B'way/Off-B'way Reviews: Purpose, Last Call, Love Life

LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Jon Michael Hill,
Glenn Davis and Alana Arenas 
in Purpose.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

The family drama is making a dynamic comeback this theater season. Cult of Love, The Blood Quilt, We Had a World, and now Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Purpose have taken the template of a family gathering where secrets are revealed and battle lines drawn to new heights. The production, directed with a sure hand by Phylicia Rashad, is now at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater after a successful run at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. A powerful cast ignites the playwright’s intergenerational conflict within a prominent African-American family. 

Even though some of the plot devices are familiar, Jacobs-Jenkins breathes new life into them. One character spends a lot of time offering exposition in lengthly monologues to the audience, and, just as in Cult of Love, Second Stage’s earlier offering this season, a convenient heavy snowstorm keeps the combative characters from leaving the fray. Last season, Second Stage revived his Appropriate in which a white family must confront its history of racism. Here he shows the opposite side of the coin. The setting is the impressive Chicago home of the Jaspers (Todd Rosenthal designed the attractive set complete with many paintings and mementoes telling us important details about the residents.) Father Solomon or “Sonny” and mother Claudine were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement and are still important members of the community and nationally famous. Sons Nazareth or “Naz,” a reclusive nature photographer, and Solomon Junior, a disgraced politician just out of jail for white-collar crime, are visiting. (Naz is the loquacious narrator, explaining the background for us.) Also in the house are Junior’s bitter wife Morgan, about to enter prison for charges related to her husband’s, and Aziza, a friend of Naz’s who is dazzled by his parents’ glorious reputations. 

Jon Michael Hill, Alana Arenas, Kara Young
and Glenn Davis in Purpose.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

How these six come into conflict is the stuff of Jacobs-Jenkins’ drama. Both Naz and Junior have disappointed their demanding father. Junior and Morgan’s marriage is falling apart and that of Solomon and Claudine is showing cracks. Solomon’s past sexual indiscretions are beginning to resurface. The true nature of Naz and Aziza’s relationship is gradually brought to light, causing shock waves. The climate crisis, the racist prison system, the roadblocks and speed bumps against social justice erected by the Trump administration (though that name is never mentioned) all come in for full debate. And, of course, hidden agendas and secrets are revealed in an explosive dinner scene, staged with perfect building tension by Rahsad. Through the Jaspers’ struggles, Jacobs-Jenkins takes the temperature of the current African-American experience. He also leavens the proceedings by giving Solomon the unusual hobby of beekeeping which provides an important plot twist. Using humor and pathos Jacobs-Jenkins delineates the frustrations and ambiguities of the aftermath of the Civil Rights struggles and the current search for purpose.  

Book Review: Onlookers: Stories by Ann Beattie

(Taken out of the NYPL, 40th Street, Manhattan) Several books ago, I wrote that I could pen a parody of John Irving: bears or lions, transgender characters, somebody spending their growing up in Europe and winding up a writer. Now, I feel like I could do a satire of an Ann Beattie short story after having reading so many of them. A female narrator is at a crossroads. She's doing some kind of typical activity, like cleaning her house or visiting an elderly relative. Every moment of her day calls to mind a friend, relative or casual acquaintance which in turn calls to mind a plethora of eccentric but incredibly specific details like a favorite song, book, or keepsake. 

Onlookers, Beattie's latest collection, fits the bill. Six long short stories or short novellas chronicle the tribulations of a group of interrelated Charlottesville, Virginia residents in 2020. They're in a state of transition and uncertainty. Each is affected by the COVID pandemic, the 2017 Unite the Right march and counterprotest, Trump's presidency, and the controversy of Confederate statues. As with most of Beattie's work, there were times when there were so many characters I couldn't keep track of who was who--particularly in the last piece "The Bubble." 

At first it was about a worker in a nursing home, engaged to two different women in quick succession. Then the focus shifts to his older female co-worker who has a husband recovering from an injury, and two difficult sons, one of whom is mixed up with the torchbearers at the racist protest. Plus there is a girl working at the home making a graphic novel ridiculing the staff and patients. Then someone has a baby in the ladies room at alternative arts center and there seems to be another demonstration around the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, but it turns out to be a movie being filmed. Really confusing.

I liked the first story "Pegasus" and the third, "Nearby," because I could more or less follow them. In "Pegasus," a young writer is living with her fiancee's father, a retired doctor, while her intended is in Japan pursuing an acting job. She establishes a loving connection with her future father-in-law and the theme of chosen families in uncertain times is clear.

"Nearby" follows a literature professor as she helps one of her students pay for new tires on his dilapidated car and then witnesses yet another protest with her husband who is also in recovery. 

Some Beattie works such as the novel, My Life Starring Dara Falcon, I found difficult to get into because I couldn't identify with any of the loopy characters. Except for the eccentric "Bubble," I felt a connection with these Charlottesville people.

B'way Update: The Return of Scott Rudin

Banished producer Scott Rudin says 
he's gone through therapy, made apologies,
 and plans toreturn to Broadway.

According to the New York Times, producer Scott Rudin is planning a return to Broadway following a long absence due to his abusive behavior with subordinates. Rudin stepped away from producing on stage and film in 2021 after articles in the Hollywood Reporter and New York magazine alleged his verbal abuse, bullying, throwing objects, pushing assts. from a moving car, smashing a computer on an assistant's hand and firing an assistant for bringing him the wrong kind of muffin. He also resigned from the Broadway League and withdrew from the Broadway revival of The Music Man as well as from five A24 films including Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once, and  Alex Garland's Men. He has won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and 18 Tony Awards. Rudin states he has undergone therapy and apologized publicly and to certain individuals. 

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock
in Little Bear Ridge Road at Steppenwolf.
Credit: Michael Brosilow

In the Times article, Rudin states he plans to produce Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale, Grangeville) in the fall. The play will star Laurie Metcalf, following the play's premiere last year at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company, directed by Tony winner Joe Mantello. The play, set as most of Hunter's works are in Idaho, centers on an estranged aunt and nephew settling the estate of their brother and father at the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. In the spring, Rudin will reunite Metcalf and Mantello as star and director for David Hare's new play Montauk. A revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is planned for the 2026-27 season to star Nathan Lane and Metcalf with Mantello directing. Such a production with Lane, Metcalf and Mantello was announced in 2020, but the pandemic shut down theaters and another Salesman with Wendell Pierce came to Broadway from London after the theaters re-opened. (Presumably, Metcalf will have more time for the stage now that The Conners is ending its seven-season run on ABC.)

Rudin also intends to present Cottonfield by Bruce Norris (Clybourne Park, Downstate) and directed by Robert O'Hara (Shit. Meet. Fan.) on Broadway in the fall of 2025. (Side note: The New York magazine article from 2021 says that Rudin pulled out of the Broadway production of Clybourne Park and two other Norris plays when the actor-playwright withdrew from a Rudin-produced HBO pilot.) There will also be an Off-Broadway production of Wallace Shawn's What We Did Before Our Moth Days, directed by Andre Gregory, Shawn's co-star from My Dinner With Andre.

B'way/Off-Bway Reviews: The Picture of Dorian Gray; Othello; The Jonathan Larson Project

Sarah Snook in The Picture of
Dorian Gray.
Credit: Marc Brenner

In a dazzling feat of technology and acting pyrotechnics, Sarah Snook of Succession fame  plays 26 characters and brings Oscar Wilde’s 1891 classic of gothic horror The Picture of Dorian Gray to vital life in the 21st Century. Adapter-director Kip Williams employs a small army of black-clad camera operators and a flotilla of flying video screens to create a modern update on this shattering morality tale. Not surprisingly, our era of shallow Instagram posts and click-bait is a perfect fit for Wilde’s story of the titular libertine whose portrait ages while he remains young and beautiful.

Williams’ ingenious staging combines live action with multiple video reflections emphasizing Wilde’s theme of deceptive pretty surfaces concealing inner corruption. The intricate video design is by David Bergman. When we first enter the Music Box Theater, we are greeted by a gigantic screen and an empty stage. Snook is first discovered way upstage being filmed. The actual actress is dwarfed by her cinematic reproduction. As she switches roles, she employs simple props like a paintbrush to denote the artist Basil Hallward and a cigarette for the hedonistic Lord Harry Wotton to puff. She is then fitted with a blonde wig in order to become the self-absorbed Dorian Gray and then something miraculous happens. Various versions of Snook as different characters appear on the screens and she interacts with herself, creating the illusion of a stage full of actors. This reinforces the theme of surface versus soul. 

Sarah Snook in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Credit: Marc Brenner

As the evening progresses, the screens multiply, flying in and out of the action, creating a ballet of reality conflicting with reproduction. The action sometimes spills backstage and into the bowels of the theater, recreating a low dive. At one point, an entire dinner party is simulated as five Snooks dine with the genuine article (it’s hard to tell which is the real one.) Marg Howell’s sumptuous Victorian-era costumes come in handy here in distinctly differentiating the characters, and a special shout-out to hair and make-up supervisor Nick Eynaud. Snook’s acting is magnificent in conjuring up the spectrum of British society from the upper crust to the lower dregs. She’s especially moving in depicting Dorian’s conflict over his narcissistic indulgence and eventual guilt. She’s also hilariously inept as the actress Sybil Vane, Dorian’s love object, purposefully acting badly as Juliet.

