Tag: Play

Broadway superstar Audra McDonald begins her turn as the famed stage mother in Gypsy this week.  Jez Butterworth has given us another version of this archetype in his deeply emotional and satisfying play The Hills of California.  Mothers and daughters and dreams, the stuff of drama and growth.

Widowed at a young age, Veronica is raising her four daughters to have a life far better and more empowered than her own.  Perhaps she, like Gypsy’s Mama Rose, wants the life for them that she wished for herself.  It is a familiar story for sure.  The tension within this dramedy, however, mines new depths of sadness despite the effervescent joy of young girls blossoming under mom’s tutelage.

Veronica is training the sisters to be an act by mimicking the Andrew’s Sisters.  That gives us a few terrific old tunes to savor in performance scenes including “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy”.  In 1955 this choice seems already a tad dated underscoring mother’s missed opportunity for herself.

The play also takes place in 1976 when Veronica is nearing the end of her life.  The Webb sisters are back in their former home, a now run down guesthouse somewhere near the sea.  Will the one sister who attained some level of fame return?

The play will shift in time over the course of a very swift three hours.  Every scene is naturally realistic.  The major plot advancement includes a visitor (David Wilson Barnes) invited by Veronica to witness her assembled talents.  As the play turns we are faced with a stage mother far steelier than anything a musical could conjure.  The scene is devastating and superbly rendered under the excellent direction by Sam Mendes.

In a play with time periods separated by two decades memories will be challenged.  The shaping of perspectives is a nice layer which enriches the vagaries in the mother daughter dynamic.  What does it take to successfully climb the hills of California?  Is that the dream?  Should it be?

The acting is top notch.  Laura Donnelly is vividly cold as Veronica and equally memorable in a second role.  All of the sisters in the various age groups are excellent especially Helena Wilson as the one daughter who never left the nest.  These people (and their bitterness) are recognizable making the angst palpable.

I am a huge fan of Mr. Butterworth as a playwright.  I have seen all of his Broadway productions including the jaw dropping Jerusalem, The River and The Ferryman.  Not knowing what this play was about I went simply because his plays are so very good.  The Hills of California is no different.  This is everything an exquisitely staged and intimately written drama should be.  I cannot wait until the next one.

The Hills of California is running at the Broadhurst Theatre until December 22, 2024.

www.thehillsofcalifornia.com

theaterrviewsfrommyseat/theferryman

“Whenever you come near the human race there’s lots and lots of nonsense”.  That chestnut is uttered by Jim Parsons as the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.  I have never had an opportunity to see this famous play performed.  This revival, directed by Kenny Lyon, is excellent from start to mesmerizing finish.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, this incisive drama brilliantly incorporates metatheatrical devices.  The Stage Manager hosts the audience, comments on the action and occasionally performs a character.  Over three acts (here performed without intermissions) the American small town of Grover’s Corner will showcase the ordinariness of the human condition and also its universality.

People have their everyday jobs like milk delivery guy and town newspaper editor.  Some in school are growing up and falling in love.  The town alcoholic is known.  Class and position in society, religious demographics and the lack of culturally broadening perspectives are topics chewed on.  There are so many timeless themes in this 1938 study of who and what we are.

Not knowing the play to any extent I was treated to the superlative surprise that is Act III.  Everything staged before built to a thrillingly thoughtful critique on life, death and what we do with the molecules holding us together while we visit this Earth.  What is the purpose of all of this?  Our Town doesn’t answer that question completely but instead invites us to Grover’s Corner to contemplate everything from the mundane to the otherworldly.

Mr. Parsons is in confident command of this large cast who each excel in this contemplative, swirling, often funny dissection.  As the young couple brimming with the promises of life ahead, Ephraim Sykes and understudy Emily Webb shine brightly with demonstrable chemistry.  Their Act III moments are, therefore, powerfully realized.

This talented group includes Michelle Wilson, Billy Eugene Jones, Richard Thomas and Julie Halston.  The show was cast diversely and there is not a second of self-acknowledgement of that choice.  This material can be and should be absorbed by everyone.

I am struck by a visit to the simpler times in Grover’s Corner.  Our American small towns seem far more complicated now given the dynamics of a century of changes – for the better and the worse.  I wonder what the residents would think of the the presidential candidate who pantomimed fellatio with a microphone last week?  Savior?  Fucked up freak?  That the human race is overwhelmed by “lots and lots of nonsense” is indisputable.

Thornton Wilder’s play is a still relevant gem.  The piece is wildly theatrical and laser sharp in confronting its audience about the meaning, value and gift of life.  This production of Our Town is highly recommended especially if, like me, you’ve never taken the trip before.

