Danny Aiello Shines in 'The Shoemaker'

Special things sometimes do indeed come in small packages.

Certainly such is the case with the compact (2 characters, 45 minutes) play called The Shoemaker, written by Susan Charlotte (based on her screenplay) and movingly performed by Danny Aiello and Lizbeth Mackay as two strangers whose paths cross during a time of crisis.

This one-acter received its world premiere production recently as part of a week of charity events by Cause Célèbre, a not-for-profit theater company with a mission of “fostering an enhanced understanding of psychological, physical, and social issues through drama.” The playwright, who happens to be the executive and artistic director of Cause Célèbre, has done proud by the company’s mission and has offered up more depth of understanding of the human psyche in under an hour than almost anything I’ve seen on or off Broadway in a very long time.

What drew me to the play was the opportunity to see Mr. Aiello, whom I last saw perform on stage more than three decades ago in Gemini, one of the plays on my personal favorites list. He did not disappoint, and both he and Ms. Mackay gave first-class performances.

Mr. Aiello plays the title character, a curmudgeon of a man who seems to be in a persistently surly mood, and certainly someone you would not particularly want to do business with. That Ms. Mackay’s character, Hilary, is insistent on doing business with him is strictly the result of a hole she has worn in her shoe while wandering aimlessly up and down the length of Manhattan. He wants to close up his shop for the day; she wants him to fix her shoe.

On the face of it, this is not much to hang a play on, but the writer has her characters unveil their secrets slowly, and we gradually come to understand what it is that has so affected their lives that normal discourse has become nearly impossible. As it happens with people in times of high stress, one of the characters has more immediately absorbed the blow through personal empathy and a flood of memories; the other, it would seem, is still in a state of shock and has yet to be overwhelmed, even as the pair part company at the end.

Without revealing any more of the storyline, let me just say that the power of the play is such that it has stuck in my mind long since the actors took their bows. Indeed, it wasn’t until I was describing it later to someone else that the emotional impact of it fully hit me and left me choking back tears.

The Shoemaker deserves to have a long life beyond its brief initial run, and I hope that Ms. Charlotte is not tempted to expand it into anything more than the polished jewel that it already is.

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Let the New Theater Season Begin!

With the 2009-2010 Tony Awards behind us, it’s time start taking a look at the new season. Here is a rundown of two new shows, and a report on a one-time event, a concert version of Lerner and Loewe’s lovely, lovely musical, Brigadoon.

Let’s begin with Little Doc by Don Klores, now on view at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.

To give you an idea of the sensibility of the play, it’s helpful to recall that Klores is best known as an independent filmmaker with a penchant for exploring what lies beneath the scabs of life. Perhaps his best-known film is “Crazy Love,” the impossible-to-fathom but nonetheless true story of Linda Riss and Burton Pugach, who married some 15 years after he arranged to have liquid lye thrown into her face when she attempted to break off their relationship. Scabs, indeed!

With this new work, Little Doc, Klores examines what happens when a group of ‘60s stoners have evolved into ‘70s druggies and dealers. The events unfold during a gathering of these long-time friends, now a collective of cons, hustlers and misfits, for whom casual marijuana use and free love have shifted into high gear, and cocaine and various injectables shore up their lives and serve as their source of income. The plot hinges on the revelation that one of them has shortchanged their supplier by $50,000, and it is the fallout from that little oversight that carries the play to its predictable, if still sad, conclusion.

The play itself is well performed, especially by Adam Driver in the title role. Driver seems to be channeling a young Jeff Goldblum, which is not a bad thing, and the cast as a whole works well together. But as was the case with “Crazy Love,” Little Doc leaves us feeling a little queasy, uncomfortably eavesdropping on conversations that are so none of our business. You need to decide for yourself if these are folks you would like to spend an evening with.

Speaking of disturbing characters, chances are you would not care to party with the characters in Order, a new play on view at the Kirk Theater on Theater Row. Order, by Christopher Boal, is an offbeat dark comedy about the mental instability that lurks just beneath the surface of what we foolishly call normalcy. The central character is a gentle man, a walking “kick me” sign, who is bullied by his boss and his psychotherapist, and who is a disappointment to his wife. Our hero finds redemption and discovers his inner Hannibal Lecter with the assistance of a demon named “Bathug.”

The “ick” factor may be stronger in Order than in Little Doc (hint: did you pick up on the Hannibal Lecter reference?), but I enjoyed it more because of its over-the-top approach—a little bit Martin McDonagh, a little bit “Little Shop of Horrors,” and perhaps just a dab of H. P. Lovecraft.

The actors, members of the Off-Off Broadway Oberon Theatre Ensemble, do splendid work under the direction of Austin Pendleton, himself a multi-talented actor, director, and playwright. They and the audience are in good, if blood-stained, hands.

I would hate to end this blog entry on a gory note, however, so let’s talk about Brigadoon, with its sublime score by Lerner and Loewe, presented at the Shubert Theater in a concert version as a one-time benefit performance for the Irish Repertory Theatre.

As with any benefit, there were some opening speeches and words of appreciation to sit through. Actors Matthew Broderick and Jonathan Cake were on hand to provide the introductory remarks, which included an explanation as to why the Irish Rep, which specializes in plays by Irish and Irish-American playwrights, had chosen to present a musical that takes place in Scotland. Answer: “The Irish are Scots who learned how to swim!”

But finally the talking ended, and the musicians began to play, and it soon became apparent that the best thing for me to do was to close my eyes and just let the beautiful music sweep over me.