Sarah Snook in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Credit: Marc Brenner

Sybil is one of the few female roles and Snook’s easy leaping back and forth over the gender line emphasizes the queer sensibility of Wilde’s original. Lord Harry is obviously sexually attracted to Dorian and acting on the love that dare not speak its name is most likely among the many “sins” that Dorian commits during his pursuit of pleasure at all costs. 

Modern technology is also more directly interjected into this 19th century tale, but the contemporary flourishes do not feel forced. It seems like the most natural thing in the world for Lord Harry and his Billie Burke-like aunt to whip out their I-phones to text their snide witticisms on London society and for the stagehands to inject them with Botox as they sip tea. In one bravura sequence, Snook as Dorian alters his/her appearance through filters on an I-phone which is projected on one of the giant screens. Dorian literally changes before our very eyes. All these clicks and tweaks are executed by Snook while delivering Wilde’s scintillating prose, seemingly without taking a breathe. A mini-tour de force within a larger one.

Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal 
in Othello.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

While Sarah Snook is believably performing two dozen characters, Denzel Washington is giving a showy, actor-ly accounting of the title role in Shakespeare’s Othello at the Barrymore while his above-the-title co-star Jake Gyllenhaal focuses on the inner workings of Othello’s nemesis Iago and shows us more of the character than the actor. Kenny Leon’s high-profile production is making the headlines because of its exorbitant ticket prices (the top ducat is nearly $1,000). The big query on many theatergoers’ minds is: is the revival really worth that much? That’s an individual question of taste and priority, but my take is this is a decent enough production which grips the audience and imparts the Bard’s intense depiction of jealousy. It’s not spectacular but it’s a satisfying evening.

B'way Update: John Krasinki, Private Lives, Beaches, James Taylor

SAG winner and Emmy nominee John Krasinski (The Office, A Quiet Place) will star in the debut production of Studio Seaview (formerly Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theater), Angry Alan, a solo play about a man diving into a digital rabbit hole. Penelope Skinner's dark comedy premiered during the 2018 Edinburgh Festival. Tony winner Sam Gold directs. Previews begin May 23 with an official opening of June 11 for a 10-week limited run. Krasinki last appeared Off-Broadway in Dry Powder at the Public Theater in 2016.

“I couldn’t be more excited to be returning to Off Broadway, and to be surrounded by such a force of talent in Penny and Sam is quite literally a dream scenario,” Krasinski said in a statement.

Private Lives: It's a bit early,  but we have our first production of the 2026-27 season. Jeffrey Richards, Playful Productions, Rebecca Gold, and M/B/P Productions have announced they will present a revival of Noel Coward's 1931 comedy Private Lives sometime two seasons ahead. No news of casting or creative personnel yet.

Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward
in Private Lives.

Coward's mannered comedy concerns divorced couple Elyot and Amanda who encounter each other while on their respective honeymoons with new spouses. This will be the ninth Broadway production of the play. Previous outings have earned Best Actress Tonys for Tammy Grimes and Lindsay Duncan and a nomination for Maggie Smith. There have also been stagings starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier, Tallullah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Joan Collins and Simon Jones, and Kim Catrall and Paul Gross. 

Beaches Launches Tour: The musical version of Beaches, based on Iris Rainer Dart's novel and the

Shoshana Bean and Whitney Bashor in
the Signature Theater, Wash. DC
production of Beaches the Musical.
Credit: Brett Beiner

1988 film starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, will launch a pre-Broadway national tour in the fall of 2026. The show features music by Grammy winner Mike Stoller with lyrics by Dart and a book by Dart and Thom Thomas developed in collaboration with David Austin. Tony nominee Lonny Price (Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Sunset Boulevard revival) directs. Beaches had a production in Calgary in 2024 and developmental productions in Washington, DC and Chicago.

James Taylor Musical: Grammy winner James Taylor joins Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Carol King, Tina Turner, Cher,

James Taylor

Frankie Valle and the Four Seasons, the Beach Boys, and numerous other pop music stars to have his songbook serve as the basis of a musical. Fire and Rain will feature an original story by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracey Letts (August: Osage County) and direction by Tony winner David Cromer (The Band's Visit). Taylor's songs have previously appeared in the 1978 Broadway musical Working.

