Off-B'way Review: The Saviors

Julius Rinzel and Ivan Howe in
The Saviors. Credit: Ahron R. Foster

Bubba Weiler emerges as a major playwriting talent with The Saviors, his second major Off-Broadway production, now at the Atlantic Theater Company. Apart from joining the American company of the Harry Potter play on Broadway, Weiner has appeared on the New York scene as an actor in Rebecca Gilman’s Swing State, portraying an ex-con barely holding on to a grinding truck delivery job. His sensitive performance of a desperate young man earned him nominations for Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Lortel Awards. He made his NY debut as a dramatist with last season’s multi-leveled and moving Well, I’ll Let You Go, a compassionate chronicle of a recent widow coming to terms with her loss and the varying reactions of her community. Weiler demonstrates he is no one-track pony with this new play, an equally probing examination of the painful search for faith in a confusing world.

Ivan Howe and Julius Rinzel in The Saviours.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

The setting is a Catholic church in a suburban neighborhood, possibly in the Midwest where middle schoolers and best pals Michael and Paul serve as altar boys. Devout Michael eagerly prepares for his upcoming confirmation while Paul is doubting the very existence of God. Their friendship and Christian belief is tested when homeless drifter Julian enters seeking shelter during a snowstorm. Conventional Michael bristles at allowing Julian to stay, but Paul secretly grants him access after hours by leaving the side door unlocked. Meanwhile, Michael seeks advice from Judy, the adult advisor of the church’s youth group. Unfortunately, Michael is the only kid that shows up for the first meeting and Judy is experiencing hidden struggles of her own involving her son whom she says is heading a mission in Africa.

Book Review: Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy

(Bought at Time and Space Limited Used Bookstore in Hudson, NY for $7): Charles Busch's wildly entertaining memoir is as funny as his dozens of stage comedies (I've seen 13 of them as well as two musicals for which he wrote the book, his cabaret act and two of his movie screenplays.) He alternates a straightforward narrative of his career from childhood, college and stage and film triumphs with amusing later encounters with the likes of Joan Rivers, Valerie Harper, Linda Lavin, Beatrice Arthur, Patrick Swayze, Liza Minnelli, Milton Berle, Esther Williams, Debbie Reynolds, Ann Miller, and many others. Busch came to prominence with Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, which he wrote and starred in and which ran for over 2,000 performances Off-Broadway. (The long run is attributed to the salacious title which brought in curious theatergoers.) Rather than relying on waiting for a big break that might never come, he created his own vehicles. He realized his strength and passion was for playing female roles in tribute to great stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. He wrote his own plays to star himself. The book joyfully chronicles his self-made journey to cult-goddess status.

I recently encountered Busch at the Broadway Flea Market. We chatted about a Bette Davis film I caught on TCM called Payment on Demand, one of the few screen appearances by Broadway star Jane Cowl. I loved that he knew who I was talking about and that he celebrates classic film divas. 

Book Review: Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein

(Bought at the Little Red Book Shack in Hudson, NY for $1):  Julie Salamon's well-researched biography of Pulitzer and Tony winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein reveals a complicated woman. Wasserstein became the voice of a generation of women who were underrepresented in media, advocating for fulfilling identities outside of male protection and dominance. In her personal life, she gravitated to gay men, and attempted to have a child with many of them. Her "husbands" included playwrights Christopher Durang and Terrence McNally, director Gerald Guitterez, artistic director Andre Bishop and costume designer William Ivey Long. She recreated her relationships with her family in plays like Isn't It Romantic and The Sisters Rosensweig and the real-life connections were even more complex. 

The book also provides a social history of changing women's roles in American society and the theater from the 60s into the early 2000s when Wendy passed away at the age of 55. 

I interviewed her once for a book I was writing on long-running on and Off-Broadway shows. My cousin went to college with her. I was an usher for the Off-Broadway run of Isn't Romantic at the Lucille Lortel Theater, so I saw the play many times. So it was fascinating to get to know the real Wendy, funny, smart, maternal, and complex.

