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The Golden Apple (Encores!)

The Golden Apple is exactly the kind of show that makes the Encores! series so much fun.  Each show runs only five performances and generally lands somewhere along the spectrum between a concert staging and fuller production with sets, costumes and choreography.  The first two offerings this year were Cabin in the Sky (1940) and Cole Porter’s The New Yorkers (1930).  The latter was a bathtub gin frolic with gorgeous gals, ridiculous sexist humor, a speakeasy owning gangster, assorted vaudevillian types and the song “I Happen to like New York.”  Huge fun and the leads, Scarlett Strallen and Tam Mutu, were period perfect and superb.

Yesterday, I saw the last performance of this season’s final show, The Golden Apple.  As with many Encores! shows, the entertainment factor is not only revisiting the show itself but its history as well.  Apparently The Golden Apple was the first musical to open Off Broadway and then transfer to Broadway, where it was short-lived.  It was also the first Off Broadway musical to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical.  If that’s not enticing enough, the original star was Kaye Ballard and the source material for the story is from the Iliad and the Odyssey but reset in Washington State.  Enough said!

The major reason to revisit this cult favorite was the music which sounded beautiful as performed by the Encores! exceptional and large orchestra, a treat in this age of scaled down musicals.  I would describe the sound as Americana.  This piece is a sung through, operatic style show and the singing was excellent.  The plot propels wildly from soldiers returning from the war in Spain to a bake-off with a golden apple prize to Helen being wooed away in a hot air balloon to be then pursued by Ulysses, all in the first act.  The story is wildly overstuffed and I was not quite sure why it seemed both adventurous and tedious at the same time.

Mikaela Bennett (Penelope) made her professional debut with this production and her duet with Ryan Silverman (Ulysses) to close the show was a highlight.  I have become a big fan of Mr. Silverman’s after seeing his performances as Terry in the Broadway revival of Side Show and the Irish Rep production of Finian’s Rainbow earlier this season.  Lastly, Lindsay Mendez, so good in Significant Other, was fun as Helen who sings the show’s famous “Lazy Afternoon.”  I look forward to following each of their careers.

But I don’t expect to see The Golden Apple again.  Interesting choices from the Encores! series this year.   Keep ’em coming, please.

nycitycenter.org

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A Doll’s House, Part 2

I still have never seen A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen.  I am vaguely aware of the general story and its famously shocking ending when first produced in 1879.  Therefore, in a crowded spring season for Broadway, Part 2 was not near the top of my must-see list.  Then I noticed the playwright was Lucas Hnath.  In 2015, “The Christians” (Playwrights Horizon) was one of my favorite plays that year.  Later that same season, I saw “Red Speedo” at New York Theater Workshop in a visually arresting production.  I loved them both for their thought-provoking characters and storylines so I took the plunge.

Along with her co-stars, Jayne Houdyshell, Chris Cooper and Condola Rashad, Laurie Metcalf leads us through this quasi-sequel as Nora.  While the play is definitely a Part 2 to A Doll’s House, it arrives over a century later.  The dialogue is often hilarious as the play ingeniously weaves us through a series of moral complexities.  Every character is rich, three dimensional and fully embodied in these wonderful performances.

Even more importantly, the play’s plot flows effortlessly and believably.  The director, Sam Gold, has effectively realized the combination of classic with contemporary.  All of the actors spar against each other and themselves on a minimalistic perfect set.  The audience is rewarded by revisiting a classic and its characters but with the freshness and spin enabled by crisp, modern dialogue plus the analytical passage of time.  Is marriage a good or bad thing?A Doll’s House, Part 2 firmly puts the spotlight on that debate.  And this playwright lets us decide, if that’s even possible.

Leaving the theater, I overheard two older men griping about this production.  They complained that the direction was all wrong and took the easy road by playing for laughs rather than being serious.  Ibsen this is not.  It’s Hnath and it’s genius.  Wherever he goes next, I’m all in.

dollshousepart2

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Dead End (Axis Theater Company)

I was introduced to the Axis Theater Company a few seasons back with their world premiere musical about the immigrant experience, Evening  1910, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Revisiting old theater pieces and time periods is of particular interest to me so when I heard they scheduled Dead End.  I jumped at the chance to grab a seat.  Dead End was a hit play for Sydney Kingsley in 1935 at the height of the Great Depression running for two years on Broadway.  The play was turned into a film with much of the Broadway cast in 1937 starring Humphrey Bogart. The popularity of these character types lasted in movies until 1958 under various names including the Dead End kids, Little Tough Guys and the Bowery Boys.

The downstairs basement theater that Axis uses is a perfect location for diving into the dark past of directionless youth and their struggles with relentless poverty. The play alternates between these impoverished street urchins, the more well-to-do society they bump into and some of their alumni, from those struggling to make ends meet or others who have become full-fledged criminals.  While there are some funny moments and lines, there is also a bleakness to their lives and situations, nicely shaded by the black box production design.  While we may be reflecting on the Great Depression, people unable to pull themselves out of the poverty cycle is unfortunately still a relevant theme.

I enjoyed the production but it felt a little disjointed.  Many of the cast remained onstage, distracting focus in the background, so the effect of poor versus rich was somewhat blurred.  I never completely got past the women playing the tough boys, the tone was less tough than jokey.  My favorite scene was between the infamous gangster Baby Face Martin and his ex-girlfriend, Francey, played by Brian Barnhart and Katie Rose Summerfield.  In this moment, I felt immersed in the period, connected to their struggles and relationship history.

Overall, I would recommend Dead End and this production as a welcome and rare opportunity to glimpse the past.  The play and its themes seem more relevant to the present than I was expecting.

axiscompany.org

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Why theaterreviewsfrommyseat?

Welcome to theaterreviewsfrommyseat.com.  As an avid theatergoer, I have decided to create my own review site for a number of reasons.  Today we will discuss the first reason:  too many critics (and online blogs) give away far too much plot and storyline detail.  As an example, last night I saw 3-Legged Dog’s “3/Fifths” billed as “a radically interactive Carnival and Cabaret.”  After seeing the show I went online to read the New York Times review.  In my opinion, there were far too many specific elements of the show detailed.  It was enough to know that the show takes place in Supremacy Land, an ethno-theme park where upon entering we each get to select attending the show as white or colored.  The cast was uniformly excellent and committed to their roles.  While the show might benefit from a little bit of tightening, “3/Fifths” is, oddly, simultaneously funny and uncomfortable on its journey to disturbing and surreal.  If that makes you want to run downtown and check it out, then maybe this website is for you.