B'way Reviews: Operation Mincemeat; Buena Vista Social Cub

Two disparate musicals originating away from Broadway, one in London and the other Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Club, recently opened with a day of each other and separated by one theater. Operation Mincemeat debuted at the Golden and Buena Vista Social Club set up shop at the Schoenfeld (sandwiched between them is The Outsiders, last year’s Best Musical Tony winner, at the Jacobs.) Both shows take their inspiration from real events and spin dazzling entertainments out of them.

Zoe Roberts, Jak Malone, Natasha Hodgson,
David Cumming, and Claire-Marie Hall in
Operation Mincemeat.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Operation Mincemeat is a riotously funny satire combining elements of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Beyond the Fringe, and those marvelous movies depicting the British struggle to defeat Hitler such as The Battle of Britain, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing and The Imitation Game. A nimble cast of five (three of whom collaborated on the book, music and lyrics) play all the characters in a madcap send-up of stiff-upper-lip tributes to the English homefront and spy thrillers. The versatile ensemble crosses gender lines with ease with the three women playing numerous male roles and the two men enacting females with dexterity.

The truth-based plot follows the wacky scheme to deceive German intelligence by placing false information about British troop plans on the corpse of a derelict disguised as a pilot. Of course, there are twists and turns involving internal rivalries within MI5, Spanish coroners, Yank fliers, submarine crews and double agents. But along the way, we get innovative comedy numbers as well as believable character development. The participants in the stratagem are depicted not just as cartoonish caricatures but three-dimensional people with motivations beyond eliciting laughs. The clever script and score by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoe Roberts operates on several levels; it’s a musical spoof as well as a convincing espionage nail-biter. Robert Hastie’s fast-paced direction strikes the perfect balance between zany lampooning and honest portraiture.

Jak Malone and Zoe Roberts in
Operation Mincemeat.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The best example of this dichotomy of drama and comedy occurs when Jak Malone as Hester Leggatt, the ultra-efficient female staff member usually charged with preparing tea and taking dictation, makes a vital contribution to the operation. In the song “Dear Bill,” she creates a letter from a sweetheart to be placed on the cadaver to make his false mission convincing to the Germans. In Malone’s tender rendering, it becomes gradually clear that Hester is reliving a personal heartache from the previous war and the tragedy of combat and death intrudes on the breakneck farce. In contrast, Malone is delightfully ghoulish as the supplier of dead bodies and zestfully brash as an American pilot. In addition to “Dear Bill,” highlights include a shockingly funny Nazi number which approaches “Springtime for Hitler” from The Producers in its brash mockery and a Marx-Brothers mishmash involving hats and telephone chords as the status of the dead body is juggled between national authorities. Both of these and the rest of the zingy numbers feature Jenny Arnold’s inventive choreography.

Book Review: The Body Artist

(Borrowed from NYPL, 40th St., Manhattan)  I'll be frank. I picked this slim Don DeLillo novella because it was short. (Still not willing to go back to Peter Bogdanovich's insider-baseball interview with Fritz Lang.) It's beautifully written as with all of DeLillo's work, but confusing. A performance artist is mourning the suicide of her older husband, a revered filmmaker. A mysterious strange man shows up in their rented house on the New England coast. He appears to be mentally challenged and repeats phrases from the late husband, jumbled with other seemingly random sentences. (Some of the dialogue reminded me of Samuel Beckett.) The artist is inspired to create a new piece using her own body and she tries to decipher the mystery of her visitor. DeLillo never explains the meaning of the visitor and the ending didn't make sense to me. I did enjoy the description of a typical morning between the artist and the filmmaker which opens the book. The minute details of fixing breakfast, fleeting thoughts, observing birds at feeders, and avoiding conversation were meticulously observed and fascinating to read. DeLillo's books are always interesting, but this one puzzled me. A cold, clinical study of grief with more questions than answers.  

Interview: Orchestrator Doug Besterman's B'way Triple Play

Doug Besterman has three
shows running on Broadway this season.

After 31 Broadway shows, three Tony and two Drama Desk Awards, orchestrator Doug Besterman is achieving a rare feat: three shows running simultaneously in one season. Death Becomes Her opened to rave reviews in November at the Lunt-Fontanne and two dissimilar shows: Smash and Boop! The Musical are now in previews at the Imperial and the Broadhurst respectively. Besterman made his Broadway debut working in collaboration with James Raitt on the 1994 revival of Damn Yankees. He has won Tonys for his work co-orchestrating with Ralph Burns on Fosse and Thoroughly Modern Millie and won a solo Tony for The Producers. His numerous other credits include A Bronx Tale, It Shoulda Been You, Dracula, Seussical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and many more.