B'way Update: Purple Rain

Prince in Purple Rain (1984)

A stage version of Prince's Purple Rain film and album will open on Broadway next spring at the Majestic Theater. Previews begin March 12, 2027 prior to an April 12 opening. The opening will coincide with the 42nd anniversary of the film's debut in 1984. A previous version opened at Minnesota's State Theater last year, but this edition will feature some new creative staffing. Saheem Ali (Buena Vista Social Club) takes over the directing reins from Lileana Blain-Cruz and Peter Duchan takes over as book writer from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. The score features songs from the film by Prince who also starred in the movie. These songs include the title track, "When Doves Cry," "I Would Die 4 U," plus songs from Prince's oeuvre. The story follows an up-and-coming Minneapolis-based rock musician known as The Kid, struggling with his past and his rivalry with another scrappy rocker.

“Prince was an icon, and Purple Rain is iconic, one of the best musical films of my generation. I watched it as a teenager in Kenya, and though I was appropriately scandalized, it never left me, especially the music,” says Ali in a statement. “I am honored to join the Purple Rain family and help carry this story forward. Our aim is not only to honor the legacy that Prince built, but to make his timeless music feel urgent and alive, passing it on to the next generation of fans who will make it their own.”

Off-B'way Review: The Whoopi Monologues

Kecia Lewis (center) and cast of
The Whoopi Monologues.
Credit: Angela Marie Orellana

Back in 1984, the comedienne-actress Whoopi Goldberg seemed to come out of nowhere, bursting onto Broadway with an eponymous, self-written one-woman show presenting a quartet of characters rarely seen on what was then universally known as the Great White Way. She presented a sharp-edged, female, African-American perspective on our society. Her material was skewed in a comic way yet also achingly real and somewhat tragic. Goldberg went on to EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) status and now is best-known as a political commentator/talk-show host on ABC’s The View. She did headline a revival of her breakthrough piece in 2004 called simply Whoopi, adding a fifth segment addressing then-current concerns. 

A revival of Goldberg’s show, with five different performers enacting each monologue, has been given an imaginative and vital staging by Whitney White at Lincoln Center’s Off-Broadway Mitzi Newhouse Theater. Though several of the allusions are dated (a commercial promoting Jamaican tourism, The Love Boat, dearth of racial minority representation on TV), the basic themes of political oppression of women, a lack of abortion access and little compassion for addiction are sadly still relevant. Divvying up the material diffuses the impact slightly and exposes the thinness of much of the material. Goldberg impressed with her versatility and comic timing (HBO filmed the event as a comedy special if you want to see Whoopi’s original performance). Fortunately, the current cast deliver complex, deep characterizations and encourage vocal audience reactions. In addition, White provides a varied staging with the aide of Studio Bent’s backstage-style set, Cha See’s versatile lighting, Hana S. Kim’s off-kilter videos and Fan Zhang’s edgy sound and original music. Qween Jean’s costumes combine street reality with individual style.

Saturday Morning Memories: Part 6

Lately out of sheer boredom, I watched two DVD cartoon collections from Mill Creek Productions I bought years ago at the upstate NY Walmart. They included several animated series I had totally forgotten. Some were hidden gems, others were so bad they were actually trainwreck watchable. Not all were on Saturday mornings. A few were syndicated and broadcast on our Philadelphia UHF channels (17, 29 or 48) while some were shown on local daily kiddie shows like Sally Starr or Adam Android which aired after school and after Dark Shadows (which played at 3:30pm on Channel 6, our ABC affiliate) and before the Mike Douglas Show. You notice there are no more kiddie shows with hosts and puppets showing cartoons? MeTV's Toon in with Me is a satire/parody and probably the only one. They've gone the way of Saturday morning cartoons in general since streaming and animated cable networks are available for adult and kid cartoon fixes 24/7. Here are some the rediscovered shows and a few others that resurfaced in my memory as a result.

