ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: A Home Run For Roundabout and a Grand Slam for Kristin Chenoweth

Move over, Helen Mirren, and prepare to be deposed. It’s true you are doing a lovely job portraying Queen Elizabeth over on 45^th Street, but look out for upstart Queen Kristin Chenoweth, the glittering star of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s sublime revival of the Comden and Green/Cy Coleman screwball musical comedy On The Twentieth Century at the American Airlines Theatre in the heart of Times Square.

Ms. Chenoweth is riveting in a role that fits her talents as if it had been created for her, though she was but 10 years old and living in her native Oklahoma when On The Twentieth Century opened on Broadway in 1978. Its star, Madeline Kahn, unfortunately withdrew after a couple of months into the run, citing damage to her vocal cords.

Heaven forefend such a fate befalling Chenoweth, an operatically-trained coloratura soprano whose singing is put to grand use with Coleman’s score, one that pays tribute to comic operas and the operetta style associated with the likes of Sigmund Romberg. On The Twentieth Century allows Chenoweth to combine her ability to knock off those High Cs—as she amply demonstrated in her performance in the New York Philharmonic’s concert version of Candide in 2004—with her keen sense of physical comedy, on great display in The Apple Tree, another Roundabout production in which she starred two years later.

So it’s Cunégonde meets Passionella, a combo punch that results, to borrow a quote from Candide, in creating the best of all possible worlds for anyone who longs for that magical blend of star power and production values that makes for a perfect Broadway musical. 

Chenoweth plays a 1930s Hollywood superstar at the top of her game, who meets her egomaniacal match in Oscar Jaffee (Peter Gallagher). Jaffee is the theatrical impresario who discovered her when she was barely eking out a living as a rehearsal pianist, a moment we visit in flashback. Goodbye Mildred Plotka; hello Lily Garland.

Together, the pair embarked on a whirlwind of theatrical successes and a torrid love affair, both of which ended when Lily jumped ship and headed out to Tinseltown. Now Jaffee is down on his luck.  With four flops in a row and facing a mountain of debts, he is fleeing aboard the train known as the Twentieth Century Limited. Much can happen in the 16 hours it takes to get from Chicago to New York, and Jaffee intends to make things happen. It seems he has arranged to be ensconced in the stateroom next to the one in which Lily Garland is staying. His troubles will be over if only he can get her to sign a contract with him.

This is the basic set-up that encompasses Act I. Not only do we get to know Oscar and Lily, we meet the show’s significant supporting players as well. There are Oliver (Mark Linn-Baker) and Owen (Michael McGrath), Oscar’s loyal managerial team; Bruce (Andy Karl), Lily’s hunka-hunka plaything, whose slim movie career is dependent on his good looks and on keeping Lily interested in him; Letitia Peabody Primrose (Mary Louise Wilson), an eccentric and evangelical woman of wealth who offers to back Oscar’s next production, an epic about Mary Magdalene in which he hopes to star Lily; and a show-stopping quartet of tap dancing porters (Rick Faugno, Richard Riaz Yoder, Phillip Attmore, and Drew King) who undoubtedly will have their own fan base as the run continues.

All of the elements come together in the grand meteor shower that is Act II. No plot spoilers here, but kudos to the book’s writers, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who found a way to bring every wild tangent back to the central story of Oscar and Lily. The writing partners adapted the musical from the 1934 Howard Hawk film (titled Twentieth Century), which starred John Barrymore and Carole Lombard as Oscar and Lily. But even before that, there was a play of the same title by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht. As it happens, Hecht also penned some of the Marx Brothers movies; that is the kind of madcap mentality we can see at work here.

Although this is not a show that is filled with hummable hit tunes, Cy Coleman has given us multiple musical highlights, where the songs themselves join in glorious harmony with the performances and with director Scott Ellis’s inspired staging. A couple of highlights from Act I are the catchy title song, the splashy “Veronique,” performed by Lily in her very first musical as Oscar’s protégée, and “Repent,” sung by Ms. Wilson’s character with a twinkle in her eye as she relishes a sinful past that predated her current religious fervor. 

