Deadlines on a new show and a
pending trip to London relevant to the
show have me doing something I try not
to do too often in these
cyber-pages, which is resort to capsule reviews—especially capsule
reviews of mainstream fare. But—and this is more info than you may need
or even want to know—the
days when I could count on blasting out a full-length review at speed are long
gone; for whatever reason—gradually altered disposition, redistribution
of energy, even (though I hate to say it) simply getting older—even
average-length reviews require getting lost in a concentration that has no
connection to the passage of time. And that makes April the hardest month of
all, because everything opening late in the season is jamming the calendar for critics and nominators
(as I write this, the coming week has me attending five Broadway openings in
four consecutive days). So if this is more capsule-y than even my occasional
round-ups, I beg your indulgence of my non-indulgence; but I fear it’s the only
way I’ll keep relatively current.
Happily,
a few of the items below are transfers about which my initial feelings haven’t
changed much…so those will be characterized by any newly relevant observations
leading to original-review links. And here we go…
One Man, Two Guvnors is pretty much every bit the
laff-fest it’s cracked up to be (pun intended). And if you’re among those who
saw the screening of its initial West End engagement very much earlier this
season (as part of the National Theatre Live series that plays in select movie
theatres), you’ll be quite surprised to clock the proportion of how much of the
interplay with the audience is “scripted ad libbing” as opposed to how much is
genuinely improvised. Somewhat like a magician’s secrets, though, that
proportion is best not revealed to the uninitiated—why spoil the
illusion? (It does seem, however, as if the prepared bits weren’t manufactured
so much as culled from early performances; as if the surprises of several give
night’s improv s were so delightful that star, directors and writer huddled and
said, “Well happenstance was sure our friend there; let’s not lose that,” and have been recreating such
moments ever since.) The star, by the way, is James Corden (Doctor
Who fans will recognize him as having
played guest star companion “Craig Owens” to Matt Smith in the episodes The
Lodger and Closing Time), the writer Richard Bean (after Carlo
Goldoni’s The Servant of Two
Masters), the
director is Nicholas Hytner and
the physical comedy director (very smart of Mr. Hytner to engage
a specialist) is Cal McCrystal. And all
of the very funny and gifted principals from the original London cast (which
continues in the West End with new players) are on hand too.
The
play Magic/Bird about the
professional rivalry and personal friendship between basketball players Earvin
“Magic” Johnson (Kevin Daniels) and Larry Bird (Tug Coker) seems to
have been dismissed in most venues—to the point where some people I know
in the business are barely even aware of its existence—but I have to tell
you, I kinda liked it. I have no particular interest in sports, but the script,
by Eric Simonson, author of last
season’s Lombardi, is a polished,
entertaining affair, in the manner of a TV movie that has been reconceived to
function theatrically (think Brian’s Song
or Bang the Drum Slowly, but without
the death watch—though Magic’s newsworthy contraction of the HIV virus is
not ignored). It has been directed with low-key but appropriate flash by Thomas (In the Heights) Kail and the cast is simply terrific. The leads do a
better-than-fine job of evoking their real-life counterparts—balancing
Magic’s exuberance with Bird’s deadpan-dryness—and the multiply cast
supporting players include, surprisingly, grand not-so-old pros like Peter
Scolari and Diedre O’Connell…as well as grand younger pros Francois Battiste and Robert Manning Jr.
I wish
I had been as blown away by Tribes
at the Barrow Street Playhouse as
everyone else seems to be, at least in the press. A British family drama by Nina
Raines about communication, miscommunication
and finding where you belong or think you do (tacitly, your “tribe”), I found
it “only” a perfectly respectable play, performed by an able cast (featuring Mare
Winningham as the matriarch—yes,
she’s matured enough for that now, tempus do fugit) with some interesting
and typically inventive direction from David Cromer. But I never quite got to the liftoff point with it. I
left it satisfied to have seen a worthwhile evening and very worthy work; but
not the “sleeper” text grandly realized that I’d anticipated. Appreciation of
anything is of course in the eye of the beholder, but this one in particular
may depend upon its personal resonance for its effectiveness.
