In 'Last Call' the bartender steals the show

 

The show’s description sounded engaging: American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, the world’s most celebrated figures in classical music for half a century and fierce rivals, unexpectedly cross paths for the last time at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna in 1988.  Peter Danish’s play brings them together, drawing on accounts of the meeting told to him by the bartender who served them.

Based on that I looked forward to lots of beautiful music and sharp dialogue that would inform and entertain.  Unfortunately Last Call, which opened last night at New World Stages, was short on music (recorded, of course, because an orchestra wasn’t feasible) and the dialogue just sounded like two egotistical old men talk, talk talking so that I was bored halfway through the 90-minute, intermission-less show.

Before the play began director Gil Mehmert took the stage to explain his vision for the production.  Rather than risk audiences getting sidetracked by the appearances of the actors in relationship to the real men he chose to cast women in the parts.  He was more interested in the Maestros’ inner lives, “the sensitive nature of their souls.”

That sounded intriguing to me and when I saw the two actresses, Lucca Buchner as von Karajan (left) and Helen Schneider as Bernstein, with their short hair and men’s clothes (costumes by Rene Neumann), I liked the concept.  Until, that is, Schneider’s wild gesturing and mannerisms turned Bernstein into a caricature. 

Chris Barreca’s set and Michael Grundner’s lighting create a relaxing but sophisticated Blue Bar with its small cocktail tables and a sparkling chandelier.  In a nice surprise the bar at the left side of the stage, when turned around, displays a urinal and sink to be the men’s room where one or the other conductor goes and we here his thoughts about his rival, in German from von Karajan, with English translation on the black wall of the main room.

I won’t reveal an even nicer surprise that involves the bartender, Michael, (Victor Petersen).  I would have loved more of what he brought to the show.

After back and forth with insults, jealousies, Bernstein’s scorn of von Karajan for not standing up to or at least leaving Nazi Germany and von Karajan’s ridicule of Bernstein for sinking to compose for Broadway musicals, the two part in agreement.  Lifting their glasses, they toast what matters to them the most:

Bernstein: “Here’s to the splendid madmen who for reasons unknown, will give their entire lives just to make sure that one note follows another in perfect harmony.”

Von Karajan: “And here’s to the harmony which, in the end, is the only thing that truly leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.”

 

Arthur Miller's 'The Price' makes its Off-Broadway debut

 

I have always liked and loved most of Arthur Miller’s plays since I encounter my first, Death of a Salesman, at Baltimore’s Center Stage when I was in high school. The exception has always been, and remains, his 1968 play The Price, which director Noelle McGrath has revived at Theatre at St. Clement’s.  To my surprise, this is its first Off-Broadway production.

Last revived on Broadway in 2017, the story features, as so many of Miller’s plays do, the relationship between brothers.  In The Price, set in the late 1950s, they are Victor Franz, a 50-year-old downtrodden New York police sergeant ready to retire after 28 years on the force, and his successful older brother, Walter, a rich surgeon.  They haven’t seen each other or spoken in 16 years.  They are brought together in the attic of their once prosperous family’s condemned brownstone on the West Side of Manhattan to clear out decades of their stored possessions.  The Village Theater Group’s set, with props and effects by BB Props, is chuck-full of living and dining room furniture and all that goes with it, lamps, bric-a-brac, an old radio and Victrola, with an annoying Laughing Record.  On the surface the price is about how much the men will get for all of it but as the play unfolds we learn that the deeper price revolves around the choices each has made.

In no other Miller play involving brothers are the two so opposite.  Walter is aggressive and conniving, Victor is loyal and unambitious, having given up his opportunities for success to take care of their professionally and financially defeated father.  

In the talky first act Victor (Bill Barry) and his wife, Esther (Janelle Farias Sando) look over the clutter of possessions that trigger memories of long ago, the hovering weight of the past being another Miller theme.  Humor, a third element of most of Miller’s work, interjects in both acts in the form of an 89-year-old used furniture dealer, Gregory Solomon (Mike Durkin), who also offers some of the wisdom associated with his biblical name.

“People don’t live like this no more.  This stuff is from another world.  So I’m trying to give you a modern viewpoint, and if you won’t understand the viewpoint is impossible to understand the price.”

 

At the close of Act One, Walter (Cullen Wheeler) appears, an imposing man in his mid-50s sporting an expensive camel’s-hair coat and an air of superiority.  Victor, in his policeman’s uniform, is surprised and flustered.  He had left messages with Walter’s nurse all week saying that the property had to be vacated but his calls were never returned.  

