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Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Vic Sage Aug 05 2014 03:50 PM

Is there any advance word on The Last Ship? I hear Sting and think pretentious as a knee jerk reaction, but am willing to keep an open mind if the buzz is really good. I've heard some of the songs and they're lovely. I haven't heard anything about the show, however. Here's this year's upcoming season, so far: HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME - this Tupac Shakur musical closed almost before it opened. LOVE LETTERS - revival of the Gurney play, with revolving casts starting with Brian Dennehy and Mia Farrow THE AUDIENCE – Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, in a new play by Peter Morgan THIS IS OUR YOUTH – Michael Cera in a Steppenwolf production of a play by Kenneth Lonergan YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU - revival of the Kaufman/Hart comedy, with James Earl Jones, etal THE COUNTRY HOUSE - new play by Donald Marguilies with Blythe Danner, at MTC CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME - Hit Brit play IT’S ONLY A PLAY - newly revised by Terrance McNally, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick ON THE TOWN – revival of classic Comden & Green / Bernstein musical DISGRACED – 2013 pulitzer winner, co-produced by Lincoln Center THE LAST SHIP – Sting's musical THE REAL THING -Roundabout revival of the Stoppard play, with Maggie Gyllenhal, Ewen McGregor and Cynthia Nixon SIDESHOW - a revival of the flop musical, this time directed by co-author Bill Condon THE RIVER – Hugh Jackman in Jez Butterworth's new play A DELICATE BALANCE – Albee revival, with Glenn Close and John Lithgow THE ILLUSIONISTS - Magic show ELEPHANT MAN - revival with Bradley (Rocket Racoon) Cooper CONSTELLATIONS - new play at MTC with Maggie's brother, Jake HONEYMOON IN VEGAS – new musical by Jason Robert Brown ON THE 20TH CENTURY - Roundabout revival with Kristen Chenoweth AN AMERICAN IN PARIS – new stage adaptation of the Gershwin musical, with a book by Craig Lucas THE KING & I - Lincoln Center revival with Kelli O'Hara

Vic Sage Oct 06 2014 02:48 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season Edited 2 time(s), most recently on Oct 07 2014 03:04 PM

THIS IS OUR YOUTH - The Steppenwolf revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s1996 play about affluent NYC youth lost at the dawn of the 1980s, is ferociously funny and sad, and lives somewhere between Mamet and The Breakfast Club. It is brilliantly acted by a trio of talented young actors (Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin and Tavi Gevenson) and directed impeccably by Steppenwolf’s Anna Shapiro (AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY). Though it loses some narrative energy as it meanders through a critical night in the lives of the 3 young characters, and some of its “don’t parents just suck” summing up is a bit on the nose, the dialogue is smart and funny, yet maintains real emotional resonance. Michael Cera (JUNO) is a superhero of sorts… he’s able to make dorks who do annoying and stupidly self-destructive things into deeply sympathetic and likeable figures. Unfortunately, he and Ms. Genevson appear to have very little stage training, since instead of projecting their lines, they just shout them. This makes it hard to tell the difference when they are supposed to be shouting. Mr. Culkin, however, is smooth as silk as the ringleader… a narcissistic, abusive a-hole. It’s a terrific production of a good writer’s good first play. [B+] LOVE LETTERS – AR Gurney’s unique epistolary play features a pair of actors who sit at a table on a bare stage and just read letters to each other, as written over the course of a lifetime. In this way, we experience the lives of a man and a woman, a pair of affluent wasps who loved each other since childhood yet were kept apart by circumstance and society. It is the purest form of theater… words spoken by actors to an audience, with almost no production elements getting in the way. When I first saw it years ago, with Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst, their personal history together imbued the play with such powerful subtext that it was breathtaking. In this new revival, the play is still being done by celebrity pairings. The current one is Mia Farrow and Brian Dennehy (with upcoming casts to include Dennehy with Carol Burnett, followed by Alan Alda & Candice Bergen, Stacy Keach & Diana Rigg, and Anjelica Huston & Martin Sheen). Unfortunately, Farrow & Dennehy can’t hold a candle to my memories of the original production. Unfair, I know, but there it is. Farrow is fine, but Dennehy is simply not up to her level, and that throws the play out of whack. It now seems to be her play, with him in a subordinate role, but it doesn’t work well that way. Maybe the Huston/Sheen cast will be able to make this elegant, funny, touching piece work right. {B-} YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU – The classic Kaufman & Hart comedy, winner of the Pulitzer back in 1936, is surprisingly contemporary and still funny in this new revival. The whacky Sycamore family takes on overzealous tax collectors and agents of law enforcement, as well as uptight Wall Streeters, Russian ex-aristocrats, pretentious arty-ness, family dysfunction, and young love frustrated by conformity and class consciousness. And the play does so with a sweetness and humanity that belies the toughness of its message. It has a great cast, particularly Kristine Neilson and Mark-Linn Baker as the eccentric Sycamore parents, Anneleigh Ashford as their scattered younger daughter, and Rose Byrne as the older daughter, sensibly engaged to a well-to-do scion of a conservative wall street family. Of course, James Earl Jones is spectacular as ever as the daft but wise grandfather. The problem of course, is that Jones is obviously black and his family is obviously not. Now if this was a production featuring a black cast (like last season’s CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, also with Jones) the casting of Jones would be terrific. Or if the production was using “color-blind casting”, where all the roles were cast with race, nationalities, genders, etc., at random, putting the play in some sort of fantasy vision of the 30s, then that too could be interesting, and Jones would be perfectly appropriate. But this production is neither of these things. The show features a black couple in supporting roles (servants, of course) and they are cast with black actors. Everyone else is white, and the cast performs on a relatively realistic set. And the story, as wackily comic as it is, is dealing with real Depression-era issues, relevant to the period in which the play takes place, all of which suggests a relatively naturalistic production. This makes the casting of Jones as the grandfather just “stunt casting” to make a buck which, if it gets commented on, the producers can defend by implying that the commentator is racist for noticing... which is just cynical beyond words. The purpose of casting is to find actors who are not only good but appropriate for the roles, so as to help audiences suspend their disbelief. Whenever casting impedes that, imposing either a socio-political agenda or commercial imperative on the casting process, then that is bad for the art form. All that said, it’s a terrific production. [A-]

sharpie Oct 06 2014 03:08 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Saw THIS IS OUR YOUTH and pretty much agree with Vic. Second act far weaker than the first, too much of "now the ghosts in my past will be revealed" stuff for me. I also saw THE COUNTRY HOUSE which I liked less than YOUTH but I'll wait for Vic's review to comment.

Vic Sage Oct 16 2014 10:50 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

THE COUNTRY HOUSE - This new play be Donald Margulies, commissioned for MTC, is 2nd rate Chekhov rather than 1st rate Margulies. It is THE SEAGULL in the Berkshires, with a family of narcissistic, successful (and unsuccessful) actors bashing against each other for 3 acts. When Chris Durang did a similar thing last season (VANYA, MASHA & SPIKE), he gave it a funny, absurdist spin. Margulies, however, can manage little more than sitcom quips and "LIFETIME Movie" poignancy. The first act is pleasant and amusing enough, though the characters all start out vain, self-involved and lacking in self-awareness. Then, in act II, they grow increasingly worse. With no one to care about, and overacted psycho-drama overtaking the action, whatever affection for the play might have been earned by the mildly ingratiating first act, it loses by the end of the 3rd. . The performances are mostly excellent, particularly Blythe Danner as Anna, a legendary Broadway diva and matriarch of the clan which has gathered at her summer house in Williamstown to mark the anniversary of her daughter's death. Also present, the wise-beyond-her-years granddaughter (Sarah Steele); the ne'er do well son (Eric Lange), angry and self-destructive; the widowed husband (David Rasche), a hack director, who has brought his young fiancé to the festivities (Kate Jennings Grant) to meet his daughter and to get Anna's blessing; and the Lothario movie/TV star (Daniel Sunjata) who is an old friend of the family invited by Anna to stay on the couch while he does some summer stock to cleanse his soul. Sunjata becomes the sexual nexus for all the women in the story, but he is an empty vestal so they project onto him whatever it is they think they need, leading to minor disappointments for all. Well enough directed and designed, with mostly good performances, I am tempted to say that Danner and Steele ultimately make this production worthwhile, but they don't quite. [C]

sharpie Oct 16 2014 01:27 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Yeah, pretty much agree with Vic on this one too except I liked some of the performances less. I've generally liked Margulies' work but his script was problematic, trying to smash Uncle Vanya and The Seagull in with a bunch of theatre in-jokes and the aforesaid LIFETIME TV moments. I did like the bit about the three generations of women having their designs on the same guy and Blythe Danner and Sarah Steele had some good moments but it all added up to a pretty forgettable evening at the theater.

Vic Sage Oct 17 2014 09:55 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I didn't like the performances all that much. I hated Eric Lange as the son (both the performance and the character), and Daniel Sunjata as the star/stud was a vortex of suck... but he always is. Kate Jennings Grant as the fiance made absolutely no impression at all. I did think David Rasche as the widowed husband and Sarah Steele as his daughter both gave solid, endearing performances, and Ms. Danner was masterful.

