Rent

Settle in kids, this is likely gonna be a long one.

If there's one show I can't judge with any sort of objectivity... If there's one show that I can legitimately say had a profound formative effect one me... If there's one show that I'm almost embarrassed to love as much as I do because it seems so easy and so obvious... That show is Rent.

Let's take a little trip down memory lane. What, you got something better to do? I'm 15 years old, living in the suburbs of New York and just starting to fall in love with the theater. I discover Playbill online and start to read about a musical where the creator died just before preview started. Then word of mouth gets really amazing. Then it transfers to Broadway. The day after it opens, I walk to the supermarket to grab a copy of the NY Times (oh, the old days) and read the rapturous review thinking all the time that I MUST see this show. So I borrow my mom's credit card, call Telecharge, and book tickets for months out because everything sooner, at least with regard to the cheap seats, is sold out. In the meantime, I buy the copy of Time with the cast on the cover. I get the cast recording and learn it beginning to end. Finally, I see the show, and I fall for it. Hard. Everything about it screams out to me--this group of artists living in squalor and searching for truth in love and art while battling AIDS seems so incredibly, intensely vital. Coming to terms with being gay in the era of AIDS, feeling uncomfortable in my suburban home, desperately wanting to know more about the world, and being a typical teenager with outsized feelings and curiosities, the entire thing felt so terribly, wonderfully romantic and real.

Yes, looking back, it's possible to question whether the piece was ever truly authentic, whether it romanticized disease and poverty from a position of privilege, and even whether it's that well-constructed dramatically. But when I saw the show in late '96, it was like a sucker punch. It said everything I wanted to hear about the transformative powers of art, love, community, and New York City. Without the heady thrill of the show shaping my notion of what New York was, I doubt I would have moved to New York when I was 18. I always figured I'd end up applying to Brown for college. In Rhode Island. RHODE ISLAND! Pardon me while I judge my 16-year-old self.

The bottom line is that my family, living all of 40 minutes from Manhattan, HATED New York City. They still do. Everyone fled the area but me who moved into the belly of the beast and fell more in love with this city than I've been with anything else in my life (even Rent). So I ended up Manhattan bound, dreaming of the day that I'd be living in an apartment with no heat and all of my friends would have AIDS. Hey, I never said it wasn't a deeply flawed dream.

It wasn't just about New York, though. When I really think about how earnestly I pursued the notion of an "authentic" life, even if I didn't truly understand what I meant by that, a lot of it falls right out of this show. We'll pause here to acknowledge the irony that I wanted to be deeply truthful to myself and based that vision on someone else's work. Irony accepted. Moving on.

I saw Rent ten or so times on Broadway, mostly in its earliest years. That original cast was stupidly perfect. I imagine a tremendous amount of their energy and devotion came out of the bonding experience of doing a show and losing its author right before it started. And, of course, from the rapturous response that followed. So, sure, over the years, the replacement casts got a little wonky, and then the film version happened, but we'll just try to pretend it didn't. But the show itself always held a sway over me and still does. So when it's announced less than three years after it ends its epic Broadway run that they're doing a new version off-Broadway with the original director, I am equal parts thrilled and horrified. And then I saw it. Thrilled and horrified was pretty much the right reaction.

Let's start with this. Acknowledging again my lack of objectivity, I though the show held up pretty damned well. It's a period piece now, especially in its long-gone vision of a Bohemian East Village and also in its treatment of AIDS, a disease that becomes ever more destructive but less localized and less unknowable. But the fact that this show manages three central relationships over the course of a year with all the attendant backstories, the encroaching threat of gentrification as personified by one of their own former friends, and the ways these couples get together, break apart, rejoin, and (in some cases) die, is really beautifully managed, especially when you consider that Act 1 takes place in one day and Act 2 is the entire following year. It may be a but confusing at times, and there are some moments where the dialogue just sort of clunks to the stage as the characters inform us of what happens, but all in all, it's a lot smoother and tighter than one could expect. There's a tremendous amount of information presented, but the pace never lags--all the more impressive since it's nearly sung-through.

Where the new production gets into trouble is occasionally in the direction and more often in the acting. First thing's first: this always bothered me about the original as well: does Michael Greif only direct from a seat in the center of the house? Is he not aware of how severely he limits sightlines? As before, solid chunks of action play behind beams or floating walls depending on where you sit. Apparently there are projections throughout this production, but I certainly didn't see them. And occasionally, I wanted people to just stop moving around the sort of iron jungle gym of a set. It's not that big of a space, so I'm not sure why everyone seemed to be walking for the entire show. Really, though, my complaints here are pretty minimal. So let's get to the part where they get bigger:

Oh, hell, let's start with the biggest. Arianda Fernandez plays the female lead, Mimi. Poorly. Mimi's the bad girl 19-year-old dancer at an S&M club struggling with heroin addiction, AIDS, and high notes. Well...at least in this version. Fernandez looks the part, but I have legitimately never heard a professional performer crack as many times in one show as I did on Friday. "Out Tonight" went from being a sexy number about living on the edge to an endurance test of Fernandez's larynx and the audience's ears. She fared mildly better elsewhere, coming closer to her musical notes but no closer to any sort of emotional truth for the character nor a sexual chemistry with Roger.

Roger and Mimi's meet-cute moment is "Light My Candle," and to be fair, it wasn't only Fernandez's problem that it didn't generate any heat. Heh. Candle. Heat. ANYway...Matt Shingledecker has an awesome last name, some truly amazing pants, and a haircut that looks straight out of Major League. Vocally, he was miles ahead of his love interest, but his performance just read really, really flat.

