Off-B'way Review: The Invention of Love

David Greenspan and Annabel Capper
in The Invention of Love.
Credit: Paul Lutvak

Tom Stoppard’s dense literary masterpiece The Invention of Love receives a thoughtful, moving production at the tiny space at Theaterlab, highlighted by luminous performances by eight-time Obie winner David Greenspan as the poet-scholar A.E. Housman, Yaron Lotan as his younger self, and an insightful ensemble cast. The play is a challenging three-hour examination of Housman’s life as a brilliant student of Latin and Greek at Oxford followed by his career as a writer and professor, and his unrequited, gay passion for classmate Moses Jackson. Stoppard also traces attitudes towards homosexuality in British society in the same period (the 1880s-90s) as the government passes anti-sodomy laws and Oscar Wilde rises and falls as a symbol of aesthetic art and then decadence. The dazzling Stoppard frames the narrative with the just-deceased Housman's crossing into the underworld on the river Styx guided by the grumpy mythical ferryman Charon. Figures from the poet’s past appear and debate each other on the beauty of classical literature, male love, and who created the first love poem (hence the title).

Stoppard had been criticized for writing heady intellectual theatrical head-scratchers (to some), such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, and Jumpers—wordy plays that mined heady academic and historical themes—while failing to create emotionally-motivated characters. He finally broke through with The Real Thing in 1984, balancing witty wordplay with a heartbreaking love story between a playwright and an actress. Here he manages to perform a similar balancing act, illuminating Housman’s passion for the works of antiquity while delineating his forbidden love and the society that forces him to repress it. 

Book Review: Civilwarland in Bad Decline

(Taken out of the 40th Street NYPL): I almost didn't finish this one, which is rare for me, especially for a book this short (just under 200 pages.) I enjoyed George Saunders' recent best-seller Lincoln in the Bardo. Also I kept hearing he was the greatest thing since sliced bread--or Kurt Vonnegut. Critics were dubbing him another Mark Twain. But these stories in his first published collection did not appeal to me. The title story which opens the book was gripping and funny. A sad-sack middle manager of a failing historical theme park bemoans his sorry fate and consorts with a family of ghosts. It was darkly funny. But then every story that followed was EXACTLY the same. Some pitiful wretch is stuck in a bizarre setting (usually a theme park), whines about how awful his or her life is, commits a mistake that makes things even worse and either dies or goes to jail. The final novella, Bounty, is a Candide-like voyage tale set in a dystopian future where those born with genetic mutations (called Flaweds) are oppressed into slavery by the Normals. The hero escapes from his prison to seek out his sister and encounters endless misery. What fun! 

The 2012 edition is fleshed out with an introduction and an author's afterward to fill out 198 pages. I liked the afterword better than the stories. Saunders describes his early years struggling to fulfill his dreams of being a writer while working as at a boring job as a technical writer in Rochester, NY. His description of the reality was more compelling than his repetitive, depressing fantasies.

B'way Update: Blue Man Group; Encores News

Blue Man Group will make its Broadway debut
this holiday season.

Blue Man Group, the three-person performance troupe which had one of the longest runs in Off-Broadway history, will be making their Broadway debut with A New Holiday Surprise at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. The limited holiday-season engagement will begin previews Nov. 12 with an opening set for Nov. 17 and play through Jan. 3, 2027. The group's run at the Astor Place Theater ended on Feb. 2, 2025 after three decades and more than 17,000 performances. The brainchild of three friends, Chris Wink, Matt Goldman, and Phil Stanton, Blue Man Group had the bald, blue-faced trio pounding drums full of paint, oozing Twinkies from their chests and performing other various oddities. During the course of the run, several actors took over the roles and the franchise expanded to Orlando and Las Vegas. 

"This production marks two exciting milestones: Blue Man Group's first-ever holiday production as well as its Broadway debut," said Marie-Josée Adam, President and CEO of Blue Man Group. "This is exactly how we envisioned the iconic trio would re-enter the New York marketplace: with a brand-new show packed with holiday fun, unexpected surprises, and a few twists that only Blue Man could pull off. We can't wait to welcome a whole new generation of families into the Blue Man world for an unforgettable and wonderfully unpredictable holiday experience."

The show will tour to Chicago and Boston and other cities to be announced.

In other news, Encores has announced the complete cast for its concert staging of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. SNL veteran Rachel Dratch (The Rocky Horror Show and those homeowner insurance commercials) will play Patty (not Peppermint Patty) and Emmy winner Jeff Hiller (HBO's Somebody Somewhere) will play Schroder. They will join previously announced David Hyde-Pierce as Charlie Brown, Danille Brooks as Lucy, Ha Jin as Linus, and Ayo Edebiri as Snoopy. Sam Pinkleton (Oh Mary!) directs. This indicates they will be using the original script by Clark Gesner and not the one for the 1999 Broadway revival which replaced Patty with Charlie Brown's little sister Sally (played by Kristin Chenoweth who won a Tony for the role.) Charlie Brown will play Feb. 3-14 at City Center.

In addition, Encores' previously announced production of Hallelujah, Baby! will be replaced by a new staging of Let 'Em Eat Cake, the 1933 sequel to Of Thee I Sing. Hallelujah has been postponed for further development--probably meaning updating the book for this 1967 tuner on race in America. Cake (March 17--28) should be interesting. It's a satiric political fantasy depicting a sitting President disputing his loss for re-election and mounting a revolution to regain power. Sound familiar? This sequel by the Gershwins, George S. Kaufman and Morris Ryskind takes a darker tone than its predecessor Of Thee I Sing and only ran 90 performances.