In the second act, resentments and anger, long buried, are hurled back and forth until they are nothing more than tedious to me. I am sick of both men.  Walter hits the mark when he sums it up with another Miller theme, people’s need for illusion.

“We invent ourselves, Vic, to wipe out what we know.  You invent a life of self-sacrifice, life of duty; but what never existed here cannot be upheld.  You were not upholding something, you were denying what you knew they (their parents) were.  And destroying yourself.and that’s all that is standing between us now, an illusion, Vic.”

This relationship is far more engaging in Death of a Salesman in which Willy, the washed-up younger brother, worships the memory of his older brother, Ben, who walked into the jungle in Africa when he was 17 “and when I was 21 I walked out.  And by God I was rich.”  He appears to Willy as his mind becomes increasingly unstable, always the figure to be looked up to.  

In Salesman my heart goes out Willy, as exasperating as he is, at the end but in The Price I’m always just happy to see the two-and-a-half-hour play end.  Miller leaves it up to us which brother, if either, deserves our compassion.  Perhaps though, through the characters’ names, he’s letting us know who he thinks is the victor.  

The last laugh goes to Solomon as he sits alone in the room playing the Laughing Record, heartily adding his own. 

All of the performances were strong.  A lot of seats were empty at yesterday’s matinee but the audience members there were enthusiastic, giving a standing ovation, something that is almost automatic on Broadway but not so much Off-Broadway.

Dakar 2000

 

You know your brain is going to be in for a serious workout when the first line, addressed to the audience by a young actor on a blackened stage with a spotlight focused on him, is: “This is a story within a story, about a person within a person, in a time within a time.”  For the next hour and 20 minutes you will feel you’re in Nietzsche world where truth is an illusion and illusion is truth as Rajiv Joseph’s Dakar 2000 unfold’s in a world premiere at NY City Center Stage !.

Commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club and directed with precision by May Adrales, the two-hander stars Abubakr Ali and Mia Barron in award nomination worthy performances playing people who delight in telling dramatic stories only to then laugh and say they are just kidding.  But as the fast-moving plot unfolds we wonder, Are they kidding or did that happen?”

What we know (or think we know) is that a 25-year-old American Peace Corp volunteer named Boub, pronounced like the slang word for breasts and short for Boubacar, becomes forced into a sinister public service mission to poison a suspected terrorist by Dina, a crisp 46-year-old State Department operative in Senegal on the eve of Y2K.  Dina believes, or says she believes, he is the man behind the 1998 bombing of the United States embassy in Tanzania that may or may not have killed “the love of my life.”  

Tim Mackabee’s turntable, minimalist set and Alan C. Edwards’ broodingly dark lighting create an atmosphere perfect for a political thriller.  As I was walking away from the theatre I heard audience members trying to figure it all out — “Did he . . .”  “Was she . . .” as we walked along West 55th Street.   

Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which I hated, was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for drama.  He served in the Peace Corp in Senegal for three years, which gives his current play authenticity. 

Idina Menzel returns to Broadway in 'Redwood'

 

Redwood, the new musical at the Nederlander Theatre that marks the return of Idina Menzel to Broadway after nearly a decade, has her legions of fans buzzing with excitement that she is back but for me, not a fan, the real star of the show is the spectacular staging that creates a magical forest filled with the mighty trees and a starry night sky. 

Leaving a bitterly cold winter night I was transported thanks to Jason Ardizzone-West’s giant tree that dominates the stage and Hana S. Kim’s video designs that lift us above the forest floor high into the sky.  The story is clichéd — a depressed middle-aged woman unable to recover after the death of her only child the year before, possibly by suicide at 23, and whose grief is straining her marriage, gets in her car and drives from New York City to California where she finds sanctuary and healing in the forest.  But even a strong story would likely take second notice to this technically ambitious staging of more than 1,000 LED panels that create gorgeous panoramic vistas. 

Redwood has been a passion project for Menzel for about 15 years.  Her inspiration was the story of Julia Butterfly Hill, an environmental activist who spent 738 days living in a 1,000-year-old redwood in the 1990s to fight a timber company’s intention of chopping it down for logging.  Menzel became obsessed with the story and called director Tina Landau to suggest they collaborate and then contributed to the script and songs.    

