Ever,” winningly sung by veterans Howard McGillin and Rebecca Luker, or a comic number, like “The New Ashmolean Marching Society and Students’ Conservatory Band,” which serves no purpose whatsoever and which I would not excise for the world.

The Encores! Orchestra, under the baton of Rob Berman, is in glorious form, as is the choreography by Alex Sanchez, as are the singers and dancers of the chorus.  Indeed, I would like to shower everyone associated with the Encores! production of Where's Charley? with rose petals.

But if I must single out one performer, it would be Rob McClure as Charley and as Charley’s alter ego, his aunt Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez who has lived for many years in Brazil…”where the nuts come from.” Mr. McClure’s performance is inspired. He may not be Ray Bolger, but he is Rob McClure, which is high praise indeed.

I want to end this blog entry by taking a cue from Where's Charley? and inviting you to sing along with “Once In Love With Amy.” Direct your computer’s search engine to https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mIL5J6H3soo, where you will find a clip of Ray Bolger singing his signature song, from the 1952 film version of Where’s Charley?. Enjoy!

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A Tiger Seeks Wisdom While War Rages On and Souls Wander Aimlessly

Robin Williams stars in 'Bengal Tiger'

Quick.  What pops into your head when I say the words “comedy” and “Robin Williams” in the same sentence? 

Wild, perhaps?   Inventive?  Unpredictable?  Hilarious?

Whatever your response, chances are your list does not include such terms as war, rape, death, or angst. 

Yet these are exactly what you get with the new play by Rajiv Joseph, Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo, now in previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre and most definitely billed as a comedy starring Robin Williams. 

War is hell, or at least purgatory, for both the living and the dead who inhabit the world of Bengal Tiger, and the comedy that comes through is of the darkest existential kind.

Williams plays the title character—yes, the tiger—shot to death after he chomps off the hand of a U. S. soldier who has foolishly stuck it into the beast’s cage at the Baghdad Zoo sometime during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.   After death, the tiger becomes most philosophic, seeking to understand the nature of God and the universe, of sin and redemption:  “Why does God make predators and then get angry with us when we prey?” 

The tiger finds he is not alone in his quest for answers.  Soon he is surrounded by both the dead and the still-living souls whose lives have been upended by war.  These include two American soldiers, Kev (Brad Fleischer), the tiger killer, and Tom (Glenn Davis), he of the amputated hand. 

Both soldiers are young and inexperienced in war and in the ways of the world. Kev is rattled to the bone with a never-ending dread that consumes him, and he is haunted by the vision of the tiger he has shot until he can no longer live with it.  Tom is obsessed with smuggling out of the country a gold toilet seat he has taken from Saddam Hussein’s mansion, and imagines the prize will be his ticket to luckytown. 

As the play progresses, the parade of souls continues to grow.  Musa (Arian Moayed), a Turkish gardener who has been employed as a translator by the U. S. military, is haunted by the ghost of his sister, who was raped by Saddam Hussein’s son Uday (brilliantly and scarily portrayed by Hrach Titizian).  When we first see Uday, he too is dead and is carrying around the head of his decapitated brother. 

Laughing yet?

Being dead stops no one from interacting with the living as if in life.  Uday, in particular, is a very physical presence as he goads Musa into becoming a terrorist, while Musa wants nothing more than to get back to being a gardener.   Rounding out the cast are Necar Zadegan as a leper, and Sheila Vand as both a prostitute and as Musa’s dead sister. 

It should be noted that all of the cast, save for Robin Williams, are recreating their roles from the original production of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.   Their experience with the play shows, and all of these performances are sharply drawn, under the polished direction of Moisés Kaufman. 

At the preview performance I attended, Mr. Williams played it straight, seemingly wanting to fit in without disturbing the well-established flow.  There were a couple of moments in which he seemed poised to let loose his comic tongue, but then he pulled back. 

This kind of  existential dark comedy is difficult to pull off.  Williams has had a shot at it before, when he played Estragon opposite Steve Martin’s Vladimir in Waiting for Godot back in 1988.  But Rajiv Joseph--while an interesting playwright--is not Samuel Beckett, and Bengal Tiger--while an interesting play--is not Godot, so Mr. Williams will need to find his voice as the tiger on his own.  