Vic Sage Oct 22 2014 12:52 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

ON THE TOWN - This sparkly revival of the Leonard Bernstein / Comden & Green / Jerome Robbins collaboration is a dance spectacular, beautifully mounted and staged, but cast with dancers rather than actors, exposing some of the weaknesses inherent in the material. The show is dated, but the director has made that a virtue, constructing a fantasy vision of a post-war NYC that never really was, all candy-colored and cartoonish, with effective CGI projections backing up lovely set pieces and wonderful costumes. The leads, however, are not quite so colorful. Tony Yazbeck is charmless and weak as Gabey, a sailor on leave with his pals for 24 hours. He’s burdened with crooning the least affecting songs in the show and particularly suffers in comparison to the whirlwind that was Gene Kelly in the film version. Yazbeck dances wonderfully though, and is able to keep pace with Megan Fairchild, the ABT's prima ballerina, who plays Ivy, the object of Gabey's affection. Fairchild has a thin voice and is an awful actress, but her dancing is extraordinary. The supporting cast is much stronger, however. Alysha Umphress is Hildy, a comically carnal cab-driver who has set her carnivorous sights on Gabey's sailor pal, the geeky Chip (Jay Armstrong Johnson), who moves like a rubber band on acid. Clyde Alves is the tough little sex-crazed sailor, Ozzie, who pairs off with the society dame, Claire de Loon (Elizabeth Stanley). She finds she much prefers Ozzie's primitive charms to her fiancée’s middle-aged milque-toastery, and she emotes in an operatic soprano. And Jackie Hoffman plays a series of quirky characters to the rafters; subtle she isn't but quite effective nonetheless, offering the best comic moments throughout the show. As generally entertaining as the show is, I came to realize as I watched that I preferred the movie version. The screenplay made many fixes to the stage show's ridiculously flawed book (the screen story was ridiculous, too, but at least made some sort of barely tenable sense), and it cut out most of the extraneous songs, rewriting some of the weaker numbers... and there ARE a number of weaker numbers, including some especially bland and forgettable ballads. Unfortunately, the movie also cut 1 or 2 good numbers, as well ("I can cook, too" being the main one), and the script sanitized the vulgar, earthy sexiness of the story, essentially neutering it. Seeing the stage version, however, you realize the show is basically a long, tuneful, dirty joke about sailors getting laid on leave, and it pulls no punches on that count. Its contrast between leering sexuality and slapstick on the one hand, and muscular ballet and operatic vocals on the other, makes the show an intriguing blend of low and high culture, with Bernstein & Robbins meeting Comden & Green. But as for me, a little ballet goes a long way and dirty jokes also wear out their welcome rather quickly, so I was done with this show early in Act II. Your mileage, however, may vary. [C+] but if you love ballet and have never seen the movie, then [A-].

bmfc1 Oct 24 2014 10:16 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

While in London, I saw "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" and it was fantastic. Very powerful and moving. Brilliant staging. Great acting.

sharpie Oct 24 2014 10:50 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

And I saw "The Real Thing" and "Disgraced" last week. Liked them both, especially the latter.

Vic Sage Nov 03 2014 09:02 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

IT'S ONLY A PLAY- Terrence McNally's hateful love letter (or loving hate letter) to Broadway has been revived with a reunited Nathan Lane & Matthew Broderick, and spectacular support from an all-star cast. McNally has been writing and re-writing this play since the late 70s and has finally gotten it right, with a perfect blend of biting wit, hilarious gags and heartfelt schmaltz. The story, such as it is, is about a lavish opening night party at a producer's home as everyone waits for the Times review to decide their fate. And that's pretty much it, as we see everyone's petty jealousies, idiosyncrasies, abiding affection and profound love for one another. Yes, it's a paean to narcissism, but you can't help but root for these folks anyway. They mean well. Lane is giving a master class in comic timing, as an actor who left the theater and found success in a bad sitcom, with conflicted feelings toward the playwright (Matthew Broderick) his best friend, a man-child bewildered by both his successes and his failures. Megan Mullally is the ditzy rich wife / producer, imbuing her with a sort of grace by virtue of her sincere (if doofy) love of the play and everyone involved with it. Stockard Channing's horrific plastic surgery actually works to her advantage, as you watch her faded, drug-addicted, ankle-brace wearing movie star try to make a comeback and reclaim a scrap of dignity. Newcomer Micah Stock is a servant at the party, taking coats in the guest room where all the action (such as it is) takes place, and a NYC newbie actor trying to impress the guests with his theatrical gifts. Tall, thin and gawky, he’s like a baby giraffe with a deadpan delivery, as he throws increasingly outlandish coats on the bed. Jack O'Brien's impeccable direction has even made the costume designer a featured player. Only F. Murray Abraham is wasted as a 1-dimensional theater critic, who secretly hopes to be a playwright (don't they all?), and is really only there as a target for McNally's shots at theater critics. And Rupert Gint's performance, as the young Brit director whose inexplicably successful career leaves him hoping for a flop, is exhaustingly manic and suffers in comparison to the company he's playing in. There is also an off-stage barking dog who serves only as a distraction, not every line or gag lands with aplomb, and there are some soliloquies that are just the author pontificating about the importance of theater. Also, the "hey kids, lets put on a show... lets put on THIS show" conclusion is cute but kind of obvious and silly. Still, all in all, it’s a hilariously entertaining, insightful, theatrical, and surprisingly tender air kiss to Broadway, well worth another look. [B+]

Vic Sage Nov 06 2014 02:35 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

DISGRACED – Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is basically a cocktail conversation between two couples about Islam, geo-politics, art, marriage, tribalism and identity, which degenerates into a drunken brawl. It is a tragedy marinated in scotch, infidelity, rage and corporate intrigue. Though I found the play’s politics and perspective loathsome, any thinking person will find things to agree with and to be angry about in this handsome production of a rich and powerful work. I was fascinated by the story, at first, thinking I was seeing kind of an Islamic version of Ibsen’s ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, where a man speaks the truth to a community that doesn’t want to hear it and is destroyed by his refusal to give in. But then I became increasingly irritated as I saw Amir, this successful smart young Pakistani-American attorney, destroyed for his secularism, for his rationality, for his success, and for his assimilation to his adopted country and its culture. The play suggests that these attributes are just a form of self-loathing, instead of the rational response to the irrational culture in which he was raised. This “self-loathing” is our hero’s “tragic flaw” for which he must be brought low… and he certainly is. [SPOILERS] Amir loses his career because of the reluctant assistance he gives a jailed imam at the insistence of his white wife and Islamic nephew. His expected partnership goes instead to his friend and colleague, Jorie (she is a black attorney married to the Jewish art dealer that has just agreed to give Amir’s wife a show). He then finds out that his adored wife’s naïve love of Islam not only cost him his job, it led to her infidelity with the art dealer. In the end, he’s lost his career, his friends, his wife, the love and respect of his nephew, as well as his self-respect for descending into animalistic brutality. All that remains in his beautiful apartment, now barren and packed up because he can no longer afford it, is his wife’s painting of him, based on a famous depiction of a slave dressed in the clothes of his master, incorrectly thinking that he is therefore no longer a slave. It is a too on-the-nose rendering of the evils of assimilation... or "self-loathing", as Mr. Ahktar would have it. [END OF SPOILERS] The play implies that the inherent tribalism we are all heir to, that destructive mix of religion and ethnicity, is unavoidable and so instead of transcending it, we’re better off to simply accept it and be ourselves. “Your white world will never accept us brown people, so we might as well go home and blow up your country,” or notions to that effect. Or at least this is the conclusion the hero’s nephew has come to by the end… a character who seems to be the playwright’s voice in this disturbing work. So over the course of its tense, intermission-less 90 minutes, impeccably directed and well played as it is, the play descends from ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE into TRIUMPH OF THE WILL… a masterwork of despicable views. Your mileage may well vary. [A] for its artistry, [F] for its ideology, giving it a [C] average.

sharpie Nov 07 2014 07:27 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Wow, Vic, I'm surprised and kind of puzzled that you felt that Amir's rant or the nephew's point-of-view represented the views of the playwright. I give him credit for being after much larger game than a polemic about Muslim abuse in the West. I found it to be one of the more compelling and thought provoking plays I've seen in many a year. He loses his job, he finds out his wife is having an affair, he feels betrayed because his name got connected with the jailed imam, he gets drunk and makes wild remarks which go against everything he has stood for his whole life. Are there put-upon minorities all over the world who intellectually know that terrorist behavior is wrong but feel a frisson of glee when it is on their side? Of course there are. I'm sure that there were Irish in the UK who abhored the IRA bomb planted in the Parliament building on a rational level but buried deep inside had a glimmer of "they had it coming to them" in them. Comparing it to "Triumph of the Will" is just wrong. But I guess that is what great theater should do, provide an opportunity for very different interpretations of the same work.

Vic Sage Nov 07 2014 11:57 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I will attempt to address your puzzlement. sharpie wrote: ... I'm surprised and kind of puzzled that you felt that Amir's rant or the nephew's point-of-view represented the views of the playwright. I give him credit for being after much larger game than a polemic about Muslim abuse in the West. I don't know what the playwright's personal views are, and i don't really care. I only care about what his play's views are. I found it to be one of the more compelling and thought provoking plays I've seen in many a year. Agreed. And i think i said so. ... he gets drunk and makes wild remarks which go against everything he has stood for his whole life. Which "wild remarks" are those? He apparently stands for secularism, rationality and cooperation, because he knows well the danger of religious irrationality and the violent tribalism it inspires. And his drunken rant is totally consistent with that. He knows that even he, a highly educated successful man of reason, feels the animal brain inside him pulling him toward blind hate and he struggles against that impulse every day. That's what he said. And for doing so, he is utterly destroyed, because a tragedy requires a tragic flaw, and his tragic flaw is his rejection of his Islamic heritage and his struggle against its religious irrationality, branded by the play as "self-loathing" (its specified as such at least 3 different times). Everything in the play supports this notion, that these views are really just him hating himself and where he comes from and who he is. Well, maybe he does, but that hatred is well-reasoned and articulated by the character, and totally justifiable given his circumstances, so to see it as a tragic flaw (as the play does) for which the gods must destroy him... well, that's this writer's play. And if he wasn't endorsing that view and intended instead to criticize the notion that a rational rejection of religion and tribalism and a willingness to accept American culture constitutes "self-loathing", then he did a very poor job indeed. Are there put-upon minorities all over the world who intellectually know that terrorist behavior is wrong but feel a frisson of glee when it is on their side? Of course there are. I'm sure that there were Irish in the UK who abhored the IRA bomb planted in the Parliament building on a rational level but buried deep inside had a glimmer of "they had it coming to them" in them. Of course there are such people. I'm one of them and, if you're honest with yourself, you may be one, too. We all have that prehistoric reptilian part of our brains where irrationality and survival instincts live hand in hand. The Cro-Magnons that identified with their tribe and fought for it, and imbued other tribes with a sense of evil, and in the darkness saw monsters, were the ones mostly likely to survive and procreate. And all that Amir said in his "wild remarks" was to acknowledge the truth of that, and that it was his task everyday to be aware of that potential and TRANSCEND that primitive impulse, instead of giving in to it. And the culture he was born into, which fused tribalism with irrational religiosity, made it harder for him to resist that impulse so he had to leave it behind. This is the kind of enlightened thinking that the play punishes so completely, and i reject it for doing so. Comparing it to "Triumph of the Will" is just wrong. A rhetorical flourish, certainly, but wrong? Well exaggerated perhaps, to dramatize the nature of the distinction I'm making between art's form and its content. And a play that champions the irrational over the rational so beautifully (which also makes the sole Jewish character the biggest unredeemed asshole in the story), leaves itself open to such a comparison. But I guess that is what great theater should do, provide an opportunity for very different interpretations of the same work. Agreed.