Our Town is running on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre through January 19, 2024.

www.ourtownbroadway

The water is poisoned but the government authorities bury the story.  Is this play set in Flint, Michigan?  The media conspire to subdue truths and broadcast alternative facts.  Is this play about the conservative conspiracy peddlers like the Sandy Hook deniers?  A scientist is figuratively crucified for expressing facts which do not fit the desired political narrative?  Is this play about Dr. Fauci and Covid?  No.  An Enemy of the People was written in 1882.

I have seen Ibsen’s play before and decided to revisit it again when I saw that Amy Herzog (4,000 Miles, The Great God Pan) did a new translation.  Her work on the Jessica Chastain led A Doll’s House last year was excellent.  As in that production, the essence of the story is a meaty entree to be devoured.  This one has the additional benefit of being uncannily relevant to today’s headlines.

Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Jeremy Strong from Succession) is a principled man who discovers his town’s water contains a potentially deadly bacteria.  The town is famous as a spa destination.  He wants his findings published in the local newspaper.  More people will get sick and some will die.  His brother (Michael Imperioli from The White Lotus) is an unscrupulous mayor who has other ideas and works his fake news magic.

I’ve seen this play before and it is a classic tale of hypocrisy.  An uber principled, unwillingly to negotiate protagonist versus the ubiquitous political and financial power elite.  How best to muffle the truth?  Discredit him on social media tweets.  Well that’s our way now.  Back in 1882, a Town Hall mob is the method to publicly discredit and destroy.

And what a Town Hall this staging has.  Circle in the Square is a perfect theater for this material.  After intermission, the lights do not go down.  The citizens assemble and we are them.  Watch the easily flipped town leaders bury the inconvenient truth.  Science on trial is a never ending theme.  Do we have an exact count of how many imbeciles still believe the Earth is flat?

Mr. Strong is both understated and deeply committed in an excellent performance.  Is the Doctor 100% accurate in his assessment of the situation?  Are his platitudes over-the-top?  Could he or should he negotiate a middle ground?  That might be hard but the suggestion is floated.  His inky, slinky brother is a very competent adversary, however.  Mr. Imperioli exudes the trappings of privilege, self-promotion and greed as a memorable villain from yesterday and as a mirror to today’s powerful creeps.

Director Sam Gold has staged a tightly wound drama where everyone is forced to pick a side.  Doesn’t that also sound familiar?  Special kudos to Dots for their peek under the covers scenic design which, by play’s end, brilliantly depicts the destructive ramifications of political warfare.  We surround an intimate family home and witness it torn apart by a world, both then and now, without a moral compass.  This revival of An Enemy of the People is both timely and terrific.

An Enemy of the People has performances scheduled through June 23, 2024.

www.anenemyofthepeopleplay.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/adollshouse

Many versions of Anton Chekhov’s 1897 play have been staged as written and in adaptations.  Two of my more recent takes were Christopher Durang’s hilarious Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and a witty off-Broadway gem Life Sucks.  Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means To Me) has provide this new version of Uncle Vanya.  This one is a hard pass.

All of the angst is present.  A few baubles for your pleasure.  “Why does the sound of my voice sound so unpleasant to you?”  Uncle Vanya is “so mad at myself for pissing away all that time in my life”.  He comments that it’s “nice weather for hanging yourself”.  One more you ask?  “Why do we get drunk?”  The answer is “so I can pretend to be alive”.

In the right production these amusing asides could entertain.  Lila Neugebauer is a theater director I have greatly admired for The Wolves, Appropriate, The Antipodes and Miles for Mary to name a few.  The misfire here, therefore, is fairly shocking.  I do not believe I am alone in that opinion as the number of intermission walkouts were noticeable.

The cast is marooned on distant locations across a vast stage at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater.  The pace of the direction is very, very slow as if the previous line had to traverse the void and be heard by another character.  I presume the tempo is supposed to amp up the droll angsty humor but everything just came across flat and, frankly, quite boring.

Two actors manage to shine.  Alison Pill is always a treat to watch and her unrequited love for Astrov (William Jackson Harper) is painfully real.  Their scene together is the high point of the play by far.  Interactions between everyone else seem less interesting.  While believability might not be a goal, there needs to be some emotional connection to the plot machinations transpiring.

Steve Carell is making his Broadway debut as Uncle Vanya.  The part promises a good fit but the gloom and doom guy does not have enough dimensions here for us to care or even laugh in recognition.  At the end of the play he notes “my suffering is at an end finally”.  We feel it too, unfortunately.

Uncle Vanya is playing at the Vivian Beaumont Theater through June 16, 2024.

www.vanyabroadway.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/lifesucks

Depending where you sit, the hospital bed can be seen from the living room.  Today’s immediate crisis involves the plumbing and the building’s Super is working through the commonplace problem.  The world of Mary Jane is much like everyone’s but with the added reality of a very ill child who needs round the clock care.

