Follies

I've been super quiet for a little while, but not because of laziness. I actually (gasp) went two weeks without seeing anything new! Unexpectedly, the world has continued to turn on its axis. Happily, I have a few shows to chat about before I head off on vacation in a week!

The first (and it's a biggie) is Follies as seen at the Kennedy Center in DC. Oh, Sondheim. The man just composes such good music that he's set the bar too high for anyone else to achieve. I have learned the hard way in the past, that you absolutely cannot listen to Sondheim on the way to another musical. IT just spoils the whole experience. And Follies showcases him at his best. Musically. Is it the best Sondheim show? Well...no. But hold on, I'll get back to that.

Who do I love as much as Stephen Sondheim? Bernadette Peters. But this is a trickier love affair. I tumbled head over heels for her live recordings, but it wasn't until she was in Annie Get Your Gun that I saw her live. And man, that show's overrated. I didn't see her again until Gypsy, and while there are vastly divided opinions on whether she was amazing or terrible as Mama Rose, I don't think anyone would argue that she was great at the performance I caught. She was rather ill, and while I appreciated that she's a trouper and gave it her all, her all sounded as though she had strangled it through some terribly full sinuses. I remember watching her "Some People" and thinking, "Ohhhhh, she might not make it through this." And then there were two more hours of show. Happily, when I caught her in A Little Night Music, she was perfection. The production, however, was a dreary mess. And Elaine Stritch (god love her) had about a third of her lines down. But I still love her even if I haven't walked away from the productions I've seen her in loving THEM.

So here she is as Sally Plummer, the former showgirl in love with the one that got away. Sally is married to Buddy, but she loves Ben. Ben is married to Phyllis, but he doesn't really love anyone. Buddy remains ever faithful to Sally. Phyllis is a stone cold bitch.

At the reunion for the former Weissman Follies girls, Sally intends to share her true feelings with Ben. That's the central focus of the show (in so much as it can be said to have a focus). The thing is: Sally's kind of deluded and totally self-involved. She projects a tenderness that doesn't mesh with her dismal treatment of the people around her. Her counterpart, Phyllis, is at least honest in her nastiness. If anything, she's probably the kinder of the two. Ah duality. Theme one.

But what does that mean for Bernadette? It means that I left conflicted, AGAIN! I kind of wanted to slap her by the end of the show, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that what that meant was that she made me care. I cared enough to be angry. And I had a very, very vivid portrait of who this woman was. I didn't LIKE her, but why should that matter? Maybe the real force of the performance came from the fact that I felt like I should but knew that I couldn't. With two days since the show, I'm more and more convinced that her performance was actually spot on. I certainly keep thinking about it.

About those other main characters: I don't know who Ron Raines is, but he was fantastic as Ben. He sings one of my favorite songs from the show, "The Road You Didn't Take" with authority and appropriate pathos while never letting his cool demeanor actually slip. Jan Maxwell was glorious as Phyllis. In some ways, it seems like the easiest of the main roles--she gets the most cutting lines, has the funniest songs, and for the most part just has to look regal and bitchy, but she found this well of warmth to pull from that a) I didn't know she had in her and b) was unexpected and unexpectedly moving. Danny Burstein took a little while to draw me in as Buddy, but by the beginning of the second act, I was fully hooked. His song, "Buddy's Blues," was one of the more magical moments of the night.

And what about that second act? Holy hell, it was brilliant. Not to work backwards or anything (by which I mean that's exactly what I'm going to do), but the second act of this show has one of the most abrupt tonal shifts in anything ever. Here we are cruising along with some standard storytelling and then BAM: five numbers are presented vaudeville style to show us the inner life of the characters. The shift to this section, "Loveland," is jaw-dropping. I actually gasped at a set change. I'm not that kind of a person! But it was so beautiful and so surprising that I just couldn't control my response. And as each of those numbers came, one after the other, the delivery and staging was exceptional and made the most stylistic touches feel deeply personal and surprisingly real. Okay, one quibble: someone should find better ways to disguise Jan Maxwell's lack of dance prowess. We DO actually notice when there are five people on stage and only four leave the ground when they "jump."

