Broadway actress Maryann Plunkett brings to life the sadness and joy of Alzheimer's

Backstage Conversation with The Notebook Star Maryann Plunkett

The black and white photo on the dressing room mirror is of a woman, shot from behind, looking out a window at a snow-covered yard, with the backs of two little stuffed animals on the windowsill beside her. It evokes a sense of tranquility and timelessness. For the owner of this photo, Tony Award-winning actress Maryann Plunkett, it represents the presence of her mother in a tiny nook in a large Broadway theatre. 

Plunkett’s mother is present to her as well in the much grander space of the stage at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre where the 72-year-old actress is starring as Older Allie in The Notebook, the musical based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks, which became a movie starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling.

“I try to enter the world she lived.” That world is dementia. Plunkett’s mother died at 91 after living with the condition for many years. Allie is played by three different actresses, representing youth, early adult life and elderly with Alzheimer’s. The story at all levels is about the love between Allie and Noah. It’s captured in a notebook Allie wrote in those earlier stages, and it’s what Noah reads to her after she no longer knows him, in the hopes that the times portrayed may break through to her.

For large parts of the show Allie and Older Noah, played by Dorian Harewood, sit to the side of the stage while the young and early adulthood couples play out the memories Noah is sharing. Plunkett is intensely in character the entire time as Allie tries to understand this story that is her life. 

Plunkett, who received a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Older Allie, was drawn to the show by Bekah Brunstetter’s book and Ingrid Michaelson’s music and lyrics, as well as the story, which she can relate to her mother’s experience.

“I was clearly drawn to that. Allie’s an artist and my mom was a musician and she liked to doodle,” she says, pretending to draw on a book on her vanity table. “It’s the creative force in a person. I think the script and music and lyrics are so spare and so deep. It makes me honest. I really feel it.”

While Harewood is only pretending to be speaking the notebook’s words, Plunkett stays in character by watching the younger actors. She imagines Allie’s reaction.

“I’m (Allie) hearing a story. What am I seeing? I’m seeing parts of me that I don’t know.”

She said her mother was often looking for something and was afraid she would run out of money so the family kept a wallet in a drawer in the buffet with 20 one dollar bills in it. The denomination didn’t matter. Her mother felt secure counting all those bills.

“I brought a couple of moments like that. I try to enter the world she lived.”

Plunkett’s father, who died three and a half years before her mother, is also present at the Schoenfeld. Beside the photo of her mother, Plunkett has written on a small piece of paper the Latin expression Ab initio, meaning in beginning or from the beginning. This is how he signed all his cards to her mother.

Plunkett shared caregiving with her father and four siblings, going to Massachusetts from New York once a month for a week or four days twice a month. In the final years caregivers and nurses assisted.

 “There was also joy in the years with my Mother.  She had a curiosity and a seeking.  As sung in The Notebook, ‘the sadness and the joy'.”

Besides this personal element of the show, Plunkett appreciates that the older couple, which is the one making audiences cry the most, is portrayed seriously and not for laughs or sentimentality as is so often the case with older characters. Both she and Harewood have had long marriages. She and her husband, actor Jay O. Sanders, celebrated their 33rd anniversary Oct. 1.

Plunkett says she is frequently met at the stage door by people sharing their stories of a spouse or parent who had Alzheimer's. Twice someone has told her they’ve just been diagnosed with the condition. One of them said the show had given him hope that he might have a spark of memory as Allie does at the show’s end.

The musical, which played Chicago before beginning performance in New York in February, is ending Dec.15. It will begin a national tour in Cleveland in September.

Asked what she would tell her mother now about her understanding of the experience of living with dementia, she pauses and her eyes fill with tears.

“I’m getting emotional. Simply, ‘thank you.’ It’s been a joy being with her again.”

 

Julianna Margulies is back on Broadway, where she shines

 

Julianna Margulies is a marvel as she commands the stage at the James Earl Jones Theatre for nearly the entire 100 minutes of Delia Ephron’s Left on Tenth, the writer’s autobiographical play based on her best-selling memoir.  She’s absolutely radiant and a delight to watch as she portrays a middle-aged woman surprised to find love and romance six months after the death of Jerry, her beloved husband of 33 years, then is fully convincing as she lies in a hospital bed on the verge of death from leukemia, begging for release.  Why has she been away from the stage for so long?  She’s a natural.

