SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM A REVIEW

When it was announced that there was going to be another Broadway overview of Stephen Sondheims' work I wondered why there was a need for another Sondheim revue. The last one to come along [Putting It Together] was about ten years ago and it failed, and this year [in honor of his 80th birthday] there have been many tributes and concerts dealing with his remarkable body of work, so I couldn't see doing another one unless it brought something fresh and new to the material.
SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM tries to be different. It was conceived by his long time collaborator and friend James Lapine, and his idea was to use video interviews with the great man himself and mix them in with the live performers. This concept does work well most of the time,but it is really a rehash of the familiar and the interviews may be facinating to the layman, but to anyone that has been following Sondheims' career or has read his excellent biography, they offer nothing new.
The cast is headed by Vanessa Williams, Tom Wopat and the magnificent Barbara Cook and they are all in fine form,but it is Ms. Cook who makes the strongest impression. She is a teriffic Sondheim interpreter and her legendary singing of Send In The Clowns is one of the high points of the entire season.
Mr. Lapine has staged the show admribly and the sets and videos by Beowulf Boritt and Peter Flaherty are artistic and visual masterpieces, but beyond the magnificent Ms.Cook and the stunning physical production, SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM offers nothing new. Just the same old leftovers.
AT STUDIO 54 254 WEST 54th STREET N.Y.C.

EVERYDAY RAPTURE A FOLLOWUP THOUGHT

I didn't care much for EVERYDAY RAPTURE when I saw it off broadway last year and it's move to Broadway has not altered my opinion of it. It is still a flimsy sort of tru-ish story about a young woman's journey to semi-stardom built around the engaging personality of it's star and co-author [with Dick Scanlan] Sherie Rene Scott.
Trouble is that Ms. Scott is not telling a very interesting story, and as engaging as she is, she can't sustain it for the whole 90 minute running time.
The show uses songs associated with her career and an 5 peice band makes them sound teriffic in Tom Kitt's swinging orchestrations, but EVERYDAY RAPTURE runs out of steam long before it is over, and Ms. Scott has been used to better advantage in other shows. I am sure that Iam in the minority when I say this because most people seem to like it alot.
AT THE AMERICAN AIRLINES THEATRE 227 WEST 42 st. N.Y.C.

AMERICAN IDIOT A REVIEW

As one who is not familiar with the rock group"'Green Day" or their chart busting album "American Idiot" I did not know what to expect from the musical that has been made from it. I am not too hospitable to rock music in a theatrical setting. The music is generally too loud,the singing second rate and the plots mostly idiotic["Spring Awakening" one of the few exeptions"], so I am not a good customer for this sort of thing, so even though AMERICAN IDIOT has all the things I normally hate in musicals,I had a very good time at it. The songs[all from the album with afew additions] are not too ear peircing, the voices are mostly first rate and the plot which deals with three lifelong friends and the different life-paths they take is sturdy and sometimes honestly moving, which proves that most things can be appetizing enough if done right. and Michael Mayer has staged it with wit and snap.
The cast for the most part could not be better, and John Gallagher Jr, Stark Sands and Michael Esper are first rate as the three friends who are trying to survive in a post 9/11 world.
The show looks great with attractive and playable sets by Christine Jones and the music has been very well orchestrated by the talented Tom Kitt.
So while AMERICAN IDIOT is not the best show ever, the plot is better than most, the beat is infectious and the production is colorful. It adds up to a lively, colorful, and surprisingly moving show.
At THE ST. JAMES THEATRE 246 WEST 44th STREET N.Y.C.











































































































'

LA CAGE AUX FOLLIES A REVIEW

The Menier Chocolate Factory is an enterprising theatre in London that seems to be making a career of taking full scale Broadway musicals and rethinking them in more intimate terms. This company has already sent us elegent bandbox reconceptions of "Sunday In The Park With George" and "A Little Night Music"and they both provided fine theatre evenings. What they are up to at the moment is a bold and extravagantly entertaning re-thinking of the 1983 Harvey Fierstein/ Jerry Herman musical LA CAGE AUX FOLLIES.
What makes this production special is the emphasis that is put on Mr. Fierstein's sturdy book which tells of the deep love between two men who have been professional and personal partners for many years,and the current debate over the rights of same sex couples make the story more timely now then it was 27 years ago. Mr. Herman's music is as freshly melodic as it always was and his lyrics [as always] are first rate.
Terry Jonhnson's stage direction is brilliantly conceived and superbly executed and fits Lynne Page's lively choreography like a glove.
The cast could not be better,and Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge are superb as the couple who survive many setbacks and still maintain their unbreakable bond. Mr Hodge was widely praised when he did this role in London and he is sure to get even more praise over here.Everyone else is performing at the top of their game and really understands the material.
The sets and costumes by Tim Shortall and Matthew Wright respectivly are fine and Jason Carr's skillful orchestrations for an eight peice band give the score a rich satisfying sound.
LA CAGE AUX FOLLIES is everything a revival should be and seldom is. Intelligently planned and brilliantly executed, it is a bold an satisfying theatre evening.
At THE LONGACRE THEATRE 220 WEST 48th STREET N.Y.C.