Vic Sage Nov 12 2014 11:52 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Nov 13 2014 09:06 AM

THE REAL THING – This revival of Tom Stoppard’s brilliantly comic, romantic consideration of love and art is undermined by its over-direction, thus abandoning an otherwise excellent cast and leaving its audience tragically underwhelmed. Stoppard’s wit and wordsmithery are on full display and as pleasurable as ever, particularly in a play that speaks about the nature and qualities of good writing. But what has always distinguished this play from the rest of Stoppard’s canon was its emotionality, compared to the primarily cerebral nature of much of the rest of his work. Yet, in this production, the emotional impact has been entirely blunted by the director, Sam Gold. His use of 60s pop tunes (referenced in the text, but not performed in earlier productions), as transitions between scenes, uses the actors to fill their world with silly love songs. What’s wrong with that, you’d like to know? Well, I’ll tell you. The songs took me totally out of the story, interrupting its flow and breaking my connection to the characters and their emotions. What I got, instead, was a Greek chorus of overly on-the-nose love song lyrics that made me roll my eyes and wince. And for a work that is literally about the way art reflects life which reflects art, what is required is absolute clarity about where the audience is in the play at any given moment, otherwise we are lost. But in addition to the pointless songs, the abstractness of the set design and lack of definition in the lighting fails the audience utterly, in this regard. The cast, though very good, is not entirely right. Ewen McGregor is too charming, young and vigorous to take seriously as a brilliant playwright forced out of his intellectualism by the bright, vital and younger Maggie Gyllenhaal. They are certainly not up to par with Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close, who played those roles brilliantly in the original 1984 Broadway production. And Cynthia Nixon (now playing the mother of the teenage girl that she originally played 30 years ago) is not giving a comfortable performance, either. Despite the miscasting, however, it could have worked anyway with a different hand on the wheel, but the production's lack of flow gave me too much time to consider how unlikeable these characters are, which didn't help either them or me. Instead, what was once a fascinating work with both big ideas and a beating heart has been reduced to a dull and confused soap opera about people I didn't care about, and even with Stoppard’s linguistic pyrotechnics still present, the play has to struggle to stay awake… as did I. [C], because bad Stoppard is still Stoppard.

sharpie Nov 12 2014 02:59 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Pretty much agree with Vic about THE REAL THING. A good play mishandled. I actually didn't have a problem with Cynthia Nixon, it was Maggie Gyllenhaal who I didn't buy as a posh Englishwoman. Wrong, however, to give it the same letter grade as DISGRACED.

Vic Sage Nov 13 2014 09:08 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

yes, Gyllenhaal is much too earthy a type to pull it off. As for my grade, fine... lets call it a [C-]

Vic Sage Nov 17 2014 03:31 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

THE LAST SHIP – Sting’s Broadway musical is better than I feared but not as good as I had hoped. While the narrative focuses on the people in a northern English ship-building town who are facing the closing of their shipyards, and the loss of work and identity it represents, the show is primarily concerned with the battles and bonds between fathers and sons, between hope and despair, and between those who left and those who stayed behind. The story evokes the English working-class realism of Lee Hall, as seen in his libretto for the musical adaptation of BILLY ELLIOT and in his play THE PITMAN PAINTERS. But Sting’s semi-autobiographical tale, written by Brian Yorkey with revisions by John Logan, lacks the authentic air of desperation and emotional punch of those other works. Sting’s score is haunting, sad and lovely, accompanying lyrics filled with his poetic imagery, but the songs have a sameness that eventually grows dull. There are a few stirring male choral numbers with a wonderful Celtic flavor, but the repetitive and restrictive movements of the choreography feel tiresome after a while. The performances are mostly excellent, particularly Fred Applegate, who brings humanity and humor to the clichéd character of the old Irish priest who rallies the town to build one last ship before they’re done. The design, too, is impressive, with its gloomy lighting of industrial scaffolding giving everything a dark, severe tone, even as the great ship looms behind it all. The director’s staging of the final scene of Act I is particularly compelling, but Act II feels somewhat attenuated and less satisfying after that. While the show is worth seeing overall, it’s more sincere and heartfelt than actually as moving as it should have been. [B-]

Vic Sage Nov 19 2014 11:17 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

THE RIVER - This British import of Jez Butterworth’s new play stars Hugh Jackman in a perfectly good mounting of a less than perfect play. After I was blown away by Butterworth’s prior work, JERUSALEM, a big bombastic work of man and myth, this slight sliver of a play hardly registered at all. A man in a cabin by a river has brought a woman there for a midnight fishing trip, but he is haunted by the memory of a similar rendezvous with another woman, with the two women becoming interchangeable and the action of the two narratives mirroring and overlapping each other. Is it a memory, or a ghost, or is he insane? Is he a romantic, a tragic figure, or a serial killer? The play doesn’t provide any answers, but I didn’t care about the story or these characters anyway, so I was not disappointed. The play pretends to be a mysterious, symbolic, poetic chamber piece about Man in relationship to nature and his doomed search for unattainable love, but its mostly about fishing for trout. Its overly literary, florid dialogue does not differentiate the characters, leaving their roles vague and ill defined. And if you’re going to spend so much time talking about fly fishing, please don’t refer to the fish as “God’s tongue.” About halfway through the play’s intermission-less 90 minutes, we get to watch Jackman gut a fish and prepare it for dinner (expertly chopping up some leeks, fennel and lemon to go with it). But if I wanted to watch Hugh slice and dice stuff for ten minutes, I’d prefer to see him do it as Wolverine. Jackman and the rest of the cast all offer solid performances, and Ian Rickson’s direction takes fine advantage of the in-the-round space at the Circle-In-The-Square, with good design elements and an interesting use of sound, and some of the language of the play is quite beautiful, but none of this is sufficient to breathe life into this inert drama. Instead, the play is just dull, and its central idea about a man who is destined to relive his search for an unattainable love, is less pretentiously and more entertainingly articulated in Kevin Smith’s CHASING AMY... but without the cooking demonstration. [C-], but an [A] if you love fly fishing and think its a metaphor for... something.

Vic Sage Dec 02 2014 12:58 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

SIDESHOW – Bill Condon has extensively rewritten and directed this revival of the oddly compelling cult musical by Bill Russell and Henry Krieger (Dreamgirls), which has dropped some of its earlier razzle-dazzle and added more depth and heart. Sideshow is based on the true story of the Hilton Sisters, conjoined twins who went from a circus act to major vaudeville performers in the 1920s-30s before their infamous appearance in the classic Tod Browning horror film, Freaks. But at its core, the show is a cri de coeur for the right to unconditional love and acceptance, even for those who exist on the fringes of society. And that message comes through clearer than ever, with the sisters’ journey measured by the spectacularly moving numbers that close each act, from their plea, asking “Who Will Love Me as I Am,” to their realization in the end that the answer was right next to them all along, in “I Will Never Leave You”. Condon has added two major new plot elements to this “revisal”, giving the sisters more of a backstory in Act I and then providing them with an ending they have chosen rather than one inflicted on them by their condition and the men in their lives. These changes allow an audience to connect better to these women and find some bittersweet triumph in the outcome of the tale. However, the improved storytelling comes at the cost of the original production’s exciting, over-the-top production numbers. These numbers now are much more scaled down, grounding it in its more realistic and human approach. They don’t have quite the same impact, and some of the new songs are not quite as good as some originals that were cut. But at least the revisions provide a more coherent vision, rather than the bizarrely schizophrenic approach of the original. The performances by Emily Padgett and Erin Davie as the sisters are sincere, heartfelt and musically accomplished. Robert Joy is excellent, too, as the slimy guardian/circus master, “Sir”, but the rest of the supporting cast doesn’t bring quite the same depth. The design and direction are quite remarkable, but the story still ends on the dour note of the exploitation of the sisters as they shoot Freaks. I had hoped that Condon had found a way to end the show on the more triumphant moment of “I Will Never Leave You”, where the sisters choose each other rather than live in the world apart. But, alas, no.. the show still ends with a whimper. Still imperfect, the show is markedly improved, and the score still soars. I just hope its odd subject matter doesn’t distract audiences from it universality, so it can grow beyond its cult status this time around. [B]

Vic Sage Dec 03 2014 08:46 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME – After a triumphant run in the West End, this National Theater production, adapted by Simon Stephens from the best-selling novel by Mark Haddon, comes to Broadway with all the bells and whistles still intact. It's an impressive work, and one that actually lives up to its hype. The play requires us to experience the world from the point of view of an autistic boy, a mathematical savant, as he tries to solve a mystery… ostensibly one about the murder of his neighbor’s dog, but ultimately about his own power and potential in the world. It is a play about a play the boy has written, as narrated by his teacher, and it is his coming-of-age story in a world that entirely overwhelms his senses, even as he finds his own path through the chaos around him. While never losing the specificity and realism of the boy’s disability, the production is brilliantly theatrical and inventive in its presentation. Director Marianne Elliott puts us in a black box segmented by thick white lines, offering a spare clean palette to play on, almost mathematical in its precision. She then fills the grid with surprising exits and entrances, ingenious props, sets, lighting and projections and amazingly choreographed movement (by Scott Graham & Steven Hoggett) that recreates everything from a frantic London tube station below to the constellations above and everything in between. We actually see the boy walk on the walls and tumble through the stars in slow motion. It’s a thrilling vision that lucidly depicts the workings and perspective of a boy’s mind whose senses are being bombarded by stimuli he cannot process. The performance by Alex Sharp as the boy (just a young man himself, right out of Julliard) is funny, warm, sad, tragic, poignant, real and ultimately triumphant. It is quite a thing to see. Though the supporting players are good as well, they suffer in comparison, and the play-within-a-play structure is clunky in its over-reliance on narration, and the story’s “dysfunctional family” aspects are less than compelling, but these are all relative quibbles in what is the season's best show to date. [A-]