If you are familiar with the score of Brigadoon only from the 1947 cast album, it would be worth your efforts to track down other recordings. Indeed, please let me know if you have any recommendations. While I normally prefer the original versions of shows, in this case, it does not do justice to the score; the singing is overblown and annoyingly operatic in style; songs are left out or truncated; and lyrics are altered. The score also includes some lovely orchestral passages that do not exist on the original cast album.

For me, then, this concert version was an eye opener. Melissa Errico and Jason Danieley, in particular, were in exquisite voice in the lead roles, and it was fun to listen as Christine Ebersole tried on a Scottish accent to sing "My Mother's Weddin' Day." Also nice to see Len Cariou, even if he did sing only a few notes. But the evening truly belonged to composer Frederick Loewe and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, for whom this was a most fitting tribute. It was nice that Lerner’s daughters were in the audience to once again enjoy their father’s most beautiful musical.

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2010 Tony Awards Show

The Broadway theater industry put on its annual self-love fest last night at the Tony Awards ceremonies.

I don’t want to be a Monday morning quarterback, and so I won’t comment on the winners and losers and the overlooked. But I would like to share some thoughts about the broadcast itself, both as a theatrical event and as an indicator of where the industry would like to position itself in the eyes of the American public.

It seems to me there was a greater understanding that this was a television show as well as a theatrical awards ceremony. More attention was paid to entertainment values and to keeping the adrenalin flowing, with an eye toward attracting a younger audience to both the broadcast and to Broadway.

Nothing wrong with that; the traditional audience for a Broadway show is getting rather long in the tooth, and so an appeal to the next generation is a good thing. Thus, the rock band Green Day and music from the show American Idiot, which features the group’s songs, were given lots of air time. There was a video promo by rock superstar Jon Bon Jovi. Two performers from the popular television show Glee, Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison, were given feature spots in which to perform Broadway show tunes. And there was a very visible presence of popular Hollywood stars as presenters, recipients, and camera-ready front-and-center audience members.

Do note that “younger audience” is a relative term. Green Day and Bon Jovi date to the 1980s, and both Mr. Morrison and Ms. Michele sang show tunes from the late 1950s and mid-1960s, respectively. The target audience would seem to be those old enough (mid 30s to mid 50s) to have sufficient disposable income to pluck down the big bucks for an evening at a Broadway show. Maybe some of them will even be hitherto non-theatergoing guys; hence the presence of New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, who introduced a number from the musical Memphis. (Didn’t Spamalot demonstrate that the right marketing could bring in an enthusiastic male audience?)

It is difficult to turn an awards ceremony into an entertaining must-see event. I don’t envy the producers of the Tony Awards show. Hopes are always high that maybe this year, the show will be exciting and offer up more than the expected. There will be enough people griping about long-winded speeches and problems with the sound, so let me just point out some of the things I did like about the broadcast.

Sean Hayes was a charming, professional, and seemingly comfortable host for the evening. No over-the-top “Just Jack” moments for this actor, best known for his role as the outrageous Jack McFarland on the TV show Will and Grace. He performed admirably—from his introductory piano performance to his gentle humor to his participation in a choreographed sequence from the Broadway show in which he currently stars, the revival of Promises, Promises.

Marian Seldes, the 81-year-old always-working actress, accepted her lifetime achievement award by posing coyly for a few moments, then walking offstage without saying a word. Perhaps the best speech of the evening.

Lea Michele did a gutsy, “out there” rendition of the song “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” from the show Funny Girl. The musical is slated to be revived on Broadway in the 2011-2012 season under the direction of Bartlet Sher, who helmed the near perfect revival of South Pacific, and many believe this was Ms. Michele’s audition performance. I’ll leave it to others to decide whether she might make a good Fanny Brice, but I certainly admired her moxie.

Bibi Neuwirth and Nathan Lane were a delightful pair of presenters for the awards for best actress and best actor in a musical. They were well prepared and appropriately self-mocking of the critical “thumbs down” for the musical in which they currently co-star, The Addams Family. They were a pleasant contrast to the typically formal, squinting-at-the-teleprompter presentation speeches.

It’s always difficult to convey the power of a musical number taken out of context of a show and sprawled across the stage of Radio City Music Hall. The one number that worked best in my view was the song “The Best of Times” from La Cage aux Folles, headed up by Douglas Hodge, who won the Tony Award for his performance as Albin. The number made good use of the stage, and even went out into the audience., lending dimensionality often lacking in such televised production numbers. It certainly played well and could lead to an upsurge in ticket sales for a show that has been revived on Broadway twice since its original production in 1983.

In case you were wondering, tickets for the Tony Awards generally go on sale the same day the nominations are announced. This year, tickets prices were $250 and $450, and the event is billed as “black tie only.” I don’t know about you, but unless I am invited as someone’s guest (tux thrown in), I’ll continue to watch from home.

And so, the 2009-2010 New York theater season ends with its usual share of official winners and losers.

Let the 2010-2011 season begin!

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Forget the Tonys: Welcome to The First Ever ProfMiller Kudos Awards!

Well, the Tony Awards are this weekend, and while I wish all of the nominees the very best of luck, I am making no predictions whatsoever as to the results.

Instead I would like to offer up my own awards.

Call them the 2009-2010 ProfMiller Kudos Awards for Outstanding Theatrical Achievement!

As I committee of one, I was able to reach unanimous decisions in all of the categories, some of which are unique to this ceremony, and all of which reflect my personal biases and judgments. These awards encompass both Broadway and Off Broadway productions; I am an equal opportunity theatergoer!

And so, without further ado, the envelope, please:

The first award, given for the Most Underappreciated Play of the season, goes to Brighton Beach Memoirs. This funny, warm, well-directed, well-acted, engaging, and loving revival just never took off and closed quickly, amidst much speculation as to what brought it to its knees, and taking with it the opportunity to see the play with which it was to be paired: Broadway Bound. I guess it’s like they say, “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be!”