Menzel, a Tony Award-winner for her origination of Elphaba in Wicked, chose to make the story (book by Landau) one of a personal journey rather than about the environment.  Jesse is a New York gallery owner who married Mel (De’Adre Aziza), a photojournalist, when her son, Spencer (Zachery Noah Piser), was 3 and Mel loved him as her own.  Piser as Spencer appears in the forest in Jesse’s mind and also plays several other characters. 

Shortly after her arrival, while standing and walking in awe of the redwoods, she meets two canopy arborists, Finn (Michael Park) and Becca (Khaila Wilcoxon, right in photo) who teach her to climb, after she pesters them unrelentingly, and finally allow her to spend the night on a platform high up in the tree.  It is there, thanks to the videos surrounding her, we experience the majesty and immensity of the forest and, through Scott Zielinski’s consistently perfect lighting, the immense black sky lit by hundreds of tiny white stars.

Menzel’s commitment to Redwood goes beyond her writing, acting and singing.  She’s also required to dance on the side of the tree, suspended hundreds of feet in the air swirling in a harness and singing while upside down.  Jesse looks euphoric.  I hope Menzel is too.  It looks fun.

A final contribution Medzel made was finding a songwriter for the contemporary pop sound she envisioned.  Landau wanted someone outside the musical theatre world so they searched the Internet and found then 23-year-old Kate Diaz.  They made a wise choice.  Her 17 songs, for which Laudau shares credit for the lyrics, are beautifully targeted for the moment — “Drive,” “Climb,” “The Stars” —and simply affecting, unlike the usual big Broadway show stoppers.  This show is big enough in its size.  It would suffer if the songs were big as well.

'Liberation' is weak to one who lived it

 

A 30-something woman travels back in time to 1970 to get to know her mother better in the world premiere of Bess Wohl’s uneven new play, Liberation, which opened last night at the Laura Pels Theatre.  The exploration, under the direction of Whitney White, lacks the charm and fun of a similar, accidental, journey in the movie “Back to the Future.”  And there’s no cool DeLorean.

 I was in high school and college in the 1970s and my development was deeply affected by the women’s movement.  It still informs my life as I approach 70 next month.  Wolf wasn’t born until 1975, which is why I didn’t feel the spirit of that time.  She hadn’t lived the energy and optimism that was so exciting.

 The five women Lizzie (Susannah Flood, left in photo) attracts to her CR group (consciousness raising) seem to have little commitment to any ideology but they do talk — a lot.  The two hours and 30 minutes running time should be cut considerably.  Wohl seems to be going for humor but I didn’t find their comments funny, just boring.

 Part of the problem could be David Zinn’s set, a basketball court in a subterranean gym in Ohio.  With banners proclaiming the victories of boys’ sports teams plastered on the back wall, the testosterone vibe overwhelms the women, at least in the first act.

 Act Two opens three years later and was the only time I felt the women had the potential to be engaged in the Movement.  Buck naked under Cha See’s softened lighting and following a trend they’ve heard other groups are doing, they reveal themselves while sitting on metal folding chairs and walking around the stage.  Out of respect for the actors our phones were locked in Yondr pouches, which we took to our seats.

One by one the women share one thing they hate and one they love about their bodies. Being liberated from their clothes (costumes by Queen Jean), they liberate their spirits for the first time.

Margie (Betsy Aidem, second from right), my favorite character because she seems the most real, begins.  A traditional wife and mother in her late 50s or early 60s, she skips over what she loves and gets right to what she hates, her scar from the C-sections she had for her two sons.

“I know it shouldn’t bother me but it’s ugly.  It just is.  And I hate it the way my, my skin sort of pooches out over it and then makes this kind of disgusting fat shelf.  I hate it so much and it’s bumpy and long and I hate that, that it feels unfair somehow?  Like, my children, my sons, they got life and my husband got the family he wanted and I ended up this husk with this hideous scar.  I mean I love my sons, don’t get me wrong.  It’s a worth it, blah, blah, blah, but you know.”

She tries to pass on saying what she loves but Dora (Audrey Corsa, far right), in her mid-20s, won’t take no for an answer.

“It’s part of the work, self-love.  It’s, it’s an act of liberation.”

Saying she doesn’t feel liberated and that the others are too young to understand, Margie gives her thoughtful answer.