Vic Sage Dec 08 2014 02:29 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

A DELICATE BALANCE – This revival of Albee’s `67 Pulitzer winner features an all-star cast that can’t quite breathe enough life into this timeless classic, but the play carries the day anyway, in this blackly comic horror story about "empty nesters" fending off an invasion by family and friends trying to crowd their nest. Agnes (Glenn Close) is the elegant doyenne of an upper middle class suburban home who is maintaining the delicate balance of her family’s life, as she and her ineffectual husband, Tobias (John Lithgow) float along in an alcoholic fugue of false serenity. Prodding at them with drunken barbs is Agnes’ irresponsible sister, Claire (Lindsay Duncan), who has been living with them, their daughter Julia (Martha Plimpton), returning home once more after yet another failed marriage, and their best friends, Harry and Edna (Bob Balaban and Claire Higgins), who’ve fled their own home to escape a nameless dread and have moved in without invitation to Agnes and Tobias’s well-appointed (but now crowded) home. The play is a 3-Act slow burn about the lies we tell ourselves to keep our delicate balance, so we do not fall victim to the existential terror of our dwindling days and the horror of finally facing that reality. The play’s language is rich in wit and imagery, comprised not of monologues but of arias, and it is an appropriately lauded 20th century masterpiece. But, while Close and Lithgow are fine, they are lost in the long shadow of Rosemary Harris and George Grizzard, who starred in the 1996 Tony-winning revival, and Lindsay Duncan doesn’t even fare as well as that, in view of Elaine Stritch’s indelible turn as the caustic drunken sister. Martha Plimpton is just bad and Balaban and Higgins make no discernible impression. The design elements are all beautifully evocative, but, at nearly 3 hours (and feeling like it), the director has interpreted the play as a lengthy, unexciting museum piece instead of the thrillingly timeless and emotionally devastating work that it can be. [B-]

themetfairy Dec 15 2014 07:45 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Vic Sage wrote: IT'S ONLY A PLAY- Terrence McNally's hateful love letter (or loving hate letter) to Broadway has been revived with a reunited Nathan Lane & Matthew Broderick, and spectacular support from an all-star cast. McNally has been writing and re-writing this play since the late 70s and has finally gotten it right, with a perfect blend of biting wit, hilarious gags and heartfelt schmaltz. The story, such as it is, is about a lavish opening night party at a producer's home as everyone waits for the Times review to decide their fate. And that's pretty much it, as we see everyone's petty jealousies, idiosyncrasies, abiding affection and profound love for one another. Yes, it's a paean to narcissism, but you can't help but root for these folks anyway. They mean well. Lane is giving a master class in comic timing, as an actor who left the theater and found success in a bad sitcom, with conflicted feelings toward the playwright (Matthew Broderick) his best friend, a man-child bewildered by both his successes and his failures. Megan Mullally is the ditzy rich wife / producer, imbuing her with a sort of grace by virtue of her sincere (if doofy) love of the play and everyone involved with it. Stockard Channing's horrific plastic surgery actually works to her advantage, as you watch her faded, drug-addicted, ankle-brace wearing movie star try to make a comeback and reclaim a scrap of dignity. Newcomer Micah Stock is a servant at the party, taking coats in the guest room where all the action (such as it is) takes place, and a NYC newbie actor trying to impress the guests with his theatrical gifts. Tall, thin and gawky, he’s like a baby giraffe with a deadpan delivery, as he throws increasingly outlandish coats on the bed. Jack O'Brien's impeccable direction has even made the costume designer a featured player. Only F. Murray Abraham is wasted as a 1-dimensional theater critic, who secretly hopes to be a playwright (don't they all?), and is really only there as a target for McNally's shots at theater critics. And Rupert Gint's performance, as the young Brit director whose inexplicably successful career leaves him hoping for a flop, is exhaustingly manic and suffers in comparison to the company he's playing in. There is also an off-stage barking dog who serves only as a distraction, not every line or gag lands with aplomb, and there are some soliloquies that are just the author pontificating about the importance of theater. Also, the "hey kids, lets put on a show... lets put on THIS show" conclusion is cute but kind of obvious and silly. Still, all in all, it’s a hilariously entertaining, insightful, theatrical, and surprisingly tender air kiss to Broadway, well worth another look. [B+] D-Dad and I saw this yesterday. I agree with Vic - it's light fare, but a real treat seeing such a cast in action. If you want to see Nathan Lane see this quickly - Martin Short is taking over his role in January.

Vic Sage Dec 15 2014 08:12 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

ELEPHANT MAN – Actors love to have accents or deformities to play with… it gives them a physical reality to focus on, which is so much easier to create than a character’s psychological reality. Sometimes, an actor’s flawless technique enables an audience to transcend the physical performance and find the psyche underneath. Streep, for instance, has made a career out of it. I never would have suspected pretty boy Bradley Cooper to be in that class, but there he was on Broadway, offering us an “elephant man” as heartbreaking and as filled with grace as anyone could hope for. There really isn’t much of a play here; it’s a biographical sketch of a fascinating person, but there isn’t much of a narrative, and whatever the character’s impact is on the other characters, or whatever themes the playwright is intending to dramatize, remain diffuse and vague. But it’s a thrilling performance in the middle of an intimate production with strong supporting cast and design, and well worth seeing. [B+]

Vic Sage Dec 19 2014 12:30 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Here are the grades halfway thru the season: MUSICALS THE LAST SHIP [B-] still to come: HONEYMOON IN VEGAS SOMETHING ROTTEN FINDING NEVERLAND AN AMERICAN IN PARIS IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU DR. ZHIVAGO FUN HOME Musical REVIVALS: SIDESHOW [B] ON THE TOWN [C+] still to come: ON THE 20TH CENTURY THE KING & I PLAYS CURIOUS INCIDENT… [A-] DISGRACED [C+] THE COUNTRY HOUSE [C] THE RIVER [C-] still to come: CONSTELLATIONS FISH IN THE DARK THE AUDIENCE THE HEART OF ROBIN HOOD HAND TO GOD WOLF HALL AIRLINE HIGHWAY Play Revivals: YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU [A-] IT’S ONLY A PLAY [B+] ELEPHANT MAN [B+] THIS IS OUR YOUTH [B] A DELICATE BALANCE [B-] LOVE LETTERS [B-] THE REAL THING [C-] still to come: HEIDI CHRONICLES SKYLIGHT

Vic Sage Jan 23 2015 11:53 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

HONEYMOON IN VEGAS - An adequate if utterly forgettable entertainment. Tony Danza is a surprisingly good song and dance man and you have to love the Flying Elvises. Otherwise, meh. Jason Robert Brown’s score aptly captures that jazzy swingin’ Vegas sound, and has some very funny lyrics, but is devoid of any real emotion. Andrew Bergman has transferred his screenplay to the stage without a hint of theatrical reinvention. The brief moments of choreography are amusing, but less than earth-shattering, although Danza offers an impressive tap number. The leads are without chemistry or charm. The design and direction offers some engagement, but really, what was the point? Nothing about this material demanded its musicalization and it would have had to be a whole lot funnier to overlook the show’s utter lack of humanity. [C+]

Vic Sage Feb 11 2015 08:59 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

CONSTELLATIONS - Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson star as star-crossed lovers in Nick Payne’s British rom-com tragedy which clearly thinks it’s way smarter than it is. The central conceit of the play, derived from quantum mechanics, is that life exists in a multiverse where every possible option exists simultaneously. So we see a couple meet cute at a BBQ multiple ways (he a laid-back beekeeper, she a neurotic astrophysicist), then date, fall in love, suffer infidelity, and face terminal illness, with each step played out in variations that jump forward and back in time, since time isn’t real anyway. Got it? It’s an interesting 70 minutes, with clever, quirky dialogue and two stellar performances played out on a stage lit by floating balloons of phosphorescence. But the soap opera-ish boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl story isn’t enlivened by this play’s mechanics; it’s rendered emotionally inert, as we are asked to think more than we are prodded to feel. Only when Gyllenhaal and Wilson are allowed to play out more extended scenes do we see the potentially devastating emotional impact of their performances, beneath the artifice and intellectualizing inherent in its attempt at narrative deconstruction. But while IF/THEN adds some good songs to this concept, and David Ives’ ALL IN THE TIMING is much funnier on the subject, and Stoppard’s ARCADIA is much smarter, CONSTELLATIONS is still insightful and entertaining enough, based primarily on its performances and staging, to warrant its existence in at least one universe. [B-]

themetfairy Feb 14 2015 05:32 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

D-Dad and I caught a preview performance of Larry David's Fish in the Dark this afternoon. It was a lot of fun. In a lot of ways, the cadence and sensibility felt like an extended episode of Seinfeld, albeit with different characters. It's the story of Norman (played by David) and his relationships with his dying father, his wife (played by Rita Wilson), his mother and brother, and assorted other characters in his dysfunctional life. It's light fare, but entertainingly so, and we had an enjoyable afternoon at the theater.