What's so shocking about the shift to the vaudeville section isn't just the style change. It's that we suddenly are confronted with these four lost souls in intense close-up. Act 1 is the total opposite of that. Dozens of characters from the Follies past stroll the stage. A bunch of the old gals offer up one-off numbers that are very, very vaguely tied into the plot (if at all). Here's one of the joys of Follies: seeing older performers who might not be doing as much these days get a shot at popping up, delivering a stunning number, basking in adoration, and then making room for another.Our four main characters (and versions of their younger selves) wander in and out of that action, but it's like a theatrical version of a Robert Altman movie. The story is happening in and around the action. The second act is when it becomes the action. All of the action. I feel like there's a laser-sharp one act musical in this show that no one will ever see because all of the extra material in Act 1 is such an intense joy. But Act 2...there's just no way to make that match what came before. So it will always be this great, unwieldy, uneven show. It can't be perfect, though. There's almost too much brilliant material standing in its way.

But how are those old gals? Terri White, who I became mildly obsessed with after finding her the only reason to see Finian's Rainbow, tore the roof off the place with "Who's That Woman." Elaine Paige, well...Elaine Paige is wonderful. In other things. Here she gives a really, truly bizarre version of "I'm Still Here" that is a glorious showcase for her voice but makes not a single lick of sense. The 82-year-old Rosalind Elias busted out a stunning operatic "One More Kiss" that was deeply lovely. And Linda Lavin...holy crap. I've seen this woman on stage before, and she's amazing. I didn't know how phenomenal her voice was. Her "Broadway Baby" was legitimately a highlight of the year. So, so, so good.

In the end, Follies is a big, old, messy show being given a first rate production. With a 40-person cast and 28 musicians, it sounds so rich and full, and it's a delight from beginning to end, no matter how awkward and clumsy the overall ride is. It's transferring to Broadway this summer. I don't have tickets yet, but that's only because they aren't on sale yet.

The Illusion

Grabbing a series subscription to the Signature Theater's season of Tony Kushner plays was the best $100 I spent this year. I was ecstatic to see Angels in America on stage for the first time and incredibly eager to see his new play, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to blah blah blah. I confess I wasn't especially interested in his adaptation of Pierre Corneille's The Illusion. I'd probably have chosen an earlier play that he wrote by himself over an adapted script. But damned if I didn't find delights in this oddball comedy about an old man who visits a witch's cave to get a glimpse into his estranged son's life.

I'm going to crib from the New York Times review (let's face it, Ben Brantley is a better writer than me by a million) to say that Tony Kushner is "one of the most linguistically luxuriant dramatists of our time." It's true. The dialogue here is verdant and lovely, and while some passages seem perhaps a little too archly theatrical, well...there's a reason for that. The pleasure of language is not what the show is ABOUT, but it becomes so. Almost any playwright, living or dead, would probably be the better for having Kushner adapt their dialogue. His writing exists in a space beyond realism where he captures the true rhythms of speech (even in a 17th century paranormal-ish comedy) but brings an extra clarity and specialness to the words his characters employ.

More than anything else, the play is a celebration of the theater, something apparent from the play's opening and growing more obvious as the night wears on. As the father peeks in on his son's life, we're treated to an adorable romantic farce whose denouement is ultimately less important than one would expect.

This is such a difficult play to discuss without ruining the whole thing. It's a bit of a souffle, I guess, light and airy and delicious, but just waiting for the air to be let out.

Rather than collapse the whole thing, I'll say that technically it's incredibly enchanting. From a submerged piano to a simple paper moon, the sets are wonderfully artificial in the most enchanting of ways. And the performances around them are very much of a piece. Of the younger set, Finn Wittrock and Merritt Wever are spirited standouts. Lois Smith as the witch Alcandre gets to deliver some lovely speeches and is always a joy to watch. And Peter Bartlett nearly walks off with the show as an aging buffoon whose ego is in full bloom.

And yet, I must offer one piece of frustration. The end of the play feels curiously slack. We build to a surprising revelation, but then...well, I'm not 100% sure where we go. The boundaries of the play change, it's magic becoming a bit more abstract, and how it ends seems to begin to erase what came before. So much of what we've seen is rendered unimportant to the larger goal that as delighted as I was to have been suckered by it, the aftertaste was somehow less rewarding. It seems that maybe Kushner got a bit carried away with his own conceit. Knowing how charming the product is, it's easy to see why, but it just seemed a touch less spectacular than I thought at first. Still, it was an exceedingly pleasant way to spend a few hours, and a nice end to a season whose earlier productions were more rewarding but were also more demanding.

Tony time!

Because one person asked (and that's all it takes), here are my picks for who I'd give the Tony to in the major categories and why. Such a good year!

