FIFTEEN STANDOUT THEATER PERFORMANCES FROM 2016

From the list of 163 plays and musicals I've seen this year on and off Broadway, I'd like to highlight 15 performances I found to be standouts.

Some on the list are seasoned veterans, while others seemingly popped out of nowhere to grab hold of the stage and shake it to its core.  

Those I have identified are, of course, representative of my personal viewpoint and tastes. They appear below in alphabetical order.  

Annaleigh Ashford is always a delight, but she really stood out in the roles of Dot and Marie in the brief fund-raising run of Sunday In The Park With George at City Center in October. Much of the publicity centered on Jake Gyllenhaal as George, but it is Ashford who knocked it out of the ballpark and should only get better as the Sondheim musical moves to Broadway for a 10-week run starting in February.  Go for Jake if that's the draw for you (he's very good in the role), but stay for what is likely to be a Tony nominated-performance by Annaleigh.  


Ato Blankson-Wood (along with Vondie Curtis Hall, featured below) blew the roof off the Public Theater during the production of Heidi Rodewald and Stew's latest show, The Total Bent. Blankson-Wood and Hall appeared as a son and father, and represented the shift in the black music scene from church-style gospel to the world of mainstream funk.  Terrific show.  Terrific performances.

Stephanie J. Block will surely be nominated for a Tony for her performance as Trina is the revival of William Finn's resplendent musical, Falsettos. Her show-stopping "breakdown" song alone is worth the price of admission.  

Alex Brightman in School of Rock. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical cleaved too closely to the movie to provide anything new or surprising, but it sure rang up a winner when it tapped Brightman, a dynamo of energy, for the lead role as Dewey Finn, the rock ‘n’ roll slacker who becomes a long-term substitute teacher at an upscale private school  and bumbles his way into becoming an inspiration to his students.  

Timothée Chalamet exuded charisma and self-assurence by the bucketful as the troubled and troublesome title character in John Patrick Shanley's memory play The Prodigal Son.    

Carmen Cusack gave one of those sit-up-and-take-notice performances as the lead character of Alice Murphy in the Steve Martin/Edie Brickell bluegrass-inspired musical Bright Star.  The original cast recording of the show is up for a Grammy.  Got my thumbs up! 

Vondie Curtis Hall, as mentioned above, shared the spotlight with Ato Blankson-Wood in The Total Bent at the Public Theater and gave an unforgettable performance as a preacher and gospel singer, very unhappy with his gay son's embracing of a personal and musical lifestyle that is totally alien to him.   



Katrina Lenk is Broadway-bound in Paula Vogel's Indecent, which I missed during its acclaimed off-Broadway run. Instead, her appearance on this list is for her performance in the little gem of a musical, The Band's Visit.  She was dazzling as the owner of cafe in an isolated Israeli town that is unexpectedly visited by the members of an Egyptian band,  lost while on their way to another venue. I hope she and the musical, with its lovely score by David Yazbek, get another production (after Indecent, of course).  

Kecia Lewis, like Ms. Lenk, caught my attention at the Atlantic Theater Company.  She wowed in Marie and Rosetta as the gospel and R&B singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Her powerhouse performance, including some mighty fine singing, lifted the show far above its bio-play roots.  


Judith Light is an actress who continues to show an undying

love of and commitment to live theater despite her successful career in the television world. Never one to take on easy, lightweight fare, this year we got to see her in Neil LaBute's one-character play All The Ways To Say I Love You, a disconcerting confessional by a school teacher who is a ruiner of lives, including her own. Another splendid performance from the two-time Tony winner.     

Janet McTeer is currently starring on Broadway alongside another terrific actor, Liev Schreiber, in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Her place on this list, however, reflects her glorious performance as Petruchio in the all-female Shakespeare In The Park production of Taming of the Shrew in June. Her turn as the raunchy swaggering misogynist was the awesome highlight.



Patrick Page is an imposing presence in any show that

allows him to use his barreling baritone in service of his craft. He has made this list for two performances:  one in the non-singing role of the patrician Menenius in the Red Bull Theater's fiery production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, and the other as the sinister character of Hades in the musical version of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, Hadestown, so wonderfully performed in its Off Broadway production under Rachel Chavkin's pitch perfect direction.  

Ben Platt has been rightly identified as the top contender for a 2017 Tony for his bundle-of-twitchy-nerves performance as a troubled teen in Dear Evan Hansen. The show has made a smooth and easy transition from Off Broadway to Broadway and is consistently drawing sell-out crowds to the Music Box Theatre. Best comparison to Platt's performance is with Alex Sharp's 2015 Tony-winning turn in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  

Jennifer Simard in Disaster. Simard was a comic standout as a nun with a gambling addiction in this spoof of the genre of disaster movies that were all the rage in the 1970s. The show incorporated songs from that era, and Simard knocked it out of the ball park with her rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" as a passionate ode to a slot machine.  