Vic Sage Apr 10 2015 12:02 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

ON THE 20TH CENTURY – Roundabout’s ham-fisted revival of this cartoonish, theatrical farce by Comden & Green, with forgettable music from the late great Cy Coleman, is well appointed in its design, but director Scott Ellis finds no new depths in this shallow entertainment, and offers no reason for its return. Kristen Chenoweth is ok, I guess, but Peter Gallagher is a train wreck. I left at intermission. [D] THE AUDIENCE – Peter Morgan’s work about Queen Elizabeth’s meetings with her many prime ministers over the years is more a mosaic than a portrait, and more a portrait than a play, but Helen Mirren is transcendent in a tour-de-force performance, embodying the 20th century monarch at different stages of her life. Director Stephen Daldry wields the brush skillfully, and Bob Crowley’s design work is elegant and theatrical, and the supporting players are impeccable. Still, the play’s lack of narrative energy keeps it from quite becoming the gripping, moving experience it nearly is. [B] FISH IN THE DARK - Larry David’s crayon drawing of a dysfunctional Jewish family’s squabbles is a series of mean-spirited one-liners (some of which are funny) and one-dimensional ethnic stereotypes. David doesn’t really perform the leading role, he just puts his own immutable comic persona in the middle of the action, so to critique his lack of acting skills is really beside the point. But he shares the stage with really good comic actors like Glenn Headley, Lewis Stadlen, Jerry Adler, and Jane Houdyshell and he succeeds only in bringing them down to his level. Steppenwolf director Anna Shapiro doesn’t seem to have had her heart in it, probably knowing that David was going to do whatever he wanted anyway. If this play had the force of farce, there might have been some mechanical comic energy here, but it doesn’t, so there isn’t. Even if David had the gonads to go seriously dark with his biting humor, in a pitiless and unrelenting way, there might have been an admirable integrity in it, but he doesn’t do that either. Instead, his black comedy is toothless and lets everybody off the hook with happy-ending sentimentality. But if you’re a David/CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM fan, I suppose you'll like it anyway. Lord knows the audience I saw it with did. But i hate his stuff and this is just more of it. [D] HEIDI CHRONICLES – Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer-winning 1989 play makes its Broadway return starring Elizabeth Moss, who is terrific as its feminist heroine. Unfortunately, hers is the only outstanding element of this lackluster production of a dated play. Jason Biggs gives an awkward and irritating performance as the piggish male in and out of her life, and Bryce Pinkham is equally annoying as the stereotypical gay best friend, tossing off his acid-laced bon mots like little pink hand-grenades. Director Pam MacKinnon offers an efficient but ugly frame for this episodic idyll through the highlights of Heidi’s life, as we trace the lives of her and her generation from the 60s through the 80s, from private school to Vietnam, political protests, feminist encounter groups, academia, gay rights, AIDs, the media, and single motherhood. The play is book-ended by Heidi’s art history lectures to her class, which is appropriate since the whole play feels like a lecture of sorts, or a harangue. Still, the writing itself offers well-observed characters, with some moving monologues that play like arias, and some genuinely comic moments, too. And Moss makes the mopey, whiny, self-pitying Heidi into an endearing character worth listening to. This was a play very much of its time, but that time was 25 years ago and it doesn’t endure. In fact, it could serve as Exhibit A in why both subsequent and prior generations have such contempt for us baby boomers and our self-obsessed naval-gazing. [C] SKYLIGHT – This is a solid revival of David Hare’s 1995 play about the conversion of the personal and the political in a run-down flat in London’s east end, and features a trio of moving performances by Bill Nighy, Carey Mulligan and Mattew Beard. A wealthy restaurateur’s long time affair with a bright young woman (who had lived with him and his family for years) ended when his wife finds out about it. She has died of cancer and now the man has sought out the woman to rekindle their romance. She is a working-class teacher now, and while they still love each other, there is too much distance between them. Hare’s plays are often overly political diatribes, but his tendencies are somewhat modulated here by the powerful emotional impact of the love story at its heart. A touching denouement is even offered by the man’s teenage son, who saw the woman as a surrogate mother and was as hurt as his father by the woman’s abandonment. Director Stephen Daldry and designer Bob Crowley provide an authentically unflinching portrait of this conflict of classes, genders and generations, and explore the corrosive power of both love and guilt. Hare’s willful focus on the 1980s-90s socio-economic issues keeps the play just short of excellence, but still worthwhile. [B+]

Vic Sage Apr 16 2015 01:47 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

HAND TO GOD - This black comedy about a devout Texas boy’s possession by his demonic sock puppet is a successful transfer of an off-Broadway hit to an unlikely Broadway run. Playwright Robert Askin’s play has all the virtues and vices inherent to a relatively young inexperienced playwright. It’s hilariously outrageous, willing to say or do just about anything to provoke a laugh or a gasp, but Askins seems insecure in his ability to do so, so he bangs home the most obvious themes and turns sub-text into actual text. Still, it’s a side-splittingly funny blend of AVENUE Q with such puppet-possession movies as MAGIC and DEAD OF NIGHT. Act II slows down a bit as characters (including the devilish puppet) explicate the BIG THEMES of the play, but the great performances (and puppetry), together with the clever design work and direction, all work together to present an amusingly Faustian play about grief, desire, repression and religious dogma. But despite its broad humor and gore, the play never devolves into pure cartoonish caricature, and it maintains some real humanity, pathos and pain at its core.[B+]

Vic Sage Apr 20 2015 02:33 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 20 2015 02:50 PM

GIGI - Of all the great Lerner & Loewe shows, this isn't one. Dated and flat, the score has 1 great song ("I Remember It Well"), and 1 memorable one ("Thank Heaven for Little Girls"), and the rest are utterly forgettable. In the title role, Disney Pop Tart Vanessa Hudgens is adequate in Act I, with her thin voice accentuating her bratty, sweet little girlishness but, in Act II, when she is supposed to have evolved into a sophisticated and elegant Parisian woman of allure, she is comically unconvincing. The show is well designed and staged with some athletic (if somewhat odd) choreography, and some great supporting performances by Victoria Clark and Dee Hoty, but the book has been scrubbed and Disnified to remove its rougher edges and what's left is utterly uninteresting. It's not a bad show, but it's not a good one. [C-]

Edgy MD Apr 20 2015 02:43 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Now John Belushi... there was a Gigi.

Vic Sage Apr 20 2015 02:51 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

i think that was Jim.

Edgy MD Apr 20 2015 02:57 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Oh, no. My brain isn't broken THIS time. http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75klifer.phtml

Vic Sage Apr 20 2015 03:00 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I didn't realize you were making a reference; i thought it was just a funny non sequitor. Its even funnier that it was an SNL sketch.

Edgy MD Apr 20 2015 05:02 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

That WOULD have been a weird non-sequiter. Peter Cook = funny guy.

Vic Sage Apr 21 2015 10:38 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Peter Cook + Dudley Moore = exponentially funnier guys

Vic Sage Apr 21 2015 10:41 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

With the Tony deadline fast approaching, I'm seeing 9 shows over the next 9 days, including some Wednesday double headers (matinee + evening). yikes. It's like this every April, with shows waiting to the last minute to open.

Vic Sage Apr 22 2015 09:18 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS – Post-war Paris: Some Americans have stayed behind to start a new life in a city rising from the ashes. There, an American artist and his friends, a French singer and an American composer, all fall in love with the same girl, a dancer with a secret who is torn between duty and passion. This original stage adaptation of the classic movie musical hits every note. The Gershwin songbook is skillfully employed in Craig Lucas's strong libretto to tell the story of a city rising out of tragedy and exploding with love and art and the two people who overcome all obstacles to finally find each other. Everyone on the stage sings, dances and acts to perfection, but the real star is director/choreographer Chris Weeldon, whose vision is totally theatrical and absolutely exquisite. Primarily a dance show, his opening number is a ballet that introduces us to his unique world. Even those who don't care for ballet (like me) will likely be swept away by the show's imaginative movement (an amalgam of ballet, modern and theater dance elements) that blends seamlessly with the music and the scenes, evoking emotions and advancing the narrative in an always compelling way. And Bob Crowley's inspired design is a spectacular blend of projection, set pieces and costume that creates a sense of modern art coming alive before your eyes. If I were to pick a nit, the opening of Act II is a dance number that seems unmotivated in the moment it occurs and just feels like a "hey, let’s start Act II with a dance number" notion. But it only stands out because all the other musical moments are so completely integrated. Still, this is clearly the best musical of the season to date. [A]

Vic Sage Apr 23 2015 08:36 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

LIVING ON LOVE – Joe DiPietro has adapted an old, unproduced Garson Kanin play into a mediocre, over-the-top rom-com with some good performances and funny moments. It’s an old fashioned, 4-person drawing room comedy which approaches farce but settles for sentimentality. A famous Italian maestro and his wife, a legendary opera diva, each hire ghost-writers in a race to turn their lives into phony autobiographies, with each trying to make the other jealous. Their marriage starts to fall apart but, ultimately, the couple is left with each other, pondering their lost youth, and they reaffirm their love. Opera singer Renee Fleming’s diva is gifted with excellent comic timing and Doug Sills’ lothario conductor is hilarious. The young writers, played by Jerry O’Connell and Anna Chlumsky, are significantly less interesting, but a pair of butlers work with comic precision and end up the most sympathetic characters in this amusing but pedestrian play. [C+]

Vic Sage Apr 24 2015 12:15 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

WOLF HALL – There have been many brilliant dramatizations of that moment in English history when Henry VIII separated from the Catholic Church and divorced his wife to marry Anne Boleyn -- A Man for All Seasons, Anne of a Thousand Days, The Private Life of Henry VIII and The Tudors, to name but a few -- but Wolf Hall is not among them. While the story does take a different point of view by making Thomas Cromwell the hero rather than the martyred Sir Thomas More, this adaptation of the celebrated historical novel adds nothing theatrical, dramatic or even interesting to this otherwise fascinating story of power, sex, intrigue, religion, torture and death which impacted the destiny of nations. It, instead, makes it all tediously dull. There are good performances everywhere but to little effect, as the language lacks power and the staging is unimaginative. Epic fail. [D]

themetfairy Apr 25 2015 06:09 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

We saw Something Rotten! (or, as D-Dad and I dubbed it, Springtime for Shakespeare) this afternoon, and really enjoyed ourselves. It's very light fare about one of Shakespeare's playwright rivals who looks to distinguish himself by inventing musical theater. It's silly and totally over the top, but in a fun way. Christian Borle steals the show as Shakespeare, and I wouldn't be surprised it he takes home the Tony this year for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Vic will probably list all sorts of reasons to explain why I don't know what I'm talking about, but D-Dad and I had a great time at the show.