In the category of Best Actress in an Underappreciated Play, the Kudos Award goes to Laurie Metcalf. Long associated with the TV sit-com starring the comic actress sometimes known as Roseanne Barr, Ms. Metcalf is a gifted and often outrageously funny stage actress, as anyone who saw her in November or A Lie of the Mind could attest. Brighton Beach Memoirs showed her in another light, and she gave a bravura performance as Kate Jerome, the mater familias who holds the family together through difficult times.

Ms. Metcalf’s male counterpart and the winner of the 'A For Effort' Kudos Award is Norbert Leo Butz who did his damnedest to sell Enron through dint of personality and adrenaline alone. His own “smoke and mirrors” rivaled those offered up by the production itself, and, in an interestingly ironic way, mirrored that of the character he portrayed, former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

In the category of Physical Comedy, the Kudos Award goes to Jan Maxwell, a wonderful screwball comic actress, who brought down the house with her glorious meltdown in The Royal Family.

For Best Performance in a One-Person Show, the Kudos Award goes to Jim Brochu, who wrote and stars in Zero Hour, giving us a totally believable portrait and a fascinating evening with Zero Mostel. I rarely like one-person shows, but I was held spellbound for the entire time. Heck, while we’re at it, let’s give Mr. Brochu a Kudos Award for Playwright of the Best One-Person Show, and throw in an Award to Piper Laurie for Best Director of a One-Person Show

The winner of the Kudos Award for Best of the Rising Playwrights is Annie Baker, who gave us two outstanding works this season: Circle Mirror Transformation and Aliens. Hers is a voice to be reckoned with. She should also share her Award with director Sam Gold, who shepherded both shows.

For his star turn as Luckiest Playwright of The Season, the Kudos Award goes to Donald Margulies. His two plays , Time Stands Still and a revival of Collected Stories, were blessed by the presence of wonderful actresses giving exquisite performances: Laura Linney in the former, and Linda Lavin in the latter.

Indeed, in recognition of her performance in Collected Stories, Linda Lavin is the recipient of the Kudos Award for Best Actress in a Play. Her portrayal of Ruth Steiner is utter perfection, revealing layers of complexity in the central character of a talented, conflicted, and neurotic writer and teacher who is crushed by her student’s success and perceived betrayal.

For Best Revival of a Play, the Kudos Award goes to everyone associated with A View From The Bridge. Director Gregory Mosher has brought out the very best in the cast, headed up by Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, and Jessica Hecht. An absolutely flawless and mesmerizing production.

For his performance in A View From The Bridge, the Kudos Award for Best Actor in a Play goes to Liev Shreiber, whose every acting moment was layered with depth and ambiguity, through which he created a most complex portrayal of the character of Eddie Carbone.

The Best Play of the Year Award will emulate the Obies, and will honor Annie Baker’s two entries: Circle Mirror Transformation and Aliens.

In recognition of its work as the Best Off-Broadway Theatrical Company, the Kudos Award goes to The Irish Rep. I never cease to be amazed at the fine work that is produced there--always creative, imaginative, and magical in the way it uses its postage stamp stage to its fullest advantage. I particularly enjoyed The Emperor Jones and White Woman Street during the 2009-2010 season and look forward to seeing pretty much whatever else they come up with.

For Best Ensemble Performance, the winner of the Kudos Award is the cast of The Temperamentals. The company, headed up by Thomas Jay Ryan and Michael Urie, performed splendidly together in this thoroughly enjoyable, intelligent, and funny play about the early days of the gay rights movement in the United States.

Moving on to the musicals, we’ll start with the Kudos Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The winner is Kate Baldwin, who lit up the stage in the revival of Finian’s Rainbow. What a beautiful singing voice, just right for those glorious Burton Lane/Yip Harburg songs.

For Best Actor in a Musical, it’s a tie! Christopher Sieber wins for his performance in The Kid, if only for the look of near panic that crosses his face with regularity so that you can feel his character’s neuroses rise to the surface. Mr. Sieber shares the Kudos with Bobby Steggert—not for his Tony nominated role in Ragtime, but for his leading role in the musical Yank, in which he holds the audience in the palm of his hand as the narrator and as a young gay soldier during World War II.

For Best Musical Revival, the Kudos Award goes to Anyone Can Whistle, which had a brief run as part of the Encores series at City Center. This semi-staged production, starring Donna Murphy, Sutton Foster, and Raúl Esparza, erased any notion that the legendary flop of a show by Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim needs to remain hidden. It was terrific!

For Best Musical Off Broadway, the winner of the Kudos Award is The Toxic Avenger, a total hoot of a show from start to finish—funny, clever, crazy, energetic. Haven’t enjoyed a musical this much since Urinetown.

In the Category of Best Musical on Broadway, multiple Kudos Awards go to everyone involved in Fela. Hats off to director and choreographer Bill T. Jones, actors/performers Sahr Ngaujah and Lillias White (she of the shattering soulful voice), set designer Marina Draghici, and the members of the glorious onstage band Antibalas.

And that’s a wrap. Cue the music and call it a night!

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

Wrapping Up A Year of Theatergoing. Part II: Spring Semester

Welcome to Part II of a discussion of my season of theatergoing in 2009-2010. Part I covered the “Fall Semester,” i. e. the time span between September of 2009 and December of 2010. I pick up now with January of 2010 and go through to the end of May, the “Spring Semester.” The notion of “semesters” of theater is a nod to my vocation as a college professor. And since this is grading time, I have given each production a letter grade based entirely on my own criteria.