In Act II, almost every song is a winner—from the dancing porters’ opener “Life Is Like A Train,” to an ode to Letitia Primrose'’s money (“Five Zeros”), to a number about trying to get Lily to sign a contract (“Sign Lily Sign”). There is also a hilarious chase through the train (“She’s A Nut”), a grand production number that has Lily debating with herself over what kind of role she should take in order to further her career (“Babette”), and the final duet between the crazed couple when Oscar is pretending to be on his death bed (“Lily/Oscar”). 

And while Kristin Chenoweth is the undisputed top banana, everyone else more than rises to the occasion. Peter Gallagher, who suffered from a voice-damaging infection through much of the preview period, is in fine fettle, giving a John Barrymore-worthy performance as Oscar. Andy Karl shows great comic chops as Lily’s boy toy, and Mary Louise Wilson is splendid as the kooky Letitia Primrose. The production is blessed as well with David Rockwell’s art deco set design and William Ivey Long’s period costumes. The only quibble: the orchestra is rather scaled back for such a full-throttled production.     

Somewhere in Broadway Heaven, Betty Comden and Adolph Green are grinning from ear to ear, with two of their shows delighting audiences in theaters residing on the same block of 42^nd Street – On The Town at the Lyric and On The Twentieth Century at the American Airlines. There could not be a happier coming together of great American Broadway musicals at their best.     

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PAINT YOUR WAGON: Complex Orchestrations and Big Production Values Clash With An Intimate Story

If ever a show needed to be John Doyle-ized, it’s Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1951 musical Paint Your Wagon, now having a brief run as part of the Encores! season at City Center. 

Doyle, of course, is a director known for his stripped-down versions of Sweeney Todd, Company, and Allegro, among others. He has nothing to do with the Paint Your Wagon revival, of course (Marc Bruni is doing the honors at Encores!), but his ability to tame lavish productions to get at their essence—including having the acting company double as musicians—would do this musical a world of good.  

Lerner and Loewe, coming off their lushly-scored hit musical Brigadoon, switched gears entirely with this earthy tale about the dreamers and drifters who pinned their hopes on the California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s. The theme is set with the opening song, “I’m On My Way”:

                             Where am I goin’

                             I don’t know

                             Where am I headin’

                             I ain’t certain

                             All that I know is I am on my way

The song is performed by a male chorus that includes stock American characters and recent immigrants from various European countries.  It perfectly captures the sense of men adrift.   

One of these is Ben Rumson, a grizzled ‘49er who stumbles across a vein of gold, stakes a claim, and establishes the town of Rumson Creek somewhere in Northern California, where he is quickly joined by the other gold-seeking men. The only female in town is Rumson’s 16-year-old daughter Jennifer. The plot, such as it is, has two central storylines.  One follows Rumson and the men. The other follows Jennifer, who falls in love with Julio, a handsome young miner pressured to live alone outside of town, treated as an outcast because he is Mexican. Added to the mix is a separate off-the-wall thread that has to do with a newcomer, Elizabeth, one of two wives of a Mormon man who auctions her off to the highest bidder.  

Paint Your Wagon is not exactly a well-plotted tale (Lerner wrote the book as well as the lyrics to Loewe’s music), but it does have some interesting elements, including a cross-ethnic love story, broaching the theme of prejudice that Rodgers and Hammerstein made central to their glorious South Pacific (1949), and a character (Elizabeth), who bears a resemblance to the same pair’s Ado Annie from Oklahoma (1943).

What rescues Paint Your Wagon from its clunky and at least partly derivative storyline are a plethora of catchy and memorable songs that have withstood the test of time (“I Talk To The Trees,” “They Call The Wind Maria,” “Wand’rin' Star”) and that fit the characters to a T.  What they don’t fit, however, is the outsize production or Ted Royal’s original (i. e. from 1951) orchestrations, though I hasten to praise the on-stage orchestra which does a splendid job of performing the score under Rob Berman’s always-masterful direction. 

The songs—in keeping with the rough-hewn characters—are carefully crafted so as to follow a simple and easy-going structure. They cry out to be accompanied by banjos and guitars (these instruments occasionally appear in this production, but, alas, only for moments at a time) rather than a large theater orchestra performing lush and complex orchestrations. On top of that, choreographer Denis Jones has taken a cue from Agnes de Mille’s original work, and so there are a several balletic dance numbers that--as nicely performed as they are--ill suit the production, which, after all, features a stage full of scruffy men for most of the time.   