Vic Sage Apr 27 2015 08:30 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

themetfairy wrote: We saw Something Rotten! (or, as D-Dad and I dubbed it, Springtime for Shakespeare) this afternoon, and really enjoyed ourselves. It's very light fare about one of Shakespeare's playwright rivals who looks to distinguish himself by inventing musical theater. It's silly and totally over the top, but in a fun way. Christian Borle steals the show as Shakespeare, and I wouldn't be surprised it he takes home the Tony this year for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Vic will probably list all sorts of reasons to explain why I don't know what I'm talking about, but D-Dad and I had a great time at the show. Nothing i say about why i like or don't like something is intended to be a criticism of anybody else's opinion about this stuff. Anyway, i've been looking forward to this one; i'm seeing it next Wednesday.

themetfairy Apr 27 2015 09:44 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Enjoy it! Our biggest question is how Mel Brooks wasn't involved in it

Vic Sage Apr 27 2015 10:37 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

DR. ZHIVAGO – The classic novel, a soap opera set against the Russian Revolution, is adapted by an experienced creative team into a reader’s digest version of the story that falls catastrophically short of its Les Miz aspirations. It fails in every respect, from its score (pedestrian, generic), book (haphazard narrative structure, laughable dialogue) and design (ugly, distracting) to its performances (over the top, humorless, nearly amateurish.) Act I was interminable. I can’t say what Act II was, since I was long gone. [F] FUN HOME – A unique memory musical by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, adapted from an indie comic book series, about a lesbian cartoonist coming to terms with her unresolved relationship with her late father and his closeted homosexuality. Staged in the round, the play has a profound intimacy that heightens the emotional connection amply provided by its terrific cast. The score is really a score, and not a series of book scenes that set up songs; it’s all of a piece. Unfortunately, not all of its pieces are particularly engaging, with long stretches of meandering musical recitative underscoring a narrative that just limps towards its attenuated conclusion. It’s an impressionistic portrait of a family, but you go nowhere you hadn’t been at the start, learning little you didn’t already know about these characters. Still, some of the music is quite beautiful and the work’s deep sense of humanity and integrity is unquestionable. [B]

sharpie Apr 27 2015 12:14 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I saw a couple of these. I agree with Vic about THE HEIDI CHRONICLES, a pointless revival of a dated play. I rather enjoyed WOLF HALL, however (although I never got through the novel and disliked the first episode of the TV adaptation).

Vic Sage Apr 28 2015 07:41 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season Edited 3 time(s), most recently on Apr 28 2015 12:24 PM

Nominations for the 2015 Tony Awards Best Play * The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time /Author: Simon Stephens Disgraced / Author: Ayad Akhtar Hand to God / Author: Robert Askins Wolf Hall Parts One & Two / Co-Authors: Hilary Mantel and Mike Poulton No surprises here, but I personally would’ve preferred CONSTELLATIONS and THE AUDIENCE over DISGRACED and WOLF HALL. I haven’t seen AIRLINE HIGHWAY yet, but from what I’ve read, its omission may also have been an oversight. Regardless, I’ll be shocked if CURIOUS INCIDENT isn’t the winner here, and I’ll be furious if the PC musings of DISGRACED are honored instead. Best Musical * An American in Paris Fun Home Something Rotten! The Visit I haven’t seen ROTTEN yet, but there were no overlooked shows that I’d advocate for. FUN HOME has its downtown hipster cred, VISIT has the last Kander & Ebb score, and ROTTEN has audience appeal, but PARIS is the best show of the year. Best Revival of a Play * This Is Our Youth The Elephant Man Skylight You Can’t Take It with You I don’t know who the front runner is here, but I’d guess It’s CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU. I would've voted for ITS ONLY A PLAY, but in its absence i'll vote for YOUTH. It’s a better play than ELEPHANT MAN, and SKYLIGHT was good, not great, and CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU loses my vote because of its cynical stunt casting. Best Revival of a Musical * The King and I On the Town On the Twentieth Century With only 5 eligible productions, nominations were limited to 3 shows. KING & I seems to be everybody’s favorite (I’m seeing it tonight), but SIDESHOW was 10x better than 20th CENTURY, about which the nominators and I will just have to agree to disagree. Most people would probably agree with their choice, however. Best Book of a Musical * An American in Paris - Craig Lucas Fun Home - Lisa Kron Something Rotten! -Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell The Visit -Terrence McNally I haven’t seen either ROTTEN or THE VISIT, but if ROTTEN is good work, I usually vote for an original book over an adaptation. Still, Craig Lucas’ work on PARIS will be hard to beat. Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) * The Last Ship -Music & Lyrics: Sting Fun Home - music: Jeanine Tesori /Lyrics: Lisa Kron Something Rotten! - Music & Lyrics: Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick The Visit - Music: John Kander /Lyrics: Fred Ebb I could understand some support for HONEYMOON IN VEGAS’s moderately entertaining pastiche score, but this is the right slate overall. Sting’s work was great, but I still have to see ROTTEN and VISIT. I was not impressed by FUN HOME’S music, though the lyrics were solid. Kander & Ebb’s final work may get the sentimental vote, but it’s SHIP for me, at this point. Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play *Alex Sharp, the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Steven Boyer, Hand to God Bradley Cooper, The Elephant Man Ben Miles, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Bill Nighy, Skylight Tough category. I would be OK with Boyer, Cooper or Sharp winning, but I think my vote goes to the boy, Alex Sharp, for CURIOUS INCIDENT, edging out the others based on degree of difficulty. Jake Gyllenhaal was also excellent in CONSTELLATIONS. Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play *Helen Mirren, The Audience Geneva Carr, Hand to God Elisabeth Moss, The Heidi Chronicles Carey Mulligan, Skylight Ruth Wilson, Constellations All are worthy of consideration, but Mirren gives atour de force performance. Additional nods to Mia Farrow (Love Letters), Glenn Close (Delicate Balance) and Blythe Danner (Country House) Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical *Robert Fairchild, An American in Paris Michael Cerveris, Fun Home Brian d’Arcy James, Something Rotten! Ken Watanabe, The King and I Tony Yazbeck, On the Town Of the shows I’ve seen, Robert Fairchild’s work as an actor, singer AND an incredible dancer is the frontrunner so far. Cerveris was annoying, and Yazbeck bland. Michael Esper (LAST SHIP) deserves a mention as well. Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical *Kelli O’Hara, The King and I Kristin Chenoweth, On the Twentieth Century Leanne Cope, An American in Paris Beth Malone, Fun Home Chita Rivera, The Visit Ms. Cope was terrific, but she’s in the heavy weight division, with Broadway divas Chenowith, O’Hara and Rivera. Rivera may get it out of sentiment, but O’Hara is the reigning queen. An additional nod to Rachel Tucker (LAST SHIP) and the twins from SIDESHOW. Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play Matthew Beard, Skylight K. Todd Freeman, Airline Highway Richard McCabe, The Audience Alessandro Nivola, The Elephant Man Nathaniel Parker, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two *Micah Stock, It’s Only a Play Newcomer Stock is hilariously odd, edging out McCabe’s working-class prime minister in AUDIENCE. Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play *Patricia Clarkson, The Elephant Man Annaleigh Ashford, You Can’t Take It with You Lydia Leonard, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Sarah Stiles, Hand to God Julie White, Airline Highway I make it a point to vote for any woman who shows me her boobies. It’s the least I can do. Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical *Christian Borle, Something Rotten! Andy Karl, On the Twentieth Century Brad Oscar, Something Rotten! Brandon Uranowitz, An American in Paris Max von Essen, An American in Paris Borle is the favorite I think, but let’s not forget Jimmy Nail and Fred Applegate (LAST SHIP). Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical *Victoria Clark, Gigi Judy Kuhn, Fun Home Sydney Lucas, Fun Home Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I Emily Skeggs, Fun Home Victoria Clark stands out in GIGI like a pearl in a shit-pile. Best Scenic Design of a Play *Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Bob Crowley, Skylight Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two David Rockwell, You Can’t Take It with You CURIOUS INCIDENT...slam dunk. WOLF HALL? Really? It had NO scenic design. It was practically a bare stage. Maybe I was at a different show altogether. It’s particularly irritating that its nomination came at the expense of CONSTELLATIONS, which was utterly unique work. Best Scenic Design of a Musical *Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, An American in Paris David Rockwell, On the Twentieth Century Michael Yeargan, The King and I David Zinn, Fun Home Crowley’s sets and costumes are all of a piece for PARIS and none can top it. Best Costume Design of a Play *Bob Crowley, The Audience Jane Greenwood, You Can’t Take It with You Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two David Zinn, Airline Highway Crowley does some things with AUDIENCE that i've never seen costumes do. Best Costume Design of a Musical *Bob Crowley, An American in Paris Gregg Barnes, Something Rotten! William Ivey Long, On the Twentieth Century Catherine Zuber, The King and I Crowley is the best in the business. Best Lighting Design of a Play *Paule Constable, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Paule Constable and David Plater, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Natasha Katz, Skylight Japhy Weideman, Airline Highway It’s hard to say where the scenic design of CURIOUS INCIDENT ends and the lighting design begins, but together they made for the most dramatic work of the year. Best Lighting Design of a Musical *Natasha Katz, An American in Paris Donald Holder, The King and I Ben Stanton, Fun Home Japhy Weideman, The Visit Waiting to see KING and VISIT, but PARIS for now. Best Direction of a Play *Marianne Elliott, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Stephen Daldry, Skylight Scott Ellis, You Can’t Take It with You Jeremy Herrin, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Moritz von Stuelpnagel, Hand to God The theatrical vision for CURIOUS INCIDENT is unparalleled this season. Best Direction of a Musical *Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris Sam Gold, Fun Home Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten! John Rando, On the Town Bartlett Sher, The King and I Ditto re: AMERICAN IN PARIS. Best Choreography *Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris Joshua Bergasse, On the Town Christopher Gattelli, The King and I Scott Graham & Steven Hoggett for Frantic Assembly, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten! Such is the importance of movement to CURIOUS INCIDENT that they gave a play a rare nomination for choreography. Still, nothing beats Wheeldon’s work on PARIS this year. Best Orchestrations *Rob Mathes, The Last Ship Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky, Bill Elliott, An American in Paris John Clancy, Fun Home Larry Hochman, Something Rotten! The Celt-infused sound created for LAST SHIP edges out the lush but traditional Gershwin orchestrations. Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre - Tommy Tune Special Tony Award -John Cameron Mitchell Regional Theatre Tony Award -Cleveland Play House, Cleveland, Ohio Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award - Stephen Schwartz Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre - Arnold Abramson, Adrian Bryan-Brown, Gene O’Donovan Tony Nominations by Production An American in Paris - 12 Fun Home - 12 Something Rotten! - 10 The King and I - 9 Wolf Hall Parts One & Two - 8 Skylight - 7 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - 6 Hand to God - 5 On the Twentieth Century - 5 The Visit - 5 You Can’t Take It with You - 5 Airline Highway - 4 The Elephant Man - 4 On the Town - 4 The Audience - 3 The Last Ship - 2 Constellations - 1 Disgraced - 1 Gigi - 1 The Heidi Chronicles - 1 It’s Only a Play - 1 This Is Our Youth - 1