It should be interesting to watch him grow into the role so as not to be seen as a being there solely on the basis of his box office draw.  It would help his cause, I believe, if the production were not billed as a comedy.  Word-of-mouth will make that abundantly clear, in an event.


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War Horse: Indulge Your Inner Pre-Teen Self

Joey, the War Horse, with his owner, Albert

If I were 12 years old—or even if I could be more in touch with my inner 12-year-old self—I believe I would be enthralled with War Horse, now on view at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. 

Certainly there is much to be admired in this magnificent pageant of a show, presented with obvious love, pride, and skill by the National Theatre of Great Britain.   Central to its magnificence is the amazing work by the Handspring Puppet Company (design, fabrication and direction are credited to Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones), which has found a way to bring life-size horses onto the stage and to give real personality to the “character” of Joey, the War Horse of the title.  Basil Twist and Julie Taymor, eat your hearts out!

There are 45 performers on hand to enact this staged version of the novel of the same name by Michael Morpurgo, a popular and prolific author of children’s books.  (A film version, directed by Steven Spielberg, is also in the works.)

The production stints on nothing.  There are revolving turntables and lifts, video imagery and projections similar in style to those used so effectively in the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of Sunday in the Park With George a couple of years back, depictions of battles, a full-size military tank, fog machines, and live and recorded music to both underscore and heighten the action onstage. 

Given all that has gone into this production, I blush at my curmudgeonly take on the show, which is that whatever War Horse is, it is not a play—and I say this knowing that it is certain to be in strong contention for a Tony Award for best play. 

But first the plot, such as it is:  boy meets horse, boy loses horse, boy and horse may or may not be reunited in the end.  (I’m not so much of a curmudgeon that I would give away the ending). All of this is set against the backdrop of World War I, as seen through the eyes of Joey and his human companion, Albert (Seth Numrich).  Don’t go looking for any psychological drama in the manner of Equus; the plot is exactly as I have described it. 

And therein lies the problem.  There may be 45 in the cast, but no character seems to be anything more than a plot device.  Oh, I’ll confess to a drop of moisture in my eyes at one or two pivotal points, but watching War Horse is like watching the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall or Riverdance or some other extravaganza.  It may be theatrical, but it isn’t theater.  It may be dramatic, but it isn’t drama.  It may be well performed, but it isn’t acting, at least not in the sense of depicting fully realized characters or even of serving some grand theme.

War Horse, the show, is perhaps ideal for the same audience as War Horse the book—with the proviso that there are some potentially disturbing scenes of war and one or two uses of the “F” word.   So PG-13 rather than PG. 

I want to reiterate that everything is so well done that if you want to see War Horse just for the spectacle of it, by all means dig up your inner 12-year-old and indulge yourselves.




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The Book of Mormon: Raunchy, Wild, Crazy, and Great Fun

The Book of Mormon.  Photo by Joan Marcus

Let me cut to the chase. The Book of Mormon is the funniest, cleverest, most original and most crowd-pleasing musical I have seen since Urinetown a decade ago.

It’s also the raunchiest and most irreverent, if those things matter to you—though surely you shouldn’t be surprised, given that two of its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are best known for the long-running raunchy and irreverent animated television show, South Park, and the third, Robert Lopez, co-wrote the raunchy and irreverent Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q.

By the way, it’s OK if you are not a big fan of South Park the television show, which is not particularly geared toward a Broadway musical audience. The question is, did you like South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, the—yes—raunchy and irreverent musical movie from 1999 that Parker and Trey co-wrote? If so, you will probably also like The Book of Mormon, which, except for the aforementioned raunch and irreverence, is a good old-fashioned Broadway musical presented with great joy and polish by a uniformly strong cast, under the direction of Mr. Parker and Casey Nicholaw, the director and choreographer for Elf: The Musical and The Drowsy Chaperone, as well as choreographer for Spamalot.

I’ve got to say that I greatly enjoyed South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, and at least two of its songs stick in my mind to this day: "Blame Canada," which was nominated for an Academy Award even though its colorful language meant it couldn’t be sung at the Awards show exactly as written, and "What Would Brian Boitano Do?,"  a song that Mr. Boitano, the Olympic figure skating champion, must have appreciated since he now has a cooking show called What Would Brian Boitano Make?