There are, to be fair, a couple of lovely ballads, including “I Still See Elisa,” which Rumson sings about his late wife, and the duet for Julio and Jennifer, “Carino Mio.”  For these, a more lushly romantic arrangement makes sense. There is also a fun and raucous opening to Act II, featuring a troop of gals who have been brought to town to entertain the men in the saloon, performing the bouncy “Hand Me Down That Can O’ Beans,” followed by “Can-Can.” Here it makes sense to open up the production. But for much of the show, things ought to be focused on the individual characters, whose solitary, rootless lives gnaw at them (“Now I’m lost, so gol-durned lost, not even God can find me” is a powerful lyric that needs to be sung against a very quiet accompaniment).

Regardless of the cross-purposes facing the production, there are standouts among the cast at Encores! These include Keith Carradine as Rumson, Justin Guarini at Julio, and Jenni Barber in the comic role of Elizabeth, who is unfazed at the prospect of being auctioned off and who later happily runs away with one of the men. 

Certainly there are many who will be taken by the production values and the grand orchestrations. But if you were to strip a lot of that away, you would find an intimate musical about a group of society's rejects, the kind who will always be seeking to fill the holes in their lives by searching for the ever-elusive pot of gold.

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HAMILTON: Will Lin-Manuel Miranda Have The Magic Touch To Produce Another Broadway Hit?

With slightly less than two months to go before the major theater award nominees are announced, and with 16 Broadway shows yet to open before then, there can be no legitimate speculation about the 2015 awards.  

However, the same cannot be said for 2016, at least not if we are to believe the outpouring of acclaim that is buzzing about a certain new Off Broadway production that is set to make its move to Broadway this coming summer. 

That new show is Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s long anticipated follow-up to his multiple-award winning hit musical In The Heights from 2007 (Off Broadway) and 2008-2011 (Broadway). Hamilton is currently in the midst of an acclaimed and nearly sold-out run at the Public Theater, where it closes on May 3. The Broadway production is set to begin previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (the same venue as In The Heights) beginning July 13. 

I attended a performance of Hamilton over the past weekend, and while it has a lot going for it, I would say that Mr. Miranda has very wisely warded off those who wished to make the move immediately, in time for its momentum to carry it through the current awards season. 

To be clear, I have no doubt it would be a strong contender, even in its current state, but it could use some work to solidify that home run its creator is looking for. It is too long, to begin with, running at two hours and forty-five minutes. More significantly, it has problems keeping its focus on the central rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

For what it is worth, here are my specific thoughts on various aspects of Hamilton, including the pluses:

The Production

There is no faulting the production values, from the set to the staging to the use of the turntable system to the costumes to Andy Blankenbuehler’s outstanding choreography. This is a team that will know exactly how to make the best use of the humongous stage at the Richard Rodgers (the staging was a great strength of In The Heights, as well). The early scenes are especially strong in conveying the immediacy and youthful exuberance of many of the key players who were barely out of their teens when our fledgling nation was on the brink of its war of independence—Hamilton, Burr, Lafayette, and the Schuyler sisters, among them. Hamilton does a terrific job of portraying the youth-fed sense of adventure, righteous indignation, and confidence at the approach of the Revolutionary War. 

The Cast

First-rate all around, with no complaints at all. For me, the standout is Daveed Diggs in the dual roles of Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Just love his Act II opener, “What’d I Miss?” I also love the care that was used in bringing together the multi-racial cast for telling this most American of stories.  Finally, I appreciate the quiet but significant references to immigration, race relations, and political shenanigans that compel us to make connections between then and now. 

The Music

Mr. Miranda is an undisputed expert at using rap to tell a story. His mastery of the genre’s rhythms and intricate rhyme schemes puts him on a par with the likes of Stephen Sondheim and W. S. Gilbert, to whom he pays homage with a reference to the patter song “Modern Major General.” It is possible to question the co-opting of a style that is associated with a particular segment of our culture, but I will say that the way he has shaped rap makes the form completely accessible to a typical theater audience member. It’s almost as if he slows it down imperceptibly, so that ears unused to rap can catch every word. 

With Hamilton, rap is used almost exclusively for exposition, but, really, there is simply too much of it. It begins to feel as though it were being used as a means of engaging high school students in learning about U. S. history.  But this is theater, not school, and we don’t need to know everything that Mr. Miranda has absorbed from studying Ron Chernow’s hefty biography of his protagonist. Tell us what we do need to know, and move on.    

