B'way Review: Gypsy

Joy Woods and Audra McDonald in
Gypsy.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The sixth Broadway production of Gypsy, the classic musical based on the memoirs of legendary stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, is a theatrical miracle. Not only does it outfit an oft-produced warhorse with totally new, shining armor, but also provides Audra McDonald, the winner of six Tony Awards, with the means to achieve an unprecedented seventh by  delivering a towering interpretation of the King Lear of female musical theater roles, the unstoppable Mama Rose. Both were thought to be impossible feats, but director George C. Wolfe and McDonald have done the impossible.

Let’s tackle the first accomplishment. Gypsy (1959) is the Holy Grail of Broadway musicals. Every leading lady worth her salt has tackled it. But up until now, all five previous reproductions have largely employed Jerome Robbins’ original direction and choreography. The late book-author Arthur Laurents, recreating Robbins’s work, has directed every Main Stem restaging with the exception of the 2003 production which was helmed by Sam Mendes. All of five have employed Robbins’ 1959 dance steps. George C. Wolfe has applied his prodigious theatrical imagination to the smart and insightful book by Laurents and evergreen score by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, while retaining Robbins’  basic flow of scenes and framing them as acts in a vaudeville show. Wolfe has placed his own clever stamp on such iconic moments as the transition between Baby June and Her Newsboys from tots to teens, the riotous “You Gotta Get a Gimmick,” Rose and company’s trek from Seattle to L.A., employing a delightfully delapidated vintage automobile, and many others. Santo Loquasto’s suggestive backstage sets, Toni-Leslie James’ versatile costumes, and Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer’s jazzy lighting all contribute to creating the atmosphere of an endless series of one-night stands and cheap boarding houses.

Audra McDonald and Joy Woods in
Gypsy.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Camille A. Brown has the distinction of being the first new choreographer for the show since Robbins and she also plants her own flag on familiar territory. Her dances are inventive and fresh, particularly her staging of Gypsy’s racy interpretation of “Let Me Entertain You,” climaxing in an erotic rite set in the Garden of Eden, marking her arrival as the star of the strip tease. Brown’s quirky, angular moves, sensuously executed by Joy Woods as Gypsy (Louise) and a lively chorus, evoke Josephine Baker’s eccentric banana dance that made her the toast of Paris in the 1920s. Brown’s staging of “All I Need Is the Girl” is more elaborate than Robbins’, and Kevin Csolak as Tulsa makes it in a show-stopper in an evening of musical explosions. Brown even incorporates Woods as Louise into the number correctly. She is still clumsy, but joyfully joining Tulsa in the big finish, not immediately picking up the steps but following along as best she can. (Woods and Csolak are prime candidates for the 2025 Chita Rivera Awards for Best Broadway dancers.)

B'way Update: Dead Outlaw to Transfer

Trent Saunders, Andrew Durand, and 
Eddie Cooper in Dead Outlaw.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Dead Outlaw, which had an award-winning run Off-Broadway earlier this year, will transfer to Broadway in time for the Tony Awards, beginning previews at the Longacre Theater April 12 in advance of an April 27 opening. The fact-based musical about a petty criminal in the Wild West whose corpse found its way onto a 20th century California amusement pier, features a book by Itamar Moses and a score by David Yazbeck and Erik Della Pinna. David Cromer repeats his direction from the Off-Broadway run at the Minetta Lane Theater. Dead Outlaw received Best Musical Awards from the Drama Desk and the New York Drama Critics Circle, as well as Best Off-Broadway Musical from the Outer Critics Circle. 

The Longacre will soon become vacant due to the early closing of Swept Away, another musical involving dead bodies.

Politics Not as Usual

Trump and Musk:
The new Tsar and Rasputin?

I've been avoiding writing about the political scene because it's so damned depressing. Trump is not even in office yet and he is already sowing seeds of sedition and destruction. He and his Rasputin Elon Musk are trying to sink a budget deal and shut down the government. He won a settlement from ABC over George Stephanopoulos's calling him an adjudicated rapist. (I guess George should have said he was gulity of sexual assault and left it at that.) Trumpy is suing an Iowa newspaper for publishing a poll putting Kamala Harris slightly ahead of him during the last months of the election. These last two are the most dangerous. ABC settled the suit for $15 million, fearing reprisals and a possible loss of their license from Trumpy once he was in office. Trump is now emboldened and ready to sue any press outlet that made him look bad (as the Iowa poll did.) This will have a chilling effect on a free and open press. If you're worried about revenge from the President, you tend not to criticize him. Trumpy is probably hoping one of these cases may go to the dictator-friendly SCOTUS and they'll reverse the Sullivan v. NYTimes decision, making it easier to sue unfriendly journalists. Also Trump and his minions are making noises about charging Liz Chaney with something. What did she do that was illegal except oppose Trump? As Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic has continually reminded us, these are the first baby steps towards authoritarianism.