The songs in The Book of Mormon are at least as much fun. Many of them parody or at least reference other songs with which you may be familiar, including a very funny variation on "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King but whose meaning is rather different from the “no worries” message of the Elton John/Tim Rice song from the Disney musical. Indeed, there are several references to The Lion King throughout The Book of Mormon, as well as tunes that riff off of numbers from Annie, Wicked and, most hilariously, from The King and I.  

The story follows the adventures of Elder Price, a 19-year-old missionary-in-training who is about to embark on his first tour of duty on behalf of the church. Elder Price (Andrew Rannells, formerly of Jersey Boys and Hairspray, who here has incorporated a bit of Jim Carrey into his performance) is the star pupil. Everything is going his way, and he is convinced he will be sent to serve the Lord in his dream location—Orlando, Florida.

Much to his surprise, however, Elder Price is assigned to do his mission work in Uganda, partnered with the shlubbiest of the entire bunch, the dorky, overweight, daydreamer Elder Cunningham, wonderfully enacted by Josh Gad (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) as a pop culture film fanatic who references pretty much everything he says to Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings.

We join this mismatched pair as they meet up with their fellow Mormons in Uganda and take on the task of conversion and baptism.  Meanwhile, the villagers are less concerned with the state of their souls than with the misery of their day-to-day existence (“I have maggots in my scrotum,” the tribal doctor informs Elder Cunningham, wondering how Mormonism will help him). The villagers are also being threatened with forced genital mutilation and other assorted acts of brutality by a self-declared revolutionary general (Brian Tyree Henry) and his band of thugs. With so much to deal with, it is not surprising they show little interest in the message the missionaries bring to them.

That is until Elder Cunningham begins to embellish the official line with his own tales, offering up an unusual treatment for AIDS and warning the villagers that they need to change their wicked ways, lest they “burn in the fiery pits of Mordor!”

Finally, here is one missionary who makes sense, and they begin to warm to this new religion. The funniest moments in the show come when the villagers take Elder Cunningham’s bits of advice and string them together to create a pageant depicting the founding of Mormonism, which they present with great exuberance to the Mission President (Lewis Cleale) who has come to check on how things are progressing.

Needless to say, since The Book of Mormon is truly an old-fashioned musical comedy at heart, all is resolved in the end and the audience leaves the theater in a happy, happy mood.

Hakuna Matata, indeed!

Come Tony Awards time, The Book of Mormon will be the musical to beat. The only question is, what can they possibly show on the televised broadcast without bleeping out every other word?

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Kin: A Sharp and Funny Look at Friends and Family

Sam Gold, Kristen Bush, Bathsheba Doran, & Patch Darragh. 

If I were to have a play of my own produced, I can’t think of a an organization I’d rather have behind me than Playwrights Horizons, with its stated mission of supporting and developing contemporary American playwrights—a mission it lives up to consistently and with great results. 

This season alone has given us such lovely little gems as Amy Herzog’s After the Revolution, and Adam Bock’s A Small Fire, both of which I have written about previously.  Now we have Kin, a new play by Bathsheba Doran, which is so clearly a labor of love for all concerned.  

Ms. Doran, who also writes for television, has several plays to her credit and has garnered a number of playwriting awards, although, to judge by published reviews (I’ve not seen any of her previous work), she has not always been wildly embraced by the critics.  

However, I predict a more enthusiastic response to Kin, a sharp and funny riff on the theme of “boy meets girl” that is being performed by a strong ensemble cast—beautifully directed by Sam Gold, a rising star who continues to bring out the best in the productions he is associated with (Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation and The Aliens, and Kim Rosenstock’s Tigers Be Still, to mention but a few of his recent successes).

Kin tells the story of Anna, an Ivy League English lit professor, who becomes romantically involved with Sean, an Irish immigrant who works as a personal trainer.  The pair, well-acted by Kristen Bush and Patch Darragh (“Tom” in Roundabout’s wonderful production of A Glass Menagerie last season), come together, drift apart, and reunite over the course of the play. 

Ms. Doran weaves a tapestry out of short scenes involving the pair and various members of their intersecting and growing circle of friends and family, of which there are perhaps a few more than the weave of the plot can comfortably carry.  At times, I felt as though I were watching one of a series of plays, and that—over time—each of the characters would take turns being the central character. Who knows?  Maybe this is what the playwright has in mind. 