Bobby Steggert always gives 110% in the plays and musicals in which he appears (Ragtime, Yank!, Big Fish, Mothers and Sons, among others). His place on this list is for his performance in a small Off Broadway show, based on a true story, called Boy. In it, he gave a richly layered performance as a young man whose parents attempted to raise him as a girl on the advice of physicians and a renowned psychologist after a botched medical circumcision left him without a penis. This forced transgender role ruined his life even more than the accident. Steggert suffused his performance with warmth, gentle humor, and without an ounce of pathos. This was his best work since Yank!

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 website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics.  

BOY: Well-Meaning Parents Raise Son As A Girl, With Serious Consequences, Indeed

Rebecca Rittenhouse, Bobby Steggert,
and Heidi Armbruster in BOY
Photo by Carol Rosegg

Can someone be forced to live a transgender life and not even know it? 

That is the remarkable question at the heart of the Keen Company’s production of Anna Ziegler’s Boy, now at the Clurman Theatre. Even more remarkable is the fact that the play draws on a true story (that of David Peter Reimer), in which the best of intentions of a loving family and a gifted, if misguided, doctor lead to a life of emotional trauma for the character at its center – born a boy (named Sam) but raised as a girl (called Samantha) after his penis was severed in a medical accident.

The story itself might well have been fodder for tabloid headlines or emotionally-charged confessional TV shows, so great credit must go to the playwright and to its outstanding cast for avoiding all of that. Boy strips itself of any weepy mawkishness and bores with honest intensity into the damaged soul of the character (a strikingly rich performance by Bobby Steggert) who, when we meet him, is in his 20s, is knowledgeable about his history and now calls himself Adam. 

Blame is not the central driver, although certainly culpability is important. The designated villain is the doctor (Paul Niebanck), called Wendell Barnes in the play.  A psychologist specializing in gender identity, Dr. Barnes not only advises Sam’s parents (Heidi Armbruster and Ted Köch) that it is in their son’s best interest to raise him as a girl, but he remains a trusted confidant for many years, especially as “Samantha” balks at the role into which she has been forced into (without any conscious knowledge that it is a role). The early years depicted in the play are in the 1960s, when the nature vs nurture debate was going strong and doctors were viewed as authoritative figures; Dr. Barnes is merely emblematic of that world view, as is his sway over Sam/Samantha’s family.   

When we first meet the grown Sam, now Adam, he is in the early stages of a relationship with Jenny (Rebecca Rittenhouse).  A casual flirtation at a Halloween party quickly blossoms into something more serious, but, while the attraction heats up emotionally, Adam pulls away from anything physical. Though Jenny is perplexed and frustrated, Adam is not prepared to have this conversation with Jenny or anyone else outside of his parents and Dr. Barnes.

The rest of the play, which alternates scenes between Samantha’s childhood and Adam’s young adult life, focuses on the character’s difficult struggle for self-identity, both when his history is being withheld from him and later, after he learns the truth. A confrontation with Dr. Barnes helps to set him free, but it is his desire to make things work with Jenny that leads to the beginnings of healing – at least, in the play.  (Sadly, the real David Peter Reimer ended his own life after battling depression for many years). 

The entire cast gives first-rate performances under Linsay Firman’s carefully focused direction. But it is Bobby Steggert who absolutely shines. Always a consummately honest actor, he tends to do his best work when he is presented with characters that allow him to find the perfect blend between intelligence and heart. Here he skillfully brings both Samantha and Adam into gut-wrenching reality for the audience, absolutely shining in what may be his meatiest role since he starred as the central character of a gay World War II soldier in Yank! 

Boy is not the first play to take on the question of gender identity and its place within the larger and more complex picture of transgender issues.  Dewey Moss’s Death of the Persian Prince (reviewed here), first presented last summer, tackles the very disturbing matter of gay men within the country of Iran being coerced into having gender reassignment surgery.  “Gay” and “transgender” are, of course, not synonymous, and there is much need for bringing an understanding into the light, even as the public’s awareness of what it means to be gay and lesbian has increased tremendously in the past couple of decades. Next up, we’ll be taking a look at the musical, Southern Comfort, that relates the story of small transgender community in rural Georgia. 

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. 

    

‘Mothers and Sons’: What Does Katharine Want?

Cast of 'Mothers and Sons' 

No one can top actress Tyne Daly at portraying complicated women who are tough and sometimes overbearing in the face they display to the world, while being internally vulnerable and secretive.  Her Tony Award-winning take on Mama Rose in Gypsy, her layered turn as Maria Callas in Master Class, and even her four-time Emmy-winning role as Detective Mary Beth Lacy in the long-running television series Cagney and Lacey have all borne the unique Daly stamp. 

