Tuesday, June 5, 2007

The way I saw it

I've been trying to organize my thoughts about the theatre season just passed but they're about as jumbled as the stack of ticket stubs on my desk. I've spent more time in New York this season--on trips short and long--and since I seldom let a night in the city go by without seeing a show, that means I saw nearly everything worthwhile that opened on Broadway, a rare year for me. I got to see a lot of shows elsewhere too and, of course, we produced a few. Herewith some non-comprehensive notes:

• The very best things I saw on any stage this season were both limited-run, concert editions of favorite shows. I sat gleefully third row at Ravinia in August to see Patti LuPone as Rose and Jessica Boevers (now Bogart) in the title role of Gypsy. This was hardly a scaled-down production, however; for a "concert", it was pretty fully-mounted. It was simply thrilling, absolutely, and one of those nights in the theatre I'll treasure forever. (I strongly suspect it was an event that will become like Woodstock and, years in the future, thousands upon thousands will claim to have been in the park that night witnessing LuPone's "Rose's Turn".)
• Neither snow nor rain nor flesh-eating bacteria or any other unlikely fate that might have befallen me could have kept me from Encores! concert of Follies at City Center. I wrote a few lines about that show while still basking in its afterglow.
  
• Company: I first saw this show in Cincinnati with our pals at the Playhouse in the Park; I documented my thoughts on the production pretty well here at the time. I'm pleased to report that the show (which did, in fact, transfer to a Broadway run) held up to my expectations in New York. I saw an early preview and another performance a few weeks ago. It remains, of the many, many I've seen, my favorite production of the work and I am certainly pulling for Raul Esparza, the best damn Bobby I've ever seen, to take the Tony Award this weekend.
• Journey's End was the best drama I saw in New York this season, and The Little Dog Laughed was the most entertaining (if unevenly wrought) comedy. I also adored The Year of Magical Thinking, and Vanessa Redgrave's performance therein. Not forgetting, of course, The Coast of Utopia; I had seen Voyage in London several years ago and ran the marathon at Lincoln Center this spring. It's a sweeping drama in a class on its own.
• I also explored the fine line between pain and pleasure by sitting through an early performance of Terrance McNally's Deuce, easily one of the most poorly constructed plays I've ever seen. It was redeemed only by marvelous performances by Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes. Delightful as they were, they couldn't improve the material, but I consider my ticket price a worthwhile investment for the hug I received by Ms. Lansbury at the stage door while reminiscing about her performances at The Muny.
• Repeat performances: I made another trip to see The Drowsy Chaperone, since I'd missed Sutton Foster on an earlier visit. Bob Martin's performance at the Man in the Chair was as witty as ever, but the show as a whole doesn't hold up terribly well on repeated viewings. I also dropped in again on the New York production of Altar Boyz; call it field research.
• After I saw Spring Awakening, a friend asked for my impression and I said what I've repeated often since: "I'm not in the target demographic." That said, I enjoyed the heck out of the show (probably helps that I'm a Duncan Sheik fan) and was delighted to see a younger audience in attendance than at any other production all season. I've had the cast album in my car stereo for weeks. It's not revolutionary (as it occasionally has been hailed), it's not a Rent or a Hair in either its ambition or its realization, but it is a great evening of theatre very well-performed.
• I suppose I am in the demo for Legally Blonde, aimed as it is squarely at teen/tween girls and gay men, and I have to say I had a great time with it. The whole show starts at a sprint and never slows down, the music is bouncy, some of the choreography is amazing and all in all, the show is a lot of fun. What it doesn't do--unlike, say, Hairspray--is reveal anything particularly new about the material; if you've seen the Reese Witherspoon movie, there's nothing here to surprise you. I certainly wasn't surprised about one other thing: Laura Bell Bundy's performance as Elle Woods. She is fierce. Snaps to her.
• I loved Grey Gardens, and will not be at all surprised or disappointed if Christine Ebersole takes the Tony Award for her dual role at big and little Edies. The show isn't for everyone and I have some questions about how well it will tour, but I found the show--especially Act Two--astonishing.
• Likewise, as a Kurt Weill fan, I thoroughly enjoyed LoveMusik, which I saw at an early preview and hope to revisit now that it's more settled. Donna Murphy and Michael Cerveris give--surprise, surprise--amazing performances. Murphy, in particular, just disappears into Lotte Lenya. It's another show that is not particularly commercial and probably wouldn't survive outside the rarified world of non-profit theatre, but I'm so glad I saw it.
• I saw two revivals at the Roundabout this year, The Apple Tree and 110 in the Shade. This was the third production of The Apple Tree I've seen in the past few years and while I enjoyed Kristin Chenoweth's performance, I don't need to see another one for a great while, I think. 110 in the Shade, on the other hand, was a joy. New pal Bobby Steggert (who was in our production of Shakespeare's R&J last season) is going to be a big star, mark my words. Audra McDonald was perfection as Lizzie. Forget the naysayers who opine that she's too beautiful to play a plain old maid. Lizzie isn't necessarily actually plain, she just needs to believe that she is. McDonald makes you believe she believes and, of course, she sings the hell out of the role. I had some goose bumps.
• I've saved the best for last. A few years ago, when I first saw Hairspray, folks asked my opinion of it and I honestly said it wasn't the best musical I'd ever seen but it was, hands down, the most fun I'd had in the theatre in a long time. I am now saying the same thing about Curtains, the Kander and Ebb (and Holmes et al) musical at the Hirschfeld. If you're a fan of musical comedy--a real, diehard, dyed in the cotton musical theatre fan--hie thee to Telecharge and get the best seat you can. The songs, the jokes, the production numbers, the inside jokes...it all added up for me. I left dancing onto 45th Street and wishing I could see it again right away. David Hyde Pierce, Debra Monk and Karen Ziemba (someone get this gal a lead, please!) deserve all the awards they can carry. I'm gushing? So kill me. This show did.