If that is so, at least two of them deserve plays of their own.  One is Anna’s neurotic actress friend Helena who keeps popping in and out of Anna's life.  As portrayed by Laura Heisler, Helena is both wacky-funny and a little scary.  If a scene involving a bear and a hunter seems to have been dropped into Kin from some other play altogether, it is also very much in keeping with the character. 

The other deeply compelling role is that of Linda, Sean’s agoraphobic mother back in Ireland.  Richly portrayed by Suzanne Bertish, Linda is given a powerful and moving back-story, so that when she emerges from her home for the first time in decades, it becomes a momentous occasion.

Director Gold manages all of the intersecting storylines with great skill, aided splendidly by scenic designer Paul Steinberg, who keeps the many scene changes moving at a rapid pace and throws in at least one surprising touch that takes a common theatrical device and pushes it over the top to hilarious results.

Given Ms. Doran’s increasing visibility as a television writer, the playwright may decide that Hollywood is where her future lies.  If that’s the case, I would encourage her to keep the characters she has so lovingly introduced in Kin and further develop them for a wider audience.  And while she is at it, I hope she continues to find time for writing for the theater.  Perhaps an Obie or two would provide the impetus to keep her coming back to New York. 

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Timon of Athens: Smart and Engaging Production of a Problematic Play

Richard Thomas as Timon

Timon of Athens, which may or may not have been written by Shakespeare, is seldom trotted out for public viewing due to its reputation as a confusing mess of a play—either a lesser work by the bard or a not-ready-for-prime-time collaborative effort by two or more of his contemporaries.

Thus, I attended the current production at the Public Theater with some trepidation, not expecting much but drawn by curiosity about a play I’d neither seen nor read before, not to mention the allure of the $15 ticket price.

So—drum roll please—it gives me great pleasure to offer up kudos to all involved for giving us this very accessible and most engaging Timon, directed by Barry Edelstein and performed by a very able cast, headed up in the title role by Richard Thomas, someone I never would have imagined to be so solid a Shakespearean actor.

Edelstein has taken the five-act original and broken it into two, and each act has its own tone and style. Some of the critics have found the two parts somewhat incompatible, but I have a different take, which I will explain anon.

But first the plot: In what we shall call Act I, Timon, a wealthy Athenian, surrounds himself with men he considers to be his closest and most trustworthy companions. He provides for their entertainment and lavishes generous gifts on them in the naive belief that this is simply what good friends do for one another. The seeming friends are, not surprisingly, eager to be the recipients of Timon’s largesse but are also quick to turn their backs on him after he has spent himself into ruinous debt.

In Act II, having lost his home and his worldly possessions, not to mention his trust in his fellow man, Timon has become a mad hermit, hiding out in the wilderness and declaiming: “I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.” In his few encounters with others, he rails against humanity for its inhumanity, and in the end dies alone, likely by his own hand.

One hypothesis about the play’s creation posits that Timon represents a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, who counted The Revenger’s Tragedy among his works. Middleton was a member of Shakespeare’s theatrical company, which makes the idea at least plausible. But more convincing is the shift in the aforementioned tone and style of the play itself. The language of the first half of the play fits in well with the Jacobean age, more cynical and modern-seeming than the second half, which is far more Elizabethan (i. e. Shakespearean) in its use of heightened tone and poetic language.

Assuming Edelstein and company did not tinker with the language of the play itself, the stylistic transition from Jacobean to Elizabethan is quite pronounced. It might be the reason some critics have found the play disjointed. Another way of looking at it, however, might consider the change in language to reflect the change in Timon’s world view. A modern take would be that Timon suffers from a bipolar disorder. We see him in the early scenes displaying a manic personality—partying all night, throwing around his money with a patent disregard for the consequences. Then, in the second half, we see his descent into a generalized rage that turns in the end to despair and suicide. While the play toys around with being a more typically Jacobean revenge tragedy—there is a subplot involving a military rebellion that Timon supports—it may be that Shakespeare had something else in mind altogether as he took over the writing duties.

For me, at least, this production of Timon of Athens amounts to the unearthing of a previously undiscovered treasure. Coming on the heels of the terrific Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice, along with still-evolving but generally strong presentations of works by Middleton and his peers by the estimable Red Bull Theater, Timon is yet another example of how Americans are finding new ways of thinking about these classic dramas without the use of fake British accents or silly gimmickry. I look forward to more such discoveries.

In addition to praising Edelstein and Thomas, I would like to tip my hat to scenic designer Neil Patel, who has managed to make much out of little, to the fine guitar work by Simon Kafka, and to actor Triney Sandoval (a standout, as well, in the recent A Free Man of Color) who ought someday to play Harpo or Chico Marx in a production of Minnie's Boys or Animal Crackers. 

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The Unkindness of Strangers: The Wooster Group Does Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Vieux Carré is generally considered to be one of Tennessee Williams’ late works, since it was originally produced (and had a very short run) in 1977.  But the play has so much in common with the The Glass Menagerie (1944) that it could very well be a sequel to the more famous work.  Indeed, recent Williams scholarship has identified a working script dating to 1939, when the writer was living at the very street address where Vieux Carré takes place.

As in The Glass Menagerie, the central character is a writer—here referred to as “The Writer,” but most certainly he could be called “Tom.”  Imagine that Tom has fled his home in St. Louis and has found himself ensconced, at least temporarily, in a rundown boarding house on Rue Toulouse in the French Quarter of New Orleans.  It is here, among the poor, physically ill, and mentally and emotionally precarious denizens of the household, that Tom finds both his sexual identity and his voice as a writer.  

Now, you don’t go to a theatrical production by The Wooster Group expecting to see a straightforward interpretation of a play.  The SoHo-based company, with its roots in experimental, avant-garde performance art, loves to push the envelope in an effort to make the audience think about the content while feeling, perhaps, a tad uncomfortable with its deconstructed and reconstructed works.

The current effort, officially titled The Wooster Group’s Version of Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carré, leaves the company’s reputation intact.  In this case, however, it is difficult to say which provides the most discomfort—the production itself or the physical space where the audience is seated in the Jerome Robbins’ Theater at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on West 37^th Street.  Surely someone unfamiliar with the human anatomy, or possibly with a large investment in a chiropractic treatment center, came up with the idea of steeply banked rows of thinly upholstered straight-backed pull-down benches, where the audience is crammed, two to a bench—and, in the case of Vieux Carré, at least—for two solid intermissionless hours yet.  Not good.

As for the Wooster Group, it has taken a relatively delicate piece of writing—which, unlike the leaden The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore from 1963 (currently on view at the Laura Pels Theatre), contains some of that lovely, ethereal language that Williams at his best was so very good at—and beats it to a pulp.

In order to connect with the play at all, we are forced to deal with annoying and distracting affections such as pointless video images and characters strutting around in leather thongs and protruding erect prosthetic phalluses that are about as sexually interesting as the character of the tubercular street artist who repeatedly attempts to seduce The Writer while coughing into an oversized bloody handkerchief.  What a turn-on!

It is only during those times when the actors are actually allowed to perform the play that we get any sense of Williams’ voice emerging from the noise, and the characters come into focus through generally good performances by the company. I especially liked Kate Valk in her dual roles of Jane Sparks (a down-on-her-luck character who bears a resemblance to Blanche DuBois) and Mrs. Wire, the brash and crazy landlady and would-be surrogate mother to The Writer, who, like Tom in The Glass Menagerie, has had quite enough of mothers, thank you.

Taken as a whole, The Wooster Group’s Version of Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carré is rather an ordeal to sit through.  I’m not sorry I did sit through it as I had not previously seen a production of the play,  but I would love to see a straightforward production, possibly in rep with The Glass Menagerie.  If you are similarly motivated, then by all means head on out to the Baryshikov Arts Center--but you might want to bring your own cushion or stand in the back.

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The Merchant of Venice: Compelling Production of A Challenging Play

Lily Rabe and Al Pacino

Anyone planning a production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice needs to wrestle with how to portray Shylock, the money-lending Jew who demands payment of a “pound of flesh” when the title character in the play defaults on a loan.

Should the rampant anti-Semitism of the age—not to mention Jew-baiting theatrical precursors to Shakespeare—hold sway?  Or should we view Shylock through more modern and sympathetic eyes?  Both are legitimate interpretations, as the text itself offers enough leeway to allow for either perspective to hold sway.