Here, more-or-less in the order of my seeing them, are the plays in my 2009-2010 season of theater-going. Part II: Spring Semester.

Don’t know if there is any significance to the coincidence, but we begin, as we will end, with a play by Donald Margulies. The first play I saw in January was Time Stands Still, which boasted solid performances by a cast that included Eric Bogasian, Brian D’Arcy James, Laura Linney, and Alicia Silverstone. The two women outshined the men, though the play itself was only moderately interesting, and I continue to long for Margulies to plumb the depths of the interesting issues he raises. Overall grade: B+

Jerk was a memorably disturbing venture into the mind of a serial killer, as much a piece of performance art as a play. Some brilliant moments, but utterly too creepy (and not in a "cool" way) for me to recommend it to anyone I know. Overall grade: C-

Present Laughter was a revival of a Noel Coward play that has never worked for me. Can American actors perform the lighter-than-air stuff of British drawing room comedy? Not in this case, anyway. Overall grade: C-

Venus in Fur by David Ives was a quirky take on the battle of the sexes, anchored by a wonderful performance by Nina Arianda as an aspiring actress who jumps around like a quantum electron from being ditzy, to intellectual, to sexy and dangerous. Overall grade: A-

Mr. and Mrs. Fitch was an unfunny comedy by a talented writer, Douglas Carter Beane, unfunnily performed by talented actors John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle. Overall grade. C-

Clybourne Park was a provocative play about race relations by playwright Brice Norris, well directed by Pam MacKinnon and strongly acted by a sharp ensemble of actors. Overall grade: A

The Pride, by Alexi Kaye Campbell, juxtaposed gay relationships in the middle and late twentieth century. While the play itself did not offer much that was new, and suffered from some confusing directing decisions, it was blessed with riveting performances by Hugh Dancy and Ben Whishaw. Overall grade: A-

True West, A Lie of the Mind, Ages of the Moon, all by playwright Sam Shepherd, were performed at three different venues during this season. This was a great opportunity to get a taste of Shepherd’s offbeat work--the first two from 1980 and 1985 respectively, and the third, a new play about the reconnecting of two old friends. Of the three, it was the new work—more restrained and far more focused than the out-of-control sprawl of the older pieces—that I enjoyed the most. Overall grade for the trio: A

A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller was given a flawless revival, smartly directed by Gregory Mosher and brilliantly performed by a cast that included Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, and Jessica Hecht. Schreiber, in particular, blew me out of the water by layering every moment with great psychological depth and unpredictable ambiguity. Overall grade: A+

The Duchess of Malfi, the 17th century drama by John Webster, was given a strong production by the Red Bull Company, which specializes in performances of Jacobean plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries. It’s been fun watching this company mature, as director Michael Sexton has let go some of his way-over-the-top style to trust these already over-the-top plays to take front and center. Overall grade: A

The Temperamentals by Jon Marans, a thoroughly engaging play about the early gay rights movement in the United States, was given a terrific production in its transfer to New World Stages. Kudos to all involved! Overall grade: A+

The Cradle Will Rock, Marc Blitzstein’s iconic pro-worker, anti-capitalist musical from the 1930s was given a topnotch production at Theater Ten Ten, one of those gems of small theater companies operating out of church basements scattered around New York City. The show, well performed by a cast of excellent singers, was done in the style of the legendary original production, which took place in an impromptu space with no sets, props, or costumes and but a single piano. Overall grade: A

Next Fall by Jeffrey Nauffts deals with the intersection of religion and homosexuality. I found the play and the performances to be tedious, but, hey, what do I know, since it a nominee for a 2010 Tony Award for best play! Overall grade: C

Measure for Measure, one of Shakespeare’s notoriously difficult plays—call it a dark comedy—was presented with clarity by the Theater for a New Audience, though not with the overall power as last year’s production of Othello by the same company and director, Arin Arbus. Overall grade: B

The Glass Menagerie, one of Tennessee Williams’s best-known and successful plays, was given a strong production with some original, and to my mind, quite compelling direction by Gordon Edelstein, who challenges the generally accepted notion that the play is truly Williams' great “memory play” rather than a piece of writing that manipulates memory. Special credit to Judith Ivey, who has beautifully captured the character of Amanda Wingfield in all of her complexity. Overall grade: A+

A Behanding in Spokane by Martin McDonough is a quirky and ultimately quite funny dark comedy, with top-notch performances by Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell. Overall grade: A-

Red, by John Logan, is another Tony nominated play that I didn’t care much for, despite strong performances by Alfred Mlina and Eddie Redmayne and some intriguing staging under Michael Grandage’s direction. I found it to be pretentious, more of an essay or lecture than a play. Overall grade: B-

Yank, by Joe and David Zellnik, a musical about relationships among gay soldiers during World War II, was given a delightful, warm, and loving production by the York Theater Company, yet another theater group housed in a church basement. The show is set to move to Broadway, hopefully retaining its star Bobby Steggert. Overall grade: A

A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick by Kia Corthron was not so much a play as it was a means of conveying issues that were obviously filling the head of the playwright. The theme of water (draught, flood, thirst, drowning, poisoned water supply, and the bottled water industry) sort of held things together, but the play also dealt with race relations, religion, the battle of the sexes, genocide, visions, migraine headaches, and probably several more important ideas. It was quite a juggling act, though not always compelling theater. Overall grade: B

Anyone Can Whistle, the short-lived mess-of-a-show by Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim that saw 12 performances in 1964, was given a revelatory production as part of the Encores theater season at City Center. Wow and Triple Wow to all involved! Overall grade: A+

Family Week, Beth Henley’s play about a dysfunctional family and an experimental psychotherapy approach, was generally ripped to shreds by the critics when it was recently revised. I found it interesting enough but rather sad, with a message of “you can’t win, no matter what you do.” Overall grade: B

Promenade, another quirky musical from the 1960s, by Maria Irene Fornés and Al Carmines, was given a one-performance “reading” at the New World Stages. What is most noteworthy is that it was the kickoff for what is intended to be an Encores-like series for Off-Broadway musicals, something that I would love to see happen. While the performances were uneven, it was nice to see Andrea McArdle and Neva Small again. (Thank you, David, for sending me a copy of the original Off-Broadway cast recording!) The overall grade of A is for the concept.