On the
other hand, Amy Herzog’s 4000
Miles, a far less ambitious and more modest affair, at Lincoln
Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, about the reunion between a free-spirited young adult
male and his grandmother—the young man having bicycled cross-country to
see her, unannounced, after a long estrangement from his immediate
family—struck me as quirky and funny and a little bit moving precisely
because it set up and maintained its eccentricities in ab unaffected,
naturalistic manner. In the best sense, Daniel Aukin’s direction is barely visible at all. At the center of its
small, charming cast is Mary Louise Wilson, one of those performers with the control, presence and savvy to get an
enormous laugh out of (seemingly) nothing. The old pros like that are rare and
getting rarer. Purchase your tickets and treasure the memory…
Now.
Here. This. which just ended its run
at the Vineyard purported to be a musical, but in fact it was a rambling
multi-autobiographical revue by the same quartet who delivered that other, somewhat less rambling
musical theatre indulgence [title of show]. As performers, all four were as sharp as they were before,
which is generally very. As a piece of material, it defies coherent or
meaningful criticism because any attempt at deconstructive analysis is folly
from the point of view of a prospective audience member. If you liked [title
of show], and I mean really liked it, Now. Here. This. was a way to revisit old friends who had, in their
collective mode, made their mark as downtown celebrities; clearly that was the
case on the Saturday night I attended, in which the audience reaction was
affectionately out of proportion to the actual level of the material. If you
didn’t like [title of show], perhaps if
you were even just neutral toward it, the charm of Now. Here. This. was limited. At best. But you know what? That’s fine. The
cult of downtown celebrity has been
dormant for some decades and there’s nothing wrong with a little
sense-of-camaraderie throwback.
It’s the acid reflux of being outside the circle you have to watch out for…
Peter and the Starcatcher struck me almost exactly the same way
as it did last season at the New York Theatre Workshop (it’s the same
production featuring the same cast), with the difference that by a hair’s
breadth I think it works better in a Broadway house. Perhaps I mean even better. Anyway, here’s the link to my original review
and you’ll know what I mean…
Newsies also works better on Broadway than
it worked at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey (where it also worked
pretty spectacularly)…and they’ve fixed a few things I’d flagged as fix-worthy,
so nobody was resting on their laurels. Which is admirable as there were many
laurels to rest on. My original review is here:
My original review of Clybourne
Park was short enough to
reproduce here, sans link, and with minor tweaking for context. And this is/was
it:
There’s
all kinds of lasting theatrical
resonance popping in Clybourne Park at Playwrights Horizons. Playwright Bruce Norris takes
as his inspiration a reference from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the
Sun, about an African-American family of the 1950s, preparing to
move into a white neighborhood. Norris postulates what may be happening in the
house the Youngers are moving to, before they get there; why the white family is moving out and the neighbors’
concerns over the “changing neighborhood.” But that’s only Act One. Norris sets
Act Two fifty years later, in our new millennium; a white couple, seeking to
renovate the house they’ve newly acquired, must petition the neighborhood
zoning board, in which key decision makers are a black couple. Irony much? It
makes for comedy-drama in the best sense, biting social satire one moment,
moving domestic storytelling the next. A near-perfect multi-tasking ensemble (Crystal
A. Dickinson, Brendan Griffin,
Damon Gupton, Christina
Kirk, Annie [Law & Order] Parisse, Jeremy Shamos and Frank [Side Man] Wood)
working under Pam MacKinnon’s
subtle, savvy direction, brings it on home—pun intentional—with the
stamp of the classic the play may well deserve to be.
Finally, The Lyons. It opened off-Broadway at the
Vineyard earlier this season, I just checked my original notice and, by gosh,
nothing to add. Short version: very funny, you’ll probably laugh a lot. Long
version: go here.
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