But Trump supporters don't seem to care about that. They want lower grocery prices and tighter borders. (Those were the two big issues which put Trumpy over the top and defeated Harris, according to a relative visiting over the holidays, reporting what his Trump-voting friends said.) But what will happen when the Orange Hitler imposes his tarriffs and deports everybody and their grandma? Prices for eggs and gasoline are probably not going to go down any time soon. Even Trump admits that. And when millions of undocumented workers are snatched away from the labor market, who will pick the crops, clean our hotel rooms, build and renovate our buildings, and mow our lawns?

Maybe our democracy can weather four more years of Trump's fascistic tendencies, but with everyone from Morning Joe to Jeff Bezos to even some Dems such as Fetterman caving in to him to one degree or another, what will be left when he's finished in 2028?

 

State of the 2024 Film Awards Race

Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain is
the only sure-thing front runner
for the 2024 Oscars.

This year I have not seen as many Oscar contenders as last year. With the summer of Barbieheimer in 2023, there were two clear front-runners for the top awards (Barbie and Oppenheimer). This year, we've only got Glicked--Gladiator 2 and Wicked--as top blockbusters and Gladiator 2 is receiving only lukewarm praise. Neither is a lock for the Oscar Best Picture. Wicked might triumph on the strength of its box office, but several independent critics' darlings who have who scribblers' awards could sneak in. These include Anora, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez, 

The acting categories are almost all wide open. The only candidate who seems to have the Oscar all wrapped up is Best Supporting Actor front-runner Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain. The Succession star has won a majority of pre-Oscar awards and nominations and is this year's Da'vine Joy Randolph whose Supporting Actress performance in The Holdovers totally dominated the 2024 field. Lead actor is a four-way race between Adrian Brody (The Brutalist), Timothee Chamalant (A Total Unknown), Coleman Domingo (Sing Sing), and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave). Best actress probable nominees include Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Marianne Jean-Bapiste (Hard Truths), Angelina Jolie (Maria), Mikey Madison (Arona), and Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Perez). The Supporting Actresses include Ariana Grande (Wicked, in the supporting field to avoid competition with Erivo), Isabella Rosellini (Conclave), Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) and Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez). Although Rosellini's possible nomination is a mystery to me. I didn't think she was that impactful.

Still to come are the SAG and BAFTA nominees and the National Society of Film Critics which always goes their own way.

Below is a list of potential 2024 award-winning films I've seen so far and a breakdown of winners and nominees (so far). I have not included every single regional critics award because I have a life. In recent years the number of such movie reviewers' groups has proliferated to a ridiculous extent. It seems every major city in the US has one and some have two (one for traditional media and the other for online scribes.) Maybe I will get to including more of them eventually.

B'way Review: Eureka Day

Bill Irwin and Jessica Hecht in
Eureka Day.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

When Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day opened Off-Broadway in 2019, the dark comedy about the vaccination debate at a high-toned private school in Berkeley, California, was alarmingly relevant. Now, a new equally funny and moving Broadway production from Manhattan Theater Club at the Samuel J. Friedman (after a London staging in 2022) is ever more timely. Between the two NYC productions, we’ve had the COVID pandemic which shuttered schools nationwide and notorious vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to head Health and Human Services. The question of to vax or not to vax has never been more impactful.

Spector’s script and Anna D. Shapiro’s staging are equally hilarious and moving. Each of the five characters has a stake in the outcome of the conflict over the school’s vaccination policy and all are fully-fleshed-out people, not spokespeople for particular viewpoints. “No one is a villain,” as principal Don (a comically on-edge Bill Irwin) says. That’s true here and the clash of ideologies reaches giddy satirical heights in a brilliantly staged remote meeting where the bubbled comments of parents sent via computer are blown up on a giant screen (David Bengali is credited with the effective projection design.) The only problem was the audience was laughing so hard at the comments, I couldn’t hear much of the spoken dialogue.

Thomas Middleditch, Amber Gray, Bill Irwin,
Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz and Jessica Hecht 
in Eureka Day.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

The play begins with some easy laughs at the school’s executive board meeting. (Todd Rosenthal designed the primary-color school library set.) In attendance are Don and four parents, each of the five competing to be the most socially aware, woke and politically conscious. The action really take off in the next scene when there is a reported case of the mumps in the student body and the board of health orders the school closed for quarantine. The school’s policy of optional observance of recommended vaccinations comes under fire. The earnest camaraderie among the board soon deteriorates as each makes their pro or con stance known, often for very personal reasons.

Irwin is riotous as the principal attempting to please all sides and gradually becoming unglued as the emotions escalate. Jessica Hecht is particularly outstanding as the seemingly all-smiles parent Suzanne. Every word and gesture is loaded with meaning as she offers links to websites to support her opinions and unwittingly exposes her own prejudices despite her liberal platitudes. Her matter-of-fact delivery of a shattering monologue explaining her anti-vax views is heartbreaking.