Film credits include the live action version of Beauty and The Beast, and Frozen. TV credits include the Marc Shaiman/Scott Witman compositions for Smash, Schmigadoon, ABC’s version of Annie, The Sound of Music Live, and Peter Pan Live

I managed to snag a chat with the very busy Besterman to discuss his present shows, past hits and what exactly an orchestrator does.

What exactly does an orchestrator do?

It’s a great question. The composer of the show will write a score. They’ll generally deliver that score in a form that can be played on the piano. They may be various other folks on the music team who contribute to that score such as dance arrangements, vocal arrangements, transition music, an overture, that sort of thing. In the end, they have a set of songs and material on piano sheet music. Then I take that piano music and flesh it out for whatever the ensemble is for that project. For a Broadway show, it could anywhere from nine to 19 musicians. On a film it might be 40 to 100 musicians. I’m translating that music into whatever is required for the instrumentation for that project. 

Book Review: Walks with Men

(Borrowed from the NYPL, 40th St.) I took out Ann Beattie's long short story or short novella when I got bored with Peter Bogdanovich's endless interviews with legendary directors. Slightly over 100 small pages, I read it in a few hours. The story concerns writer Jane and her relationships with men--a boyfriend, a husband and her father. The much older husband is a somewhat shadowy figure we don't get to know very well. Also, he treats Jane badly, not telling her he's married when they first get together. She treats him like a mentor, recording some ridiculous life advice he dispenses, like always wear raincoats made in England and when you have wine call it a "drink" or something like that. I guess this is meant to be funny. There are the usual Ann Beattie details which give life to the characters. The father's housemate--are they gay???--is obsessed with I Love Lucy. A neighbor who is gay plays with an Etch-a-Sketch. Beattie does capture the atmosphere of NYC in the 1980s and a young woman dealing with heartbreak and complicated relationships.

Off-B'way Review: We Had a World

Joanna Gleason and Andrew Barth Feldman 
in We Had a World.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

“There is no straight line to tell this story,” says Joshua, the character standing in for the playwright Joshua Harmon in his touching autobiographical work We Had a World on the smaller stage of Manhattan Theater Club’s City Center Off-Broadway space. As the author-narrator says, the narrative of Joshua and his fraught relationship with his grandmother Renee and mother Ellen zig-zags chronologically across three decades, telling and retelling family events from a trio of different perspectives. 

The play is savagely funny and heartbreakingly savage in its compassionate depiction of dysfunction and devotion, skillfully directed by Trip Cullman and acted with depth and tenderness by a dazzling cast of three—charming and chipper Andrew Barth Feldman as the stand-in for the author, endearing and maddening Joanna Gleason as the grandmother, and in a brilliant turn, versatile Jeanine Serralles who manages to make us empathize with the manipulative mother. 

Jeanine Serralles, Andrew Barth Feldman,
and Joanna Gleason in
We Had a World.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

We begin with a phone conversation between Renee and her grandson Joshua, informing him she has his next play all ready for him. It will be called Battle of the Titans. It will take place in her apartment during Rosh Hashanah when Renee has invited both of her daughters—Joshua’s mother Ellen and Ellen’s estranged sister Susan. “It will be Virginia Woolf, Part II,” Renee promises. We are also informed that 94-year-old Renee has been diagnosed with cancer and this will probably be her last family gathering. From this launching point, Joshua tells us the complicated, love-hate story of his relationships with his mom and grandma. (Susan’s gripe with Ellen is never fully developed in one of the few weaknesses of the script.) At first, Renee comes across as a delightful Auntie Mame-type, treating the pre-teen Joshua to such sophisticated, mature artistic fare as Robert Mapplethorpe photo exhibits, the Broadway revival of The Heiress starring Cherry Jones, and mature movies such Secrets and Lies and Dances With Wolves.

But Ellen interrupts the action, demanding to tell her side of the story. We gradually learn the fun-loving Renee was also a chronic alcoholic. Going further back into past, Ellen paints a frightening picture of her childhood, far different from Joshua’s idyllic recollections of his. Harmon masterfully portrays the varying perspectives of his characters, giving each equal weight and creating a triple-barreled view of the same events. One perfectly-written example details the acquisition of two antique loveseats during a family trip to France, home of the trio’s ancestors (Sidenote: Harmon takes on the French branch of the clan in his Drama Desk Award-winning Prayer for the French Republic.) Renee, Ellen and Joshua convey their versions of the loveseat story as well as their disparate attitudes towards the furniture (Renee and Joshua love them, Ellen hates them.) World careens through recollections with the three actors occasionally playing other roles, staged fluidly by Cullman so that the vignettes flow into each other like streams feeding into a river of memory. 