Gabriel, by playwright Moira Buffini, is a melodramatic World War II story about evil Nazis, a hidden Jew, desperate women, and a mysterious stranger. Still, it has been given a rich and well-acted production by the Atlantic Theater Company. Overall grade: B

Enron by Lucy Prebble was a frenetic, noisy, visually extravagant empty vessel of a play about the rise and fall of the mega-greedy. Overall grade: C

I Never Sang for My Father by Robert Anderson, about the troubled relationship between a middle aged son and his elderly father, saw a strong revival, well directed by Jonathan Silverstein and with moving performances by Matt Servitto, Keir Dullea, and Marsha Mason. Overall grade: A

Everyday Rapture, co-written by Dick Scanlan and the show’s star Sherie Rene Scott, is in the vein of a Bette Midler revue, with songs strung together via a storyline very roughly based on its star’s somewhat bizarre life story. Entertaining up to a point, but not enough to warrant all of the fuss and the Tony nominations it has received. Overall grade: B

The Kid, a musical about a gay couple seeking to adopt a baby, written by Michael Zam, Andy Monroe, and Jack Lechner, was a pleasure through-and-through, funny, warm, and touching. Hope it has a long, healthy, and happy life. Overall grade: A

The Aliens, about a trio of social misfits, is the second show of the season by Annie Baker, a marvelous young playwright. Overall grade: A

Dr. Knock, or the Triumph of Medicine, a 1923 satire about the medical profession, written by Jules Romains, was given a first-rate revival by the Mint Theater Company, which specializes in producing rarely-seen old gems. Overall grade: A

The Burnt Part Boys, a musical by Mariana Elder, Nathan Tysen, and Chris Miller, about a group of teenagers on a quest to destroy a mine where their fathers had died ten years previously, falls flat on many counts, not the least of which is the lack of attention to capturing the place and time where it is set. Overall grade: C

White’s Lies by Ben Andron is a cross between a sit-com and a farce, about a middle-aged man-who-has-yet-to-grow-up who gets into all sorts of trouble after promising his mother a grandchild before what seems to be her imminent death. Nice to see Betty Buckley back on stage. Overall grade: B

Graceland by Ellen Fairey was the story of a brother and sister who get together for the funeral of their father, along with a parallel and intersecting story about a divorced father and his teenage son. Well acted and well written by another playwright worth keeping an eye on. Overall grade: A-

Sondheim on Sondheim, the umpteenth tribute show for the octogenarian Broadway composer, offers lackluster performances of many Sondheim songs, some of them discards or alternate versions to ones that made it to the original cast albums. Of greater interest to Sondheim’s fans are the multimedia presentations of the master himself providing a running narrative and some revealing personal stories. Overall grade: B

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, by Kristoffer Diaz, is a vibrant and original entry to the theater season. It combines a hip-hop sensibility with a wild and crazy story about the world of professional wrestling and its xenophobic environment. Overall grade: A

That Face by Polly Stenham is an over-the-top dark comedy about a highly dysfunctional family, featuring a drug-dependent, booze-hound of a mother and her co-dependent teenage son. Stenham was still a teenager herself when she penned this cutting work and is someone who bears watching over time. Overall grade: B

White Woman Street by Sebastian Barry, a playwright, poet, and novelist whose work was unfamiliar to me before now, tells the tale of a group of outlaws in 1916 fixing to rob a train in the town of White Woman Street. Another triumph for the Irish Rep. Overall grade: A

We end, as promised with another of Donald Margulies’ plays. With the current production of Collected Stories, Margulies should thank his lucky stars to have Linda Lavin in the central role of Ruth Steiner. This is one of the richest roles that Margulies has created, and with Lavin, he has found the perfect person to portray the writer and teacher who gradually is overcome by a sense of being both surpassed and betrayed by her student. I have some quibbles with the play itself, which gets a bit essay-like towards the end, but none with Lavin, who is giving one of the very best performances of the season. Overall grade: A

That’s it for the spring semester. My next blog entry will ignore the various awards that have been given out recently, as well as the forthcoming Tonys, and offer up my own Kudos for the best of the best.

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

Wrapping Up A Year of Theatergoing. Part I: Fall Semester

Forget for the moment how the New York “season” is defined. I’d like to use this occasion to review my own season of theatergoing in 2009-2010, with a few brief comments about each of the shows I’ve seen between September of 2009 and May of 2010—a span of time roughly equivalent to an academic year at a college, whence comes my blog identity of “ProfMiller” and my pressing inner need to assign a letter grade to each production.

Here, more-or-less in the order of my seeing them, are the plays in my 2009-2010 season of theater-going. Part I: Fall Semester.