Thomas Middleditch,
Amber Gray and
Bill Irwin in
Eureka Day.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

Amber Gray is equally strong as a mother taking the opposite side of Suzanne and Thomas Middleditch and Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz give off sparks as clandestine lovers, setting up playdates to conceal their trysts. Yakura-Kurtz also has a very funny scene where she knits with increasingly intensity to conceal her suppressed rage. 

Eureka Day is that rare production filled with equal parts laughs and pathos while addressing a contentious issue which concerns all audiences.

Dec. 16—Feb. 2, 2025. Manhattan Theater Club at Samuel J. Friedman Theater, 261 W. 47th St., NYC. Running time: 100 mins. with no intermission. telecharge.com

Book Review: Tommy's Tale

(Given by friends once they were finished reading it. Free.) Actor Alan Cumming (Cabaret, The Good Wife) wrote this amusing novel in 2002. Tommy is a 29-year-old bisexual London party boy teetering on the edge of maturity as he must start to take responsibility for his relationships beyond casual sex and constant drug use. About to turn 30, he suddenly realizes he wants to be a father but has no idea how to go about it. Former girlfriend India wants to meet up again. Current boyfriend Charlie and his young son Finn want more of a commitment. Whimsical roommates Sadie and Bobby offer support. 

The story is punctuated with metaphorical fairy tales, commenting on the main action. It's funny and involving. An excerpt of Cumming's memoir Not My Father's Son and a new introduction for this 2014 edition. This volume proves Cumming is as inventive a writer as he is an actor.

B'way Review: Sunset Blvd.

Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis in
Sunset Blvd.
Credit: Marc Brenner

While appearing on The View talk show, Patti LuPone described Sunset Boulevard (or Blvd. as it is titled in the current Broadway revival) as a “lumbering” musical. LuPone originated the role of Norma Desmond in London in 1993 for this adaptation of Billy Wilder’s 1950 film classic and was subsequently replaced by Glenn Close for the Broadway premiere. The “lumbering” adjective is an accurate description of Trevor Nunn’s original staging of this mammoth show which heretofore has mainly been a vehicle for whoever played the leading role of a faded, mad silent film star desperate for a comeback. Lonny Price’s 2017 revival, also starring Close in a totally different performance, stripped down the elaborate set and got closer to the raw emotions of Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s book. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s symphonic music which captures the creamy film-score style of Hollywood’s Golden Age and the snappy, pop-jazz of the 1950s, also emerged more vibrantly. Jamie Lloyd’s inventive, multi-media production, now at the St. James after winning several Olivier Awards in the West End, goes even further than Price’s and makes Lloyd and the production itself the real stars.

Tom Francis and Nicole Scherzinger in
Sunset Blvd.
Credit: Marc Brenner

To be sure, former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger delivers an electric, galvanizing performance as Norma, but Lloyd’s staging is so fresh, startling and gripping, he deserves equal praise. Eliminating conventional scenery and props, the action takes place on a mostly bare stage apart from a few chairs and a giant screen. Jack Knowles’ noirish lighting design creates the proper shadowy atmosphere. Costume designer Sutra Gimour who also designed the starkly minimalist set, has dressed the company in black and white to evoke the monochromatic tones of the original film and the noir efforts of its era. Cast members with cameras and lighting equipment intermittently film the principals and their images are simultaneously projected on the screen. (Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom are credited with the impressive video and projection design.) There are even opening and closing credits, just like in the movies.

B'way/Film Reviews: Cult of Love; Hard Truths

The cast of Cult of Love.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Here we go again. It’s time for yet another dysfunctional family reunion. Cult of Love, presented by Second Stage at the Hayes Theater after a production at Berkeley Repertory Theater, is the third play this season (following The Hills of California and The Blood Quilt) to dissect the familial ties that bind. Once again estranged siblings gather and squabble over past hurts and present estrangements. The difference between Cult and the previous two is the parents are still living and providing an additional source of conflict. Despite the familiarity of the territory, Leslye Headland’s solid script avoids melodramatic cliches, Trip Cullman’s direction admirably juggles several storylines simultaneously while building suspense, and the cast couldn’t be better.

It’s Christmas Eve at the Dahl house. The family name is not insignificant given that John Lee Beatty’s comfy-cozy-Christmas-crazy set resembles a domicile for domestic playthings or dolls. One of the adult children’s spouses even sarcastically refers to the family manse as “Santa’s workshop.” Like Nora in Ibsen’s similarly named A Doll’s House, the Dahl house kids are struggling to grow up. As Bill the near-senile father (David Rasche skillfully navigating the cognition waters) relates, he and his wife Ginny (Mare Winningham beautifully balancing affection and manipulation) both came from abusive backgrounds and have vowed to be different. But as a result, they have created a “cult of love” (hence the title) where their offspring are suffocated and unable to completely stand on their own. Religion, a topic rarely addressed in modern American drama, is also on the table with the senior Dahls’ unquestioning embrace of rigid Christianity causing problems for the second generation.