Vic Sage Apr 28 2015 10:55 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

SHOWS THAT GOT SHUT OUT OF THE NOMINATIONS: MUSICALS HONEYMOON IN VEGAS IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU FINDING NEVERLAND DR. ZHIVAGO HOLLA IF YOU HEAR ME SIDESHOW PLAYS LIVING ON LOVE COUNTRY HOUSE THE RIVER FISH IN THE DARK A DELICATE BALANCE LOVE LETTERS THE REAL THING The only shut out show that i would advocate for is SIDESHOW, which was easily one of the best revivals of the season, with great performances and excellent production elements. That the nominators preferred ON THE 20TH CENTURY in all these areas suggests the aesthetic gap between me and my colleagues.

cooby Apr 28 2015 04:59 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Vic I am glad you do these! I will never see a Broadway play but your reviews are great :)

themetfairy Apr 28 2015 05:21 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

cooby wrote: Vic I am glad you do these! I will never see a Broadway play but your reviews are great :) Never say never cooby - let's make plans to see one together!

cooby Apr 28 2015 06:50 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I would love that :)

themetfairy Apr 28 2015 07:01 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Let's plan it :)

Ashie62 Apr 28 2015 07:08 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

"Beautiful" the Carole King musical did not run on Broadway?

themetfairy Apr 28 2015 07:43 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Beautiful was part of the previous Broadway season.

Mets – Willets Point Apr 28 2015 08:02 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

The next Crane Pool get-together!

Vic Sage Apr 30 2015 09:35 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

THE VISIT – Chita Rivera and Roger Rees star in this musical adaptation of an expressionistic German play from the 1950s, where the richest woman in the world returns to the decaying European town of her youth to exact a terrible vengeance on the lover who abandoned her and the community who drove her away. With a smart book by Terrence McNally and stylish direction by John Doyle, the show retains the dark, ghoulish tone of the original work and blends it seamlessly with a score by Kander & Ebb, featuring their signature “Brecht meets Broadway” sound. This was the legendary songwriting team’s final work together and, while the show has had a long developmental road to Broadway (its first production was 2001), its visit is most welcome. The show has been cut down dramatically over the years and is now a 1-Act work that feels both truncated and a bit meandering. Some characters seem oddly unmotivated, and Rees can’t really sing. Meanwhile Kander & Ebb’s score is a bit familiar, maybe even derivative, and the show has an aura of bleakness that can be overwhelming. But despite these flaws, it is a work of macabre beauty. Rivera is a force to be reckoned with as the grand dame, and Roger Rees portrayal of her old lover traces an arc of arrogance, doubt, fear and acceptance that is utterly heartbreaking. And ultimately the show has an almost fairy-tale like romanticism that gives the work a transcendent grace in the end, allowing it to rise above Kander & Ebb’s typically dark view of humanity. It is a fittingly haunting epilogue and summing up of their illustrious careers. [A-]

Vic Sage May 06 2015 03:07 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

SOMETHING ROTTEN – Delightful, droll original musical comedy about, well, the original musical comedy. The Bottom brothers, playwrights living in the shadow of Shakespeare, try to top The Bard by inventing the musical. Non-stop fun, lots of puns, big tap numbers, riffs on Shakespearean lines, musical theater references, and an endearing cast makes this an easy-going audience-pleaser. It’s a one-joke concept, but it’s a pretty good joke, and the music is tuneful. Christian Borle is perfect as Shakespeare, an arrogant rock star stealing the brothers’ best stuff, and Brian D’Arcy James and John Cariani work well together as the brothers, with James the idea man striving for that one big hit and Cariani the soulful poet in love, trying to be true to thine own self. The show has that AVENUE Q/[title of show] post-modern self-awareness going on, and some folks have a low threshold for that kind of off-Broadway hipster stuff, but it’s got a heart, too, and it’s adorable. [A-]

themetfairy May 06 2015 03:12 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Vic Sage wrote: SOMETHING ROTTEN – Delightful, droll original musical comedy about, well, the original musical comedy. The Bottom brothers, playwrights living in the shadow of Shakespeare, try to top The Bard by inventing the musical. Non-stop fun, lots of puns, big tap numbers, riffs on Shakespearean lines, musical theater references, and an endearing cast makes this an easy-going audience-pleaser. It’s a one-joke concept, but it’s a pretty good joke, and the music is tuneful. Christian Borle is perfect as Shakespeare, an arrogant rock star stealing the brothers’ best stuff, and Brian D’Arcy James and John Cariani work well together as the brothers, with James the idea man striving for that one big hit and Cariani the soulful poet in love, trying to be true to thine own self. The show has that AVENUE Q/[title of show] post-modern self-awareness going on, and some folks have a low threshold for that kind of off-Broadway hipster stuff, but it’s got a heart, too, and it’s adorable. [A-] OMG we actually agree on something!

Vic Sage May 07 2015 12:22 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

it was bound to happen one day. :)

cooby May 12 2015 06:17 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Have you seen Fun Home? I saw it written up in New Yorker. My husband is an old acquaintance of Alison bechdel. We didn't know it had been made into a musical.

themetfairy May 12 2015 06:43 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

cooby wrote: Have you seen Fun Home? I saw it written up in New Yorker. My husband is an old acquaintance of Alison bechdel. We didn't know it had been made into a musical. I haven't. But it's up for 12 Tony Awards, and Vic gave it a B - FUN HOME – A unique memory musical by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, adapted from an indie comic book series, about a lesbian cartoonist coming to terms with her unresolved relationship with her late father and his closeted homosexuality. Staged in the round, the play has a profound intimacy that heightens the emotional connection amply provided by its terrific cast. The score is really a score, and not a series of book scenes that set up songs; it’s all of a piece. Unfortunately, not all of its pieces are particularly engaging, with long stretches of meandering musical recitative underscoring a narrative that just limps towards its attenuated conclusion. It’s an impressionistic portrait of a family, but you go nowhere you hadn’t been at the start, learning little you didn’t already know about these characters. Still, some of the music is quite beautiful and the work’s deep sense of humanity and integrity is unquestionable. [B]

Vic Sage May 12 2015 04:00 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I gave it a [B ] not a [B-], but my daughter loved - loved - loved it. I'm taking her to see it again at the end of the month. Maybe i'll feel differently after that, for better or worse.

themetfairy May 12 2015 05:48 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I didn't say B-. It was B, followed by a hyphen.

cooby May 13 2015 11:27 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Alison's dad was one of my husband's favorite high school teachers. It's weird reading her book and trying to figure out who people might be. Oh, and Happy Birthday Vic!

Vic Sage May 22 2015 09:38 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

AIRLINE HIGHWAY - This new play from off-Broadway writer Lisa D'Amour, originally produced by Steppenwolf and now produced on Broadway by Manhattan Theater Club, is a "HOT L BALTIMORE"-style tale of losers in a New Orleans motel, creating an ad hoc family for themselves. D'Amour, a very promising writer (a Pulitzer nominee for her last work, DETROIT), delivers a disappointing melange of cliched stock characters, bouncing off each other and overlapping like a Robert Altman movie, in a diffuse, vague and generally unengaging play. A drug-addicted hooker with a heart of gold, an outrageous black transvestite (transsexual? it's unclear), a young destitute stripper (an abused runaway), an obsequious black handyman, an aging hipster poet, some unnamed drug dealers setting up shop in one of the apartments, and the hotel manager trying to keep things together. Then there was the young stud ("Bait Boy") who found a sugar mama (who also has a teen daughter) and so moved away to Atlanta some years ago. He's returned (with the teen girl in tow) for the imminent and premature wake of a dying grand dame, the mamma figure who ran an elegant strip club but is now on her way out, but not without a goodbye blow out and some "profound" words of wisdom. Then there is the privileged Atlanta teen, tagging along with Bait Boy so she can do research for a a high school paper on "sub-cultures", who is the obvious surrogate for the audience (and author), and defines for us the themes of the play... "family is where you make it", or some such banality. Act I is modestly interesting, setting up the characters, and there is a nice New Orleans-style musical number at the top of Act II by all those attending the party, but after that its a descent into embarrassing cliches, with little dramatic impact. The story sets up the group's potential conflict with the dangerous unnamed drug dealers, but that never goes anywhere. It's like putting a loaded gun on the table in Act I, and then forgetting it's there. There are some good performances, particularly Julie White as the hooker and Todd Freeman as the transvestite, but Joe Mantello's direction does nothing to elevate this earth-bound drama. [C-]

Vic Sage May 22 2015 10:17 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season Edited 2 time(s), most recently on May 28 2015 08:09 AM