PROMISES, PROMISES A REVIEW

There are some shows that wear well over the years and some shows that don't. Take the musical PROMISES, PROMISES for example. When this musical was first produced in 1968 it was a smash hit. It had a wildly funny book by Neil Simon [based on the classic film "The Apartment"] , music by Burt Bacharach that introduced a new sound to Broadway and bright lyrics by Hal David. The show ran 1,281 performances and deserved every one of them, but the show was never considered a classic then ,and the 42 years since that first production seems to have robbed it of the fizz it once had, even in this brightly colored and shiny new revival.
Mr Simon's book deals with an office worker who lends his apartment out to his bosses so they can engage in some hanky panky with the female employees and winds up falling for a secretary who is in a relationship with one of the executives, but what was funny four decades ago now seems rather tame and old hat and while the Bacharach/David score is still attractive, time has taken away some of it's freshness.
While Rob Ahsford's stage direction is nothing special his choreography is well planned and generally lively and Sean Hays makes a smashing Broadway debut as the office clerk, even though he didn't erase the memory of Jerry Orbach's performance in the original. Kristin Chenoweth is not so well cast as the secretary.It's not that she is not good. She is very good,but the role is not right for her. The best performance is by Katie Finnernan as a barfly who comes on to the clerk.She only appears at the top of the second act, and all but walks off with the show just as the great Marian Mercer did in the original.
Scott Pask's sets are colorful and attractive and Jonathan Tunick has reworked his original orchestrations with his usual skill and knowhow, but even in this spiffy revival PROMISES, PROMISES is not the freshly original show it once was.
AT THE BROADWAY THEATRE 1681 BROADWAY AT 53rd STREET N.Y.C.

LULU A THOUGHT

I spent an interesting afternoon at the Met this today watching composer/librettest Alban Berg's final opera LULU and I thought that it was fascinating if not particularly stimulating.
Berg was working on the third act of his opera when he died. The unfinished version premiered in 1937 at the Zurich Opera,but was not completed until 1977 by the composer Friedrich Cerha. It premiered at the Met in 1979 and has been performed there sporadicly ever since, but I found this tale of a a young girl of the streets rather rough going, especially with Berg's atonal defiantly unmelodic score.
LULU is fascinating and never boring, but for one member of the audience it was a cold and uninvolving work, but worth looking at again.
AT THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE LINCOLN CENTER N.Y. N.Y.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY A REVIEW

This one sounded like a natural. I mean, how can you go wrong? A musical based on the lovable, off-beat characters created by the great cartoonist/humorist Charles Addams, a book by the very capable authors of "Jersey Boys", two ticket selling stars and a well regarded composer/lyricst. It surely sounded like it would be the highlight of the season, a genuinly popular smash hit.
Well, the show has arrived and were my instincts right? Of course not, because if ever a good idea for a musical has been bungled this is the show.The musical in question is THE ADDAMS FAMILY,and considering all the hard work that went into it, what has emerged is [to put mildly] a disappointingly limp musical, put together without any wit or sparkle.
Mr. Addams' lovable characters were the basis for a successful t.v. show and two popular motion pictures, but they were just characters. There was never any real plot development or emotional pull,so the book writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice have invented a story concerning the daughter of household who wants to bring her boyfriend and his parents home to meet the family. Sound familier? Just like "La Cage Aux Folles",only that was told with wit and passion. Mr. Brickman and Mr. Elice have substituted lame jokes and woefully embarrasing dialog. They are not helped at all by Andrew Lippa's relentlessly routine music and schoolboy lyrics, and even Larry Hochman's fine orchestrations can't lift most of the songs out of the trash basket.
The show started out with two Englishmen, Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch directing and designing the scenery and costumes,but it's common knowledge that Jerry Zaks was called in during the stormy out of town tryout[ taking creative consultant billing] and his work is fine considering the material he is working with.
Nathan Lane works like a coal heaver to put over his material, but the odds are almost insurmountable, even with his considerable talent,and Bebe Newirth is saddled with a poorly conceived role and substandard material.
So, while THE ADDAMS FAMILY is not the horror it was made out to be, it is all the same, a well meaning botch. By the way, I did leave the theatre humming one tune, but not one of Mr.
Lippa's originals. It was Vic Mizzy's catchy theme from the t.v. show.
At THE LUNT-FONTANNE THEATRE 205 WEST 46th STREET N.Y.C.