Shailene Woodley, Christopher Sears, 
Rebecca Henderson, and Zachary Quinto
in Cult of Love.
Credit: Joan Marcus

The eldest child Mark (Zachary Quinto, expert at suppressing inner turmoil) is conflicted about his faith, legal career, and marriage to sharp-tongued Rachel (spiky, funny Molly Bernard) who happens to be Jewish. Lesbian daughter Evie (equally edgy Rebecca Henderson) still bristles at her deeply religious family’s qualified acceptance of her marriage to Pippa (Roberta Colindrez, strongly supportive). Johnny (a buoyant Christopher Sears) uses jolly energy to deal with his drug addiction and has brought his sponsor, the hip Loren (Barbie Ferreira, making the most of a small role) along for the holidays. Youngest child Diana (Shailene Woodley in a shattering portrayal of mental short-circuiting) is pregnant with her second child and together with her husband James, an Episcopal priest (Christopher Lowell, a keenly observed liming of confused weakness) is trying to start a new church. But Diana appears to be suffering from delusions of divine visitations. 

Conclave and Wicked Top Critics Choice List

Ralph Fiennes in Conclave
Credit: Focus Features

Conclave and Wicked topped the list of nominees for the Critics Choice Award film categories with 11 each. Dune Part 2 and Emilia Perez followed with 10 each. The 30th annual Critics Choice Awards will be presented on Jan. 12 at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. Chelsea Handler will repeat her hosting duties from last year and the show will be broadcast on E! The nominations for Best Picture, Actor and Actress were announced on Dec. 12 on the Today Show by host Carson Daly. Formerly known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Critics Choice Association, like the Golden Globes, also give out TV honors. Those nominations were announced last week with Shogun leading the list with six. Abbott Elementary, Disclaimer, Hacks, The Diplomat, The Penguin and What We Do in the Shadows followed with four nods each.

I'm grateful that Marianne Jean-Baptiste of Hard Truths and Danielle Deadwyler of The Piano Lesson were not snubbed here are they were for the Golden Globes. Unlike last year when Oppenheimer and Barbie were clear front-runners, the race for film awards is wide open, so it's difficult to predict winners.

A complete list of the film nominees follows:

B'way Update: Glengarry and Purpose Set Dates, Theaters, Etc.

Kieran Culkin

Two Broadway productions have set dates, theaters and casting to nail down the spring 2025 season. The star-studded revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross will begin previews at the Palace Theater on March 10 with an opening set for March 31. The play about ruthless Chicago real-estate salesmen will star Kieran Culkin (currently the Best Supporting Actor Oscar front-runner for A Real Pain), Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean, Donald Webber Jr., Howard W. Overshown and, in his Broadway debut, John Pirruccello. Tony winner Patrick Marber (Leopoldstadt) directs. The Palace is an unusual choice since its large size normally calls for large-scale musicals rather than intimate straight plays. The only straight plays to play the theater have been Frankenstein (1981) which closed after one performance, and Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1977) with Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Ashley, which ran 12 performances. Musicals such as Sweet Charity, Applause, La Cage Aux Folles, and Woman of the Year had longer runs.

Tony winner Kara Young (Purlie Victorious) will star in

Kara Young

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose set to begin previews at the Hayes Theater Feb. 25 with an opening set for March 17. Tony winner Phylicia Rashad (A Raisin in the Sun, Skeleton Crew) will make her Broadway directing debut, reprising her staging work with the play's world premiere at the Steppenwolf Theater of Chicago. LaTanya Richardson Jackson will also join the cast. Harry Lennix, Jon Michael Hill, Glenn Davis and Alana Arenas will repeat their Steppenwolf roles. The play centers on a prominent African-American family with each member hiding secrets. 

This accounts for all previously announced Broadway productions, but with the closing of Swept Away, the Longacre is available and a show might snap that one up before spring.

Emilia Perez Tops GG Noms List

Karla Sofia Gascon and Zoe Saldana in
Emilia Perez.
Credit: Page 114/Why Not Productions/Pathe Films/
France 2 Cinema/Netflix

Emilia Perez, the drug cartel-transgender musical (yes, that is a thing) from Netflix, dominated the Golden Globe nominations with ten including Best Motion Picture--Comedy or Musical. This is the most nominations for a comedy or musical, breaking the record of nine held by last year's Barbie. Lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón could become the first transgender performer to receive an Oscar nomination. She is nominated for Best Actress--Comedy or Musical (the Globes divide their categories between Drama and Comedy/Musical). The Brutalist, which won Best Picture from the New York Film Critics Circle, was next with seven nods. Conclave follows with six.

There were a few noticeable snubs including Marianne Jean-Baptiste of Hard Truths and Danielle Deadwyler from The Piano Lesson who both have won recognition from several critics' groups.