Her last Broadway performance was in Festen in 2006.  I saw it but didn’t know who she was at the time so I don’t remember noticing her.  I loved her in her starring role as Alicia Florrick in the six-year run of “The Good Wife.”  She’s a natural for the small screen as well.  With one of the most expressive faces in the business, she was made for close-ups.

With only an awareness of her TV persona, I wasn’t prepared to be so wowed by her stage presence.  She’s a megawatt up there, looking fantastic in skinny black slacks and a large untucked shirt (costumes by Jeff Mahshie).  She gives that old workhorse, the romantic comedy, a brilliant shine.

Under Susan Stroman’s direction the story moves swiftly, and there’s a lot of story to reveal. Margulies as Ephron addresses the audience like a storyteller, unveiling her unusual background.  Born to “angry alcoholic parents,” a childhood in Beverly Hills, the second of four sisters, all writers.  “My childhood was scary, often violent.  With Jerry I found my first true home.  My first safe place.”

She was closest to her older sister, Nora, a writer, director and “reinventor of the romantic comedy.  We collaborated on screenplays for many of the movies she directed.  She often said we shared half a brain.”

Nora died of leukemia in 2012; Jerry of prostate cancer in 2015, “both with long illnesses before.”

For all of this she is alone on stage, except for a few minor characters coming and going.  Scenic designer Beowulf Boritt’s oval-shaped study with floor-to-ceiling books looks as if it could be behind the façade of the beautiful brownstones on Tenth Street in Greenwich Village.  It’s delightful not only to hear her tell her story, but to see her gracefully tap dance around the room as she relives the tap dancing she and Jerry used to do.

The seismic shift in her life, after so many seismic shifts, occurs after she writes an essay about her frustration dealing with Verizon, her phone and Internet carrier, that is published in the New York Times.  She receives an email from Peter (Peter Gallagher), a Jungian psychoanalyst and widower in the San Francisco Bay area who tells her they dated while she was in college after being introduced by Nora.  She has no memory of him but is intrigued enough to begin exchanging emails, followed by phone calls.  Then Peter comes to town and after a slightly awkward first date they continue getting to know each other until they both realize they can love again.  And survive Delia’s cancer, which they do together.  Peter flies back to San Franciso to let his patients know he will be gone for at least six weeks, then sleeps on a cot in Delia’s room.  Recognizing the fragility of her condition he proposes and they enjoy a hospital wedding, complete with friends.

The difference in locations is portrayed mostly by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s projections set above and behind the wall of the study.  They portray the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings on the right and rain on the left.  In one playful scene Yew even gives us a white shadow man silhouette to dance beside Margulies.  The hospital is a sterile white with little more than the bed and cot.  Lighting designers Ken Billington and Itohan Edoloyi create the chilly atmosphere of a hospital.

Kate MacCluggage and Peter Franics James skillfully play about a dozen featured characters, doctors, a Verizon repair man and friends.  Left on Tenth runs through Feb. 2. 

The Notebook The Musical “Lights The Stage in Teal” On Friday, November 1

 

This Friday, November 1, The Notebook The Musical will join more than 1,300 sites around the world to “Light the World in Teal,” bringing awareness to Alzheimer's disease as National Alzheimer's Awareness Month continues throughout November. Teal is the Alzheimer's Foundation of America's Alzheimer's awareness color.

Following that evening's performance at the Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway, cast members from The Notebook will deliver brief remarks to the audience as the stage is illuminated in teal. The event will honor the more than 55 million people worldwide who live with Alzheimer's or a related dementia.

AFA's Light the World in Teal initiative is designed to shine a spotlight on the growing, international health issue of Alzheimer's, which impacts more than 6.7 million Americans and more than 55 million people worldwide. The annual program, one of AFA's signature Alzheimer's awareness initiatives, takes place in November as part of Alzheimer's Awareness Month.  Last year, more than 1,000 sites around the world participated in the initiative, including sites in all 50 states in the U.S. and 13 foreign countries.

“Light the World in Teal aims to literally shine a spotlight on Alzheimer's disease and show support for the millions of people living with it,” said Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr., AFA's President and CEO. “Every site that signs up, whether it's a multi-story building or a single-family home, helps to highlight the issue of Alzheimer's disease. Sign up to shine up in teal for Alzheimer's awareness on November 1 by contacting AFA at 866-232-8484 or visiting www.lighttheworldinteal.com.”  