Off-B'way Review: Pre-Existing Condition; In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Lupita Nyong'o in Pre-Existing Condition.
Credit: Jessica Kourkounis

Marin Ireland is one of our most versatile and talented actresses, usually turning up as conflicted and struggling mothers, daughters, wives, or girlfriends in perceptive, searing Off-Broadway plays. With her play Pre-Existing Condition, now at the Greenwich House Theater after an engagement at the tiny Connelly Center last season, she joins the ranks of promising playwrights. In 80 shattering minutes, she documents the wrenching experience of an unnamed woman A, vainly attempting to come to terms with exiting a toxic relationship after her ex assaulted her. The protagonist turns to the law, counseling, therapy, friends, and new relationships, but none offers her resolution or closure. “I don’t know what I want,” she cries more than once. Often she tells whoever will listen (except her distant mother whom she can’t bring herself to tell about the violence she has endured) she just wants the feeling of powerlessness and victimization to go away. But there is no resolution other than the slow process of unpacking her emotions and facing them. 

Ireland painstakingly documents A’s journey through rage, self-blame, and guilt through a

Lupita Nyong'o and Jeff Keller in
Pre-Existing Condition.
Credit: Jessica Kourkounis

series of short, fragmented scenes that flow smoothly thanks to Maria Dizzia’s subtle, graceful staging and Isabella Byrd’s sensitive lighting. The entire play takes place on Cate McCrea’s bare set which resembles a nondescript, support-group meeting room. The play opens with A leaving numerous voicemail messages for a lawyer. He finally returns her calls and informs her there is little legal recourse for her situation since there were no outside witnesses, the police weren’t called, and the laws are antiquated. From there A tentatively embarks on dating, attends individual and group therapy sessions and meets with a friend offering an apology from the former boyfriend. 

In an interesting casting choice, the lead role will be played by a series of different performers during the show’s limited engagement. Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o opens the run and delivers a complex, deeply-felt performance as A. She charts the main character’s circuitous path from numbness to rage to hard-won reflection. She  bubbles with anger, flirts with humor, and hards back tears. She jiggles her leg nervously in one scene, giggles with suppressed anxiety during a first, tentative date in the next. A bravura range of reactions to a ruptured romance. (Philipa Soo, Edie Falco, Hari Nef, and Susanna Flood will follow.)     

Book Review: The Weight of Ink

(Bought at the Strand Bookstore for $8): The was the first volume assigned for my new book club. I found it at the Strand and said to myself, "This thing is over 500 pages! How am I gonna finish it in time for the first class?" Luckily I had a couple of weeks and was able to get through it. A fascinating, complex story on two time tracks. In 2000, scholar and historian Helen Watt discovers a trove of documents from a 17th century rabbi in a London suburban house. She clashes with

brash Jewish-American grad student Aaron who has issues of his own. Helen is not Jewish, but flashes back to her time working in the new state of Israel. But that's not the second timeline. We also trip back to the 1660s and the story of Esther, the blind rabbi's scribe. Rachel Kadish explores women's roles, religion, love, philosophy, Jewish history in an absorbing novel. The ending wherein everything is resolved and explained is a bit too tidy for me.

It reminded me of Possession which employed a similar format with two modern scholars unearthing the correspondence of two Victorian poets. 

Book Review: The Crying of Lot 49

(Borrowed from the NY Public Library on 40th St.) Back in the mid-70s when I was in my teens, I tried to read Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, a massive best-seller in paperback. It was a big, important book that got a bunch of glowing reviews and I thought I should read it. I couldn't finish it or make head or tail out of it. There was something about missiles and Nazis, but I can't recall any characters or why I should care about them. But Pynchon is a highly regarded author and now 50 years later, I needed something short to read until the next session of my online book club when they assign us another novel. So while scanning the Fiction section of the NY Public Library at 40th Street, I found this work which is only about 150 pages. Just as confusing as Gravity's Rainbow, but at least I finished it. The heroine Oedipa Maas goes on a wild goose chase once she becomes executrix of her millionaire ex-lover's estate. She finds a weird symbol on a ladies' room wall and somehow it's connected to an ancient independent mail system. Somehow this secret society of mail carriers is important, but it's not clear why. They're killing or threatening all the men in Oedipa's life. Why or what it has to do with an auction of a set of rare stamps is not sufficently explained. And how is Oedipa like the Greek tragic figure Oedipus? Well, the ex-lover was older, so is it because she had sex with a father figure? Did she metaphorically blind herself?

There are several well-written and intriguing passages such as Oedipa's drunken seduction with Metzger, the estate's handsome lawyer where she dons several layers of clothing so she won't lose in strip poker. I also like the Paranoids, a teen garage band Oedipa encounters. But the conspiracy Oedipa investigates didn't seem particularly dangerous or vital to expose. What was she after, what made her journey one I wanted to follow? It didn't make me want to return to Gravity's Rainbow or pick up Pynchon's later novel Vineland, which Paul Thomas Anderson filmed as the Oscar-winning One Battle After Another.

This cover from a paperback edition was groovier than the book itself.

Off-B'way Update: Patti LuPone in Full Gallop

Patti LuPone will star in Full Gallop.

Three-time Tony winner Patti LuPone (Evita, Gypsy, Company) returns to the New York stage as legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland in the solo play Full Gallop written by Mark Hampton and Mary Louise Wilson, who played the role in the original 1995 production. The production directed by Gordon Greenberg (The Baker's Wife) begins previews on Jan. 8, 2027 at NY City Center Stage II, with an opening set for Jan. 17. 

Wilson played Vreeland when the play premiered at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego and again for NYC engagements at Manhattan Theater Club and the West Side Theater. She won an Obie, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. Vreeland served as fashion editor for Harper's Bazaar, editor-in-chief for Vogue and consultant for the Metropolitan Museum's costume collection.