We’ll begin with Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts, the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of August: Osage County. With Superior Donuts, only Jon Michael Hill succeeded in taking an unconvincing and underdeveloped character and filling the role with a vibrant performance that stood out against the general ennui pervading the rest of the evening. For that, Hill has garnered a Tony Award nomination for best performance by a featured actor in a play. Overall grade: C+

Wishful Drinking was an intermittently amusing evening spent with Carrie Fisher telling stories of her dysfunctional life. I was looking for her to share something she might have learned from her affair with alcohol and drugs, and any insights she may have gained from years of psychotherapy, but this one was played strictly for the gallows humor of it all. Overall grade: B-

Brighton Beach Memoirs was a warm, affectionate, funny, well-acted, well-directed and thoroughly enjoyable revival of Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical comedy. I join all of those were puzzled that it failed to catch on and had to close prematurely. Overall grade: A

The Royal Family, a spoof of the Barrymore family of actors by George S. Kauffman and Edna Ferber, was given a first-class production. Great to see that Jan Maxwell, a wonderful comic actress in the Jean Harlow screwball mode, won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play and is nominated for a Tony. Overall Grade: A

After Miss Julie, playwright Patrick Marber’s take on August Strindberg’s play about power, social class, and sex, had its moments, and Sienna Miller pulled off a fairly credible performance as the psychologically complicated title character. But the production was too far over-the-top to be truly convincing or engaging. Overall grade: C

Oleanna, a revival of David Mamet’s take on power, gender, and sex, also had its moments, and Julie Stiles gave a strong performance as a young woman college student who accuses a professor of sexual harassment and pretty much destroys his career. The play depends more on the unfolding of the storyline and less on the eloquence of the dialog, of which Mamet, when he is at his best, is a supreme master. Here he was not at his best. Overall grade: B-

Broke-ology, by Nathan Louis Jackson, was a well-written, well-performed drama about a working class African American family in which two grown sons are trying to figure out how best to help their aging and ailing father. Jackson is skilled at layering depth of meaning, and by paying attention, we learn a great deal about the family and of the greater world beyond the front steps of their modest home. Overall grade: A-

Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet consisted of one very short piece, School, that was funny, clever, and reminiscent of top-notch Mamet; and a longer one-act, Keep Your Pantheon, an amusing spin on Plautus and reminiscent of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Overall grade: B+

Finian’s Rainbow, a revival of the 1947 Burton Lane/Yip Harburg musical, was a lively and delightful production of a show filled with glorious and memorable songs, even if the tale it tells stretches credibility to the breaking point. There were several fine performances, but it was Kate Baldwin who carried the show, winning my heart and a well-deserved Tony nomination for best performance by a leading actress in a musical. Overall grade: A-

The Emperor Jones was the Irish Rep’s outstanding revival of Eugene O’Neill’s play about a two-bit dictator who ends up fleeing for his life. For a play generally viewed as musty and racially insensitive, this was a brilliant production, using mime, choreographed movement, masks, puppets, lighting, and music to stellar effect, and anchored by the powerful performance by John Douglas Thompson in the title role. Overall grade: A+.

Penny Pennyworth, by Chris Weikel, was an enjoyable romp, a spoof of any number of Charles Dickens tomes performed by an energetic and delightful cast of four, all of whom played multiple roles. Overall Grade: A-

Danny and Sylvia: The Danny Kaye Musical, by Robert McElwaine and Bob Bain, is of interest only to diehard fans of Danny Kaye. Brian Childers offers up an impressive impression of the neurotic comic, but this is strictly bio-pic stuff. Overall grade: C

Zero Hour, written and performed by Jim Brochu, is a one-man show about the life of actor Zero Mostel. Brochu has deservedly won a Drama Desk Award for his performance, the best solo I’ve seen since Jefferson Mays' brilliant star turn in I Am My Own Wife. Overall grade: A+

Race was the third production of a play by David Mamet during the fall season. Unfortunately, it offered only a tepid discussion (in this case, of the sticky nature of relations between whites and African Americans in the U.S.) without the longed-for stomach punch that Mamet has given us with such plays as Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, and, to a lesser extent, Oleanna. Overall grade: C

Fela, with book by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones, was based on the life, work, and music of Nigerian Afrobeat club owner and performer Fela Kuti. All kudos to Bill T. Jones for his directing and choreography, and to Sahr Ngaujah and Lillias White for their roles as Fela and his mother. Wonderful and original show, well deserving of its 11 Tony nominations. Overall grade: A+

Toxic Avenger, book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by David Bryan, was a total hoot. Saw it twice and would gladly see it again! Overall grade: A+

Circle Mirror Transformation was one of two new plays by Annie Baker to be presented Off Broadway this season. 2010 Obie Award winner Baker tops my list of rising young playwrights! Overalll grade: A+

This, by Melissa James Gibson, paired with Circle Mirror Transformation, gave Playwrights Horizons a very strong fall season. Gibson gave us grown up characters edging into early middle age and trying to cope with life’s little blessings (a new baby) and curses (the death of a spouse). Overall grade: A-

The Playboy of the Western World, by J. M. Synge, and Misalliance, by G. B. Shaw, were given rousing productions by the Pearl Theater Company at its new home at City Center. Pearl is rightly noted for its classy presentations of classic plays. Overall grade for both shows: A

Ernest In Love, a musical version of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest (Ann Croswell, book and lyrics; Lee Pockriss, music) was a small, charming musical presented by the Irish Rep. Overall grade: B

Ragtime (book by Terrance McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty) was a very good revival, with strong performances throughout. But other than the iconic opening number, there was precious little to celebrate with the frustratingly thin retelling of E.L. Doctorow’s powerful book. Why bother? Overall grade: B

That’s it for the fall semester. My next blog entry will cover my play-going activities from January through May of 2010.

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Kudos to Annie Baker, 2010 Obie Award Winner

THIS JUST IN!!!

