BROADWAY 2010

There's a reason Promises, Promises isn't revived very often, pure & simple, it is just not a good show. Beyond being terminally dated, it’s main characters are just uninteresting, even the talents of Kristen Chenoweth & Sean Hayes can’t resuscitate the unfocused revival of this small show that is swallowed up on the enormous stage of the Broadway Theatre. Maybe on a much smaller stage the energy expelled would liven things up. Will & Grace’s Sean Hayes shines as the unremarkable nice guy who is in love with the office worker having an affair with the boss, the always wonderful Kristen Chenoweth whose talents are wasted here. Forced to stifle her charming comic quirky talents, she’s kept bland, the wrong choice. The Burt Bacharach/Hal David score isn’t the best fit for her amazing voice. It’s just not the right part for her. The 60’s to a fault Burt Bacharach score is mostly forgettable, boasting one of the worst theatre songs (Turkey Lurkey Time) but also one of the best (I’ll Never Fall In Love Again). Tony winner Kate Finneran (Noises Off) steals the show with her one number as a drunken floozy who has a rendevous with Sean Hayes and the two of them are terrific together. Even Tony winner Dick Latessa (Hairspray) is wasted here, he’s funny but the material just doesn’t live up to the talents of it’s mega-talented cast. The direction & choreography (not the fault of the talented dancers) just aren’t inventive enough to revive this pointless revival.

It’s fitting that Greend Day’s new rock opera American Idiot is playing up the street from Hair, it’s a contemporary social commentary, the songs spilling out of the angst of the new youth. Conceived and directed by Michael Mayer, it’s Spring Awakening on steroids. It's a nonstop barrage of videos and lights and music, the set is so crammed with images we don’t know where to look, but that’s the point, today’s barrage of terror, exploitation, drugs, sex, paranoia, no wonder the kids aren’t alright, but with the beautiful poignant Green Day songs and amazingly lush orchestrations and singing, it’s a treat for the senses! Mr. Mayer understands the power of stagecraft and American Idiot is a marvel of it and a delight to watch, I wanted to see it again as soon as it ended. The young cast all perform with high energy and sing remarkably lead by Spring Awakening’s Tony winner John Gallagher Jr. If I had one quibble it would be that I missed the extraordinary choreography that Bill T. Jones brought to Spring Awakening, there is some great moments here but if it would have been as groundbreaking as in Spring Awakening the show would’ve been perfection, but it’s still damn near and you’ll want to see it a few times for it’s extraordinary stagecraft.

There’s two aspects that keep the atrocious The Addam’s Family The Musical from being unbearable, it’s very very funny and the talents of Carolee Carmello & Jackie Hoffman. Nearly everything else is so wrong. The worst problem is the score, if you threw out every note of music it would be a better show, just fun. The capable Andrew Lippa’s score is so totally inappropriate for the material and it’s so obvious I can’t believe producers would’ve heard it and poured money into mounting it. It needs to be quirky & rhythmic and funny not full of jazzy ballads and pop schlock. The casting is just a big of a problem, Nathan Lane does his schtick brilliantly but it doesn’t fit the character of Gomez Addams, a Latin lover. Bebe Neuworth is flat out a bore, zero energy or passion and damn it, it’s Bebe Neuworth give her a show stopping dance number, duh! Wednesday & Pugsley do not fare better. It’s Broadway get a better actor for Pugsley and who thought turning Wednesday into part Legally Blonde & Hannah Montana, a snotty spoiled whiny brat who just needs to be slapped. Not a good choice. The wonderful Kevin Chamberlain isn’t given good enough material. Carolee Cramello steals the show with her one number and Jackie Hoffamn skewers the funniest lines as Grandma. The bad choices are so obvious, it’s a shame. Not giving Lurch a song to try to sing, just seems like a given. Making bad even worse was the audience of all tourists, the only thing missing were the potato chips. The sweat clothes, the talking out loud like they were in their living room, the adoring ovations for this tripe. For the price we deserve much better than this.