Comedienne Nikki Glaser will host the 82nd Golden Globes on CBS Jan. 5. Tony-Oscar-Emmy winner Viola Davis (Fences, How to Get Away with Murder) will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement. Ted Danson (Cheers, The Good Place) will be honored with the Carol Burnett Award for TV excellence. He's also nominated for the comedy series A Man on the Inside.

A complete list of Golden Globes nominees follows:

Washington for Wicked

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande
in Wicked.
Credit: Giles Keyte / Universal Pictures

The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association voted Wicked Best Picture during its annual voting meeting to chose the top cinema efforts of 2024. The musical based on the still-running Broadway hit about the early days of the witches of Oz also won Best Picture from the National Board of Review and is a front-runner for the upcoming Oscar noms. Mikey Madison of Anora was named Best Actress. She also won top honors from the LA and Boston critics. Coleman Domingo of Sing Sing, who already won at the Gotham Awards, took Best Actor. Best Supporting Actor Kieran Culkin of A Real Pain continued his winning ways, having previous taken the NBR, NY Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics. Danielle Deadwyler of The Piano Lesson was voted Best Supporting Actress. 

A complete list of winners and nominees follows:

LAFCA Votes Anora Best Picture

Mikey Madison in Anora.
Credit: Neon

Anora is pulling ahead in the 2024 film award race. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association voted the Sean Baker comedy Best Picture for its 50th annual awards. The group also awarded Best Leading Performance for the film's star Mikey Madison who shared the honor with Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Mike Leigh's Hard Truths. Anora had won in the Best Picture award from the Boston Society of Film Critics earlier the same day (Dec. 8). Madison was also named Best Actress by the Beantown reviewers. The LA scribes present their performance awards in gender-free categories. Anora's Yura Borisov and A Real Pain's Kieran Culkin won Best Supporting Performances. Culkin is emerging as the front runner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, having also won the NYFCC and NBR awards. (Note: Unlike the other award-dispensers previously documented in this blog, the LA group included their runners-up).

A list of the 50th Los Angeles Film Critics Association winners follows:

Beantown Scribes Choose Anora Best Pic

Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madson in
Anora, Boston critics' choice for Best Picture

The 2024 film award sweepstakes just blew wide open. The Boston Society of Film Critics parted ways from their New York counterparts and the National Board of Review by voting Anora, the comedy about a sex worker hitching up with the son of a Russian oligarch, Best Picture Actress, and Best Director and Original Screenplay (both Sean Baker). The New York Film Critics Circle chose The Brutalist best and the NBR went with Wicked. Both groups voted the directors of best their top choice as best of the year. This widens the field for Hollywood's Biggest Prize, the Oscars. (Note: The Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association will also announce their winners today. More in separate blog posts.)

The Boston scribes' acting choices also did not match up with those of the NYFCC or the NBR. The Beantown acting champs are: Actor: Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown; Actress: Mikey Madison, Anora; Supp. Actor: Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown; Supp. Actress; Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson. (We did catch The Piano Lesson on Netflix. Deadwyler was fabulous and I hope she get more recognition since she was robbed of an Oscar nom for Till.)

A complete list of winners follows:

B'way/Film Reviews: Death Becomes Her; Wicked

Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard in
Death Becomes Her.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and 
Evan Zimmerman

Get ready for the most ghoulish Broadway fun you’ve had in years. The stage version of Death Becomes Her, based on Robert Zemeckis’ outlandish 1992 film comedy, now at the Lunt-Fontanne, is a riotous romp with something for everyone. Hardcore Main Stem fans get to see two legitimate musical-comedy divas clash and ascend to their rightful places in the theater firmament. Those who revel in special effects will get their fill of incredible, credulity-defying twists and turns (literal and figurative). If you just want a good laugh, this show has them in cascades.

The two divas are a pair of hard-working pros who have long toiled in the Broadway vineyards and are finally getting their due at the top of the bill. Jennifer Simard has excelled in numerous supporting roles in Once Upon a One More Time, Hello, Dolly!, Company and Disaster (who can forget her ballad to a slot machine as a gambling-addicted nun?) Megan Hilty suffered through the bizarre TV series Smash and the near-miss 9 to 5, as well as playing replacement lead in Wicked. Here, in roles originated on film by Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep respectively, the ladies rise to the occasion as two battling frenemies, sparring with insults and jabs supplied by razor-sharp book writer Marco Pennette. 

Jennifer Simard and Chrisopher Sieber
in Death Becomes Her.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and
Even Zimmerman

Anyone who’s seen the movie will not need much of a plot summary. For novices, here’s a brief recap. Film star Madeline (Hilty) and aspiring novelist Helen (Simard) battle over the same man, plastic surgeon Ernest (Christopher Sieber brilliantly holding his own), and dominance in their decades-long relationship. Once the duo have imbibed of a mysterious youth-rejuvenation formula supplied by a vampirish villainess (Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, magnificently devious), they become immortal and impossible to bump off. But the guffaws start even before that ingenious plot device is introduced at the end of the first act.