Working my way down the mediocrity ladder, it really pains me to say than Adam Chanler-Berat who I adored in Next to Normal and even in Peter and the Starcatcher (despite hating that show) also didn't really pop as Mark, our filmmaker narrator. He was adorable, but he played the part of the witness to the action a bit too literally, often fading into the background when I would have loved to see a little more snap from him.

Happily, while my opinions of the three leads ranged from Meh to OHMIGODMAKEITSTOP, the supporting cast was fucking fantastic. As Collins, Ephraim Sykes started off very quiet and subdued, and I wasn't sure where he was going until I saw that as he discovered love with the character Angel, he became fuller and fuller before ultimately bursting out with the deeply emotional, beautifully sung reprise to "I'll Cover You." As Angel herself, MJ Rodriguez may not have had the vocal power or dance technique that Wilson Jermaine Heredia brought to the role, but he acted the hell out of it. In a performance that was one of the most different from the original, Rodriguez was not only more believable as a drag queen than his predecessors, but he navigated the fine line between performative attitude and emotionality incredibly deftly. His choices were never obvious, but they were usually spectacular.

Now let's get to my two favorite performances of the night. And I'll start with one that essentially came from an ensemble member so good that she basically turned off the lights on the rest of the stage when she had her moments to shine. Tamika Sonja Lawrence could give a master class on making the most of a six line role. As the homeless woman near the end of the first act, she was chilling and heartbreaking and delivered line readings that were incredibly different from any I've heard before while making them seem like the only possible legitimate choices. And then as the soloist in "Seasons of Love," she avoided going the typical route of just trying to slam her verse out as loudly as possible, showing off an incredible voice and stunning technique before bringing it on home in that huge, endless final note. Apparently she understudies the much larger role of Joanne, and while I did really enjoy Corbin Read, I'd drop everything to go see her take it on.

Then with a bigger role that similarly read entirely differently than the original, Annaleigh Ashford was brilliant as Maureen. She makes a late entrance, showing up at the end of the first act to do the comedic performance art piece "Over the Moon," her version of which I could just watch on a loop for an hour or two without getting bored. Cranking the femme dial up to 10, she makes Maureen hyper-sassy, uber-funny, and deeply, beautifully recognizable. She is exquisite.

So what's the lesson? I guess that sometimes the very best thing to do is reject everything you're supposed to know about a character and find your own way in. And that Mimi is a pretty tough role to sing and should be re-cast. And that no matter what, I have always loved and will always love Rent, even when it's not at its best.

Catch Me If You Can

When I started this blog in January, one of my stated goals was to get free tickets to something, so imagine my delight when I got a pair of seats to Catch Me If You Can as part of Bloggers Night. Why they'd choose to do this now when the show is closing in a few weeks in kind of beyond me.

Two things:
a) I'd like to participate in more events like this (I like free things!), so it seems counterintuitive to give a bad review to the first show I got free tickets for.
b) Giving a bad review to a show shortly after it posted its closing notice really feels like kicking someone while they're down.

You sense where this is going, right?

Let's get some more things out of the way: I LOVED Hairspray. I'd put it in the top 5 musicals of the last decade. I know there are those who feel it was too sanitized for Broadway, but I disagree. I really felt like the show was tighter and stronger than the John Waters movie (which I also love). I realize this is basically blasphemy, but I don't care. I loved the songs, the staging, the cast, the set...everything came together perfectly. So when I heard the creators were doing Catch Me If You Can, I was damned excited. I even caught the out of town try-out because I happened to be in Seattle when it played. I was really let down, but I had hoped they'd do the work that needed to be done to make it really shine on Broadway.

What's playing now is, in fact, a tighter, stronger show than I saw in Seattle. But I still wouldn't say it's good. The quickest of plot run-downs: Frank Abagnale, Jr. becomes a con man, fleeces banks out of two million dollars, flies five million miles as a fake Pan Am pilot, lands a job as an ER supervisor after faking a medical license, and even manages to pass the bar. Along the way, he is pursued by FBI Agent Hanrahatty. Imagine what could have been done with this story if all of its hard edges and psychological depth weren't replaced by vaudeville numbers and odes to sexy nurses. Imagine what it could have been if Kander and Ebb had gotten a hold of it--now whitewash that.

As Abagnale, the adorable and clarion voiced Aaron Tveit is charming but shows none of the panache, joy, or neuroses that would make someone risk everything they had (repeatedly) in pursuit of the next big get. Norbert Leo Butz fares better as Hanrahatty (and won the Lead Actor Tony for what I would argue is a supporting role)--he's hammy and fun, but he's more cartoon than three dimensional character.

The show most suffers from a lack of focus. Presented as a television special (a conceit that makes virtually no sense), we are occasionally addressed directly, no chance for a big dance number is passed up, and we're almost forced to view the action at a further remove. This is Abagnale narrating his own story (except when he isn't because he isn't in the scene so we arbitrarily shift focus), but he's too much of a cipher to actually give us a vision singular enough to have weight.

For all the energy on stage, this is an astonishingly okay show. There's enough sheer effort that it should tip it towards great or terrible, but instead it just sits there, inert. It has also, inexplicably, been given what looks like the cheapest production on Broadway. The set is one of the ugliest I've ever seen (a tacky white bandshell and some awkward scrims), and the costumes range from bland to truly hideous. Money also seems to have been saved by not employing dialect coaches (there probably are some, but I didn't check), because present on stage are the worst French and the worst New Orleans accent I've ever heard.

This is the kind of production that I feel like I could pick away at for hours because there are so many elements that could and should have gone right but on level after level it simply misses the mark so there's no one person with whom the blame can be placed. Beyond the set design, nothing is truly awful, it just...is.