Whatever choice is made, the thing I ask for as a playgoer is that the portrayal be an honest one.   To give what I consider to be an egregious example, I was deeply offended by the inane and condescending production of Christopher Marlowe’s vicious-tongued The Jew of Malta, directed by David Herskovits a few years back with a twitchy wink-and-nod-we’re-only-joking sensibility that ruined the experience of watching the play.  I get that the 16^th century was not particularly kind to Jews.  Please don’t insult my intelligence, and don’t fear so much for my delicate sensibilities that you feel compelled to offer up such a cowardly production.

So I am both relieved and delighted to report that the current Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice is compelling, smart, and thoroughly honest.  Actor Al Pacino and director Daniel Sullivan offer us a Shylock who is both victimizer and victim, in acknowledgment of the truth that being on the receiving end of bigotry does not necessarily mean you are a kind and loving person deep down inside.

Pacino, in a measured performance that embodies the layers of meaning contained within every word he utters, gives us a Shylock who has spent his life being demeaned and scorned by his Christian countrymen and who has survived by his wit and intellect alone.  This Shylock has hardened himself to the cruelties of the world, and that has left precious little room for the softer emotions, including mercy (an important theme of the play) or the ability to show any tenderness toward his daughter Jessica.  This cold-heartedness, however self-protecting its origin, is the cause of his downfall and gives plausibility to his daughter’s abandonment of him and of her Jewish faith. 

Of course, The Merchant of Venice is not only about Shylock, whose story comes to its conclusion well before the end of the play. Playing off the tragedy of Shylock is the tale of Antonio, the merchant of the title, who finds himself before the court of law when he is unable to replay a loan of 3,000 ducats.  It is his pound of flesh that is to be given in forfeit, in accordance to the agreement he accepted when he took out the loan. 

Antonio is another complicated character.  We know he is a virulent anti-Semite, yet he willingly joins into a monetary arrangement with Shylock--and not out of any need of his own, but to provide funds to give to his friend Bassanio so that the latter may woo the lady Portia.  Why would Antonio do that?   Thanks to a strong and convincing performance by Byron Jennings, we see a psychological basis for his actions, for his general air of melancholy, and, later, for his willingness to sacrifice himself.  He is not just a plot device, but a complex human being who earns our sympathy despite his initial bigotry and arrogance.

The characters of Portia (Lily Rabe) and Bassanio (David Harbour) belong less to a Shakespearean tragedy than to one of his romances, but both actors serve their parts well.  Ms. Rabe, in particular, rolls that Elizabethan English off her tongue so well that it seems absolutely natural to her, and she gives full range to both the comic and the serious sides of her character. 

In truth, there is not a weak performance among the cast of 32, who work together as well as any ensemble I can recall seeing.  If I were compelled to single out a few more, Christopher Fitzgerald as Launcelot Gobbo, Heather Lind as Jessica, and Marsha Stephanie Blake at Portia’s lady-in-waiting give splendid performances in these smaller supporting roles.

I also want to hand it to director Daniel Sullivan.  Shakespeare is, after all, Shakespeare.  It takes a lot of work to make it accessible to a modern audience.   At the performance I attended, it was clear there were many there who were drawn by the star power of Mr. Pacino and who were unfamiliar with the play itself.  I heard gasps on more than one occasion as plot elements were revealed (e. g. Shylock’s forced conversion to Christianity).  It’s nice to know that the Bard still has the power to astonish. 

I also liked that, despite the seeming all’s-well ending, we can see there will be some troublesome days ahead,  especially for Jessica who has yet to work through her issues with both the father and the faith she has abandoned in a pique of rebellion.  It’s most intriguing that she is given the final moments onstage. 

Finally, a word about the scenic design by Mark Wendland, the costume design by Jess Goldstein, and the incidental music by Dan Moses Schreier.  That word would be “Brilliant.”

Bravo to all who were involved in giving us this splendid production!




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The Witch of Edmonton: Red Bull's Best Work Yet

Let me begin by acknowledging that 17th Century Jacobean drama is not everyone’s cup of tea.

But I am a huge admirer both of the form and of the gutsy job of performing it for today’s audiences that has been the hallmark of Red Bull Theater and its resident artistic director Jesse Berger.