Beyond the use of rap, Miranda has provided some lovely ballads, a great comic number for King George that draws on a ‘60s pop tunefulness (reminds me of The Monkees’ “Daydream Believer”), as well as a couple of terrific toe tapping jazz-inflected songs. This is one wonderful and eclectic score. 

Whose Story?

The focus of the story needs to be on Hamilton and Burr. We do get to know Hamilton quite well, but Aaron Burr remains a cipher, known almost exclusively as a fence sitter for his unwillingness to commit to one position or the other. About the only other aspect of his life that is referenced is his love for his wife and for his daughter, both named Theodosia. Yet neither of these women appears as a character in the show.  I say, lose the song (and its repetition) about Theodosia, or, better yet, add one or both of the characters and build up the human side of Burr’s story in a way that is parallel to Hamilton’s. We get to know something of Hamilton’s son; how about Burr’s daughter? 

In order to tip the scale to incorporate more about Burr, the show could reduce some of the time it devotes to several other characters. There is an awful lot of George Washington, for example. Yes, Washington apparently was a father figure for Hamilton, but that is not the central relationship. Lose the bit about the Whiskey Rebellion and de-emphasize Washington overall. While you’re at it, figure out what to do with the Schuyler sisters. Hamilton marries Eliza, but why are we given so much information about his relationship with Eliza's sister Angelica, especially since there is no affair?  And why do we need the third sister, Peggy, to show up at all? Also expendable: James Madison and possibly John Laurens. 

Again, it's not that the actors playing these roles aren't excellent. They most certainly are. But where's the focus?  Too many characters have their moment in the spotlight, so that the central figures risk being lost in the shuffle.  

While you are figuring out how to better balance the characters, think about what to do with King George. He does have a great crowd-pleasing comic number, but do we really need to hear it three times? As an alternative to cutting back, a possibility would be to give him something else to do. Add a scene in England with the king and his counselors agonizing over the Revolutionary War. Give them a song and drop the two repeated solos. Bear in mind that one great number was enough for Andrea Martin to clinch the Tony for her supporting role in Pippin.  

The Ending

There is a perfectly good ending to Hamilton, the duel with Aaron Burr. The build-up through the previous duels and the stylized number “Duel Commandments” are very effective.  The way the final showdown between the rivals is staged in slow motion gives Hamilton ample time to say everything he needs to say, in the manner of Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”  There is no need for the appended epilogue told by Eliza Hamilton. What could be more final that the finality of death?    

Looking Ahead

We know that Mr. Miranda is not planning to rest on his laurels, as he has excused himself from several performances in order to sit in the audience and take notes. I look forward to seeing what he does to tighten and focus what could very well be his masterwork. He has said that in Hamilton, he has found his Les Miz, but what he needs to find is his Hamilton and his Burr.  

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JOHN & JEN: Revival of Andrew Lippa's First Musical Boasts A Pair of First-Rate Performances

Conor Ryan and Kate Baldwin
Photo by Carol Rosegg

We New York theatergoers like our psychologically damaged and damaging characters to be writ large:  our Phantoms, our Sweeney Todds, our Norma Desmonds.  So what to make of the Keen Company’s lovingly-conceived revival of Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald’s decidedly under-wrought 1995 musical John & Jen, where it is neurosis rather than psychosis that is under the microscope?

To begin with, front and center, are the performances of the show’s two stars, the always splendid Kate Baldwin (Finian’s Rainbow and Lippa’s own Big Fish) and Conor Ryan (Cinderella and Fortress of Solitude). They share the stage and sing their way through a time period covering 40 years (from the 1950s to the 1990s) in the two-hour, two-act production that has virtually no dialog outside of the songs.

Both performers acquit themselves well with what amounts to a work that is more of a song cycle than a musical.  For this production—in the appropriately intimate space of the Clurman Theater at Theatre Row—they are nicely abetted by Sydney Maresca’s costume design (lots of quick costume changes throughout) and the excellent musicianship of pianist Lily Ling and cellist Melanie Mason, all under Jonathan Silverstein’s direction.  Perhaps Steven C. Kemp’s abstract set may be a bit jarring, but it does provide a variety of performance areas for the pair. 