But I still appreciate the free tickets! Try me again??

2 Burn

I always get excited about the NY International Fringe Festival. That excitement usually lasts until I've seen my first Fringe show of the year. Case in point: 2 Burn.

2 Burn? Not 2 burn.

Here's the concept behind the show: someone has an academic interest in idioms about romance that are rooted in disease and how they crop up in pop culture (think "Fever" or Madonna's "Burning Up"). So a teenage student flunking poetry at nameless conservative university actively pursues an out gay professor writing a book about the whole love/disease thing. I would try to explain why he does this, but, well...I'm not sure there's any real reason other than the fact that without this relationship, there would be no play.

Meanwhile, the professor's lesbian best friend is trying to get him back together with his ex-boyfriend. She also happens to be the kid's poetry professor who happens to be flunking him because the kid has all these ideas that feelings are just a social construct. Ideas he got from the main character's book.

Blah, blah, blah...coincidence adds to coincidence adds to lengthy diatribes about BIG IDEAS leading to an ending that would probably be pretty great if it had been tacked onto a play that actually deserved it.

I think the most frustrating thing here is that the playwright seems to have some interesting thoughts. Just enough to really drive home how thin the play is and how didactically it's constructed. It's like watching someone sketch the rough idea for something that they can develop later. As a first draft, I'd say there might be enough there conceptually to take the time to overhaul. As it stands, though, it shouldn't be in front of an audience.

Suffice to say, the most dramatic thing I saw at the theater that night was someone who identified herself as a friend of the playwright freaking the fuck out on the hapless person running the door. Apparently they couldn't find a record of her tickets being purchased, so she opted to crank the dial to mega-bitch.

The two female cast members, Deena Jiles and Michelle Wood, delivered with full conviction and were deeply admirable, especially considering it was the first performance for an audience. But even the strongest performances couldn't fill the cavernous holes in the play.

An Intimate Evening with Beyonce

Beyonce's Sunday night concert at Roseland Ballroom was the first of four nights she's doing at the venue. It sold out in 22 seconds, and I didn't even hear about it. But through outstanding luck, I managed to grab a ticket that was released on Ticketmaster on Sunday morning. Not just that, but I guess I somehow managed to get a VIP mezzanine spot? Hey--I'm not asking any questions!

Let's just start with getting into the venue. 8:00 concert. I got there at 7:40, expecting a short line and a venue that would mostly already be filled with die-hard fans. After all, I heard a rumor that folks had camped out overnight in the rain for the best spots. That proved true. Unfortunately, as of 8:00, they hadn't even opened the venue doors. I tried to ask a security guard where to go. That was...less than helpful. So i figured I'd just hop on the line and hope that will-call and ticket-holders all were in the same place. Which proved true. As I followed the line down 52nd, then up Broadway to 53rd, I started to have a sinking feeling. As I walked to 8th Avenue, then followed the line back down to 52nd, the feeling was plain old sunk. I eventually landed back where I started and discovered a mass of people in the middle of the street because there was nowhere else to go. So I stood on that line. In the rain. For two hours. If I had to stay downstairs in the teeming mass of people crammed wall to wall, I probably would have bludgeoned someone to death with an umbrella. Instead, I got to head upstairs to the mezzanine which had a totally comfortable number of people and grabbed a spot at the back, leaning on a railing, with space for my umbrella and dripping bag. I may have missed out on some crowd enthusiasm, but I was delighted to be tucked away somewhere dry without anyone bumping into me. I am getting OLD. Since this is mostly a theater blog, I'll note that I was right behind Jonathan Groff and Sister Act's Patina Miller.

ANYhoo, let's talk about the show. The first 45 minutes were fucking weird. Beyonce's a hell of a performer. Duh. Backed with a 20 piece band and about six back-up dancers, it became clear that "intimate" is in the eye of the beholder. B led the audience through her career chronologically from the start. No, seriously, she started with her musical inspirations and songs she sang as a kid to train. Hey now, Jackson 5. As she narrated her career, "So then it's 2006, and I recorded...," she performed snippets of her songs. Like, if we were lucky, we got a verse and a chorus. Sometimes, we settled for less. "Hey, you remember 'Bugaboo?'" she asked. "You're buggin what, you're buggin' who...anyway, that was 2002." Two moments from this section really stand out. First, let me mention that while Beyonce is the consummate professional, she's also always been deeply guarded. She connects with the audience without ever seeming to reveal all that much about herself. So it was nice when she told us that her record company informed her that her first album didn't have one hit single on it. She then rattled off the songs and said, "So I guess they were right. I didn't have one hit single. I had five." It was braggy and snotty, but it felt real. And I appreciated that. Before that, she told a story about all of these record execs coming to watch Destiny's Child audition, and how her father stopped the audition, asked Beyonce if she had gone swimming the night before because she sounded "all snotty," then announced that the group wasn't ready yet and canceled the rest of the audition. And then she was just like, "Well, I guess he was right. We weren't ready." Um...excuse me? Does she seriously not see what a dick move that was? My eyes were bulging out of my head. Mesmerizing.

In any case, she focused mostly on Destiny's Child, then did one song from each of her first three albums: "Crazy in Love" she got all the way through. "Irreplaceable" she actually just made the audience sing. And then she did "Single Ladies" because, I mean...she has to. The whole thing was this bizarre mix of lines sung here and there, lots of narrative, and a solid amount of dancing. It was just a little cold.