Based on the bestselling novel by Nicholas Sparks that inspired the iconic film, the new musical The Notebook is playing on Broadway through Sunday, December 15 before kicking off a 2025 national tour in Cleveland, OH, with other cities to be announced. Produced by Kevin McCollum and Kurt Deutsch, The Notebook features music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson and a book by playwright Bekah Brunstetter (writer and producer on NBC's “This Is Us,” The Cake). The production is directed by Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal, RENT) and Schele Williams (Aida, The Wiz), with choreography by Katie Spelman (Associate Choreographer on Moulin Rouge! The Musical).

The cast of The Notebook features Tony Award-winner Maryann Plunkett as Older Allie, Dorian Harewood as Older Noah, Aisha Jackson as Middle Allie, Ryan Vasquez as Middle Noah, Anna Zavelson as Younger Allie, Benji Santiago as Younger Noah, Andréa Burns as Mother/Nurse Lori, Carson Stewart as Johnny/Fin. Playing various roles are Yassmin Alers, Alex Benoit, Chase Del Rey, Hillary Fisher, Jerome Harmann-Hardeman, Dorcas Leung, Happy McPartlin, Juliette Ojeda, Kim Onah, Charles E. Wallace and Charlie Webb.

Allie and Noah, two people from different worlds, share a lifetime of love despite the forces that threaten to pull them apart in a deeply moving portrait of the enduring power of love. The musical is based on the book that has sold millions of copies worldwide and a film that is one of the highest-grossing romantic dramas of all-time.

The Notebook features scenic design by David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis, costume design by Paloma Young, lighting design by Ben Stanton, sound design by Nevin Steinberg, hair and wig design by Mia Neal, and projection design by Lucy Mackinnon. The production's music supervisor is Carmel Dean, who also collaborated on arrangements with Ingrid Michaelson and on orchestrations with John Clancy, and the music director is Geoffrey Ko. Casting by The Telsey Office, Patrick Goodwin, CSA.

The revival of 'Sunset Blvd.' in one word: DARK

The atmosphere is set from the moment you enter the St. James Theatre where British director Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webbers’ Sunset Blvd. opened last night.  The house lights were so dim I couldn’t read the Playbill.  Even before the first note from the orchestra, the theme of darkness was pervasive. 

Banking on the success of his Olivier Award-winning London production earlier this year, Lloyd is taking the chance that American audiences will appreciate two and a half hours of bleakness.  In his desire to tap into the grim 1950 film noir of the same title, Lloyd recreates that sensibility as much as possible.  Past Broadway productions have not been this stark and dark. I saw the 2017 revival with Glenn Close, who also starred in the original 1994 Broadway production, but it was much more subtle and so not as depressing. 

Soutra Gilmour’s costumes are all black and white.  In the first act the chorus of dancers wear black T-shirts except for a couple of white ones, black pants and black sneakers. They look as if they’ve stepped out of a Gap ad.  The attire is an appropriate match for Fabian Aloise’s athletic choreography.  

In the second act the women wear black slip dresses although they fade into the background in comparison to the ultimate wearer of a black slip dress, Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond, the former Hollywood silent film star now living in obscurity in her mansion with her ever-attentive manservant, Max (Olivier nominee David Thaxton).  Railing thin with straight shiny black hair that falls past her shoulders, the Olivier Award winner and Grammy nominee is the self-involved ice queen devoid of any humanity.  Her dancer’s body, in that clinging black dress for the entire show, is as flexible as rubber.  She is, as she should be, always the center of attention whether it’s as her fully dimensional self or one of the distracting projections.

Gilmour is also credited as scenic designer but not one speck of scenery is used.  It’s just the big, black stage and designer Jack Knowles’ appropriately joyless lighting and lots of smoke and fog. Not one drop of color appears until the final blood-streaked scene.  OK, we get the idea of a black and while film but just in case someone doesn’t, the actors appear in film projections behind them, some reaching as high as the proscenium.  It’s effectively eerie but overdone.  Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom provide the video design and cinematography.

I did like their filming of Joe Gillis (Oliver winner Tom Frances), the down-on-his-luck screenwriter who ends up moving into Desmond’s mansion to write a script to bring about her “return” to Hollywood (she hates the term “come back”).  In a scene I don’t understand but enjoyed, Gillis is filmed, in black and white, of course, backstage in his dressing room, then walking through the Theatre District followed by the dancers and stared at by the mingled tourists and theatergoers.