I'm leaving out of a ton of things I saw and, to varying degrees, enjoyed, but that'll have to do for now. Perhaps I'll roundup some favorites from the day job and other local theatres in a day or so.

Sunday, April 2, 2006

Phone rings, door chimes…

I scooted over to Cincinnati last Thursday to see Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's production of Stephen Sondheim's Company, my second-favorite Sondheim show. (My first, for entirely sentimental reasons, is Merrily We Roll Along. No one else I know counts it in their top five.)

One of the things that distinguishes live theatre from the movies is that our relationship to shows can change in two dimensions: either as a factor of a different production that changes some aspect of the play or of the fact that we're the ones who have changed since first seeing it or, for that matter, both. Movies are static and unchanging; our estimation of them changes only if we acknowledge a change in ourselves (age, experience, whatever).

My relationship with Company changes every time I see it, and this was no exception. I last saw the show four years ago at the Kennedy Center, with John Barrowman as Bobby and Lynn Redgrave as Joanne. I said at the time it was the best production I was likely to see for a while; the Cincinnati production now holds that distinction. I'm also a few years older. Joanne's line late in act two about their set being "too young for the old people and too old for the young people" seems a little more apt to me now. That's certainly how I've been feeling lately.

As for the production itself, I can't improve on the praise the many regional and national reviews have piled on it. It just works, and certainly better that director John Doyle's current New York production of Sweeney Todd that employs the same conceit (the actors accompanying themselves as the orchestra), which I enjoyed but didn't love. Company just works better this way, and the necessary compression of the score and reduction of the stage business reinvents the show as more of a chamber piece, boiling it down to the essence.

Short takes: Raul Esparza, who I like more every time I see him, is hands-down the best Bobby I've ever seen. He sings the hell out of—and means every word of—"Being Alive". I'd never seen a production that interpolated "Marry Me a Little"; here it ends the first act and, rather than diminish the finale as I'd feared, it actually enhances it. When Bobby gets to "Being Alive", you realize "Marry Me a Little" was a perfectly logical, perfectly appropriate stop on his emotional journey. "Barcelona" doesn't work as well when April and Bobby aren't naked and in bed, but I sure don't miss the "Tick-Tock" ballet. Barbara Walsh is fierce as Joanne, the least self-deluded and most honest character in the piece. David Gallo's minimalist set looks great in the Marx space, aided by Tom Hase's lighting, and $30,000 worth of designer clothes look fantastic on the cast in stark black and white. The rest of the company was superb, particularly Matt Castle (hubba hubba) as Peter and Heather Laws as Amy. There were a few places where I thought the sound could have been better, but that may have been a consequence of where I was sitting in the fourth row. Some friends seated in the last row on the floor said the vocal/music mix was fine.

The production continues through April 14 and, although it is substantially sold out, I encourage you to see it if you can. Despite the optimism of my friends at the Playhouse, who have seen a parade of New York producers and potential backers in the audience over the past few weeks, I will be very surprised if this particular production has a life outside Ohio.