BUT. Then she moved on to the new album, and dayum. Once we were in the section of the night when she actually sang whole songs, the bitch Turned. It. Out. 4 isn't the fastest album. There's a lot of slow or mid-tempo stuff, and there are one or two duds, but I think that on a whole it's the strongest album she's done to date. She played almost everything consecutively, meaning that this part of the concert kicked off with my favorite track off the album, "1 + 1." Are the lyrics good? No. But push comes to shove, no one can deliver a song quite like the lady in question, and the lead song is throaty, sexy perfection. From then on, it was 45 straight minutes of knockouts that mostly managed to negate the weird sort of stage memoir that preceded it. With vocals better than I've ever heard her sound, energy that wouldn't quit, and a minimum of audience interaction (which isn't her strongest suit), it was sheer musical prowess with some fucking impressive dancing thrown in for good measure. I was trying to figure out why she might be doing these four small venue nights with the new material. I don't believe she's someone who makes decisions just for the fun of it. If I had to guess, she's trying all of the material out live in front of an audience she knows will love it, but there could also be a healthy dose of market research happening--what WILL that next single be? My guess? The thoroughly infectious "Countdown." Oddly, the only songs for which she transposed the order are the last two on the album. She moved "Run the World" up a slot so she could close on a ballad. Unfortunately, that ballad was the Diane Warren song "I Was Here," a terrible, treacly mess that Warren says was inspired by 9/11 which makes me want to punch her in the face.

Bottom line: half a not-great concert, half balls-to-the-wall amazing. I couldn't think of a better way to see her live for the first time. Well...maybe less waiting and less rain.

HotelMotel

Let's say you have four hours to kill and want to spend it in the company of 20 strangers in an over-air-conditioned hotel room while oher strangers get naked very, VERY close to your face. Conveniently, your desires can currently be fulfilled at HotelMotel, a pairing of two (long) one-act plays at the Hotel Gershwin being put on by the spunky hipster troupe The Amoralists.

I first found out about them a year or two back when their show The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side got some serious traction while playing P.S. 122. The show got really strong reviews from the Times and a bunch of other outlets, while also garnering a fair amount of attention for a prolonged nude scene during which one of the actors was visibly stimulated. About that scene: while it was certainly included for shock value, it was also one of the funniest moments in a play that had no shortage of laughs. Bottom line: the group had a bargain basement aesthetic and a go-for-broke spirit that was legitimately infectious. Pied Pipers wasn't a perfect play, and the performances weren't the cleanest or most well-developed that I'd ever seen, but you couldn't help but be won over by their commitment and nerve (and I'm not just talking about the nerve to go onstage with a hard-on).

I next saw them do Adam Rapp's Ghosts in the Cottonwoods. This time, I hated the play itself, but I still fell for the cast and the sense that they would never give less than there all. Also: lots more naked people. Everybody's got a gimmick!

Point is, I'll probably see whatever they do because there's an integrity and spirit to their productions that can't be faked. When I found out they were doing a pair of shows for an audience of 20 at a time in a hotel room off Madison Square, I was down for it in a heartbeat, even as I was concerned about getting taken out by some flying setpiece. I should mention that their shows are also MESSY.

HotelMotel is made up of one play by Derek Ahonen who did Pied Pipers and one by Adam Rapp. I figured I'd love one, hate one, but I found that I actually enjoyed both--one slightly less than expected and one a ton more than I thought I would.

Ahonen's piece, "Pink Knees on Pale Skin" is about a sex counselor who stages therapeutic orgies to help people work through their marital troubles. Naturally, she has terrible problems of her own that are boiling beneath the surface. Sarah Lemp is a mainstay of the Amoralists, and she's terrific as the counselor, even though she gets stuck with a lot of the clunkiest pieces of exposition. Here's the problem: the play didn't say anything terribly new. We had a couple where the husband cheated and one where the wife couldn't orgasm because of deep-seated mommy issues. Both were therapized with admirable hilarity but also a hefty dose of EZ-Bake psychology. Most interesting about the entire show was, in fact, the therapist's inability to feel fulfilled, but that was dealt with in a pretty rapid-fire ending scene that felt like a tease for what the play could have been. Nick Lawson, as the therapist's stuttering teenage son could not have been better, even though he only had a short scene. And Joshua Tisdale was fantastic as her husband who spent most of the play hiding under the bed, waiting to surprise one of the couples. Which he did. Fully nude. And I'll just say it--he's a damned good looking man IN clothes. Out of them...there are no words. Well, not ones I'd be comfortable using in public.

Adam Rapp served up "Animals & Plants," and I'll start with the downside before I move on. The symbolism in this play is roughly as subtle as a shotgun blast to the face. And the longer the play runs, the more you're assaulted with it. Hey, look--there's a man wearing a bear skin surrounding the space with stuffed foxes in predatory poses. I wonder if people might start acting in animalistic ways soon... BUT. The play also had some incredible dialogue--highly stylized, I've watched GoodFellas too many times, no one actually talks like this dialogue, but I'll be damned if it wasn't incredibly funny and super-effective largely due to the two strongest performances of the night--Matthew Pilieci (of the Pied Piper erection) as good-time goombah Burris and William Apps as the socially maladjusted but totally endearing Dantly. The play didn't come with a lot of surprises, but it did have the requisite bloodshed, laughs, and (you guessed it) naked people.

Here's the thing about the Amoralists--they occasionally come across as a but juvenile with their reliance on shock value, high volume, and occasional gimmickry. And they may not perform the best material. But I can't think of many other performers who deliver the goods straight from the gut every time. I admire the crap out of them, so yeah...I'll be back for whatever's next.