Hoppity Hooper (1964-67): This amusing follow-up to Rocky and Bullwinkle from Jay Ward Productions

Waldo Wigglesworth, Hoppity Hooper
and Filmore the Bear

and Total Television was almost as clever as R&B. Like the flying squirrel and moose, it took place in a tiny Midwestern town (Foggy Bog, Wisconsin rather than Frostbite Falls, Minnesota) and follows the bizarre adventures of a diminutive hero (frog Hoppity) and a big, lumbering sidekick (Filmore the Bear whose voice was supplied by Bullwinkle's Bill Scott). The third recurring character was con man Professor Waldo Wigglesworth (Hans Conreid, who also voiced Snidley Whiplash in the Dudley Do-Right cartoons and played Danny Thomas' uncle on Make Room for Daddy) who claimed to be a fox but looked more like a wolf. Waldo's get-rich-quick schemes supplied the engine for the plots of the four-part stories. There were also occasional appearances by Waldo's girlfriend, the delightfully named Susan Swivlehips, who resembled a sluttier version of Underdog's Sweet Polly Purebread. Two segments began and ended each episode with the middle filled with repeats of Rocky and Bullwinkle features such as Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop's Fables, Peabody's Improbable History and Total TV's Commander McBragg, The Hunter or Tooter the Turtle.

Hoppity's voice was done by actress Chris Allen. Back in the 1980s, I remember she gave voice-over classes in NYC. A friend took her class and Chris did Hoppity's voice for them.

I hadn't watched these stories in over 50 years, but they hold up. One particularly amusing sequence satirized the Twilight Zone with narrator Paul Frees imitating Rod Serling. The spoof was called The Traffic Zone and when Hoppity, Waldo and Filmore enter it, they are transformed into vegetables. To solve their dilemma, they, along with a female avocado, go off to see the Grand Asparagus rather than the Wizard of Oz. Another fun sequence had Hoppity in a blonde wig become a singing sensation as Baby Jane with The Croak. But then Susan knocks him off the charts with her own song, The Boing! (Come and do the Boing/It's not hard to loin.)

Off-B'way Update: Atlantic Season

The family musical Finn at Kennedy Center
before Trump (or his minions) pulled the plug.
Credit: Teresa Wood

Atlantic Theater Company has announced its 2026-27 season schedule which includes world premieres by Lucas Hnath (Dana H., A Doll's House, Part 2), Clare Barron (You Got Older), Jackie Sibblies Drury (Fairview), and Mona Pirnot (I Assume You Know David Greenspan). The company is currently presenting Bubba Weiler's The Saviors. Their fall season opens with Pirnot's I Became We (Oct. 16--Nov. 15) with music by Jack D. Coen and lyrics by Pirnot and Coen. This is a one-person monologue performed by a 30-person choir. 

Atlantic will also present children's theater with Finn, a family musical whose Kennedy Center tour was cancelled when Trump took over the venue, supposedly because it promoted tolerance of those who are different from you. (Dec. 12-Jan. 31 at Atlantic Theater Stage 2).

Deirdre O'Connell in Dana H.
Credit: Carol Rosegg

Next is Clare Barron's Too Bad for Her (Jan. 9-Feb. 14) about a 30-year affair. Anne Kauffman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window) directs. Lucas Hnath's Old Actress follows (March 18--April 25) reuniting him with his Dana H. star Deirdre O'Connell and director Les Waters. O'Connell won a Tony Award for playing a version of Hnath's mother. The play is described as a meta-threatrical experience about learning lines for a show.

The final attraction will be Push from Pulitzer Prize winner Jackie Sibblies Drury (May 27-July 3) with direction from Justin Peck and choreography by Peck and Patricia Degado, about the American premiere of a Russian defecting dancer and the American choreographer creating a piece for him. Set in 1976, it sounds a bit like it could be modeled on Mikhail Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharp.