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I do not use this blog to review movie experiences but Euphoria is so much more than that.  This cinematographic masterpiece is stunningly unforgettable.  Viewing this artistic triumph in the cavernous Park Avenue Armory left us speechless, sadly depressed yet slightly hopeful for the future.

This nearly two hour long multichannel film installation is a searing analysis of capitalism and the effects of individual greed within the world at large.  Multiple points of view are presented but blunt criticism is evident and brilliantly depicted.

The film is a series of lengthy vignettes of widely diverse stylings.  The messaging is not simply negative critiques.  There is seriously thought provoking challenges offered to the viewer.  The rush of contemplations overwhelm in the very best way.

It is probably best to not know too much but just to go.  The main film is accompanied by five jazz drummers and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, all in separate yet synchronized films.  The music (Sammy Moussa) is intoxicating and illuminate the grander storytelling.  You can sit, stand and walk around soaking in this thrilling piece of art.  And you should since there are so many things to take in.

The dialogue, acting, direction and choreography are all extraordinary.  These are thoughts and musings from a variety of sources including economists, business magnates, writers and celebrities.  They are reinterpreted into scenes of realism and surrealism.  As described on the website, “the result is a searing monument to the history of greed that asks seminal questions around the success and enduring legacy of entrepreneurship”.  Euphoria came across to me as even more expansive than that.

Julian Rosefeldt is the creative filmmaker behind this utterly unique mind-blowing exercise.  I saw his memorable previous installation in 2016 called Manifesto with Cate Blanchett.  There are stylistic visual and thematic similarities in his work.  Euphoria, however, is one of the greats, possibly of all time.  What will the future bring for the next generations?

Euphoria is being presented through January 8, 2023 at the Park Avenue Armory.  The installation is presented in a continuous loop so you can enter and exit anytime.

www.armoryonpark.org

 

After posting my comments on Broadway’s rollickingly funny POTUS last May, I took a hiatus from this blog.  I have been in and out of New York City this year.  After five or so years of chronicling my theater experiences I decided to take a break.  I am currently back in NYC for a visit.  My theater docket is loaded with, hopefully, a great itinerary.

A Strange Loop

I paused blogging but did see one more production on Broadway last May.  I found the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning A Strange Loop utterly mediocre.  This meta musical follows a character named Usher who is exactly that at The Lion King.  The book follows  the story of Usher, a black queer man who is writing about a black queer man who is writing a musical.

The show is filled with self-deprecation, humor and analysis, largely about sexuality and inner growth.  In discussing the show with friends months after, most seemed to admire that this content was on the Broadway stage.  I saw an underproduced entertainment better suited for Off-Broadway.  The multiple swipes at Tyler Perry struck a hollow note for me as well.

Agamemnone

I was fortunate later in June to travel to Sicily with friends and family.  We all went to the Teatro Greco in Siracusa to see a performance of Agamemnone.  This Greek amphitheater was built in the 5th century BCE and renovated two hundred years later during the Roman period.  The photograph above was taken as nightfall approached.

All summer long this venue presents historical plays in this breathtaking open air locale.  Agamemnone was performed in Italian so it was helpful to be familiar with the story beforehand.  Production values, notably lighting and sound, were superb.  For theater lovers, the thrill of physically going back in time and sitting in this ancient structure is an unparalleled joy.  The icing on the cake:  a full house with more than half the audience under the age of thirty.

Anatomy of a Murder

In the fall of 2022, I decided to “put my money where my mouth is” and audition for a role.  I had the opportunity to play the Judge in a reader’s theater staging of Anatomy of a Murder with the Glen Arbor Players in Michigan.  The show had sets and costumes but the actors (of a certain age!) carry scripts for the one weekend, three performance run.  I cannot comment on a show in which I was a member of the cast.  I can factually report that the turnout was record setting for this company and no one threw a tomato at me.

The Agenda

Those updates bring me to today and an excited return to NYC for theatrical immersion (plus a holiday dinner with the college gang and their families).  The docket includes &Juliet, Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson on Broadway.  I passed on the gloriously reviewed Kimberly Akimbo since I saw it downtown last winter.  It is an excellent musical with a great cast.

Off-Broadway plans include Will Arbery’s Evanston Salt Costs Climbing, Becky Nurse of Salem, the Mint Theater’s American premiere of Noel Coward’s The Rat Trap and, despite its disastrous foreboding, the musical Titanique.  There is one more matinee slot which could be filled…

…And next week I will be in South Bend, Indiana where a little reveling will be expected at Jane Lynch’s A Swinging Little Christmas.  Nothing like a little breather to stoke my passion for live theater.