Pennette’s laugh-a-minute book starts with a perfect parody of a Broadway number for Madeline to headline. In this version, she is a theater as well as a movie star blatantly catering to gays and paying tribute to every queer icon from Liza to her mom Judy in a musical spoof-show called “Me! Me! Me!” The effervescent, sparkly satire by composer-lyricists Julia Mattison and Noel Carey is perfectly on-target, staged with equal wit and dynamism by director-choreographer Christopher Gatelli. This joy and snap provided by the writers and stager carry through the entire evening. 

Book Review: I Said Yes to Everything

(Picked up for $2 at the Broadway Flea Market) Life seldom goes in a straight line. Lee Grant's zigzagged for several decades and she documents the journey in a breezy, fun, thoughtful 450 pages (I got a beautifully beat-up paperback.) In her early 20s she rocketed to success with a memorable supporting role s a shoplifter in Detective Story on Broadway and garnered an Oscar nomination for the film version starring Kirk Douglas. Not long after she was blacklisted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee for speaking out against the Committee at the funeral of a fellow actor who was hounded by them. She re-emerged in the 1960s on the thrice-weekly prime time soap Peyton Place, winning an Emmy. An Oscar for Shampoo and two more nominations (for The Landlord and Voyage of the Damned) followed. But the realities of aging and a bad case of stage fright and not being able to remember lines pushed her towards directing docs and features for film and TV, resulting in a second Oscar (for HBO's Down and Out in America.)  Grant is brutally honest on the status of actresses in Hollywood. Unlike in Britain where mature ladies such as Vanessa Redgrave, Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench can continue starring well into their 80s, American women are thrust aside at the first sign of wrinkles. Grant chronicles her battle with aging, not out of vanity, but out of the necessity to keep working. That's another reason she was so mad about the blacklist, it robbed her of 12 youthful years of working in movies and TV. 

The book is also valuable in its detailed history of the blacklist. She gives the true history of the events covered in the TV movie Fear on Trial.

We also get plenty of info on working for her paycheck in Valley of the Dolls, Airport 77 and The Swarm, her two marriages, her daughter Dinah Manoff (Tony winner for Neil Simon's I Oughta Be in Pictures) and her adopted daughter, an affair with Burt Bacharach and juicy gossip on Liza Minnelli's wedding (the guests were kept waiting over an hour while Maid of Honor Elizabeth Taylor sent her assistant to get the right shoes.)

I interviewed Grant on the phone for my bio of George C. Scott (She played his wife in the NBC mini-series on Mussolini). She was very forthcoming and full of insights on working with Scott who was withholding of emotions until his wife Trish Van Devere arrived on the set late in the filming. The last film I saw her act in was David Lynch's super weird Mulholland Drive. It was a cameo with Ann Miller and the ladies were shot through a screen door. Miller played a landlady and Grant was a nutty tenant. At the time I thought, why is Lee Grant, such a great actress, doing such a nothing role? Now I understand. It was a farewell to acting in Hollywood in a crazy, surrealistic takedown of Tinseltown, the place where Grant was victimized and ultimately triumphed.

Wicked Casts a Spell on NBR

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked,
winner of Best Picture from NBR

Wicked (which I just saw yesterday in IMAX), the film adaptation of the first act of the hit Broadway musical about the witches of Oz, casts a spell on the National Board of Review, winning Best Picture, Best Director (Jon M. Chu) and the NBR Spotlight Award to stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande for their creative collaboration. The National Board of Review announced its winners on Tues. Dec. 4. The awards will be presented on Jan. 7 at Ciprani 42nd Street in a gala hosted by Willie Geist on MSNBC's Morning Joe (is anyone still watching that show?) and NBC's Sunday Today. 

Founded in 1909, the NBR is composed of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals, academics and students. The group's winners did not overlap much with those of the New York Film Critics Circle, announced yesterday. Only Kieran Culkin of A Real Pain won both a NYFCC and NBR award in his category, Best Supporting Actor. The NBR thespian champs are Best Actor Daniel Craig (Queer), Best Actress Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) and Best Supporting Actress Elle Fanning (A Complete Unknown). NYFCC's choice for Best Picture, The Brutalist, was totally ignored by the NBR.

This win increases Wicked's chances for Oscar gold. But it's a long way to the noms for Hollywood's top prize on Jan. 17

"Wicked represents the pure magic that movies can bring to audiences. Every detail is beautifully crafted and designed, the actors are all exceptional and the music is second-to-none - together it adds up to a transporting experience like no other. The NBR is proud to honor director Jon M. Chu and his remarkable cinematic vision,” said NBR President Annie Schulhof.

NYFCC Names The Brutalist Best

Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in
The Brutalist.

Film award season has begun. The New York Film Critics Circle, the earliest of the reviewers' organization and the oldest--this is their 90th awards--met on Dec. 3 to vote for their choices for the best work of 2024. The Brutalist, Brady Corbet's epic film about a Hungarian-Jewish architect fleeing post-World War II Europe for America, was named Best Picture and won Best Actor for Adrien Brody. 