How lovely to see that playwright Annie Baker has won an Obie Award for her play Circle Mirror Transformation.

And that's not all.

Circle Mirror Transformation and Baker's other new play, The Aliens, were named jointly as "Best New American Play" by the Obies.

And that's not all.

Sam Gold, who directed both plays, won a director's Obie for his work on the two plays.

And that's not all.

Dane DeHaan, one of the three stars of The Aliens, won an Obie for his acting in that play.

And that's not all.

The cast of Circle Mirror Transformation (Reed Birney, Tracee Chimo, Peter Friedman, Deirdre O'Connell, and Heidi Schreck) won an Obie for their ensemble performance.

Way to go, Annie and company for these well deserved honors! And Kudos to the Obie judges for their exquisite good sense to recognize the work of a terrific young playwright!

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Where Are the New Playwrights? They're Here! They're Here!

A question that is frequently asked in the wonderful world of theater is “where are the new playwrights?” There always seems to be a fear that the “golden age” of theater is gone forever, and we will never again see the likes of [fill in the blank with your favorite dead or aging playwright].

Well, let’s take a look at the current Broadway and Off Broadway season and see what we can come up with.

Annie Baker is the new playwright I’d bank on the most. Not yet 30, she already has Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Award nominations under her belt. This season alone, she has given us two strong entries with Circle Mirror Transformation and The Aliens. Baker has an uncanny ear for authentic dialog and the ability to capture the essence of each of the characters she creates. She is definitely a writer to be reckoned with.

But there are plenty of other up-and-comers who are doing interesting work. They offer us original ideas, or voices, or ways of looking at things that make us sit up and take notice.

From first-time playwright Alexi Kay Campbell, we had The Pride, a play that contrasts gay relationships in the 1950s with those of today. The Pride was given a strong production under the direction of Joe Montello, with topnotch performances by Hugh Dancy and Ben Whishaw. I look to see what Campbell will come up with next.

Chicago playwright Ellen Fairey, whose Graceland is on tap at the Duke, is someone else to watch. Graceland is only her second full length play, yet in it she shows she is able to create interesting situations and complicated characters. The play, which presents us with two intersecting stories about fathers and their children, holds an audience because her characters are not so easily pigeonholed and behave both as predictably and as unpredictably as the people who make us crazy in our own lives.

On the lighter side, there is Ben Andron, whose first play, White’s Lies, is currently on view at New World Stages. And while White’s Lies received a mixed reception, I see it as a strong first effort, with a comic flair and enough writing polish so that I view Andron as someone to keep an eye on. Tackling farce is a risky business, yet with White’s Lies, he comes pretty darn close to getting it right, despite slipping a little too deeply into sit-com territory.

As if the room weren’t getting crowded enough, we need to ask everyone to move over to make space for two additional playwrights, both of whom have plays in preview at Off Broadway houses even as I put down these words

We’ll start with Minneapolis-based Kristoffer Diaz, who has presented us with a truly original theatrical voice in his play, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. The play, which casts a satiric eye on the professional wrestling industry and the general buzz of xenophobia that surrounds it, brings an energetic hip hop sensibility to the theater. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is both funny and thoroughly engaging, thanks to Diaz’s wonderful command of language and sense of the absurd.

Let me offer up a few words about the production itself, since I have not written about it previously. The success of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is definitely abetted by the solid direction of Edward Torres, and fun staging by Brian Sidney Bembridge (set design), Jesse Klug (lighting design), and Mikhail Fiksel (sound design), all of whose efforts add markedly to the audience’s pleasure. The fine cast includes Desmin Borges as the Puerto Rican narrator Macedonio Guerra, known in the wrestling world as “Che Chavez Castro,” and Usman Ally as Vigneshwar Paduar, an Indian street performer who is transformed into the vaguely Arab terrorist, “The Fundamentalist.” The play, much of which takes place on and around a wrestling ring, deals with Macedonio Guerra’s transition, from accepting his work as just a job in the entertainment field, to his growing understanding that he is a willing collaborator in the promotion of racial stereotypes in order to sell Pay-Per-View tickets and wrestling merchandise. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is not Diaz’s freshman effort, but it is sure to be the one to launch his career into hyperspace. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the play was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize!

And last in our roundup, we will tip our hat to Polly Stenham, a young British playwright who, at the age of 19, wrote That Face, now on view at Manhattan Theater Club’s City Center Stage 1. That Face, a visceral dark comedy/drama, took the London theater world by storm when it opened in 2007, garnering accolades and multiple awards for its writer. The play, very well acted by its American cast, deals with an exceptionally dysfunctional family, presided over by alcoholic, pill-popping, bipolar Mummy (powerfully portrayed by Laila Robins), whose desperate and selfish neediness has all but destroyed her teenage children. Her son, Henry (Christopher Abbott), in particular, has been pushed from being a hapless enabler into co-dependency. By the end of the play, you are trying to figure out how many years of therapy it will take to get anyone on his or her respective feet.

All in all, I think it is safe to say the theater world is in good hands, with many new and emerging playwrights hard at work creating original and provocative plays. Broadway itself may be caught up in the greater show biz culture, dependent on jukebox musicals and movie stars to draw in the crowds, but certainly Off Broadway is alive and well and handily taking up the slack with first-rate productions of a wide array of new plays by up-and-coming playwrights whose talented voices should keep us audiences in good stead for many years to come.

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Two new shows: One warm and inviting, the other smarmy and farcical

Aficionados of edgy plays about the angst-filled lives of sophisticated, cynical, and smarmy characters should skip down to my review of White’s Lies below. First, I want to talk about a new show that has likeable characters, a situation that is thoroughly engaging, and a script that is both laugh-out-loud funny and moist-eyed touching.