The scenes without the filming and without the chorus were the most effective for me, thanks to Max who is the only one who truly loves Desmond.  With the three of them alone on the black stage and a spotlight focus on them -- Desmond in the middle with the men on either side of her -- he reveals that he is her first of many husbands and that he has been sending the fan mail that she is so proud to still be receiving and that he faked a call from Paramount Studios asking her to make a new film.  “I made her a star and I will not let her be destroyed,” he sings.  He’s a big bruiser of a man but he’s the heart of the show.

Were I not a Drama Desk voter I would have happily passed on seeing this show again.  The anxiety of our close election is too upsetting.  We need a little Jerry Herman, right this very minute.  Mame, please.

 

Patti LuPone and Mia Farrow are roommates

 I hadn’t expected to like The Roommate, the one act play by Jen Silverman at the Booth Theatre.  In fact, I thought I would  hate it.  As a critic I like to approach shows having read little about them.  What I knew was that it sounded like a 2024 version of The Odd Couple — a meek Midwestern divorcee living alone in an Iowa farmhouse who takes in a lesbian from the Bronx sounded pretty ho-hum to me. 

I expected 90 minutes of sitcom humor, which I dislike.  The play does start that way but before long it throws us a sharp curve that gives it a real plot, a funny one that twists with unpredictable turns and momentum.

The show, directed with precision by Jack O’Brien, is a two-hander featuring A-Listers Patti LuPone and Mia Farrow.  I know I don’t have to tell you which role each plays.  While I am not a Farrow fan (to put it politely), her character is so richly drawn for comedy that she manages to steal the show from LuPone, a powerhouse if ever there was one.  Farrow’s timing is perfect and she seems to be having a blast playing Sharon.  She just keeps going as her character veers deeper and deeper into craziness, using just the right amount of subtlety and necessary understatement.  LuPone, as Robyn, can do little more than look on.

I won’t reveal the plot because that would spoil your enjoyment.  You’ll love it, and watching these veteran actors perform together you can’t miss the chemistry.  That’s unsurprising because they have been close friends for more than 30 years and live in the same county in northwestern Connecticut.  Farrow was offered her role first and LuPone joined the show based on the opportunity for them to work together for the first time. 

I like the way O’Brien handles their fame.  Before the play begins he has them walk onstage together to get ahead of that annoying applause American audiences give to famous performers as soon as they appear, often interrupting the story.  Their names are projected large behind them.  He could have skipped that.  We knew who they were before we arrived.  But it was nice to get the exuberant applause out of the way and begin the play uninterrupted.

People more familiar with television than I, which is just about everyone, will recognize the voice of Sharon’s son who calls from New York.  That voice belongs to Farrow’s real life son, the journalist Ronan Farrow.  I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t read that little tidbit. 

As we were leaving I said to my friend, “that was cute.”  She begrudgingly agreed but said she wouldn’t elevate her praise beyond that.  But that’s all it needs to be.  On a Friday night after a long week of work 90 minutes of cute is enough.  I can see complicated dramas another time.  I left the theatre happy.

This heart of rock and roll isn't beating

 

I have not seen a jukebox musical as torturously bad as The Heart of Rock and Roll since Escape to Margaritaville in 2018.  Even Huey Lewis and the News’s songs fail to give a spark of redemption in this two-and-a-half-hour time waster at the James Earl Theatre.

The success or failure of these types of shows is largely with the book writer, in this case, Jonathan A. Abrams, with a story – using that word loosely – by Tyler Mitchell and Abrams.  

Biographical jukeboxes work with a skilled writer because they tell a story.  In shows like Heart the story is contrived to fit around the songs.  Set in 1987, Bobby (Corey Cott) toils away on the assembly line at Stone Box Co. in Milwaukee, producing cardboard boxes while singing with his band and dreaming of a music career.  His love interest will be the boss’s daughter, Cassandra (McKenzie Kurtz), who manages to fill two stereotypes, ditzy blond and Type-A perfectionist.  He’s uninteresting; she’s annoying.

The only somewhat interesting character is Roz (Tamika Lawrence), the smart-aleck HR director.  She’s the one entrusted with probably the best-known song, “The Power of Love,” which I had been singing in my head all day in anticipation of hearing it performed live.  It’s the beloved song from the movie “Back to the Future.”  As I expected, it was the finale, only without the sizzle of Lewis’s recording or the power of a good send-off.  It sounded anemic compared to Lewis’s version.  The entire cast came out to surround Roz, smothering the effect of that good song.