One thing I have been waiting for, however, while attending Red Bull’s productions over the last several years, is for Mr. Berger to display more trust in the original creators of these (usually) tales of sexual obsession and vengeance among the high and the mighty of royal society.

The outpouring of stage blood and sometimes outlandish directorial choices (I’m pretty sure that John Webster did not interpolate a Rodgers and Hart song into The Duchess of Malfi when he wrote it in 1612) that have accompanied Red Bull productions to date have tended to make things rather more off-kilter than perhaps they have needed to be.

Still, what I have particularly appreciated about Red Bull is that it has continued to improve with each new production: better staging, better sets, better costumes, better casting, better performances, and, most significantly, a sharper eye toward revealing the sometimes hidden treasures that abide within these 400-year-old dramas.

Indeed, I get a sense that Mr. Berger has become a true student of Jacobean theater, worrying less about how to bring the play to the audience and more about how to bring the audience to the play.

And so I am quite pleased to say that the company’s current production of The Witch of Edmonton, at the Theater of St. Clement’s, is its best yet—hitting the mark in almost every area, fully embracing the play in a highly engaging production without resorting to the old bag of stage tricks aimed at appeasing an imagined antsy audience.

The Witch of Edmonton itself is a much different play than others from that age. While revenge is a theme, it is not the all-encompassing driver as it is in The Duchess of Malfi or Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy. For one thing, The Witch of Edmonton is not about the lusty lives of dukes and duchesses; rather it is what you might call a domestic drama, dealing with the foibles and follies of everyday foks—the good citizens of Edmonton.

The play itself, dating from 1621, near the end of the Jacobean era, is attributed to three collaborating authors, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, and John Ford, who based the work on a fairly well-known contemporary pamphlet that reported the story of one Elizabeth Sawyer, said to be a witch.

The witch's story is one of three plot threads to the play, making it likely that the three writers worked individually on their parts before combining them for production on stage.  Elizabeth is a poor, elderly, and justifiably cantankerous woman who, for no apparent reason, is hounded and bullied by her neighbors.  She wishes so fervently to be avenged on her tormentors that the devil arrives (in the form of a talking shaggy dog named Tom), with a proposition to help her get even in exchange for her soul.

By being summoned into existence by Elizabeth, Tom is also free to pull his demonic tricks on others. One of these is Frank, who, without the devil’s help, has entangled himself into a case of bigamy, which ends rather badly for the second of his wives when Frank murders her.  Tom hovers over Frank when he commits the crime, but it is unclear whether the devil is acting as a goad or merely as an observer. 

The other plot thread is about a young, rather simple-minded fellow named Cuddy, who also befriends Tom—with a surprising result.

Devil or not, the characters in this play have a psychological complexity that leads us to ask serious questions about the extent to which humans are responsible for their own actions.

While The Witch of Edmonton has its share of bloodletting, these moments are handled with far more restraint than anything that Mr. Berger and Red Bull have shown previously, and the play itself ends on an unexpected and heartfelt note of forgiveness and redemption—hardly the usual stuff of Jacobean drama.

The quality of the performances is somewhat mixed, but the key players requite themselves well, with particularly strong work by Adam Green as Cuddy, Charlayne Woodward as Elizabeth, and, especially,  Derek Smith, who is mesmerizing as Tom the Dog, bringing both his dog-like and devilish qualities to full and disturbing life.

Also worthy of note are the costumes by Cait O’Connor, and the set by Anka Lupes, who has taken full advantage of the small workspace afforded at the theater.

By the way, tickets to The Witch of Edmonton start at $20, and are widely available at discounted prices through the usual sources (BroadwayBox.com, TheaterMania.com, and Playbill.com to name three). You may have noticed that Red Bull is offering some of its lower priced tickets for seats that it calls “onstage.” This is actually misleading, as the audience is simply seated on two sides of the set. Don’t fear to purchase one of the “onstage” seats; you will not be dragged into the action, and, actually, you may have a better view than those sitting on the other side of the theater.

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Speaking of discounts, while you are shaking your piggy bank and deciding whether you are willing to shell out the big bucks to see Robin Williams in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo or Ben Stiller and Edie Falco in The House of Blue Leaves on Broadway, here are a couple of less expensive alternatives.