Andrew Barth Feldman and Jeanine Serralles
in We Had a World.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

Feldman makes a sturdy narrator, guiding us through the labyrinthine paths of Harmon family history and colorfully registering ambiguous reactions to the two most important women in Joshua’s life. Gleason is effervescent and bubbly in conveying Renee’s sparkling charm, but she also reveals the toxicity in this woman’s brand of champagne. Serralles offers the most complex and detailed performance as the resentful Ellen. Self-described as “a bitch who gets things done,” Ellen takes on the burden of guilt and responsibility while caring for her alcoholic mother. Seralles artfully conveys Ellen’s ambiguous feelings towards her mom and son through telling details and gestures. Watch as she carefully and precisely folds the wrapping paper of two unwanted gifts from Josh, then shoves the presents under the hated loveseat. Whether impatiently shaking a foot, piling pots and pans with rage, or just letting a crooked smile creep across her otherwise frozen face, Seralles lets us know what Ellen is feeling or thinking about her impossible, but beloved family. It’s a memorable performance in one of the top family plays of recent years.

John Lee Beatty’s suggestive set creates the atmosphere of a rehearsal of a work-in-progress, lit with attention to mood by Ben Stanton. 

March 19—May 11. Manhattan Theater Club at NY City Center Stage II, 131 W. 55th St., NYC. Running time: one hour and 50 mins. with no intermission. nycitycenter.org.

Off-B'way Reviews: A Streetcar Named Desire; Ghosts; Vanya

Sex plays a vital role in three classics works, now in revival Off-Broadway: Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and, surprisingly, Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a solo adaptation called simply Vanya. How the directors and casts handle this hot topic determines the success or faltering of each show. 

Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Williams’ Streetcar has had a total of nine Broadway productions since its debut in 1947 as well as numerous film and TV incarnations. But few have matched, let alone eclipsed, the impact made by Marlon Brando as the brutal, charismatic Stanley Kowalski in the original and immortalized in Elia Kazan’s 1951 film adaptation which also elevated Vivien Leigh’s delicate, shattered Blanche DuBois to icon status. (Sadly all that remains of Jessica Tandy’s Broadway original is a recording of one scene. Her praised performance lives on only in memory and written reviews.) Rebecca Frecknall’s innovative Almeida Theater staging, now at BAM’s Harvey Theater after Olivier Award-winning engagements in London, has divided critics. But I found it perfectly captured Williams’ elemental battle between the primitive Stanley and the delusional Blanche.

Anjana Vasan and Patsy Ferran in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

I was not as enthusiastic about Frecknall’s assault-and-battery approach to Cabaret which is still running on Broadway at the August Wilson. But her imaginative minimalist interpretation is more effective here. Stripped of scenery and accompanied by a deafening percussive score (composed by Angus MacRae and performed vigorously by Tom Penn), Williams’ immortal play becomes a combat ballet like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Figures from Blanche’s imagination such as her dead, gay husband (Jabez Sykes) and the messenger-of-death flower seller (Gabriela Garcia) insert themselves into the action in expressive dance movements. 

Film and TV hunk Paul Mescal is a commanding Stanley, holding his own against memories of Brando. He prowls and runs around set designer Madeleine Girling’s raised platform like a tiger, ready to pounce. But the production is dominated by Patsy Ferran’s

Anjana Vasan and Paul Mescal in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

jittery, chatty Blanche. Barely holding herself together, her Blanche is teetering on the edge of hysteria at every moment, desperately staving off madness with alcohol, cigarettes, and flirtation. The sexual connection between her and Stanley is percolating beneath their every interaction, making his molestation of her inevitable. 

Anjana Vasan’s solid Stella (Stanley’s wife and Blanche’s sister) grounds the production and understudy Eduardo Ackerman (subbing for Dwane Walcott at the performance attended) delivered an embattled Mitch, torn between his attraction for Blanche and his revulsion at her promiscuous past. This Streetcar has primal force behind it but the new, uneven Ghosts does not.