FOLLIES

A few people have asked me recently what I've seen lately that I really loved, and I was sort of sad to realize that I was having a really hard time answering. born bad, Unnatural Acts, The Shaggs musical, By the Way Meet Vera Stark...most of the really good things I've seen over the past months have closed, and I can only recommend Sleep No More and The Book of Mormon so many times. Happily, I can now add another big, dark, gleaming musical to the list. It took a second viewing to feel like I really got it, but I now have no qualms about saying that the new production of Follies, recently moved from DC's Kennedy Center to Broadway's Marquis theater, is a magnificent thing.

What helped me make my decision? First, the space itself. I may not be a huge fan of the Marquis, but compared to the cavernous Kennedy Center, it feels like the show has been brought down to life sized and makes much more sense playing in an actual Broadway theater. Set in a theater about to be razed in the 1970s (ironic to now be playing the Marquis--look it up), the walls and ceilings are hung with drop cloths, a decaying proscenium arch is over the stage, and the stage floor itself looks warped and worn. As a tattered curtain raises during the overture, the "ghosts" of Follies performers past are revealed in glittering black and white costumes, draped across the stage, harkening back to a time gone by.

The interplay between the ghosts of the characters pasts and the older, regretful people they become is the heart of the show. At its core, two couples in differently destructive marriages meet again at a reunion and over the course of the evening are forced to confront the choices they've made as they look back at a time when anything was possible. When I first saw it, I thought the humongous cast of other characters that trotted out old numbers were scattered throughout for context and color, but a second viewing revealed how carefully constructed the show really is--the entire reunion, the entire concept of a reunion, is about looking back and contrasting then with now, who we were with who we've become. It's not a show about the fear of aging; it's about the realization of the facts of aging and the resultant (inevitable?) regrets. The joy with which some characters look back, at peace with who they've become, not only presents an alternative to the core four, it highlights just how terribly sad their regrets are. This service is highlighted when, late in the show, each of the main four gets a big Follies-style number. Until this point, the rest of the cast has handled the big face-forward-and-sing moments, with our leads having more conversational, in the moment songs. So allowing them to turn to the audience and perform to us, almost pleading with us, has a heightened resonance. Because even in these old-style songs, they can never truly put who they are behind them and just be.

The cast is stupidly fantastic. Jayne Houdyshell has the unenviable task of replacing Linda Lavin as Hattie whose "Broadway Baby" I called one of the highlights of the year. Lavin played Hattie as a sexy temptress with a sense of humor. Houdyshell cranks the humor up a few notches and replaces flirtation with a go-for-broke gusto that is fucking brilliant. This is a woman who will rip the applause from your hands, and in one song and a handful of lines manages a fully realized character that would completely steal the show if she weren't in such fierce company.

Mary Beth Peil has the less troubling task of replacing Regine as Solange LaFitte. Regine bumbled through the role so bizarrely that I hardly noticed her. Peil makes her an aging sexpot with a delicious sense of entitlement and a pretty fantastic sense of humor. Her French accent may not be terribly convincing, but it kind of fits...nothing about Solange seems terribly real.

I already spoke last time about my enormous appreciation of Terri White and the magic she does with "Who's That Woman?" and of Rosalind Elias's soaring voice in "One More Kiss." But I complained about Elaine Paige's oddball take on "I'm Still Here." Lemme just take that back. She's dropped the sex kitten flirtation, opened a vein of anger, and now rips into the song (the show's most famous?) without looking back. Her delivery is unlike any other version I've heard, but what was once uncomfortably odd is now fascinatingly unexpected. It may not end an act, but I'd be shocked if she doesn't start getting standing ovations for this--at least on opening and closing nights, but probably more often as well.

The one question mark I'm left with (theater gods forgive me) is that goddess of the stage, Bernadette Peters. Her Sally is so weepy and maybe just a little too actually crazy. It's a committed performance, and her vocals are (duh) breathtaking, but there are lines in the book that just don't seem to jibe with who we're seeing. This is a woman who calls her sons up just to fight with them when she's lonely. We're told she argues with everyone she knows. When other characters talk about her, she sounds a little bipolar, but the woman we see seems merely depressed. Horribly, terribly depressed, yes, but she seems not to have the fight in her that we're told to expect. It seems like there's room for a little more variation, at least early in the play--places that we can see her steely determination so that when she breaks (and oh, does she break), we see more of what was at stake for her in this reunion. A little more determined than deluded, perhaps. Of course, opening night isn't for another month, so it's quite possible that's something she'll further explore. And I don't want to sound like I didn't enjoy her performance. She's actually great. It's just that everyone else on stage is even better than great. One more caveat: she does have the biggest and toughest role to play. With time, she'll likely nail it out of the park.

And that's a testament to how tight this production is. It feels more harmonious than when I saw it in DC. The choreography has been sharpened (and in one case adjusted to better show off Jan Maxwell--still devastating as Phyllis), the costumes adjusted to better fit some of the characters' personalities and backgrounds, and the scale of the show brought to slightly more human size. I'm seeing it again on opening night (a few tickets are on sale on Ticketmaster!). This one's gonna suck up a bunch of my time and money, and you know what? I can't fucking wait.

Revisiting Carrie

I'm not going to say that I'm the sort of person who read the book about Broadway flops, Not Since Carrie, and wished I could go back in time to take in the infamously dreadful musical version of Stephen King's Carrie. Or has watched every YouTube clip of the show that seems to be available and became moderately obsessed with the song "Eve Was Weak." Or spent the past three years religiously following updates about the attempt to revive the show and immediately bought tickets to a discussion of the show with the original creators as soon as they went on sale. But there I was on Monday night at the Lortel on Christopher watching them discuss the show, their decision to open anew, and the revisions that went into making it new.