Another Sondheim revue, that pretty much sums Sondheim On Sondheim up. One of the greatest theatre composers ever, but we’ve heard this so many many times before, not to say there aren’t some wonderful renditions but the concept of Sondheim himself revealing how & where his brilliance came from isn’t incorporated enough, but when it does at the end when Sondheim truly opens up as to the emotional scars that created some of his more personal music is extremely moving but wow if we had more of this, what could’ve been. This first rate Broadway veteran cast takes too long to leave the Up With People sound to be themselves and let rip with their collective talents. Barbara Cook just seems awkward until her final number, Send In The Clowns which is a stunning rendition. Vanessa Williams is a vision, you can’t take your eyes off her beauty, she exudes sweetness. Tom Wopat, a performer of much depth stretches himself, his Sweeney Tood is powerful. The unerrated Norm Lewis sings Being Alive with immeasurable beauty. We get to hear some rare & early versions of numbers but this revue isn’t focused enough by James Lapine, we don’t need the spinning sets and bland medleys. Sondheim’s personal insight and the mega-talent on stage is more then enough, trust in that.

Great theatre is a marvel when we find it and the tiny intimate Barrow St. Theatre that is Grover’s Corners in the stripped down, emotionally raw production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is that rarity, a lesson in directing and acting and the power of theatre. No sets, costumes, or lighting persay, just folding chairs and two small tables amongst the audience who are now the community of Grovers Corners, a communal portrait of what could be any town in America. No pretense, we collectively imagine all that is needed. It’s a bit off-putting at first but the pure raw performances, they don’t seen like performances they just seem like our daily lives which we as an audience meld together into which makes the whole thing immensely powerful all with nothing but he honesty of the words, a remarkable feat to behold. It so focuses us on the meaning of the play, not about any one place like Grover’s Corners but about living in the here and now and appreciating what we have in front of us which packs a powerful wallop at the end when Emily goes back for one day so she can do just that since she didn’t while she was alive and had it all in front of her, then, since it’s been playing for a year I’m not giving anything away, we watch through a graveyard of people a curtain at the back is pulled to reveal a fully realized set of her childhood home, her mother cooking breakfast, real bacon & eggs which we smell and the daily rituals we take for granted become a thing of beauty, the point indeed, then right back to the here and now, us together in the theatre to hopefully heed the meaning. Rare theatre indeed.

Gay self loathing, religious dogma, and familial relationships are the large undertakings of the very smart, poignant, moving, and surprisingly funny new play Next Fall. Thinking people have had most of the conversations on display with the same complications and despair against the non-thinkers which makes make the play deeply personal. Rich complex characters played with rich humanity by it’s cast (though I felt the parents performances were a bit forced) but none-the-less a play that makes us question so much even after we leave the theatre is the reason we go the theatre, or should be, and Next Fall is Thanksgiving.

Martin McDonough is back with his grisly brutal humor and there’s only one reason needed to see A Behanding In Spokane, Chistopher Walken, who gives one of his creepiest yet empathetic performances yet. A perfect match for McDonough’s creeps with heart. The disgusting dingy motel room set just enhances the creepiness on display. When two small time cons (Zoe Kazan and Anthony Mackie) try to fuck over Walkens character by trying to sell him a severed hand which clearly isn’t his which he has been agonizingly searching for since a brutal crime in which he lost his, his demented revenge ensues in laugh out loud McDonough bizarre brutality and the body parts start to fly, unfortunately the two young actors just aren’t believable enough to portray the terror they're supposed to feel, which would've made the play terrific. Sam Rockwell provides the comic relief as a dim witted hotel clerk. Not one of McDonoughs best plays but fun none-the-less and a performance to remember!

Any time one can see a first rate staging of an Arthur Miller play, run but be prepared for heart stopping, soul searching drama, and we get it in spades with this wonderful revival of A View From The Bridge because of Gregory Mosher’s direction. It’s so intimate we feel like we are eavesdropping on this family’s unease and the brutally honest performances of all involved led by Liev Schreiber & Scarlett Johansson make the drama all the more intense. One of the greatest American playwrights ever performed at it's best, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Douglas Carter Beane (The Little Dog Laughed, Xanadu) knows how to write one liners and in his new comedy Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, the gossips columnists do nothing but. It’s an ambitious idea that doesn’t come to fruition. John Lithgow & Jennifer Ehle, Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, are aging out of date gossip columnists, so to save their jobs they create a fictitious celebrity, they chat room, Tweet & Facebook rumors about him that unaccountable current hard news sources pick up and publish without fact checking putting them back in the loop, sounds good and current but plot is secondary to the non-stop zingers, half of which work and half are as out of date as they are. This seemed like a draft of a poignant biting comedy not ready for prime time and the wonderful Mr. Lithgow & Miss Ehle just seem to old to be hip, they both seem uncomfortable trying to be.