Now that I'm done seeing all the shows this season, here's my final Tony Ballot: Best Play * The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time /Simon Stephens Disgraced / Ayad Akhtar Hand to God / Robert Askins Wolf Hall Parts One & Two / Hilary Mantel and Mike Poulton No surprises here, but I personally would’ve preferred THE AUDIENCE and CONSTELLATIONS over DISGRACED and WOLF HALL. I’ll be shocked if CURIOUS INCIDENT isn’t the winner here, and I’ll be furious if the PC musings of DISGRACED are honored instead. Best Musical * An American in Paris / Book: Craig Lucas, Music & Lyrics: George & Ira Gershwin Fun Home / Book & Lyrics: Lisa Kron, Music: Jeanine Tesori Something Rotten! / Book: Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell, Music & Lyrics: Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick The Visit / Book: Terrence McNally, Music: John Kander, Lyrics: Fred Ebb FUN HOME has its downtown hipster cred, VISIT is a work of macabre beauty that has the last Kander & Ebb score, and ROTTEN has great audience appeal, but PARIS is the best show of the year. Best Revival of a Play *The Elephant Man / Bernard Pomerance Skylight / David Hare This Is Our Youth / Ken Lonergan You Can’t Take It with You / Kaufman & Hart I would’ve voted for McNally's IT'S ONLY A PLAY, but it wasn’t nominated, so my vote goes ELEPHANT MAN. Though YOUTH is a better play, ELEPHANT MAN was a better production. SKYLIGHT was good, not great, and CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU loses my vote because of its cynical stunt casting. Best Revival of a Musical * The King and I / Rodgers & Hammerstein On the Town / Book & Lyrics: Comden & Green, Music: Leonard Bernstein On the Twentieth Century / Book & Lyrics: Comden & Green, Music: Cy Coleman It should be noted that SIDESHOW was 10 times better than 20TH CENTURY, about which the nominators and I will just have to agree to disagree (most people would probably agree with the nominators, I suppose). But no matter how many other nominees there were, KING & I is perfection and the obvious winner. Best Book of a Musical * An American in Paris - Craig Lucas Fun Home - Lisa Kron Something Rotten! -Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell The Visit -Terrence McNally Kron and McNally both did great work in adapting their respective source material, but Craig Lucas’ book for PARIS will be hard to beat. While I usually vote for an original book over an adaptation, all other things being equal-ish, and ROTTEN was quite delightful, I’m sticking with PARIS. Lucas just found new layers in the material that made the work worth its reconsideration. Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) *The Visit - Music: John Kander /Lyrics: Fred Ebb Fun Home - music: Jeanine Tesori /Lyrics: Lisa Kron Something Rotten! - Music & Lyrics: Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick The Last Ship -Music & Lyrics: Sting I was not overly impressed by FUN HOME’S music, though the lyrics were solid; Kander & Ebb’s VISIT is derivative of their earlier work, but is still quite beautiful on its own; Sting’s lovely and forlorn Celt/Indie score for SHIP is touching, and ROTTEN is tuneful fun. This is a tough one. I’d probably go with Kander & Ebb, because that’s never a mistake. Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play *Alex Sharp, the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Steven Boyer, Hand to God Bradley Cooper, The Elephant Man Ben Miles, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Bill Nighy, Skylight Tough category. I would be OK with Boyer, Cooper or Sharp winning, but I think my vote goes to the boy, Alex Sharp, for CURIOUS INCIDENT, edging out the others based on degree of difficulty. Jake Gyllenhaal was also excellent in CONSTELLATIONS. Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play *Helen Mirren, The Audience Geneva Carr, Hand to God Elisabeth Moss, The Heidi Chronicles Carey Mulligan, Skylight Ruth Wilson, Constellations All are worthy of consideration, but Mirren gives a tour-de-force performance. Additional nods to Mia Farrow (Love Letters), Glenn Close (Delicate Balance) and Blythe Danner (Country House) Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical *Robert Fairchild, An American in Paris Michael Cerveris, Fun Home Brian d’Arcy James, Something Rotten! Ken Watanabe, The King and I Tony Yazbeck, On the Town Robert Fairchild’s work as an actor, singer AND an incredible dancer is the easy choice for me. Watanabe was excellent, too, as was James, but Cerveris was annoying and Yazbeck was bland. Michael Esper (LAST SHIP) deserves a mention as well. Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical *Kelli O’Hara, The King and I Kristin Chenoweth, On the Twentieth Century Leanne Cope, An American in Paris Beth Malone, Fun Home Chita Rivera, The Visit Ms. Cope was terrific, but she’s in the heavy weight division, with Broadway divas Chenoweth, O’Hara and Rivera. Rivera is great and may get votes based on sentiment, but O’Hara is the reigning queen of Broadway leading ladies. An additional nod is due to Rachel Tucker (LAST SHIP), and to the twins in SIDESHOW. Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play *Micah Stock, It’s Only a Play Matthew Beard, Skylight K. Todd Freeman, Airline Highway Richard McCabe, The Audience Alessandro Nivola, The Elephant Man Nathaniel Parker, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Newcomer Stock is hilariously odd, edging out McCabe’s working class prime minister in AUDIENCE. Freeman was impressive, too Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play *Patricia Clarkson, The Elephant Man Annaleigh Ashford, You Can’t Take It with You Lydia Leonard, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Sarah Stiles, Hand to God Julie White, Airline Highway I make it a point to vote for any woman who shows me her boobies. It’s the least I can do. Julie White was great, too. Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical *Christian Borle, Something Rotten! Andy Karl, On the Twentieth Century Brad Oscar, Something Rotten! Brandon Uranowitz, An American in Paris Max von Essen, An American in Paris Borle is the obvious choice here, but let’s not forget his co-star John Cariani, or Jimmy Nail and Fred Applegate, too (LAST SHIP). Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical *Victoria Clark, Gigi Judy Kuhn, Fun Home Sydney Lucas, Fun Home Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I Emily Skeggs, Fun Home I am tempted to vote for Ruthie Ann Miles, whose moving performance as the King’s first wife deserves recognition, but she is surrounded and supported by other terrific performers, while Victoria Clark stands out in GIGI like a pearl in a shit-pile. Best Scenic Design of a Play *Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Bob Crowley, Skylight Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two David Rockwell, You Can’t Take It with You CURIOUS INCIDENT… slam dunk. WOLF HALL? Really? It had NO scenic design. It was practically a bare stage. Maybe I was at a different show altogether. It’s particularly irritating that its nomination came at the expense of CONSTELLATIONS, which featured utterly unique design work. Best Scenic Design of a Musical *Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, An American in Paris David Rockwell, On the Twentieth Century Michael Yeargan, The King and I David Zinn, Fun Home Crowley’s sets and costumes are all of a piece for PARIS and none can top it, not even the richly evocative sets of KING & I. Best Costume Design of a Play *Bob Crowley, The Audience Jane Greenwood, You Can’t Take It with You Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two David Zinn, Airline Highway Crowley does some things with AUDIENCE that I've never seen costumes do. Best Costume Design of a Musical *Bob Crowley, An American in Paris Gregg Barnes, Something Rotten! William Ivey Long, On the Twentieth Century Catherine Zuber, The King and I Crowley is the best in the business, but Zuber is running neck and neck, with her lovely work on KING and Barnes pulls off a few neat tricks in ROTTEN. Best Lighting Design of a Play *Paule Constable, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Paule Constable and David Plater, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Natasha Katz, Skylight Japhy Weideman, Airline Highway It’s hard to say where the scenic design of CURIOUS INCIDENT ends and the lighting design begins, but together they made for the most dramatic work of the year. Best Lighting Design of a Musical *Natasha Katz, An American in Paris Donald Holder, The King and I Ben Stanton, Fun Home Japhy Weideman, The Visit PARIS is the city of lights and a show with terrific lighting. THE VISIT has particularly dramatic and memorable lighting as well. Best Direction of a Play *Marianne Elliott, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Stephen Daldry, Skylight Scott Ellis, You Can’t Take It with You Jeremy Herrin, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Moritz von Stuelpnagel, Hand to God The theatrical vision for CURIOUS INCIDENT is unparalleled this season. Best Direction of a Musical *Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris Sam Gold, Fun Home Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten! John Rando, On the Town Bartlett Sher, The King and I John Doyle’s work on THE VISIT was overlooked, and Bart Sher’s work on KING is worthy of honor, but Wheeldon’s concept for PARIS is the easy choice. Best Choreography *Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris Joshua Bergasse, On the Town Christopher Gattelli, The King and I Scott Graham & Steven Hoggett for Frantic Assembly, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten! Such is the importance of movement to CURIOUS INCIDENT that a play got a rare nomination for choreography. Still, nothing beats Wheeldon’s work on PARIS this year. Best Orchestrations *Rob Mathes, The Last Ship Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky, Bill Elliott, An American in Paris John Clancy, Fun Home Larry Hochman, Something Rotten! The Celt-infused sound created for LAST SHIP edges out the lush but traditional Gershwin orchestrations. I would have also considered KING & I, but they used the original orchestrations and so they were ineligible. The austere beauty of THE VISIT was overlooked. -------------------------------------------- Productions That Received No Nominations Musicals: Dr. Zhivago Finding Neverland Holla If You Hear Me Honeymoon In Vegas It Shoulda Been You Sideshow Plays: A Delicate Balance Country House Fish In The Dark Living On Love Love Letters The Real Thing The River HONEYMOON IN VEGAS wasn’t that bad, and LIVING ON LOVE had some laughs, but the only shut-out show that I would really advocate for is SIDESHOW, which was easily one of the best revivals of the season, with great performances and excellent production elements. That the nominators preferred ON THE 20TH CENTURY in all these areas is a mystery to me and may suggest the aesthetic gap between me and many of my colleagues. Or, to put it more simply, I’m right and they’re wrong.

MFS62 May 22 2015 08:28 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Did you write and post a review of the Disney show, Finding Neverland? I didn't see one. Everything else with the Disney label has won some awards, but this one was shut out. Must have been pretty bad across the board. Later

Vic Sage May 23 2015 10:14 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

I didn't review FINDING NEVERLAND; i didn't see it. Once it failed to garner any nominations i was freed of that chore. Oh, and by the way, it's not a Disney musical. Harvey Weinstein (pres of Miramax) produced it with MSG, based on a play by Alan Knee. Knee wrote the adaptation, but was then fired off the show, along with the original songwriting team (Korie & Frankel). Harvey then brought in writers with no experience in writing a musical, and an afterbirth was born. There was much schadenfreude on Broadway when the noms came out, i can tell you.

MFS62 May 23 2015 06:52 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Ah, Miramax and MSG. Those are certainly two entities I think of when thinking "Broadway Musical". :) Sounds like the time you might have spent watching it was better spent arranging your sock drawer. Thanks. Later

themetfairy Jun 07 2015 07:14 PM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

Who is writing this year's Tony Awards show? It is such a step down from recent years.

Vic Sage Jun 08 2015 10:07 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

they put 3 chimps in a room and hoped for the best. But they didn't get "Hamlet"... it was more like "Omelette".

Vic Sage Jun 08 2015 10:12 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

They presented 3 numbers from un-nominated shows (NEVERLAND, IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU, GIGI), plus a JERSEY BOYS finale, not to mention all the lame shtick from Cumming and Chenoweth, yet somehow they couldn't find the time to air the "Best Score" and "Best Book" categories on the live broadcast, presenting the awards to the writers during the commercial breaks! This allowed them to overlook the fact that the authors of FUN HOME, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, achieved an historic accomplishment, as the first female writing team to win the Tony.

themetfairy Jun 08 2015 10:22 AM Re: Broadway: 2014-2015 season

The lame schtick was painful. The omissions were just wrong.