From what I can gather, Carrie was the Spider-Man of its time only without the rewrites and apparent success (seriously--how is that show selling out?). It was the most expensive show ever to hit Broadway, arriving on Broadway after a stint in the UK under the auspices of the Royal Shakespeare Company--no, I don't understand it either. The story was convoluted, the staging bizarre, and the word of mouth deafening. Hell, maybe if it opened today, the crazy internet buzz could have kept it going.

The creators of the show took the stage of the Lortel appearing rather defensive. They laid the blame for the initial debacle squarely at the feet of original director Terry Hands. And yes, I've seen some photos and video so can attest to the fact that the direction was a hot mess. That said, if they needed to cut ten songs and add fourteen while also rewriting the book...maybe the show wasn't in exceptional shape to start with. There was a q & a, and I desperately wanted to ask whether they were undertaking the show again to see the show as they initially envisioned it or whether this was a late-game attempt at vindication. And whether they were scared of the potential critical response. But I thought that would make me a douchebag, so I kept my hand down. Regardless, they pretty much dodged even the softball questions they got (did the success of Glee inspire you to bring back this teen musical?), so it probably wouldn't have mattered.

Five songs from the show were performed--three in pretty much their original shape, one each from Carrie and her mother, and one duet between them. Molly Ranson is playing Carrie, and I don't want to judge a performance based on a blip of stage time before rehearsals even begin, but she seemed a bit to sweet and...normal. This is a show about a girl whose mother is a crazy zealot, is ostracized by everyone, and is telekinetic. She's got to be a little odd for that to work. It wasn't on stage on Monday, but she has plenty of time to work on it. More concerning was her voice which sounded like she was straining for the notes and to get enough power behind them. It made me curious how she'll hold up to a whole show, let alone eight shows a week. As her mother, Margaret, Marin Mazzie also didn't seem to have a full performance locked in, but she sang with breathtaking beauty and enough hard edges and creepy confidence that I will be very, very excited to see what she has in store once they really go to work.

The new song, for the good girl who feels bad for Carrie and the boyfriend she convinces to take her to the prom, was a treacly teen love duet called "You Shine." It was cushioned by some book work that felt really inauthentic and made me seriously question the decision to update the show from the late 70s to "now." I understand that they consider the themes of the piece timeless, but I'm less confident they have an ear for a current teen voice. Lastly (though the first song performed), the number "In" felt similarly plagued by awkward phrasing and seemed a bit discordant, though sound issues may have been to blame.

Will I go see Carrie when it opens in January? Yeah, of course I will. But "Revisiting Carrie" didn't exactly send me out feeling confident that it would be a brilliant show rescued from the ashes OR that it would be a hot mess worth seeing for camp value alone. If anything, the evening made me feel a little less excited about the show's resurfacing. There are months to go before this hits the rehearsal studio, let alone the stage. The only way to know how it's going to play is to wait and go. See you this winter, Carrie White.

I know what you're thinking right now: "I wonder how they staged the prom slaughter with all the telekinesis and stuff in the 80s. Hint: lasers, smoke, and...well, no, that was really it.

Way Back Wednesday: The Who's Tommy

Well, hell. I actually caught up on shows I've seen, so why not try something new? Let's take it back to my first ever Broadway show. Growing up in Westchester, I was surrounded by kids who had seen all the biggest hits. Everyone saw Cats at some point, there were hardcore Les Miz devotees, and there were even the folks who had been on Broadway themselves. My family hated the city (they've long since fled the tristate area), didn't seem particularly interested in the arts, and didn't exactly have an over-abundance of cash. So at 13, I felt like I was the only kid in school who hadn't seen a Broadway show. Felt like--I'm sure it wasn't actually the case. I don't know that I was all that interested in the theater for its own sake, but I felt kind of left out. So when there was a chance to catch a show on a school trip super cheap, I convinced my mom to send me. And that's how I ended up at the St. James Theater for The Who's Tommy.

Part of me wants a revival of Tommy to see how I'd feel about it now. The other part of me never wants there to be one because I don't want to change my memory of it. I loooooved it. I don't have any terribly complex thoughts about it--I was 13. But I remember being completely overwhelmed by the notion of a deaf and blind person. The gunshots sent me leaping out of my chair each time. The blaring music was transporting. And when the Acid Queen showed up? I was in Confused Gay Teen heaven. Cheryl Freeman was glorious. In short, I was transported. Being young and smug, I felt that since it was a rock opera, it was somehow more "authentic" than other shows and thought it was pretty great to see something so "edgy" my first time out. Of course, while by my current standards, it's not exactly revolutionary, it was right for the time--pushing me to think beyond myself and presenting ideas that for then were certainly beyond me. I was a pretty sheltered kid--sure, I was reading a lot of Jackie Collins and Stephen King, but I was also at mass every Sunday and my idea of rebellion was turning in homework late.

Looking back now, a few things stand out: I was lucky to see such an incredible cast. It had Alice Ripley, Michael Cerveris, Christian Hoff, Norm Lewis, and Sherie Rene Scott. Also, it kind of didn't make any sense. The blind and deaf kid becomes a pinball wizard and is thus catapulted to superstardom? Then he's cured by some weird machine and everyone goes away? Because that's less impressive somehow?

Regardless, it was a show that gave me glitz and spectacle but also did legitimately broaden my worldview a bit. Also, a musical about the ultimate outsider is pretty much perfect for a teenager.