“I like that my body still works.  I like that my knees bend.  I like that my heart beats.”  She pauses to put her hand over her heart.  “Yeah, it’s still going.  When you get older, if you love long enough, you start to watch as your body slowly descends.  No, really.  It’s like, it’s like watching something on the shore slowly get pulled out to sea.  And I like, I love that I’m not lost in the ocean.  Well, not yet anyway.  That’s it.”

Isidora (Irene Sofia Lucio, second from left), in her early 40s, jumps in readily to say she loves her “tits,” in a tank top or sexy blouse, “and you know you can get anything you want.” 

An obnoxious talker, she was my least favorite.

“Okay, so yeah, fuck off.  I’m a radical, sure, but this tits thing, it works.”

What she hates is her crooked toe, a result of her father stomping on it – intentionally -- when she was a child.

Next up is Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd), the lone Black woman in the group, in her late 30s, who says they shouldn’t be focusing on appearances at all.

“I think this is the exact trap they want us in, objectifying ourselves, talking about our bodies when we should be having a more, a more elevated, intellectual kind of discourse.”

Having made her point, she readily acknowledges that her entire body “is something the world has been at war with for a very long time.  I can’t really isolate out one body part more than another.  It’s the fact of being in a body that is often unwelcome.”

What she loves is her brain. “And you can tell me that doesn’t count, but I’m counting it because it’s a body part.  I do love my brain.”

Susan (Adina Version, third from left), in her early 20s, is brief.  “Ass good, tits feh,” and she declines to elaborate.

Lizzie likes her eyes and hates lots of her body parts but none as much as her nostrils, which her first boyfriend in high school told her were flared and made her look like an angry horse.  Even since when she’s met someone new she’s looked down so they won’t see her big nostrils.

Dora is astonished.

“So you’ve spent you whole life with your head bowed because of something some little prick said about your nostrils?”

But when it’s her turn, Dora confesses that being pretty means she’s treated like a doll and she thinks that’s why she’s never had an orgasm “because I can’t actually feel anything.”

This was the CR session the women were most engaged with each other and with themselves and when I became most interested in them. Liberation takes time.  In real life and in plays.

Produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company, Liberation plays through March 30. 

Momma Rose is back and Audra McDonald's got her

I saw the last three Broadway productions of Gypsy, starring Tyne Dale, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone, but watching director George C. Wolfe’s current revival at the Majestic Theatre I often felt I was seeing it for the first time.  I wasn’t thrilled about seeing it yet again when I heard it was coming back this fall until I learned the casting included Audra McDonald and Danny Burstein.  True to form, they do not disappoint, which is a good thing because the running time is three hours.  That’s a big time commitment nowadays, and the time did not fly by.  I don’t remember the show being, or feeling, so long before. 

Another element I don’t remember from previous performances is Rose’s sense of humor about herself.  The audience has always been able to laugh at her singleminded bulldozer approach to life but McDonald humanizes her a bit by giving her this occasional sense of self awareness.  It makes it easier to understand why Herbie loves her.  Burstein’s portrayal of Herbie’s faithfulness is believable. 

In the last revival, in 2008, LuPone won a Tony for Best Actress in a Musical, Boyd Gaines won Best Supporting Actor for his Herbie and Laura Benanti won Best Supporting Actress for her Louise.  Although I loved Gaines’ performance I thought Burstein should have won for his Luther in the South Pacific revival that year.  His Herbie will certainly at least bring him a nomination. 

McDonald will surely will be nominated, although winning isn’t quite assured because this season already has offered strong leading actress performances from Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Blvd., Megan Hilty in Death Becomes Her and Katie Brayben in Tammy Faye.  

I hope Joy Woods is nominated for her Louise.  For most of the show Louise is almost invisible, which is fitting for this shy child overlooked by her mother in favor of her younger sister.  But she shows her star power when she transforms into Gypsy Rose Lee.  Her dressers should receive nominations for how quickly they change her from one scanty, dazzling costume by Toni-Leslie James to another as she climbs the ladder of success in burlesque.  She holds the stage with the best of them. Camille A. Brown’s choreography gets its full play here.

In spite of excellent production values — Santo Loquasto (effectively minimalist scenic design); Jules Fisher, Peggy Eisenhauer (lighting design) and a score I have always loved — music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim under Andy Einhorn’s music direction—I wasn’t wowed by this revival in the way I was by LuPone’s and I can’t pinpoint why except I’m tired of the same shows being revived.  It has been awhile since LuPone’s show, although I was surprised how long ago it was.  It seems much more recent.  And three hours on a Friday night after a week of work is a long time to sit in an overheated space with no leg room.  I had seen a high-quality Broadway musical, for which I’m grateful, but it was still good to get out into the cold night air. 