While there isn’t a great deal of depth to the storyline, Ms. Baldwin’s character, Jen, does undergo an arc of development as she sets out to right the wrongs she believes she has committed. Mr. Ryan’s character, John, is more limited. That’s because there are two different “Johns,” an uncle and his nephew, each of whom is depicted from birth though the teenage years. Therein lies the lean and gently poignant plot, a tale of sister and brother, and of mother and son. 

In Act I, Jen and John are siblings, growing up with an abusive father. Jen, the older of the two by six years, forms a bond of mutual protection with John (“I’ll never let him hurt you; trust me!” Jen pledges in one form or another multiple times throughout Act I). That vow holds until Jen becomes a teenager, starts to rebel, and ultimately leaves home for college and New York City, where she quickly embraces the lifestyle of the 1960s—sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and all that is anti-establishment. When she reluctantly returns home for a visit, she finds that John, left to his own devices, has come to embrace his father’s values. In the hopes of winning Dad’s approval, he has enlisted in the U. S. Navy just in time to be shipped out to Vietnam. When Jen announces she is joining her boyfriend to start a new life in Canada, the pair have a falling out that is never reconciled due to John’s death in battle.

Act II opens with Jen newly returned to the U. S. with her young son, whom she has named John in memory of her brother, after breaking up with the boy’s father. She is resolved to making good her broken promise to her brother by never letting anything bad happen to her son. But her determination has turned her into one of those “helicopter” parents, always hovering over John until he, like his mother before him, wants nothing more than to escape. The show ends on the day of John’s high school graduation. He has been accepted into Columbia University’s writing program, though Mom is aghast at the idea of his leaving for New York, the way she had done many years before. Will Jen finally be able to let go and move on with her own life? 

John & Jen is structured so as to keep everything low keyed and within the range of normal neurotic family dysfunction. While Jen and her brother may have grown up in an abusive household, we aren’t given much information as to how bad it was for them. No monsters lurking in the shadows. No Carrie-like psychotic meltdowns. Jen’s sense of guilt is predicated entirely on her having left her brother behind to “hold down the fort” (one of the song titles) when she sought a new life for herself.   

Musically, the songs are designed to serve the story. There is none of the sweeping romanticism that Mr. Lippa would later use for the love story that lies at the heart of Big Fish. This is a different kind of love story, examining the love of a woman for her brother, for her son, and, finally, for herself. The score reflects this kind of interplay by evoking moments as they occur, without grand gestures or flourishes—the way that lives generally do unfold. 

In the end, the best reason to see John & Jen is to experience Mr. Lippa’s first musical in the pleasurable company of Kate Baldwin and Conor Ryan, two gifted performers at different stages of their careers who work beautifully together.

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LADY, BE GOOD: Lady, Be Terrific, More Like

The wonder that is Encores! tonight opens its 22^nd season at City Center by doing what it does best, offering up a glorious five-performance revival of the rarely seen Lady, Be Good, the George and Ira Gershwin musical that last appeared on Broadway in 1924, where it ran for 330 performances and starred a pair of hoofers who went by the name of Fred and Adele Astaire. 

The production is about as bouncy and bubbly as any you are likely to see these days, even with its paper-thin plot (original book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson) that is frequently interrupted by unrelated specialty acts—a vaudeville holdover that even in its time was starting to disappear in favor of stronger storylines (Showboat was only two years away). But when the plot steps aside for a couple of production numbers performed by the likes of the legendary Tommy Tune, who could possibly complain? 

What there is of a plot tells the story of a brother and sister, Dick and Susie Trevor, who find themselves out on the street merely because they haven’t paid the rent for 18 months. Dick (Danny Gardner) decides he will get them out of their predicament by marrying a wealthy heiress (Jennifer Laura Thompson) who has eyes for him, despite the fact that he is in love with the equally penniless Shirley (Erin Mackey). 

For her part, Susie (Patti Murin) falls into a scheme by which she will pretend to be the Mexican widow of the presumed-to-be dead Jack Robinson (Colin Donnell) so that she can get the inheritance. There is a lot of running around and silliness, and the requisite happy ending, of course. But, really, all of it is in the service of one of Encores’ best choreographed evenings (thanks to Randy Skinner and a very talented ensemble) and a whole trunkful of Gershwin numbers, starting with the show’s two bonafide and enduring hits, the title song and "Fascinating Rhythm."