My snobbery towards "edgy" material lasted all the way until my second show when I seriously flipped my shit for the Gershwin tuner Crazy for You (which I definitely want revived). It was a lovely one-two punch. A show that riveted and confused and challenged me (even if looking back it might be kinda dumb) and a big old-fashioned musical comedy to show that sometimes fun in fun and there's nothing wrong with that. In a lot of ways, I think I still approach live theater looking for those two things in equal measure. When I consider what my favorite shows of the year so far have been (and oh yes, in a few months there will absolutely be a retrospective on the year), I come back to the joyful and exuberant The Book of Mormon and the emotionally devastating born bad. I absolutely want to be challenged by great art. And sometimes I just want to settle back and cheer a tap routine. Quality is quality, whatever its intent.

The HoMo'Nique Show

Here's something that wasn't really a show, but I'll talk about anyway. I was going to pair this with something else, but then I just kept on writing. And writing. So: a live drag talk show. Go!

I love me some RuPaul's Drag Race. If anyone watched the recent season, you'll remember Stacy Layne Matthews, the plus-plus-sized queen from Back Swamp, North Carolina whose strongest moments on the show were downing some fried chicken in a fake exercise video and doing an impression of Mo'Nique as Precious's mom. In retrospect, I'm not toooootally sure why I was so excited to see her. But I was! So when I found out she was doing a live talk show as Mo'Nique (make that HoMo'Nique), I snatched up tickets (apologies for a terrible pun).

Here's the deal. Stacy does a mean Mary, mother of Precious. And while that character was played by Mo'Nique, she was not, in fact, Mo'Nique. Stacy as the real woman? Scattershot and a little on the dull side. And Lorrrrrrd almighty, she cannot do an interview. Can. Not. If there was not a question written on the piece of paper in front of her, she was not asking it. If a guest started to go someplace fun and interesting, she clumsily put her foot down, grinding the proceedings to a halt. She was by far her best when "live via satellite," she did an interview with herself. Yes, she clung to that script for dear life, but it was cute nonetheless, even if I can't for the life of me understand why "real" Stacy was dressed as Precious's mother while "Mo'Nique" was just Mo'Nique.

As far as the other guests, comedian Shawn Hollenbach as quite funny, but I know him so feel like it would be weird to try to discuss his act. Jenn Harris of Silence! The Musical, was a total hoot and actually got Stacy to do an impromptu Hannibal Lecter impression. Well done, Ms. Harris, not only being funny but bringing the other folks on stage up a notch--she's a fucking pro. The one person I was unfamiliar with was Molly "Equality" Dykeman--a character played by...someone--I have no idea. Molly is a lesbian poet/crossing guard who writes about what means the most to her: vagina. She was, I kid you not, genius. I got home and immediately bought tickets to see her show at the Fringe, The Fucking World According to Molly. Will the act hold up over 60 or more minutes? Who knows? But if I laugh a few times as hard as I did when I saw her here, I'll consider it $18 well spent.

Last up was Colton Ford. Or, as he was referred to every time he was mentioned, "Vocalist, Colton Ford." Not "Porn star, Colton Ford." Because he gave that up ten years ago, and it never goes away, and he wishes he had never done it, and he just wants to be taken seriously for his voice, goddamn it! Here's the thing...while I'm sure it's hard to be taken seriously as an entertainer after you've done porn, I'm not really (read: at all) convinced that in Mr. Ford's case, he didn't actually benefit more from the exposure (more bad puns!) than it acted to his detriment. He's a nice enough singer, but he's also in his upper-40s. That means that by the time he was trying to break into music, he was already at an age when most people who hadn't made it would stop imagining they were going to be pop stars. And if you're going to try to shed your porn image, then why not drop your stage name? And for God's sake, no one's going to forget you were a gay porn star if you still wear pants that, um, revealing. Regardless, he seemed very nice and did a solid take on Robyn's "With Every Heartbeat."

Now let's get to the closer. Stacy tells us she's been taking voice lessons and proceeds to sing...I can't believe I'm about to type this..."And I Am Telling You." Okay. "And I Am Telling You" is not the greatest song ever written. It is not sacred. People can cover it. But. This is a song that has been performed by THE biggest voices around. It isn't a song meant to be sung, it's meant to be lived. It demands vocal gymnastics, and if a performer's heart isn't left on the floor by the end of it, it won't compare to previous versions. Say what you will about Jennifer Hudson's Oscar (and believe me, I have A LOT to say), she killed that song. And Jennifer Holliday's version is available on YouTube. She killed it, brought it back from the dead, and slaughtered it anew. This is not a sacred song, but it is also not a song to be sung when you're working your way through singing lessons. Because at the start, someone may think, "Huh. She was a surprisingly strong voice." But by the end, they're just going to be comparing you to Jennifer Holliday. And that is a losing battle.

Stacy Layne Matthews: sweet but misguided. Now let's get some Pandora Boxx up in this bitch.

Olive and the Bitter Herbs

I'd never seen a Charles Busch show until this weekend, which I do happen to see as a personal failing. I had, though, seen his movies Die, Mommie, Die! (which I enjoyed) and Psycho Beach Party (which I looooooved). And I'd read the scripts of Tales of the Allergist's Wife and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. There's really no excuse for my not having seen The Divine Sister, especially since it ran for ages.

ANYway, Busch has a new show, Olive and the Bitter Herbs, which I did see. Even so, I can't actually claim the initiative for having gone out to get a ticket on my own (thanks, Lee!). Regardless, after years of familiarity with the man, the myth, the lady, I finally encountered one of his productions. And liked it! Yes, there will be quibbles, but I enjoyed myself quite a bit nonetheless.