Book Review: Conversations with Pauline Kael

(Borrowed from Lincoln Center Public Library) At a current exhibition celebrating the New Yorker magazine at the New York Public Library, there is no mention of Pauline Kael. This is surprising since she was probably their most influential critic and perhaps the most influential American movie critic ever. This collection of profiles and interviews forms a mini-biography and offers several of her insights on the state of the movies--both the art and the business aspects--from the 1960s to the time of her retirement in the 1990s. There is some repetition but numerous interesting observations on the shifting national cultural scene. According to Kael, the 1970s were the real Golden Age of American moviemaking. Blockbusters like Jaws and Star Wars ruined the creative landscape created by Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma and Altman. Along with Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael, this volume offers a glimpse of her tastes and how her mind worked. As a result of reading this book, I went back to some of her reviews in my battered paperback editions of Deeper Into Movies and Reeling. I find I can only read a few at a time. Her tastes are not mine. I don't always agree with her, but she always had something arresting to say and expressed it in an off-kilter, intriguing way.

Stream of Consciousness

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

This morning I was sitting at a table in the Starbucks on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. I had a large Earl Grey tea and after gong through my phone for any hellish news or interesting updates on the cultural scene, I was reading Conversations with Pauline Kael. (Yesterday I went to the 100 Years of the New Yorker exhibit at the Public Library with the lions and there was not a mention of her, one of the magazine's most influential critics and perhaps the most influential film critic ever.) Two guys sat at the next table. They were in work clothes with hard hats and seemed to be killing time. One had his phone out and was listening at full volume to some reality true-crime show about a dog cleverly pretending to play dead and then springing to life in order to save its young mistress from a kidnapper.

The loud video didn't bother me. We were in a public space. Last week, I was furious over a similar but different situation while attending an Off-Broadway theater. The young woman diagonally in front of me was continually taking pictures with her phone of the show which was about Sumo wrestlers. She was snapping a series of pix during a climatic and colorful Sumo match. It was getting distracting. Finally, I leaned way over to my left, tapped her on the shoulder and fiercely whispered, "Would you please stop that?" She put the phone away and it did not appear for the rest of the show. I think that sort of thing is happening more and more. Younger people feel no compunction about whipping out their phones at a movie or play and taking photos. It may be the craze to broadcast that they've been somewhere and want to comment on it or preserve the experience.

After I finished my tea, I moved over to a counter because I wanted to finish one of the interviews with Kael and I didn't want to listen to any more about the brave and clever dog. The Musak was playing a duet between Tony Bennet and Lady Gaga. At least I think it was Lady Gaga. I can't tell who she is. Her voice could be anybody's and her personal style is gowns, make-up and hair in the mode of Hollywood's Golden Era. But it's all exterior. There is no her. Her name is a confection, her exterior is a cartoon. There is no one like Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Amy Winehouse. But Gaga is everyone and therefore she is no one. 

"Lose That Long Face" from A Star Is Born

That made me think about the various iterations of A Star Is Born. Except for the first actress to play the lead, Janet Gaynor, the role was been essayed by the leading musical star of her generation--Garland, Streisand, and Gaga. The Garland version is my favorite, but its original three-hour cut was butchered by Warners Brothers to fit in more screenings so the studio could make back its investment. Some of the cuts made sense and did not hurt the resultant released version. The scenes with James Mason losing track of Judy after he has promised her a job at his studio were ok to go. But the excised segment that kills me is the "Lose That Long Face" number. The point is to contrast an "up" elaborate song full of crowds of tap-dancing extras with Vicki Lester's heart-wrenching despair over her husband's (Mason's) alcoholism. It still works because we only see Judy as Vicki delivering an impassioned speech to the studio boss (Charles Bickford) and then turn on the pizzazz like a light switch for the finale. But the number itself is sheer joy. I love Harold Arlen's bouncy tune and Ira Gershwin's intricate lyrics. I've been watching the extended, restored version on YouTube over and over again. Something just goes through me when Judy gets to the climactic "Don't give in....to that frown/Turn that frown uuuuuupside down!" She and the two kids who tap dance with her are in red to stand out from the pale blue of the set and the costumes of the extras. Everything works.

I finished reading the chapter of Kael interviews and then went to Blink Fitness.

Off-B'way Review: SUMO

Red Concepción, Kris Bona, Paco Tolson, Ahmad Kamal,
and Scott Keiji Takeda in SUMO
at The PublicTheater. Photo credit: Joan Marcus.

At first Lisa Sanaye Dring’s SUMO, at the Public Theater in a co-production with Ma-Yi Theater Company and La Jolla Playhouse, seems to be plotted like so many familiar sports movies. The scrappy underdeveloped kid struggles manfully to build himself up and fulfill his dream of making it to the top. The grizzled veteran treats him harshly to toughen him up for the impossible climb. Commercial interests distract the newcomer, but he eventually triumphs on the athletic field. 