Marianne Jean-Bapiste was voted Best Actress for her performance as a woman suffering from depression and anger issues in Mike Leigh's Hard Truths. Carol Kane won Best Supporting Actress as a retired music teacher studying for her long-denied Bat Mitzvah and developing an attraction for a troubled cantor who was her former student in Between the Temples. Kieran Culkin was named Best Supporting Actor as a man touring Poland with his cousin to reconnect with their roots in A Real Pain.

Nickel Boys, based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, won for Best Director and Cinematography. Annie Baker's Janet Planet was elected Best First Film. The awards will be presented at a dinner on Jan. 8.

The group did not announce runners-up. Many of the winning films have not be released commercially yet.

B'way Update: Get Happy Reading

Corbin Bleu and cast in Summer Stock
(now titled Get Happy)
at Goodspeed Musicals.
Credit: Diane Sobolewski

Corbin Bleu and Stephanie Styles who co-starred in the Roundabout revival of Kiss Me, Kate will reunite for an industry reading of Get Happy, a new musical based on the 1950 MGM film musical summer stock which starred Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and Phil Silvers. The reading will be held on Jan. 17 in NYC with Donna Feore (Canada's Stratford Festival) directing and choreographing. The show premiered in 2023 at Goodspeed Musicals inder the title of Summer Stock. The score is composed of songs from the film such as "You Wonderful You," "Happy Harvest," and "Get Happy" which became one of Garland's signature tunes. There are also classic songs such as "Accentuate the Positive," "It Had to Be You, and "Happy Days Are Here Again." The book and additional lyrics are provided by four-time Cheri Steinkellner (Cheers, Sister Act the Musical).

Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in Summer Stock

The plot centers on the cast of a pre-Broadway musical losing their rehearsal space and descending on a Connecticut farm to save their show. Of course the lady farm owner and the show's leading man find romance. Also in the cast are Stephen Lee Anderson, Gilbert L. Bailey II, Tony nominee Veanne Cox, Zoe Jensen, Will Roland and Tony nominee Douglas Sills, with Nicholas Cunha, Francesca Mancuso, Corinne Munsch, Kaylee Olson, Aaron Patterson, Jack Sippel, and Cayel Tregeagle.

Binging on John Ford, Part 7: The Civil War, Will Rogers and Stepin Fetchit

Stepin Fetchit and Will Rogers in
Judge Priest

A recurrent theme in many of Ford's early sound pictures is the Lost Cause syndrome of the Civil War which portrays those who fought for the Confederacy as noble, rough-hewn gentlemen fighting for a legitimate, almost holy way of life rather than insurrectionists battling for the right to hold slaves. I recently acquired a box set of DVDs called Ford at Fox: John Ford' American Comedies from eBay for $16. The set contains three 1930s films starring popular American humorist Will Rogers, two of which rely heavily on the Lost Cause mythos. These two--Judge Priest and Steamboat Round the Bend also star Stepin Fetchit, the African-American actor (real name Lincoln Perry) who perpetuated the stereotype of a lazy, subservient black man (More on that later.) I also caught up with Rio Grande (also from eBay in an individual DVD), the third of Ford's Cavalry trilogy, also replete with Civil War themes.

Rogers was an immensely popular entertainer who rose to prominence by performing fancy rope tricks while cracking wise on current events. He started in vaudeville and then was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies before moving on to feature films. He always played a variation on himself, the relaxed, lovable wise rube dispensing front-porch wisdom. In his three films directed by Ford, Rogers doesn't even seem to be acting, but reacting to the situation while most of his co-stars gave stagey performances. According to the commentary by Ford biographer Scott Eyman (Print the Legend), Ford would give Rogers the script, but told him not to memorize any lines because they would come out phony. He should just get the sense of the scene and say the lines in his own way. Rogers is charming and relaxed in all three Ford comedies which do convey a rustic, warm mood. But they also reflect the prejudices of their time. According to Ford, the Civil War was a tragic conflict between equally well-intended adversaries and the slavery issue was just a minor footnote producing comic relief characters. (You can also see this in the obscure Prisoner of Shark Island.)

Off-B'way Reviews: Shit. Meet. Fan.; The Blood Quilt

Debra Messing and Jane Krakowksi
in Shit. Meet. Fan.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Robert O’Hara’s scalding new comedy Shit. Meet. Fan. was sold out before it even opened, and it’s riotously funny, as were his previous works Bootycandy and Barbecue, but it’s not really anything new. The hit status can be attributed to a cast stuffed with familiar TV names (such as Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Krakowski, Debra Messing and Constance Wu) and a limited run in a small Off-Broadway space at MCC Theater. The script is based on Paolo Genovese’s 2016 Italian film called Perfect Strangers which has had many remakes in various languages and the basic premise is familiar from numerous American plays. As in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Boys in the Band, a group of friends gather for an evening of cocktails, but a seemingly harmless party game reveals uncomfortable truths and relationships are altered or shattered. The modern twist here is all seven guests are required to leave their cell phones on a table for an hour and whatever messages, texts, calls or email come in must be shared with the entire group. 