For NYC residents and visitors, these are my Top Theater Recommendations for Summer 2018.  If you can somehow snag an impossibly hard to get ticket to Hamilton, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child or Springsteen on Broadway, by all means go!  I loved each of them:

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I have created a list of my recent favorite plays and musicals that will still be running at least into August.  A link to the original blog is provided for more information.  At the end, a list of the upcoming plays and musicals I will be blogging about soon.  If you would like to receive an automated email with each new posting, please sign up for free.

Plays

Conflict (Mint Theater Company)

A revival of a 1925 forgotten masterpiece.  “The ending lines of Conflict are urgently important to be heard in today’s America.”

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The Play That Goes Wrong 

“The audience with whom I saw this play laughed hard and very, very often.”

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Puffs, Or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic

“Does the idea of sticking a Land O’Lakes label on a brown beer bottle make you laugh?”  Get your Hogwarts fun at off-Broadway prices.

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/puffs

 

Musicals

Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away are both outstanding musicals and highly recommended.  Other favorites from this blog which are still running:

The Band’s Visit

2018 Tony Award winner for Best Musical.  “This is a slow, quiet, funny, sad, realistic, magical, musical tour of a very ordinary town awakened by visitors.”

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Carmen Jones (Classic Stage Company)

“The level of excellence is staggering …. the first revival in New York since its premiere 75 years ago.”

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Carousel

“Hands down the finest choreography in years.”

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Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

“It’s intimate, a little claustrophobic, in your face and abundantly entertaining.”

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SpongeBob SquarePants

“What’s the best part of this aquatic dreamscape?  I’d have to see it again to figure that out, there are so many choices to consider.”

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Mean Girls

“Rare is the musical where this many different characters have finely executed moments in the spotlight.”

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Events

The Lost Supper (McKittrick Hotel)

“Think surrealistic dinner party interspersed with period songs or creatively executed performance pieces.”

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What am I planning to see and blog about this summer?

New York Musical Festival (NYMF).  An incubator for new musicals with 12 full productions and 9 readings over four weeks.

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (Irish Repertory Company).  The 2011 Broadway revival was worse than dreadful with Harry Connick Jr. painfully uncomfortable on stage.  Let’s let Irish Rep have a crack at staging this show with its excellent score.

The Damned (Park Avenue Armory).  The North American premiere of Ivo Van Hove’s adaptation of Luchino Visconti’s desperately dark drama.

This Ain’t No Disco (Atlantic Theater Company).  Drifters and dreamers searching for their place in the night world of Studio 54 and Mudd Club.

Fairview (Soho Rep).  Twice extended due to rave reviews, I managed to grab a ticket and look forward to checking this one out.

Straight White Men (Second Stage).  This company’s second Broadway outing with two major last minute casting changes (of the same role) signals trouble.

Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope (Encores!  Off-Center).  In 1972, this musical revue was the first on Broadway to be staged by an African-American woman.

Head Over Heels.  The next Broadway jukebox musical with tunes from The Go-Go’s.

The Boys in the Band.  A starry cast Broadway revival for the 50th anniversary of this groundbreaking off-Broadway play.

I started my blog in May, committed to recording my thoughts and opinions on the pieces I have seen but without giving away too much information should you decide to invest your time and money.  In the process, I have found that this exercise has greatly improved my recall of those theatergoing experiences.  So why not summarize and highlight my favorites for my year (not necessarily aligned with actual opening dates for the sticklers out there)….

In 2017, I attended 134 productions, 29 of which were on Broadway and the rest were largely in New York.  I did see 7 productions in other cities including Berkeley (CA), Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco.

Best of the “Not Broadway“ Category

Company of the Year – Mint Theater

Three exceptionally good productions from this troupe that specialize in reviving lost plays.  This year, we were treated to Yours Unfaithfully (Miles Malleson), The Lucky Ones (A.A. Milne) and The Suitcase Under the Bed (Teresa Deevy).  Very few misfires from this company and I have been a loyal follower for about ten years.  A great opportunity to see what issues and ideas playwrights brought to the table often nearly a century ago.

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The Top Ten Best of 2017

In the arbitrary group of off, off-off and out-of-town plays and musicals, these were my favorites this year.  They are listed in the order in which I saw them.  Comments are included only for those whose viewing predates this blog (the rest are linked to the original post).

Picnic (Transport Group)

William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize winning 1953 potboiler of a young, virile drifter who happens onto a small Kansas town.  Exceptional staging and superb acting adding to the immediacy of 85 audience members sitting right in front of the action at the Judson Gym.

The Skin of Our Teeth (Theater for a New Audience)

A revival of another Pulitzer Prize winning play from 1942 by Thornton Wilder (Our Town).  Over three acts we meet a New Jersey family faced with an impending Ice Age, a trip to the Atlantic City boardwalk and the aftermath of war.  Mesmerizing production of a crazy, entertaining play which must have blown audiences away back in the day.