Heart, which is directed by Gordon Greenberg, lacks another element of a good musical.  Lorin Latarro’s choreography relies heavily on the ensemble jumping up and down in number after number, with some somersaults and ballet moves interwoven.  Latarro is also the choreographer for the revival of Tommy, also recently opened on Broadway.  I loved her work on that show.

My guest left at intermission, something she says she never does, but there was nothing about The Heart of Rock and Roll that made her want to stay.  

'The Wiz' is belting on down the road

 

If you like camp, silliness, intense neon colors everywhere and BELTING, you will love the Broadway revival of The Wiz at the Marquis Theatre.  I often appreciate camp, rarely enjoy silliness, like neon to an extent and never like belting, so it was a mostly tedious two and a half hours for me.

I’ve never seen this all-Black retelling of The Wizard of Oz so I didn’t know what to expect.  I’ve had the original cast recording for decades and love the songs. I’m glad I had that album because the sound quality last night was so poor I needed to rely on hearing the songs in my head instead of from the stage.  With songs that weren’t on the album, I was lost, especially when the Scarecrow (Avery Wilson) sang.  My friend Mary, a singer, also had difficulty understanding the words. She thought for awhile that they were lip-syncing but decided by the end that they probably weren’t.  With music supervision and orchestrations by veteran Joseph Joubert they definitely would not have been lip-syncing.

This is a shame because Charlie Smalls’s score is fantastic, a combination of gospel, soul and R&B.  The actor I could most consistently understand was Phillip Johnson Richardson as the Tinman.  I loved his “If I Could Feel.”  I also loved when Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tinman sang and danced “Ease on Down the Road,” a song that was playing in my head from my record before I even entered the theatre.  

The star of the show for me was the actual star of the show, Nichelle Lewis, making her Broadway debut as Dorothy.   At 24 she is older than Stephanie Mills, who was 17 when she originated the role in 1975, but Lewis has a youthful and energetic spirit that is endearing from start to finish.  She was every bit a girl on an adventure for me and I could understand most of what she sang, except during her extreme belts.  She’s got an easy rhythm and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself.  I just wish she had Toto but for some reason she goes on her journey to the Emerald City without her trusted dog, who isn’t even mentioned.  Rounding out the threesome who do join her to find the Wiz (Wayne Brady) is Kyle Ramar Freeman as the Lion.

Any subtly in the show ends early when scenic designer Hannah Beachler’s gray and white Kansas farmhouse transitions into Oz.  I liked how choreographer JaQuel Knight created the tornado from swirling dancers in gray jumpsuits and capes (costumes by Sharen Davis).  It was all busyness after that.

Schele Williams directs this production for which Amber Ruffin has updated William F. Brown’s book. The original 1975 show won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical.  I don’t expect this one to be anywhere near as honored.

Eden Espinosa is dynamic as Lempicka on Broadway

 

Many times over the years I’ve walked out of a Broadway musical thinking, I want to go back.  Never, though, have I been so enamored with a show as I was with Lempicka that I’m now considering booking a flight across the country because I want more.  More of this fascinating woman, that is. 

Tamara de Lempicka was a sought-after artist in the 1930s and 40s in Paris before falling into obscurity as tastes changed.  Carson Kreitzer and Matt Gould are telling her story -- “inspired” by her life and art -- and Eden Espinosa is brilliantly bringing her to life at the Longacre Theatre in a new musical directed by Rachel Chavkin.  I was so captivated by her story and artistic vision that I reread a New York Times feature that mentioned her work will have its first major museum retrospective in the United States, at the de Young Museum in San Francisco starting in October.  I immediately wanted to plan a trip.  I was only in that charming city once, when I was in college, and have always hoped to go back.  Now I have a good reason. 

Lempicka was a strong, independent woman who painted portraits and modern women like herself in a modernist Art Deco style; a great many were nudes.  Although the story spans more than a half century, little is known about her early life except that she was born in the 1890s in Poland to a Russian mother and a Polish father whom she describes as a Jewish merchant.  We first encounter her as an old, forgotten and alone woman on a park bench in Los Angeles who tells us her story, beginning in 1916 when she was a pretty young woman married to a Russian aristocrat, Tadeusz Lempicka.  The 1917 revolution toppled that privileged life in St. Petersburg when her husband was jailed and she had sex with his Bolshevik captors to free him.  “You walked in here a little rich girl,” one of them tells her. “Now you’re walking out a whore.”