Given that the show was written around the talents of the Astaire siblings, you can bet there are plenty of opportunities for Mr. Gardner and Ms. Murin to show their stuff.  Performing together, with other partners, or by themselves, both are outstanding dancers, and Gardner—dressed in white tie and tails—does a show-stopping tap number at the top of Act II. Truly, if anyone does a musical about Fred and Adele, these two should be high on their list to take on the roles.   

Also stopping the show is Tommy Tune, that six-foot-six bundle of dynamite, who, at 75, still can tap with the best of them. In Act I, he comes out all dressed in scarlet to perform “Fascinating Rhythm,” and in Act II, there he is again all in blue, with “Little Jazz Bird.” What a crowd-pleasing charmer he is!

The production is replete with top-notch performances, including Kristen Wyatt and Jeff Hiller as a wacky couple, and Douglas Sills as the underhanded attorney ("I'm not a quack," he bridles. "I'm a shyster!") who masterminds Susie’s impersonation of “Senorita Juanita.”

Encores! rightfully prides itself on getting the music right. In this case, diligent digging uncovered only a handful of songs for which there were extant orchestrations (by the likes of Max Steiner and Robert Russell Bennett). Rob Fisher,  Encores’ founding music director, used these to guide the creation of new orchestrations. He also serves as guest conductor of the excellent orchestra, which spotlights a pair of exceptionally talented pianists, Chris Fenwick and Greg Anthony, performing "Fascinating Rhythm" and "Lady, Be Good" as in-the-spotlight specialty numbers.

Thumbs up and three cheers to director Mark Brokaw and to all involved in putting together this joyous production. This Lady is more than just good; she is terrific!

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CONSTELLATIONS: World Without End

I just saw Constellations, an intellectually complicated yet emotionally…

            …ZAP…

I just saw Constellations, an emotionally complicated yet intellectually…

            …ZAP…

Someone told me about this play called Constellations…

            …ZAP…

Constellations?  Never heard of it…

            …ZAP…

Whoa! I can see it will be impossible to write this review of Constellations from within the Multiverse in which it takes place.  So let us return to the more familiar Universe, the one where time flows from past to present to future, and where the paths we take lead us in one direction at a time. 

From the steady perspective of the familiar, imagine yourself living in a non drug-induced plane of existence in which everything you’ve ever done and everything you’ve never done take place simultaneously.

That is the premise of Constellations, playwright Nick Payne’s exploration of a relationship between a down-to-earth beekeeper (Jake Gyllenhaal) named Roland and an endearingly offbeat physicist (Ruth Wilson) named Marianne that unfolds within the latter’s realm of quantum mechanics and string theory. If an electron can be in multiple places at once, Mr. Payne asks, then why can’t we?

The pair meet cute at a barbecue, where the opening conversation is about the impossibility of licking the tip of one’s elbow, an act that Marianne declares holds the key to immortality. Roland, believing her to be flirting with him, tells her right off that he is with someone. 

Then … ZAP… the scene repeats.  Only this time, Roland says he’s just come out of a really serious relationship.   Then…ZAP… again… and then again... through various permutations.  In some of these, Roland is married to someone else.  In others, he is free as a bird and he and Marianne start to build a relationship.

The 70-minute play is made up of dozens of such small scenes that lurch forward and spiral back on themselves, bringing to mind something that Caryl Churchill (Traps, Cloud Nine, A Number) might have concocted, though with a lot of heart to balance out the intellect. 

Who would have thought that a play based on scientific esoterica could be so appealing? That’s thanks to the razor sharp direction of Michael Longhurst and the absolute command of the constant shifts in meaning and tone that Mr. Gyllenhaal and Ms. Wilson bring to their performances. 

As the couple’s relationship blossoms through all of the ZAPS that mark the shifts, we find ourselves growing increasingly fond of them. Think of Constellations as a physicist’s version of Jan de Hartog’s popular two-character play from 1951, The Fourposter, that spans 35 years of a marriage.   

Constellations is undoubtedly an unusual work, and it can seem gimmicky – especially since it actually is based on a gimmick. It is absolutely the quality of the staging and the performances that make it a memorable experience, performances that are so solid that any idea of “stunt casting” goes out the window.  Mr. Gyllenhaal displays a Gary Cooperish charm, and Ms. Wilson is simply irresistible as the slightly offbeat physicist.