Best Play

Good People Author: David Lindsay-Abaire
Jerusalem Author: Jez Butterworth
The Motherf**ker with the Hat Author: Stephen Adly Guirgis
War Horse Author: Nick Stafford

Here’s a category that makes me a little sad. Two great plays are heading off against one good play and a piece of theatrical hokum that I think is the most wildly overrated thing to hit the stage in years. And the hokum is going to win. I was pretty blunt in my opinion that War Horse was a dud. I know 99% of people who have seen it disagree. Unfortunately, the fact that this was actually a really strong year for plays means that its position here shuts out the very good (if flawed) Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and the wonderful Brief Encounter. Motherfucker is a solid play, but Jerusalem and Good People are the best of the season. I’m hard-pressed to choose between the two. Good People aims smaller and is more a solidly constructed old-fashioned drama. Jerusalem is big and sprawling and daring and new. I think my decision would depend on what day it was. Today, I feel like giving it up for something precise and beautifully constructed, so I’d pick Good People.


Best Musical

The Book of Mormon
Catch Me If You Can
The Scottsboro Boys
Sister Act

I don’t know how Catch Me pulled out a nomination here. I saw it during its out-of-town run in Seattle, and it felt like an incredibly flat show with the potential to be better. By all accounts, not nearly enough changed. I’d have filled that spot with Priscilla Queen of the Desert or one of the two critically loathed shows that I actually quite enjoyed: The People in the Picture and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. But I can’t really complain: every single one of these shows was better than last year’s winner Memphis. As far as the winner? Duh, it’s The Book of Mormon. I loved The Scottsboro Boys. I saw it three times. It’s wonderful and moving and deserved a long run. But Mormon is still better—a nearly perfect musical comedy that delighted the crap out of me.

Best Book of a Musical

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson Alex Timbers
The Book of Mormon Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The Scottsboro Boys David Thompson
Sister Act Cheri Steinkellner, Bill Steinkellner and Douglas Carter Beane

The book of BBAJ was definitely strong, but as above, the choice comes to Scottsboro or the Mormons. And as above, I give the nod to Mormon. In a less competitive year (Memphis?!?!), Sister Act could have taken any of these categories.

Best Original Score

The Book of Mormon Music & Lyrics: Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The Scottsboro Boys Music & Lyrics: John Kander and Fred Ebb
Sister Act Music: Alan Menken
Lyrics: Glenn Slater
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Music & Lyrics: David Yazbek

I don’t think I’d change a single nominee in this category. As will be expected by now, we come to two nominees that are better than the other two. In this particular case, as much as I do love the Mormon score, I think a certain sentimentality has to make me choose The Scottsboro Boys, the last collaboration between John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, et al). I also feel like it was such a wonderful show that to get swept by another show (even if it, too, was wonderful) would be a shame.


Best Revival of a Play

Arcadia
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Merchant of Venice
The Normal Heart

Holy Jesus, this is an amazing category. I loved all four of these productions. Loved. I can find things to quibble with in some like Arcadia’s set design or Lee Pace in Normal Heart. So among four shows I loved, I have to go with the one I have literally nothing to complain about: The Merchant of Venice.

Best Revival of a Musical

Anything Goes
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

This production of How to Succeed blew chunks. Anything Goes for the win! To be fair, Anything Goes is also sweet, winning, charming, and wonderful (if sliiiiightly miscast). So REALLY...Anything Goes for the win.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play

Brian Bedford, The Importance of Being Earnest
Bobby Cannavale, The Motherf**ker with the Hat
Joe Mantello, The Normal Heart
Al Pacino, The Merchant of Venice
Mark Rylance, Jerusalem

Poor everyone who isn’t Mark Rylance. This is an incredible category, and any one of these five deserves an award for one of their brilliant performances. But it’s four great performances against one holy fucking shit performance. Mark Rylance deserves it for Jerusalem. Hell, he also deserves it for La Bete earlier in the season, but who the hell would he have knocked out for a second nomination?