They leave Russia with their infant daughter and little money and settle in Paris in 1918.  Tadeusz, unaccustomed to work, can’t find a job.  She had always loved to paint so she began formal training and started displaying her work in the streets of Paris, taking on the role of breadwinner while following her passion.  Her work catches the attention of intellectuals and Paris’s modern set, and she was the toast of the city’s fallen aristocrats and nightclub goers. 

Andrew Samonsky portrays her husband and Amber Iman her lover, Rafaela, with whom she carries on an affair in full knowledge of her husband with whom she maintains her marriage.  Standing at least six feet tall and railing thin, Iman is soulful, with a vulnerable core.  I believed in both relationships.  “I had the great good fortune to love not once, but twice,” Tamara tells us at the beginning.  “And I had the great misfortune to love them both at the same time.”

They have beautiful voices and Kreitzer has given them lovely lyrics that movingly and clearly tell their stories and the larger one, with music by Gould.

Raja Feather Kelly’s choreography has all the sizzle and excitement a show about this artist deserves.  And Paloma Young’s costumes are a lush delight.  Scenic designer Riccardo Hernandez’s layered platforms allow the story to move easily from apartment to nightclub and to the street.

It’s been 14 years since a friend suggested to Kreitzer, a playwright who likes to write about unconventional women, that she look into the complex and glamorous life and extraordinary talent of Lempicka, who was always better known in Europe than here, saying this woman who was far ahead of her time would be a good subject.  Several well-known people already knew this.  Madonna, Barbra Streisand and Jack Nicholson are collectors.

As Kreitzer researched, she began envisioning a musical as the proper vehicle, even though she had never written one.  Over the years it had readings, workshops, regional productions and premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2018 with Espinosa starring.  The pandemic slowed its arrival on Broadway.  

The friend who came up from Virginia to see the show with me and loved it -- we were both in tears at the end -- wants to go with me to San Francisco for the art exhibit and a friend from high school who heard about my plans wants to come too.  I feel this is going to happen.  Thank you to all involved with Lempicka.   California here we come. 

'The Who's Tommy'

 The music and dancing in the Broadway revival of The Who’s Tommy at the Nederlander Theatre are fabulous but I left feeling disappointed by the production, which is directed by Des McAnuff.  After an exciting first act the story more or less falls away in the second.  And Ali Louis Bourzgui, in his Broadway debut, doesn’t have the magnetism to carry the act as the adult Tommy, or at least he didn’t when I saw him last night.  I was surprised to read in Playbill that he won a Jeff Award for his performance in the Goodman Theatre pre-Broadway production last summer.

I’ve loved the music since it was released as a rock opera concept album in 1969.  I was in elementary school but I appreciated the electrifying score.  I bought the cassette and wore it out.

Pete Townshend’s music, under the direction of Ron Melrose, is still thrilling.  And choreographer Lorin Latarro’s syncopated dances with the large chorus are exciting as they fill David Korins’s stylized, minimalistic sets.  Amanda Zieve’s broodingly dark lighting interspersed with vibrant colors and Peter Nigrini’s projections all create the perfect atmosphere for the popular rock score.

So much drama is packed, and carried out well, in the first act that there was hardly anywhere left for the book, written by Townshend and McAnuff, to go.

It’s a creepy story, starting in England in 1941 when Mrs. Walker (Alison Luff) get a telegram that her husband, Captain Walker (Adam Jacobs), was killed in the war.  She is pregnant and months later gives birth to Tommy.  I was happy to hear “It’s a Boy” again.  It’s been years since I’ve heard any of this music.

Four years later Tommy (Olive Ross-Kline last night) is at home with his mother and her lover (an unnamed Nathan Lucrezio) when Captain Walker unexpectedly comes home after being released from a P.O.W. camp.  When a fight breaks out between the men, Mrs. Walker turns Tommy away, unaware that he is now looking in the large mirror of the wardrobe.  Captain Walker shoots and kills the lover and Tommy witnesses it all.  Frightened, his parents sing frantically and insistently to him: “You didn’t hear it./You didn’t see it./You won’t say nothing to no one/ever in your life./You never heard it./How absurd it’ll/seem without any proof.”  They conclude with: “Never tell a soul/What you know is the truth.”  From that point on Tommy is emotionally “that deaf, dumb and blind kid” we know so well from “Pinball Wizard.”