So if anyone could mine the character of Katharine Gerard, the “Mother” in Terrence McNally’s new play Mothers and Sons opening tonight at the Golden Theatre, it would be Ms. Daly. The problem is, Katharine is such a mass of radioactive toxicity that Daly might just as well be asked to play, and find redemption in, the recently deceased and deservedly despised pastor-of-hate Fred (“God Hates Fags”) Phelps. 

Katharine is the mother of Andre, who died 19 years previously of complications arising from AIDS. She has shown up, unannounced and unbidden, on the doorstep of Andre’s long-time lover Cal (Frederick Weller), Cal’s husband Will (Bobby Steggert), and their son Bud (Grayson Taylor). This is not a visit of attempted reconciliation, however; indeed the purpose for Katharine’s appearance is never made clear, possibly not even to herself.   

All we know at curtain’s rise is that she is there, standing downstage center in Cal and Will’s lovely New York apartment (nicely rendered by John Lee Beatty), dressed in a floor-length fur coat, resisting Cal’s polite entreaties to remove it and sit because she has no intention of staying (though, of course, she does stay, and even occasionally sits).

What does Katharine want? That becomes the central question of the play. She makes it clear that she offers no acceptance or approval of Andre or Cal (“I don’t have to approve,” she says most emphatically, as if there were any doubt) or later, when she meets him, of Will. The only one she takes to is young Bud, who is innocently accepting of her as a potential Grandma to fill the absence of one in his life. 

Ostensibly, the visit is sparked by Katharine’s wish to return Andre’s diary to Cal (she couldn’t mail it?). She hasn’t read it, and has no interest in doing so. Neither, as it happens, does Cal, whom she last saw at Andre’s memorial service (“a little too gay for my taste,” she says). It just seems that Katharine’s days are marked with bitterness and resentment, and now that her husband has also passed away, she cannot abide her life but can only lash out like a cornered she-bear.

And so it goes. Cal and Will each take turns with Katharine, alternately trying out polite small talk and taking the opportunity to apprise her (and the audience) of the roller coaster ride that has marked the last two decades for gays—from ostracized bearers of a deadly virus to marriage equality. Both Mr. Weller and Mr. Steggert do splendidly in roles that really serve as foils to Katharine’s mostly vitriolic comments (“He wasn’t gay when he left Dallas,” she says of Andre, eyeing Cal most accusingly).

It would seem that Mr. McNally (who also penned Master Class, though Ms. Daly’s participation in it came later, with the most recent Broadway revival) had a lot on his mind that he wanted to address with this play. He wrote an earlier incarnation titled Andre’s Mother back in 1988, a short work that took place at Andre’s memorial service in Central Park.  The playwright has also spoken of his rocky relationship with his own mother, proud of his accomplishments but none too happy with his sexual orientation.    

There is, then, authentic motivation behind Mothers and Sons. As a play, however, it is unfortunately clunky.  Emotionally charged speeches, which abound, are not enough to raise the work above that of a polemic. Cal exists as representative of the link between past and present. The younger Will exists as representative of a new generation of gay men who grew up with a greater sense of self-respect and acceptance, so that they expect it rather than appreciate it when it kindly shows up. 

Bud serves three purposes. One purpose, of course, is to let us know that married gay couples with children are becoming an established feature of the landscape. A second purpose is that of a theatrical device to allow Cal and Will to take turns with Katharine, as one or the other leaves the room to help their son with his bath or to get him changed for bed.

The third purpose, and the most manipulative one, is to tug at Katharine’s (and the audience’s) heartstrings, so that at the very end we are expected to find a glimmer of hope in an Oreo cookie she accepts from the lad. (I will say, I suspiciously eyed an untrimmed Christmas tree in the corner, fearing an outbreak of caroling would ensue).

If there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, it is that playwrights—no matter how established and successful they have been—need someone to read their work through a clinical and unemotional lens and consider its impact and potential for presentation to an audience that is not necessarily as personally invested in the message. Whether director Sheryl Kaller had that role is unknown to me. 

In this case, the message is significant enough to warrant additional work on the play, and the quality of the acting—first-rate all around—makes it worth the visit. But I can’t help thinking of the stunning 2011 revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, which so successfully married message with theatrical verisimilitude. It can be done. 

Feel free to tell you friends about this blog, and to share your own theater stories by posting a comment.

‘Big Fish’: Check Your Cynicism At The Door

Emotions soar in Big Fish, a powerhouse of a musical (book by John August, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa) about love and reconciliation, heroes and myths, and the measure of a man’s life that got off to a splendid start at its first preview last night.

It began with an onstage appearance by director/choreographer Susan Stroman, who greeted the enthusiastic and packed house by announcing that the show had just come off a tech rehearsal, and that  this would actually be the first time the cast would be performing the entire show all the way through at the Neil Simon Theatre.