'Swept Away' is compelling theatre

  

It makes me sad that all the talent, creativity and hard work behind Swept Away, the new musical at the Longacre Theatre, wasn’t rewarded with the healthy run it deserves.  It’s one of the best shows I’ve seen in this fall season that has offered the best shows of any fall season I can remember. 

It’s no wonder we get such a steady stream of formulaic jukebox musicals, the latest of which is this fall’s A Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong’s hits sung with spirit by James Monroe Iglehart in an otherwise mediocre show.  Originality is risky on Broadway.

Nothing is mediocre in director Michael Mayer’s Swept Away, a riveting 90-minute intermission-less story, perfectly scripted by John Logan.  It’s adapted from The Avett Brothers 2004 album “Mignonette,” which drew its inspiration from the shipwreck of a British vessel of that name that sank in 1884. The performances are award-worthy and the music is the best of the season.  It’s unfortunate that this show opened at a time when all of the 41 Broadway houses were full.  Too much competition, I guess, and no big name TV or movie stars to lure the tourists. 

Let’s start with the cast.  John Gallagher, Jr. (second from left in photo), Stark Sands (second from right), Adrian Blake Enscoe (right) and Wayne Duvall are the leads, backed by a strong ensemble of singer/dancers.  Choreographer David Neumann brings them together for lively numbers that, if we weren’t in a Broadway theatre, would have had us on our feet clapping and stomping our feet right along with them.  At least in the first half of the show.

That brings us to the Avett Brothers’ music, a blend of folk, country and Americana, music I love.  I listen to this kind of music for five hours on Sundays when I’m home — “Mountain Stage” from noon to 2 p.m. and “Common Threads” from 2 to 5 p.m. on WAER from Syracuse University.  I love standard Broadway fare — I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I didn’t — but I also love my Sunday country/folk music and I rarely get to hear it live in NYC.  The Swept Away band is fantastic under the direction of Will Van Dyke, with supervision, arrangements and orchestrations by Brian Usifer. 

As far as theatricality goes, you would have to go far to match the drama of the whaling ship’s capsizing and the four survivors’ transition into a lifeboat.  Neumann, scenic designer Rachel Hauck, lighting designer Kevin Adams and sound designer John Shivers work together for effects that are spectacular.

We’re introduced to the characters on the dock at New Bedford, MA, in 1888.  They are both individuals and archetypes.  Mate (Gallagher) was well educated but has become a wastrel and cynic.  Captain (Duvall) has a wife and children whom he has rarely seen since he has spent his life at sea.  This is to be the ship’s last voyage because kerosene and other products have replaced the need for whale oil. The 300-ton ship will then become scrap metal and Captain feels he might as well join it.  Little Brother (Enscoe) is in his late teens and is a classic innocent in search of adventure.  He loves his girlfriend and wants to marry her but escapes the farm to see the world first.  Big Brother (Sands) is a deeply religious Christian content with his life of farm and church who comes to bring his brother home but ends up heading out to sea as the ship sails with him still onboard.

All is lighthearted before setting sail as the cast fills the stage to sing a couple rousing numbers conveying their excitement.  “I’m a hard, hard worker everyday” and “Nothing’s going to change my mind” are fun and engaging.  But after all are dramatically swept away and only the survivors are left in a lifeboat, desperation builds.  After three weeks without a drop of water or bite of food and a scorching sun blazing down on them the conversation turns to ethical, moral and spiritual questions of what a person can do to survive. The climax is shocking in its speed. I left grateful for an afternoon of such compelling theatre and regretting that it was closing at the end of the month.

Swept Away began previews Nov. 14, opened Nov. 19 and its closing was announced for Dec. 15 until an unprecedented demand for tickets followed the closing announcement.  It was extended until Dec. 29.

I don’t know what the future will be for Swept Away.  I can’t imagine it going on a national tour.  Not after its short run and with its dark subject matter.  I do hope regional theatres will pick it up.  The capsizing will have to be scaled back but the show did begin in regional theatres, Berkeley Repertory followed by Arena Stage, and showed enough promise that it was moved to Broadway.  I would be happy to go see it again.