The show is The Kid, a musical about a gay couple hoping to adopt a baby, now playing at the Acorn Theater at Theater Row on 42nd Street.

That the couple in question is gay is, of course, germane, but one of the many strengths of The Kid is that it tells a universal story about two people who have made the commitment to bring a child into their lives, and the challenges they face trying to make it happen.

If it were not so well done, it would be easy to dismiss The Kid as a live version of a made-for-television movie you might see on the Lifetime Channel, or perhaps more likely on Logo, the TV network that shows Lifetime-like gay themed movies. A couple wants a child, works through an adoption agency, goes through some anxious moments, seeks the support of friends and family, and so forth (“and so forth” being my way of saying I am not going to tell you how it ends).

The Kid is based on the book by the same title, written by popular sex advice columnist Dan Savage. Savage has been transformed into the lead character in the musical by writer Michael Zam, supported with songs by Andy Monroe (music) and Jack Lechner (lyrics) that build our understanding of and connection with the characters over the course of the show.

Gotta hand it to director Scott Elliott, someone whose work I have to confess I never particularly admired before now, and to a wonderful cast, starting with Christopher Sieber, he of the beer belly, teddy bear personality, and facial expression of borderline panic as he deals with the everyday crises of life, both the real and the feared. Sieber plays the lead role of Dan, whose protective mantra is: “babies are born dead; birth mothers can change their minds.” The line is, of course, not funny, but it says much about the character of Dan and of the anxiety that undercuts his dream of parenthood.

It would take a real curmudgeon not to grow quite fond of Dan and his partner Terry (Lucas Steele), Dan’s practical and supportive mom (Jill Eikenberry), and Melissa, the homeless teenage birth mother (Jeannine Frumess, in a strong and layered performance). The rest of the cast, many of whom play multiple roles, are also quite good, and the whole of the show has a real ensemble feel to it.

Bottom line: I arrived at the theater tired and cranky after a frustrating day at work. Before long, I found myself caught up in the show as events unfolded onstage, and I left feeling uplifted and warm. Works for me!

OK. Now on to the edgy comedy about the angst-filled lives of sophisticated, cynical, and smarmy characters.

It’s called White’s Lies, and it is the first play by motion picture marketer Ben Andron, who has given us a mixture of sit-com and farce that more-or-less works if you think of it in those terms. Thus, the play offers us TV comedy situations, and characters who speak in snappy one-liners and who perform with the rapid pacing of a light-weight farce, under the direction of Bob Cline.

The storyline: Womanizer Joe White (Tuc Watkins) has made a career of picking up women in bars and telling them all manner of lies as they head out for a night of debauchery. Joe’s mom (Betty Buckley), from whom Joe has been estranged, tells him she has terminal cancer and wants nothing more than for him to present her with a grandchild before she dies. The plot unfolds as Joe tries to spin a web of lies that will restore him to his mother’s good graces. Along the way, he learns a few lessons about life and grows up just a little bit.

The play is abetted by some good comic performances by supporting players Rena Strober, Jimmy Ray Bennett, and, especially, Peter Scolari, who earned his sit-com chops of such television fare as "Bosom Buddies" and "Newhart."

White’s Lies has not been well received by the critics, but in my view Ben Andron shows some skill and reminds me somewhat of Douglas Carter Beane, who has given us a couple of funny offbeat comedies, As Bees in Honey Drown and The Little Dog Laughed. Andron is not yet writing at that level, but I would say that White’s Lies works better than Beane’s most recent outing, Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, and I would like to see what else he is capable of.

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The Burnt Part Boys: Earnestness is Not Nearly Enough

The best thing about The Burnt Part Boys, now in previews at the Playwrights Horizons, is its evocative title. Unfortunately, the musical itself, which has been in development for at least four years, has little to offer by way of script, lyrics, or music—kind of a difficult set of obstacles to overcome.

It’s not that wonderful theater can’t happen with a modicum of plot. Waiting for Godot comes to mind, as does the current production of The Aliens at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. But both Samuel Beckett’s classic play and Annie Baker’s contemporary one engage an audience because the characters are intensely engaging, as are the words that come out of their mouths courtesy of the playwrights.

In The Burnt Part Boys, however, playwright Mariana Elder and Lyricist Nathan Tysen have not succeeded. The storyline, while earnest as can be, just doesn’t make for interesting theater. Neither Elder nor Tysen shows a mastery of language to convincingly express the thoughts of the characters, a group of teenagers, one of whom leads the others in a quest to dynamite a coalmine where two of their fathers were killed a decade earlier. [The title refers to the name the locals started calling the mine after the disaster, which occurred in 1952 in West Virginia coal country.]

All of Act I and much of Act II concerns the long journey to the mine site, which is about to be reopened despite a pledge by the owner to keep it permanently shut in memorial to those who died there. So you do have the makings of a quest story or a bildungsroman, in which you might expect great truths to be revealed and friendships to be either cemented or destroyed. Yet little that unfolds in The Burnt Part Boys leaves the realm of the mundane.

I don’t want to beat the show to death, yet there is little to praise. What I can offer goes to the minimalist set by designer Brian Prather, using ropes and ladders to portray the rugged terrain, and the score by Chris Miller that shows some potential in the modernist style of Adam Guettel or Michael John LaChiusa.

As for the performances, let’s just say that even talented thirty-something actors who look and act like thirty-something characters should not be playing 18-year-olds, and characters living in West Virginia coal mining country in 1962 should talk like that’s where and when they are living. In the case of The Burnt Part Boys, I absolve all of the actors and hope they go on to find roles that allow them to display their talent to better advantage.

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