Sundown, Yellow Moon (Ars Nova, WP Theater)

In a small southern college town, the kids come to visit their cranky father in this evocative study of family communication and the lack thereof by Rachel Bonds.  With original songs by the Bengsons (Hundred Days), this was easily one of the best stage designs of the year.

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/hundreddays

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Stephen Sondheim’s macabre musical masterpiece, still running downtown.  I saw this three times, including taking lucky out-of-town visitors.  My comments on the third visit:

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The View Upstairs (Culture Project)

Based on a true, but largely forgotten event, this musical was about a gay bar in  1973 New Orleans.  32 people were killed by an arsonist.  A celebration of love and a meditation on hate, this one was oddly funny and irredeemably sad.  And still relevant, even more sadly.

Oh My Sweet Land (The Play Company)

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Tiny Beautiful Things (Public Theater)

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People, Places & Things (St. Ann’s Warehouse)

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The Wolves (Lincoln Center)

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The Royale (Aurora Theater Company, Berkeley, CA)

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Honorable Mentions

Rachael Lily Rosenbloom … and don’t you ever forget it!  (54 Below)

54 Below staged a one night mini-concert of this famed 1973 Broadway musical flop which closed before it opened.  In a nutshell:  this was written for Bette Midler who passed on it.  Plot:  Rachael’s  journey from a Brooklyn fishmonger to fame as a Hollywood gossip columnist to an Oscar nomination followed by a nervous breakdown.  A mixture of disco and Broadway show tunes, this was a fantastically hilarious and entertaining evening.  Trivia buffs:  book, music and lyrics by Paul Jabara (later famous for Donna Summer’s Last Dance, Barbra Streisand’s The Main Event and The Weather Girls’ It’s Raining Men.  And in the Bette Midler part:  Ellen Greene who later landed the role of a lifetime in Little Shop of Horrors.

Georama:  An American Panorama Told on Three Miles of Canvas (New York Musical Festival)

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Worst of the Year

Winner(?) – Peter Pan (Bedlam)

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Runners Up:

Joan of Arc:  Into the Fire (Public Theater)

After seeing Talking Heads front man David Byrne’s awesome musical Here Lies Love about Imelda Marcos, I made sure I had tickets to his next effort.  A colossal fail, both idiotic and boring.

Her Portmanteau (New York Theater Workshop)

A double bill with the play Sojourners by Mfoniso Udofia, this was an exploration of Nigerian traditions clashing with American life.  Two chapters of a nine part saga that I will never see.

Refugia (Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis)

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Measure for Measure (Elevator Repair Service, Public Theater)

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Best of the Broadway Category

Broadway Plays

Winner – Indecent 

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Runners Up:

Sweat

Pulitzer Prize winning play by Lynn Nottage about the collapse of industry jobs in Reading, PA and its effects on the citizens of the town.

Jitney

One of the ten American century cycle plays by August Wilson and a beauty of a story which takes place in an early 1970s unlicensed cab dispatch office.  I am not finished seeing all ten yet and look forward to finishing the list.

A Doll’s House, Part 2

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1984

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Honorable Mention

The Glass Menagerie

A hugely controversial Sally Field led production which frankly had more haters than admirers.  Laura was played by Madison Ferris, a visably disabled actress, which threw the play’s words into a much harsher context.  The scene with Finn Wittrock as the Gentleman Caller was riveting and perhaps my favorite pairing I’ve ever seen.  I cannot explain how both were not nominated for Tony Awards.  Yes it deconstructed a classic and yes it was a bit of a mess but we were talking about this production for months afterward.  Isn’t that vital theater?  I think so.

Broadway Musicals

Winner:  The Band’s Visit

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Runners Up:

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

The Ars Nova hit I first saw in its original incarnation back in 2012 finally made it to Broadway with Josh Groban in a sumptuous, beautifully sung version.

Come From Away

Ridiculously well-directed by Christopher Ashley who won a Tony for his efforts, this tale of strangers whose planes were diverted to a tiny town in Newfoundland on 9/11 is a master class in storytelling.  Twelve people playing multitudes of characters on a grim day in American history based on original interviews.

Sunday in the Park with George

Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford as Seurat and Dot.  Both excelled in another extraordinary revival of this Sondheim musical from 1984.  In this outing, the Chromolume has finally been decoded and we get what the big deal was all about !  Following the superb Daniel Evans/Jenna Russell version from 2008, I believe Sunday is a confirmed masterpiece in which technology has finally caught up with the show.

Groundhog Day

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Honorable Mention

SpongeBob SquarePants

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Worst of the Year

Play:  Marvin’s Room

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Musical:  A Bronx Tale

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And, finally, yes I did see Hamilton in Chicago this year.  I pulled it from contention on this list because it’s my blog and the show does not need any more accolades!

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Next up in 2018:  Farinelli and the King with Mark Rylance followed by the revival of Once on This Island and 54 Below’s concert staging of The Drowsy Chaperone.  Happy New Year!

 

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.