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play

Nina Arianda, Born Yesterday
Frances McDormand, Good People
Lily Rabe, The Merchant of Venice
Vanessa Redgrave, Driving Miss Daisy
Hannah Yelland, Brief Encounter

One of two categories where I didn’t see a nominee. So I have no opinion about Vanessa Redgrave. Hannah Yelland was charming; Nina Arianda was far and away the best thing about Born Yesterday; Frances McDormand was wonderfully dry and droll in Good People; but I’d hand it to Lily Rabe for being exquisite as Portia in The Merchant of Venice.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical

Norbert Leo Butz, Catch Me If You Can
Josh Gad, The Book of Mormon
Joshua Henry, The Scottsboro Boys
Andrew Rannells, The Book of Mormon
Tony Sheldon, Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Both of the lead acting categories in musicals include very strong performances by actors I just don't respond to for whatever reason. In this case, it's Butz in Catch Me. He's always so good, but I never really like him that much in anything. To be fair, I don't think it's at all his fault. Sheldon is lovely but doesn't have much to do. Henry was wonderful--his performance was heartfelt, beautifully sung, and deeply moving. But it comes down to the Mormon boys for me. Depending on the day, I waffle because they're both fantastic. Is it Gad for delivering a cartoonish performance that hits all the obvious notes but still manages to be shot through with heart and earnestness? Or Rannells for what seems like a slightly trickier performance that asks us not just to root for the misfit but the cocky, self-involved wunderkind who probably deserved to be taken down a peg? At this exact second, I'd give it to Rannells.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical

Sutton Foster, Anything Goes
Beth Leavel, Baby It's You!
Patina Miller, Sister Act
Donna Murphy, The People in the Picture

The likely winner, Sutton Foster, is the second actor that I just can't find it in me to love. She's the consummate professional and never hits a wrong note and always gives it her all. So why does she always disappear into the background for me? I didn't see Beth Leavel in Baby It's You, and Patina Miller is very fun in Sister Act, but I've gotta give it to Donna Murphy. I know people HATE this show. I happened to like it, thanks in no small part to Murphy's incredible performance as the old and young versions of the same character. Traversing styles from musical comedy to melodrama, playing a young theatrical dynamo and an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer's, she is giving (for me), the most underrated performance of the season. If Foster doesn't take it, it goes to Miller, but I can't help but root for the underdog.


Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play

Mackenzie Crook, Jerusalem
Billy Crudup, Arcadia
John Benjamin Hickey, The Normal Heart
Arian Moayed, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
Yul Vázquez, The Motherf**ker with the Hat

This is a weirrrrrd category. First, Crudup’s totally solid in Arcadia, but he seems to out of place here. The other four are wonderful, but I guess I just really, really loved some players in tiny roles this year. I would have loved to see Hrach Titzian in Bengal Tiger or Jim Parsons in The Normal Heart get a nod. So I’m kind of disappointed with the nominees even though they’re all good. As for which of them is the best, I’m really torn between Crook and Moayed. It’s not his fault that I liked someone else in his show better, but because of that, I’m leaning against Arian and would give it to Mackenzie Crook for holding his own against Mark Rylance.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play

Ellen Barkin, The Normal Heart
Edie Falco, The House of Blue Leaves
Judith Light, Lombardi
Joanna Lumley, La Bête
Elizabeth Rodriguez, The Motherf**ker with the Hat

I kind of don’t get how Joanna Lumley got in here. Don’t get me wrong: AbFab is amazing. But she was just okay in La Bete and her portion of the play was the least interesting to me. Judith Light is actually pretty wonderful in Lombardi, but it’s not a terribly demanding role. Falco and Barkin (who I always call Burstyn) are both fantastic but neither delivered for me quite as much as Elizabeth Rodriguez who brought impressive depth to a role that could have been way too familiar. She kept her fiery Latina from seeming too stereotypical—a balance found almost exclusively in her performance, not the writing. She seemed to make the role better than what was written, and I admire that.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical

Colman Domingo, The Scottsboro Boys
Adam Godley, Anything Goes
John Larroquette, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Forrest McClendon, The Scottsboro Boys
Rory O'Malley, The Book of Mormon

I LOVE Night Court, and Larroquette is pretty good in How to Succeed. Though he has a solid shot of winning, he's an also ran for me with the other four doing considerably stronger work. Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon were both fantastic as Bones and Tambo in Scottsboro. Both were required to work in caricature (performing the white roles in the minstrel show set-up). Domingo's song about "Jew money" was one of the most uncomfortable and searing I've ever seen. McClendon nudges him out for me, though, by hitting higher heights when called upon to be the Jewish lawyer fighting for the freedom of the boys. He so deftly balanced satire with just the right amount of actual feeling; it was a remarkable performance. Then we have Godley and O'Malley nominated for very funny, very small roles. Godley is wonderful in Anything Goes, and in a large ensemble piece, he grabbed the spotlight without overshadowing his castmates. But O'Malley, in what may be the smallest role of the bunch, delivers one of the funniest performances of...ever. As the mission leader trying desperately to not be gay, he is a revelation. Great as McClendon was, I walked out of Mormon wanting to start a campaign to get O'Malley the Tony. My favorite performance in a musical of the entire season. In lesser hands, the character would feel like just part of the ensemble, but he owns it start to finish.


Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical

Laura Benanti, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Tammy Blanchard, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Victoria Clark, Sister Act
Nikki M. James, The Book of Mormon
Patti LuPone, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

What the…Tammy Blanchard? She played her role like Jennifer Coolidge trying to do drama. Victoria Clark is wonderful in Sister Act but doesn’t really have to do very much other than show off her gorgeous voice. Nikki James is radiant in The Book of Mormon, and I’d be thrilled if she got it. Patti LuPone is Patti LuPone, and I want her to get it just for the speech. But really, I’d give it to Laura Benanti who was exquisite in Women on the Verge. Her endless song about having accidentally fallen in love with a terrorist was a master class in comedic timing. Love. Her.

Best Direction of a Play

Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, War Horse
Joel Grey & George C. Wolfe, The Normal Heart
Anna D. Shapiro, The Motherf**ker with the Hat
Daniel Sullivan, The Merchant of Venice

This is the category I most disagree with the nominees in. The directors of Bengal Tiger, Jerusalem, Brief Encounter, and The Importance of Being Earnest should demand a recount. That said, for me there are three incorrect nominees (I loved The Normal Heart, but took issue with the direction) and one brilliant one. Credit to Daniel Sullivan for a stunning Merchant.

Best Direction of a Musical

Rob Ashford, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Kathleen Marshall, Anything Goes
Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker, The Book of Mormon
Susan Stroman, The Scottsboro Boys

There are so many better choice than Rob Ashford in this category. He has proven time and again that he’s not much of a director. Marshall, Nicholaw, and Stroman have each done work that I’ve HATED, but each was at their best this year, and when they’re at this level, they’re tough to beat. Still, someone has to rise above, and it’s Nicholaw with Trey Parker who has the most fun, controlled the tightest production, and kept Mormon from soaring over the top.

Best Choreography

Rob Ashford, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Kathleen Marshall, Anything Goes
Casey Nicholaw, The Book of Mormon
Susan Stroman, The Scottsboro Boys

WTF, Rob Ashford? Does not belong. He puts his dancers through the paces, but they always seem to be exerting maximum effort to minimal effect. The other three are gangbusters. But the hands down winner is Susan Stroman who turned a tap dance into a nauseating, horrifying, and mesmerizing moment of stagecraft. Her choreography was so much a part of the storytelling where the others were more grafted on.

The Best Is Yet to Come

The Best Is Yet to Come is a stupidly charming evening of jazzy performances of the late Cy Coleman’s songs. There is no script. There is no concept. There are just six very game performers, an old school glittery jazz club set, and an eight piece band. Oh, and enthusiasm. There is A LOT of enthusiasm. One imagines the only advice ever offered by the director of the show was, “Smile bigger. Noooo, BIGGER!”

The result is a 90 minute dash through 30 songs with little room for reflection and even less for nuance. It is, however, a damned good time.

Listen, I will turn up at any event at which Lillias White will sing. Seeing her as Sonya in The Life, the musical about Times Square hookers in the 80’s (which I attended instead of going to my junior prom—say no more) was one of my best and most favorite early theater experiences. She won the Tony for the role, and I spent the 14 years since then religiously listening to the cast recording, particularly her number “The Oldest Profession” which was literally a showstopper. She sang it seated at a table, nursing her tired feet, and turned the song into a three act show of its own with big heart, lots of a humor, and her tremendous voice. She sings the song again in this show, and having the chance to see it from the second row (I was in the last row for The Life) was pretty damned remarkable. If she had also done that show’s “Someday is for Suckers,” I would have passed out.

She also does a duet of “Little Me” with Billy Stritch that showcases her in a much more restrained vocal performance and highlights just how much character there is in her voice and how she doesn’t need to depend just on powerhouse belting. Okay, she’s just flat out my favorite Broadway singer, so it’s no surprise that I think she overshadowed the rest of the cast. That said, the other folks were still very winning.

It would have been lovely if there was a bit more (read: any) information about Coleman strung throughout the evening. And the song selections were wonky: Sweet Charity’s “Big Spender” gets sandwiched into a medley for about 60 seconds, but we get full songs from musicals he never completed? And the whole evening does reek of cheese. And yet…I was delighted. I’d happily sit through it again.