Dring’s script does contain these cliched tropes, but she also incorporates deep character development and a complex meditation on the sport of sumo itself and its relation to Japan’s cultural heritage. Director Ralph B. Pena and fight directors James Yaegashi and Chelsea Pace create muscular and fast-moving staging for both the scenes related to the story and the fascinating sumo matches to which the all-male cast commits themselves fully. Taiko drummer Shih-Wei Wu provides dynamic percussive accompaniment.  Hana S. Kim’s spectacular, gorgeous video designs, Paul Whitaker’s scene-shifting lighting, and Wilson Chin’s sumo-ring setting create a varied and intense arena for ideas and conflicting ambitions.

Earl T. Kim and Scott Keiji Takeda 
in SUMO.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Narrating the action and offering commentary are three Shinto priests or Kannushi (Paco Tolson, Kris Bona, and Viet Vo in drily comic turns.) We follow the young protagonist Akio (Scott Keiji Takeda in an impressive Off-Broadway debut) as he progresses from lowly apprentice to champion. The borderline sadistic grand master Mitsuo (a commanding David Shih) drives Akio hard, even resorting to physical abuse. Along the way, Dring gives us a crash course in the significance of sumo and its religious, mythological origins. The rigid ceremony of massive mammoths pushing each other until one is on the ground or outside the ring is much more than grunting and sweating. Dring explores the mystical meaning of the ceremonies to its participants and spectators. She also charts the interrelationships and delicate emotions of the members of Mitsuo’s heya or stable. 

Scott Keiji Takeda and 
David Shih in SUMO.
Credit: Joan Marcus

In addition to Akio, there are Ren and Fumio (compelling Ahad Kamal and Red Concepcion) whose clandestine romantic union provides a moving subplot, the earnest So (tender Michael Hisamoto), and Shinta (funny and heartbreaking Earl T. Kim) whose bulk belies his sympathetic nature. Gradually the majority of the wrestlers’ human flaws force them to drop out of the heya, leaving only Akio and Mitsuo. Ultimately, Akio must chose between the rigid macho strictures of Mitsuo and a more empathetic approach to his beloved sport. Dring’s plot arc is a bit predictable, but her thoughtful examination of sumo culture and Pena’s exhilarating staging make this a gripping takedown match.

March 5-30. Ma-Yi Theater Company, the Public Theater and La Jolla Playhouse at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 20 mins. including intermission. publictheater.org

B'way Update: Jean Smart, Kristin Chenoweth and MTC

Jean Smart on Hacks.
Credit: Jake Giles Netter/Max

Six-time Emmy winner and Tony nominee Jean Smart (Hacks, Designing Women, The Man Who Came to Dinner) and Tony and Emmy winner Kristin Chenoweth (Wicked, Pushing Daisies) will both return to Broadway. Smart will star this summer in a new play Call Me Izzy by Jamie Wax (Evangeline) and directed by Sarna Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George). The 12-week limited engagement starts previews on May 24, opens on June 12 and runs through Aug. 17. The play concerns a woman in rural Louisiana whose greatest secret is her greatest gift. Roundabout Theater Company owns Studio 54 but thsi is not a Roundabout production.

Kristin Chenoweth

Chenoweth also returns in Queen of Versailles, a new musical which was previously announced for Broadway and has now confirmed opening at the St. James on Nov. 10 with previews starting Oct. 8. A red-carpet celebration is planned for Nov. 9. She will be reunited with Wicked songwriter Stephen Schwartz in this tuner based on the story of Jackie Segal who along with her husband David "Timeshare King" Segal, played by Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, planned to build America's biggest private home in Orlando, Florida. The book, based on Lauren Greenfield's 2012 documentary film, is by Olivier Award nominee Lindsay Ferrentino. Tony winner Michael Arden (Once on This Island, Parade) directs.

Manhattan Theater Club has announced two shows for its 2025-26 season. MTC will presented the critically acclaimed Punch by Olivier Award winner James Graham (Ink) on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman in the fall and The Monsters written and directed by Ngozi Anyanwu Off-Broadway at City Center in a co-production with Two River Theater this winter. Based on James Dunne's memoir Right from Wrong, the play follows the consequences of an impulsive act of violence. Adam Penford directs.

David Shields (center) in Punch.
Credit: Marc Brenner

The Monsters focuses on two siblings: BIG and LIL. The two have been estranged until LIL admires BIG's success in mixed martial arts fighting and suddenly appears on his doorstep. The two must come to terms with their past.