Most of this, like all of the story, is told through song and pantomime.  Little dialogue is used.  That’s interesting to watch even if it distances the story.

Walker is cleared after a court rules he acted in self-defense.  The parents spend considerable time taking Tommy to doctors who lift and manipulate his tiny body trying to connect with him, to no avail.  Olive plays unresponsive beautifully, not tensing her body or allowing it to go rag doll limp.  Ten-year-old Tommy (Quinten Kusheba) is also excellent in Tommy’s unresponsiveness as he is sexually molested by Uncle Ernie (John Ambrosino) and bullied and physically abused by Cousin Kevin (Bobby Conte).

But Cousin Kevin ends up giving Tommy a surprising new way to live.  He takes him to an arcade where Tommy outplays everybody through “sense of smell” and “intuition.”  The act ends in a rousing “Pinball Wizard” performed by the Local Lads, Cousin Kevin and the Ensemble.

After all that drama and trauma Act Two dragged for me.  Even Tommy’s awakening seemed anti-climactic.  It was nice to hear “I’m Free” again but, as I mentioned, Bourzgui didn’t give it the electricity it needs.  The show is only two hours and 10 minutes.  Doing it without an intermission would have helped. 

'Water for Elephants' is water for the soul

 

The circus has come to town, and it’s wrapped in a new Broadway musical, Water for Elephants, at the Imperial Theatre.  Together, under the thoughtful direction of Jessica Stone, they complement each other perfectly to create an enchanting evening of escape and joy.

What I appreciated was the simplicity.  Ever since Andrew Lloyd Webber’s shows began transferring regularly to Broadway in the 1980s musicals have competed to add more and more extravaganza, which I tired of long ago.  

Elephants has the element of a real life circus in it, which sounds as if it is an extravagance, but this circus is set in 1931 when skilled women and men performed with just their highly trained bodies.  To watch them soar, suspended by just a single rope, and perform their acrobatics is thrilling, a significant contrast to today’s overdone circuses like Cirque du Soleil with all its bells, whistles and high tech.  

I was transported to the circuses of my 1960s childhood.  My father took me and my friend Gina every year to both the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the Shine Circus in Baltimore.  My favorite was the Shrine Circus because it had just one ring for me to focus on, rather than three. 

Those good memories are the basis of my appreciation for what Stone has created.  She cast seven professional circus performers to bring to life the circus at the heart of this story.

Elephants was first a best-selling book by Sara Gruen, then a movie, neither of which I was familiar with.  It’s a simple story, which as you can tell is appealing to me.  A young man, Jacob Jankowski (Grant Gustin) is all set to go into a veterinary practice with his father.  Right before his final exam at Cornell University his parents are killed instantly in a car accident.  Two days later a sign arrives in the mail, Jankowski & Son.  Broke after the bank took their house and with no other family, Jacob leaves school without taking his final to qualify him to practice and hops a train heading to upstate New York.  He sings “Anywhere”: This train is bound for anywhere./I’m going there too./Don’t care much where we end up/as long as it’s new/and free of everything behind me.”  

Once onboard, he learns it’s a circus train taking the show from town to town  He asks Camel (Stan Brown) for a job for one day so he can buy food.  The other workers see him as a threat but he assures them he’s not trying to take their jobs.  “Just a day and I’ll be gone/I’ve got nothing left to lose.”  That’s fine with Camel, who tells him, “You didn’t jump just any old train, son.  This here’s the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.  Welcome to the circus.”

And so Jacob’s new life begins.  When the Ringmaster and circus owner, August (Paul Alexander Nolan), a dazzler in the spotlight who abuses his wife, Marlena (Isabelle McCalla), employees and the animals, finds out about Jacob’s background he hires him for “three bucks a week” as a traveling vet.

The unfurling is nicely framed by the elderly Jacob (Gregg Edelman), now a retired veterinarian living in a senior residence, visiting a contemporary circus and regaling them with tales of his experience.  “Man,” he says with feeling, “this place.  The sawdust, the smells.  It’s old but it’s new.”

Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll’s choreography never overwhelm the story.  Neither does Carroll’s circus design.  In keeping with this balance are Rick Elice’s book, Pigpen Theatre Co.’s music, Takeshi Kata’s scenic design, David Israel Reynoso’s costumes and Bradley King’s lighting.  All elements come together like clockwork.  The two hours and 40 minutes flew by.

While the acrobats are magnificent, a circus is nothing without animals.  These are people-powered puppets designed by Ray Wetmore & JR Goodman and Camille Labarre.  I loved Rosie the life-sized white elephant. 

And I loved the sweet ending, which I won’t spoil for you.  Make your own escape to Water for Elephants. 

Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli headline 'An Enemy of the People' revival

 

Playwright Amy Herzog has once again taken a beloved Henrik Ibsen classic and made it more accessible — and shorter — without cheapening its worth.  This time it’s An Enemy of the People at Circle in the Square, tautly directed by Sam Gold and wonderfully acted by Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli.

I had high expectations having enjoyed Herzog’s adaptation of A Doll’s House last year and I was not disappointed.  I’ve liked both plays since I first read them in college.  Ibsen was a revolutionary.  Many people were outraged to see a wife and mother leave her family in A Doll’s House.  I understood Nora’s need for independence and loved that a man from that time had created her.   But Ibsen was writing for long 19th century Norwegian nights.  Enemy, especially, can drag at times and come off as didactic.  Herzog and Gold’s production is well paced throughout, reducing the five act play to two hours with no intermission.  They are wife and husband collaborating on their first stage production together. 

It’s a story of greed and political self-interest that, unfortunately, is as timely as 2020.  Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Strong) is a small town doctor who discovers that the town’s water is toxic and warns of a pandemic if the situation isn’t addressed.  He could be a fictional Dr. Anthony Fauci.  All we have to do is think back four years to the fierce divide between red states and blue over COVID restrictions and we can understand Stockmann’s plight.  Fortunately Fauci wasn’t stoned as Stockmann is but had he been in a small southern town he could have faced a violent attack. 

When the play opens Stockmann has returned to his hometown on the coast with his grown daughter, Petra (Victoria Pedretti), after living in a remote region until his wife died.  This is one of Herzog’s changes, cutting out the character of the wife who in the original play is a shrill opponent of her husband’s principled stand.  I didn’t miss her.

The town had always attracted, on a small scale, people suffering from various ailments because of the healing power of its hot springs.  In Stockmann’s absence, under the direction of his brother, Peter, who is mayor (Imperioli), big plans to turn the town into a major resort and spa are well under way, creating an abundance of jobs and the promise of wealth to all who invest.

At first the doctor is esteemed for discovering the contamination.  But when he calls for all plans for the resort to be stopped while an expensive, years long rebuilding of the water system is undertaken, the townsfolk turn on him swiftly.

Ibsen, considered the father of modern drama, was a moralist. Arthur Miller said he was greatly influenced by Ibsen’s plays.  Herzog has said the same.  In Miller’s case this is most obvious in his 1948 drama All My Sons in which Joe Keller, a self-made industrialist in World War II, discovers that a plane part at his manufacturing plant is defective but allows production to continue rather than face a costly work stoppage.  When a plane crashes and kills all onboard Keller frames his business partner.  Like Ibsen, Miller knew that when taking the moral road has a high price tag many people will leave their morals on the roadside and keep going. 

The action in Enemy is well served by the scenic design  company dots, as well as the theatre itself, which is in-the-round.  In the first act simple furnishings, in keeping with Norwegian sensibilities, create a dining room, living room and newspaper office.  I was thrown at first by what turned out to be the most unusual set change I’ve seen in a long time.  Before I realized what was happening the furnished rooms gave way to a pub and the audience was invited onstage for a drink in what we were told would be a five minute break.  It turned out to be more like 20 minutes to serve the lines of people waiting.  Some audience members had been asked to take seats onstage to represent the people at what becomes a town meeting.  I didn’t see how that contributed to the scene.  They were incongruous in their sneakers and casual clothes against David Zinn’s evocative period costumes.

But the set allows Stockmann to climb onto the bar to try in vain to make his case.  It highlights him as the solitary crusader he has become, who has now been deemed an enemy of the people.  Luckily he survives their stoning and tells Petra they will go to America where things like that don’t happen.  This draws laugher and applause.  He’s probably right about not being stoned.  We used bullets now instead.

This was the most satisfying production of An Enemy of the People I’ve ever experienced.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Herzog has in store for us next.  Hedda Gabler, please.