ENRON A REVIEW

There is a good, solid and sometimes devestatingly effective drama buried under the pretentious twaddle that playwright Lucy Prebble and director Rupert Goold have heaped upon Ms.Preeble's play ENRON.
This tale of corporate greed which resulted in one of the biggest economic debacles this country has ever known could have been a rippingly good yarn about how the greed of the 90s translated into the economic collapse of the 21st century,but under Mr. Goolds' frantic staging which makes
unnecessary use of videos,flashing lights and piercingly loud sound effects it resembles not so much a play as an out of hand childrens birthday party.
While this play started out in London last year where it became a smash hit,it is cast with locals for its Broadway outing and they all work hard with Norbert Leo Butz, Gregory Itzin and Stephen Kunken giving notable accounts of themselves amid all the noise that surrounds them.
Ms. Prebble seems to have a real talent for playwrighting and her play does have some fine moments in it, but in this misconceived and noisy production, ENRON is lost in its' pretensions and almost done in by its unnecessary excesess.
At THE BROADHURST THEATRE 235 WEST 44th STREET N.Y.C.

MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET A REVIEW

On December 4, 1956, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley got together at the Sun Records Studio in Memphis Tennessee for an impromptu jam session which was overseen by the label's owner Sam Phillips. That is the premise of the lightweight, but lively musical MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET.
It's a slim idea to build a whole show on and Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux [the authors of the book] haven't done much to flesh it out. The book never gets inside these music legends minds and we never learn much about them as people so the show is nothing more than a jukebox musical with alot of signature songs associated with the artists involved.
But the songs are the thing and when Levi Kreis[ as Jerry Lee Lewis] rips into "Great Balls Of Fire" or Eddie Clendening [as Elvis] belts "Hound Dog "out of the park the show rocks the very foundation of the theatre and stampedes the audience.
Lance Guest and Robert Britton Lyons are fine as Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins respectivly,Hunter Foster does what he can with the poorly written role of Sam Phillips and Elizabeth Stanley is excellent as Elvis's date and sings her two songs well.
While Eric Schaeffer's staging is mostly routine, Chuck Mead's musical arrangements are first rate and the principals play them expertly.
While MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET is nothing to write home about, it still provides a cheerful evening if you aren't too critical, and the songs are choice 50s Rock n Roll.
At THE NEDERLANDER THEATRE 208 WEST 41st. STREET N.Y,C.

FENCES A REVIEW

In his 1987 prize play FENCES playright August Wilson created one of his most memorable characters in the person of Troy Maxson,a hard working blue collar worker who wants nothing more than to survive and to keep his family together. As played by the great James Earl Jones in the 1987 original ,this was a man of great nobility and stature. In this long awaited Broadway revival Denzel Washington [another fine actor better known for his movies rather then his stage work] offers a more playful and and earthy take on the role and he is just as effective in his own way as Mr Jones was. He has the talent and stature to bring off this difficult and challanging role and he offers a triumphantly valid performance. He is evenly matched by the great Viola Davis as his long suffering wife of 18 years. Ms. Davis is a superb actress and she acts this tricky and difficult role triumphantly.
Aside from these two topflight performances the rest of this revival is spotty. Kenny Leons' stage direction is intermittntly effective being good in the big scenes and underpowered in the quieter moments,and the rest of the acting company is fine if not exceptional.
The Santo Loquasto sets, Constanza Romero costumes and Brian MacDevitt lighting are first rate and there is some effective background music by jazz great Branford Marsalis.
So there are many fine points in this revival of FENCES and it is well worth seeing, but for one aisle-sitter of long standing there was a slight blandness and lack of energy that hung over the entire evening. For me the show needed a little more get up and go.
At THE CORT THEATRE 138 WEST 48th STREET N.Y.C.