Ms. Stroman’s remarks were met with wild applause, but they did give me pause.  Was this a warning that Big Fish was not quite ready for prime time (even though the show did have a pre-Broadway run in Chicago in the spring)?

I needn’t have worried.  From the opening notes performed by a most able orchestra (under the direction of Mary-Mitchell Campbell) to the very end, we were in good hands indeed.  Noticeable glitches were minor, and—while I would recommend a couple of snips here and there—I’d say that Big Fish is poised to be a big hit.

This is not to suggest that it will suit the tastes of every consumer of musical theater.  Dealing as it does with mortality, the deep abiding love between husband and wife, and a difficult relationship between father and son, Big Fish makes for a most verklempt evening.  This is a show for romantics; cynics need not apply.

In addition, there is no straight-through plot, but rather an accumulation of experiences that only come to a fully realized whole at the end.  And best beware, if you have never been able to succumb to the many charms of Norbert Leo Butz, you should stay away—because he is onstage and performing for a large portion of the time.

As it happens, I am quite content to lose myself in an emotional story, especially one that has the courage of its convictions to present itself without a trace of nudge nudge wink wink.  And I do count myself as a Norbert Leo Butz fan.  I have seldom seen anyone so at home, so comfortable and confident, and so willing to give of himself onstage.     

Big Fish, as you probably know, is based on the novel and the movie of the same title. John August, who wrote the book for the musical, was also responsible for the screenplay for the film, in which the central role of Edward Bloom was split between Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor, representing the older and younger versions of the character. Here Mr. Butz carries it all, which does allow us to follow him back and forth in time without any confusion.

If you are unfamiliar with the plot, Butz plays a traveling salesman from a small rural Southern town.  His young son Will (Zachary Unger, with Anthony Pierini taking over on Wednesday and Saturday matinees), who becomes his grown-up son (the talented Bobby Steggert), understandably resents his father’s frequent absences while growing up. To add to their difficult relationship, Dad is a man of effusive imagination, who constantly weaves tales of witches and giants and mermaids in order to explain life’s mysteries, while Will is a down-to-earth pragmatist.  They simply clash on everything.

The movie version of Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton, was filled with visual magic, and Susan Stroman does a very good job staging these elements, aided in no small way by scenic designer Julian Crouch (responsible for another great theatrical fantasy, Shockheaded Peter), costume designer William Ivey Long (Tony winner for Cinderella), multiple Tony winning lighting designer Donald Holder (South Pacific, The Lion King), with outstanding projections by Benjamin Pearcy.

Even though it is the struggle for understanding between father and son that lies at the core of this story, Big Fish is blessed with the lustrous presence of Kate Baldwin as Sandra Bloom, Edward’s wife, who loves both her husband and her son and longs for their reconciliation.  She, too, gets considerable onstage time, and sings one of the show’s heart-melting numbers, “I Don’t Need A Roof.” 

Anyone whose heart is not made of stone will be deeply moved by this and the other soaring melodies that Andrew Lippa has composed for Big Fish.  The Act I closing number, “Daffodils,” is a romantic masterwork, and it follows on the heels of another, called “Time Stops” (beautifully staged), in which Edward first encounters Sandra. Bobby Steggert, who has a lovely tenor voice, gets his time in the spotlight as well, with a song about his father, “Stranger” being but one more example.  Also very compelling are the songs Edward sings to his son, “Be the Hero” and “Fight the Dragons.”

Mr. Lippa, who did not exactly make the world sit up and take notice with his score for The Addams Family, has come through with one beautiful melody after the other.  It could be there are too many of them, but there is not one of these that I would cut.  The orchestrations by Larry Hochman (loved the use of guitars, banjo, and flute) are also first-rate. 

If I were to cut anything, it would be the fantasy number that opens Act II, along with some other short fantasy snippets that tend to merely distract.  Big Fish shows enough of Edward’s imagination through the circus episodes (a terrific Brad Oscar is the ringmaster), appearances by Karl the giant (Ryan Andes, excellent as well), and the hallucinatory fantasy number “Showdown” that literally pops out of the television set.   Indeed, the only song I felt did not work well was “I Know What You Want,” sung by the character of the witch in Act I.  Even though the scene is well staged by Ms. Stroman, the song itself does not, in my view, adequately capture the significance of the moment. 

All told, however, Big Fish is a wonderful original work for the Broadway stage, with a compelling and complex story that Susan Stroman and company have shaped so very well.  It will be hard to top during this theater year.  By all means, if you are susceptible to romantic, fanciful, and heartfelt tales, you won’t want to miss it!

Feel free to tell your friends about this blog, and to share your own theater stories by posting a comment.