Danny and Sylvia: The Danny Kaye Musical has announced a cute promotion now through March 26th, 2011. If your name is either DANNY or SYLVIA, you can get two tickets for the price of one. Just bring your proof of ID to the St. Luke’s Box Office, 308 West 46th Street, at least 30 minutes prior to any performance beginning this Saturday, February 5th. (This offer is not valid for the February 12th performance.)

In addition, Playwrights Horizons is offering discounted tickets to its next production, the world premiere of a play called Kin, written by Bathsheba Doran and directed by Obie Award winner Sam Gold.

Playwrights Horizons describes the play thusly: Anna’s an Ivy League poetry scholar. Sean’s an Irish personal trainer. They hardly seem destined for one another. But as their web of disparate family and friends crosses great distances — both psychologically and geographically — an unlikely new family is forged. Bathsheba Doran’s play sheds a sharp light on the changing face of kinship in the expansive landscape of the modern world.

Purchase tickets by March 21 with code KINGR and you get a discount: $40 (reg. $70) for the first 16 performances  (Feb. 25 – March 10) or $55 (reg. $70) for all remaining performances March 11 – April 3. You can online at www.ticketcentral.com. Use code KINGR, or call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 (Noon-8pm daily), or present a printout of this blog post to the Ticket Central box office at 416 West 42nd Street (Noon-8pm daily). Do note that a limited number of $40 discounted tickets will be available for purchase. Subject to availability. Valid only in select rows.

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Attend the Tale of Sweeney

Brian Friel’s 1993 play Molly Sweeney, now in revival in a very well acted but purposefully distancing production at the Irish Rep, is a cautionary tale about the importance of being careful what you wish for—or, in this case, being pressured into believing that you want what others wish for you.

Think of Molly Sweeney as the flip side of A Small Fire, by Adam Bock (currently on view at Playwright’s Horizons), in which the life of a middle-aged woman is turned upside-down when she suffers the consequences of the loss of her senses. 

In Molly Sweeney, the life of a middle-aged woman is turned upside-down when she suffers the consequences of the regaining of her sense of sight after being unable to see since the age of 10 months.  

Friel, the highly regarded creator of such plays as Philadelphia Here I Come and Dancing at Lughnasa, is a terrific storyteller, something that is both a strength and a dramatic problem with Molly Sweeney. 

The play is presented not as a drama, but as a narrative in the form of alternating monologues by three characters:  Molly, her husband Frank, and Mr. Rice, the physician who partially restores Molly’s sight.  Through these monologues, Friel paints a rich portrait of each of the characters, but because there is no interaction among them, the play—despite the very touching story it relates—has a clinical feel to it, like reading one of those medical case study puzzlers in The New York Times Magazine. 

We learn that Molly has never had much interest in having her sight restored.  She has never felt herself to be deprived or particularly disabled.  She long ago learned to compensate through a heightened reliance on her other senses.  She is very independent, has lots of friends, holds down a successful job as a message therapist, and seems to be well adjusted and reasonably happy. 

It is Frank, her unemployed “tree hugger” of a husband, who convinces Molly to seek a medical solution to her blindness.  He has immersed himself in the medical literature and is convinced that, because Molly was not born blind, there is a good chance that her sight can be restored through surgery.  And if it doesn’t work, he asks rhetorically, what has she got to lose?

Into the scene steps the third character, Mr. Rice, the down-at-the-heels ophthalmologist who longs to return to the days when he was part of a small group of wunderkinds  in his field. He decides there’s no harm in giving it a shot.  After all, he asks rhetorically, what has she got to lose?

Inevitably, it turns out that Molly has much to lose, and it is that loss that gives the play its emotional resonance.  It is here that the monologues work best by saving us from any sentimentality or mawkishness that might otherwise intrude.  

The play, as performed on the bare bones postage-stamp of a stage at the Irish Rep, is blessed with strong performances by all three actors:  Geraldine Hughes as Molly, Jonathan Hogan as Mr. Rice, and the Rep’s multitalented managing director and actor Ciarán O'Reilly as Frank.  All of the actors, under the guidance of director Charlotte Moore, give us distinct and interesting characters to consider, but go understanding that as an audience member, you will have  only your sense of hearing  to inform you.  You will truly have to attend this tale of Sweeney in order to fully appreciate Brian’s Friel’s craftsmanship.

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