Adding to the intriguing nature of the play is Tom Scutt’s set design. The stage appears to be filled with balloons (though they might be subatomic particles). Surprisingly, one of the more touching images is that of these falling to the ground late in the play, a disturbance is the Multiverse and in the world as we perceive it through our limited and primitive senses.

More than anything, one leaves Constellations with a sense of wonder. What if we could live simultaneously within everything we've ever done or might have done?  What if we could choose which of the infinite number of paths to follow at any given time?  

What if we could lick the tip of our elbow?   

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INTO THE WOODS: Careful the Tale You Tell

The Fiasco Theater’s production of Into The Woods, the suddenly ubiquitous Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical from 1987 now on view in its live theatrical incarnation at the Laura Pels Theatre, comes close but ultimately fails to capture the show’s complex balance between childlike naiveté and grown-up moral ambiguity.

A mashup of several well-known fairy tales, along with a new anchor story invented by Mr. Lapine, a part of Into The Woods always seemed to me to inhabit the same transitional landscape that is occupied by middle school-aged children, clinging to childhood while lurching toward young adulthood. As Red Riding Hood succinctly puts it, “Isn’t it nice to know a lot/And a little bit not…”

The young adolescent side of the tale is represented by Little Red Riding Hood and Jack (of beanstalk fame). As performed, respectively and quite well by Emily Young and Patrick Mulryan, these characters take themselves as seriously as any young adolescent would, so that their lines have a Roald Dahl-ish glow. (That’s a real compliment; no writer understands the pre-teen the way that Mr. Dahl did). Thus, we have Little Red Riding Hood singing:  

           

                                   Into the woods

                                   To bring some bread

                                   To Granny who

                                   Is sick in bed.

                                   Never can tell

                                   What lies ahead.

                                   For all that I know,

                                   She’s already dead.

And Jack’s heart-felt farewell to his friend Milky White, the cow (played here with unabashed whimsy by Andy Grotelueschen), includes the lines:

                                               

                                   Some day I’ll buy you back.

                                   I’ll see you soon again.

                                   I hope that when I do,

                                   It won’t be on a plate.

These are funny lines, but in order to be effective, they must be delivered without a trace of irony or tongue-in-cheek.

The good news is that this is the part that the Fiasco company and directors Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld get right, along with a wonderful makeshift set design by Derek McLane that gives the production the feel of one of Jo March's plays in Little Women, right down to the homespun costumes by Whitney Locher and a stageful of props that seem to have come straight out of Grandma’s attic. 

The problem lies with the adult side of the production, where—to cadge from something the Witch sings—the performances are not good; they’re not bad; they’re just nice. 

Even though roles are drawn from fairy tale characters (or in the case of the Baker and the Baker’s Wife, fairy tale-like characters), we’ve still have to be drawn into the story. The relationship between the Baker (Mr. Steinfeld) and his wife (Jessie Austrian) needs to be a sympathetic one, so that when she falls into the arms of Cinderella’s Prince (Mr. Brody) and is later killed, we should be disturbed and moved (as we were when the roles were played in the original Broadway production by Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason). We should also find the Witch (Jennifer Mudge) to be a psychologically complicated character, a monstrous mother to Rapunzel and a scary presence throughout.

With this production, we have individuals who can sing well enough, but they always seem to be performing in rehearsal mode, having never figured out how to bring their characters to life. The charming homespun quality that works so well in support of the fractured fairy tales loses its effectiveness when we move into the morally murky grownup world.  And the gimmicks that were charming become cloying, starting with having the actors playing musical instruments (when have we seen that before?, and unnecessary, since Matt Castle does a whiz-bang job accompanying everyone on the center-stage upright piano). There is also the silliness embodied in having Mr. Brody and Mr. Grotelueschen take on the roles of Cinderella’s stepsisters, using a visual joke that became an instant classic (so why repeat it?) when Carol Burnett did her spoof of Gone With The Wind back in 1976. 

Into the Woods is a rich musical that is certainly worthy of revisiting, and it is strong enough to stand up to different interpretations. But let’s give the last word to Mr. Sondheim, who sums things up nicely through the voice of the Witch during the show’s finale:

                                   Careful the tale you tell.

                                   That is the spell.

                                   Children will listen.

And so will we, if the tale is told with proper care.  


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