B'way Review: Tammy Faye

Katie Brayben in
Tammy Faye. Credit: Matthew Murphy

The musical Tammy Faye, centering on the larger-than-life televangelist Tammy Faye Baker, came to Broadway from London with high hopes. It had a sell-out engagement at the Almeida Theater, music by pop legend Elton John, an Olivier Award-winning performance by Katie Brayben in the title role, and it was the first production in the renovated and elevated Palace Theater. But the New York run has already posted its closing notice for Dec. 8, for a total of only 24 previews and 29 regular performances, at a loss of $25 million. So what went wrong?

The biggest flaw is to be found in James Graham’s book and Rupert Goold’s direction, both uneven. The show can’t seem to make up its mind as to what it wants to be. Is it a goofy satire on American excess and obsession with TV or a heartfelt love letter to Tammy, portraying her as a compassionate supporter of the gay community during the AIDS crisis, a pioneering feminist in a male-dominated field, and an innocent bystander during the massive corruption and embezzlement committed by her husband and co-star Jim Bakker in their joint venture, the PTL (Praise the Lord) satellite TV network?

Katie Brayben and Christian Borle in
Tammy Faye. Credit: Matthew Murphy

The schizophrenic nature of Graham’s book is exemplified in its treatment of gay characters. There is a genuinely touching recreation of Tammy’s 1985 sympathetic interview with Steve Pieters (a moving Charl Brown), a gay pastor living with HIV, though in reality the encounter was held via satellite and Tammy did not actually hug Pieters as depicted in the show. Yet Graham also includes gratuitous gay stereotypes for cheap laughs (swishy musical theater actors playing Biblical figures in the Bakkers’ theme-park productions) and only lightly touches on Jim Bakker’s bisexuality. Occasionally the satire is pointed and piercing, but then the humor level falls through the floor as in a juxtaposition of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt with Colonel Sanders, appearing on the PTL talk show. (Both were overly fond of chicken, get it?) The score with catchy Broadway-pop-mixed music by John and serviceable lyrics by Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, fills the bill to advance the story and comment on character, but rarely raises above generic. Tammy’s big Act Two opener, “In My Prime Time,” is a rousing “I want” song which the brings the energy way up. 

Goold’s direction emphasizes the broad comedy over honest examination of the influence of media on religion. Bunny Christie’s candy-colored set further tips the proceedings into parody, featuring a giant board of TV screens, doubling as cubicles for actors to pop out of, like the infamous joke wall on the old Laugh-In series and the neon tic-tac-toe set for the Hollywood Squares game show. Katrina Lindsay’s costume capture the time period (1970s-1990s) with wit.

The British probably ate this sort of America-bashing up, but US audiences, reeling from the Trump re-election and re-emergence of the ultra-right-wing figures lampooned here, evidently don’t have a taste for such self-examination. Thus the transatlantic failure.

Michael Cerveris, Christian Borle,
and Katie Brayben in
Tammy Faye.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

The show’s short run is really a shame because the cast is given its level best. Though at times during Lynn Page’s furiously choreographed numbers, we can see them sweat. Brayden displays admirable pipes and endows Tammy with spunk, wit, and compassion. Though Graham’s version of Tammy is not as complex or nuanced as the one which won Jessica Chastain an Oscar in Michael Showalter’s 2021 feature The Eyes of Tammy Faye (I didn’t see Bernadette Peters in the 1990 TV-Movie Fall from Grace.) Tammy is not the total innocent who used the PTL money to buy the “occasional nice thing.” But the script’s shortcomings aren’t Brayden’s fault. She takes the material given her and creates as solid and relatable a character as possible. Christian Borle skillfully recreates Jim Bakker’s awkwardness in front of the camera (as opposed to Tammy’s ease) and his manic lack of control as PTL’s empire grows. He does his best to combine the zany, comic aspects of his songs with a creditable characterization. Michael Cerveris captures rival televangelist Jerry Falwell’s sanctimonious sneer and barely concealed lust for power, encapsulated in the ironically titled “Satellite of God.” Max Gordon Moore, Mark Evans, Ian Lassiter, and  Andy Taylor have fun with multiple cartoonish roles ranging from Ronald Reagan to Pope John Paul II to Ted Turner.

Tammy Faye is not among the most abysmal of Broadway flops such as Marilyn, In My Life or The Story of My Life. It has some redeeming elements such as Brayden’s performance and the sharper edges of its satire. It just couldn’t find the right balance and opened at the wrong moment.

Nov. 14—Dec. 8. Palace Theater, 160 W. 47th St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 40 mins. including intermission. broadwaydirect.com