Played by Marcia Jean Kurtz, Olive is a brittle older actress best known for her work in the "Gimme the sausage" ad campaign. As the play starts, she's had two strokes ("episodes") and become mostly homebound, spending her time terrorizing the neighbors, the super, and the co-op director with her ridiculous complaints. Wendy, a younger woman played by the delightful Julie Halston, has spent eight months tending to her and trying to help her get back into her life. This involves trying to negotiate peace with the gay couple next door (dapper editor Robert and acerbic illustrator Trey). Meanwhile, the co-op board director's father, Sylvan arrives also hoping to calm the bitter bitch down. The sixth character, unseen and unheard, is the ghost who appears in Olive's mirror. Who he is and what he means to the various characters forms the crux of the play.

Kurtz does a good job of being hateable enough to alienate the other characters while maintaining just a shred enough dignity for the audience to still give a hoot. She definitely felt like she was still getting some lines and timing down, but it was the first week of previews, so I can't complain. Richard Masur as the thrice-widowed Sylvan shined brightest for me. Admittedly, he had the warmest character to play, but he was utterly delightful and gave a performance that felt incredibly comfortable and well-worn. Sylvan is as charming as he is easily charmed, and his track record of dating difficult women (do you see where this is going?) is utterly believable. More than anyone else, he sees through Olive (unlike the bitter herbs), and is the real emotional core of the play.

So what are the problems? In spite of the presence of a ghost, the play largely feels quite realistic until midway through the second act where coincidence piles on coincidence. It's intentional, and it's funny, but it also feels straight out of an absurdist play which the rest of this is decidedly not. And ultimately, I felt like the entire ghost subplot could have been excised and left a more straightforward play (that was still quite funny) about one woman railing against the world. But that could be unfair--I might just be trying to edit it into a different show in my head. Really, what's there is quite charming and includes a lot of very entertaining moments. It's just a touch tonally uneven and, while it moves at a solid clip, could use some judicious trimming, Still an entertaining show if a bit more Die, Mommie, Die! than Psycho Beach Party.

Measure for Measure

Alrighty, I'm gonna go out on a limb here. Shakespeare: sure, yes, I accept that he's one of the greatest writers of...ever. But can we be real? Dude was capable of some hacky bullshit now and again. Know what I think the "problem" in his "problem plays" is? They're not very good.


Let's get to it: Measure for Measure demonstrates a superb understanding of human interaction and psychology (most of the time), includes passages of beautiful writing, and has some really fabulous characters. It is also crazy stupid.


Let's try to run through this plot as briefly as possible. The Duke leaves town and puts his friend Angelo in charge. Angelo has Claudio arrested for fornication. Claudio's sister tries to convince Angelo not to execute her brother (was this seriously the punishment for fornication in Vienna, ever?), and he says that he'll agree to let Claudio live if Isabella (who happens to be a nun) will sleep with him. Conveniently, the Duke never left town. Instead, he's roaming the streets dressed as a priest and while completely unwilling to just take off his priest outfit and tell Angelo to go fuck himself (because then the play would be really, really short), he sort of manipulates things behind the scenes until we've had an opportunity to have lots of conversations about justice, compassion, civility, etc. and Shakespeare has had the opportunity to set up one of the most ridiculous denouements I've ever encountered. Exeunt logic, chased by a bear.


I realize that you have to watch shows while keeping in mind when they were written. Things may very well feel cliched or artificial now that obviously weren't that way when the plays were written. Measure for Measure, though, really stretches the boundaries of my ability to just run with it. Key moment: the Duke tells Isabella her brother is dead because he doesn't want to ruin the surprise when said brother arrives alive and well. WTF?! Really, this just allows that final scene to be even more dramatic and left me thinking, "What. A. Dick."


So how do you even stage something like this? It's basically the world's most miserable farce, dripping in self-seriousness until things go fully ridiculous at the end. Well, if you're director David Esbjornson, you pepper the first act with a whole bunch of actors dressed as S&M cats or hookers wearing outfits clearly ripped off from Alexander McQueen (don't forget to see the exhibit at the Met--in its last week!). These whores and demons seem to represent the ugliness of mankind, but try not to think about them too much, because they'll all disappear after intermission once they realize they don't have any idea what they're doing either.


And YET. I kind of really enjoyed myself. I know, I know. Yes, the play is a cockamamie excuse to string together a bunch of conversations on big topics. But those conversations are really fascinating. And much of this cast is really, really good. I was in love with Carson Elrod as Pompey. Not a big part, but he was incredible and provided delightful comic relief. Sign that your comedy is going astray? You need comic relief. Tonya Pinkins in the even smaller part of Mistress Overdone seems to be having a blast hovering way over the top--the only place this character can exist. Making an impression in larger roles, Danai Gurira's Isabella and Michael Hayden's Angelo were the emotional yin and yang to the show. Her accent seemed to be floating all over the place, but her performance was beautifully emotional and involving. And Hayden was a delicious villain, playing the smarminess and hypocrisy of the character simmering at a low heat that made him all the more familiar and disturbing.


The Shakespeare in the Park experience is a delight. You can't argue with free, fully-staged shows with incredible casts. And since they do this every year, sure, they have to cycle through some lesser plays. The city only needs so many Hamlets and Twelfth Nights (seriously--I can't watch another Hamlet for at least five years). Still, while I do agree that Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers of all time, I think it's fair to acknowledge he had some duds. The fact that the Public Theater is doing a production of Titus Andronicus this fall is completely baffling to me. In any case, I did enjoy myself, and there was as much to recommend about the production as there was to mock. I can fairly say nothing about the night bored me. So I'll still call it a win.