The heartbreak and self-sacrifice of motherhood is a key theme explored in this quietly devastating drama.  Nurses are ever present in this home.  Mary Jane will interact with four women in the two halves of this play.  Each brings perspective from a different point of view.  Feelings are explored with gentle compassion.  We come to grips with mom’s surprising and impressively sunny demeanor.

Good natured Mary Jane counsels another mom who is just beginning to deal with her own similar circumstance.  Ideas learned from caring for her own son are casually tossed off as if a recipe.  Our peek into her seemingly unclouded world foreshadows pain ahead.

The riveting center of this beautifully constructed story involves two mothers sitting at a table in the hospital.  Susan Pourfar’s Chaya is a Jewish Orthodox woman dealing with her own child’s health issues.  These two mothers converse having just met but the intersection illuminates a shared humanity.  The scene is breathtaking for its simplicity and its realness.

Academy Award nominee Rachel McAdams (Spotlight) plays the title character and she is excellent.  There is no hysterical moment for Mary Jane.  Life is a slow burn to be managed.  Her pain is barely evident underneath the dutiful exterior.  A visit from a hospital chaplain will allow her and us to ponder a spiritual view.

Anne Kauffman directed this soft-spoken masterwork in which we eavesdrop on what could have been a movie-of-the-week tale.  Instead, unconnected scenes from life unfold and we witness the never ending cycle of a parental burden which overtakes their lives.  The pain is understandable and possibly even recognizable.  That doesn’t make it hurt less or give undue hopefulness.

In the first scene the Super (Brenda Wehle) remarks that the apartment’s window guards are missing which is illegal.  Mary Jane took them off so her son could see outside since he cannot often go there.  This play is much like that little side conversation.  Playwright Amy Herzog has taken the safety bars down so we can peer into this world without manufactured barriers.  The result is a nuanced heartbreaker filled to the brim with both love and sadness.

Performances for Mary Jane are scheduled through June 2, 2024 at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman’s Broadway theater.

www.manhattantheatreclub.com

A rock band’s one year odyssey to create a classic album is culled into a four act, three hour play.  Stereophonic is a brilliant synthesis of fictionalized documentary, raw human emotions, impressive theatrical staging and an intelligent, wide-eyed glimpse into the creative process.  The journey is arduous and the rewards are abundant.

The template is Fleetwood Mac and the album is Rumours, one of the biggest from the 1970’s.  David Adjmi has set his play entirely within a recording studio.  The engineering booth is in the foreground and the glass enclosing recording studio is behind.  This story will traverse both locations covering everything from life’s minutiae to artistic conflicts mid-recording.

How closely does this monitor the Fleetwood Mac story?  The five piece band consists of two couples and a drummer.  Keyboardist Holly (Juliana Canfield) and bassist Reg (Will Brill) are British like Christine and John McVie.  Guitarist and self-anointed king Peter (Tom Pecinka) and writer extraordinaire Diana (Sarah Pidgeon) mirror the long dating American duo Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.  Then there’s the Dad figure Simon (Chris Stack) who plays drums ala Mick Fleetwood and whose wife and children are back home in England.

This outline was also used as the basis for the novel and television series Daisy Jones and the Six.  I read that book and enjoyed much of the series.  This foray into familiar territory is far more claustrophobic.  It is not necessary to know the real backgrounds being referenced but nostalgic gratification is a bonus for those who have a deep connection to this music and the period.

Mr. Adjmi’s play adds an engineer (Eli Gelb) and his assistant Charlie (Andrew R. Butler) to the proceedings.  They are trying to manage the creative chaos.  Grover lied about his resume to get the job so the power dynamic rests, at least initially, entirely with the band.  The assistant is a good natured, slightly vapid guy.  Both struggle to keep these recording sessions on track.  That is no easy feat.

The brilliance of this play lies in the realistic naturalism of everyday conversations juxtaposed against the tensions of relationships.  The setting allows for detailed character moments in between laying down new music.  A good portion of the play takes place in the studio.  Will Butler of Arcade Fire penned the original music and they amazingly capture the sound of this band and that album.

Songs are performed but sometimes in snippets.  The fits and starts of dealing with technical issues and vocal adjustments are concerns.  Five individuals and their unique visions are equally tension generators.  You know this album will get made over this year long process and, remarkably, you witness this passage of time.  Songs get cut and added, fixed and improved.  Watching this musical evolution is as much a treat as immersing oneself into the character conflicts brought to vibrant life with superb and highly nuanced acting performances.

Daniel Aukin directed this superlative cast and every performer inhabits a fully realized character.  The play’s arc covers a great deal of territory.  Different combinations allow for scenes in larger groups and smaller subsets.  The pot scene between the three male band members is both very funny and hugely relatable.  The success of this play is in the realistic details effortlessly conveyed.  Substance abuse, egos, snare drum screwups and dust on the monitor all factor into the mix.

David Zinn’s scenic design is a two level marvel (I wanted to steal the lamp on stage right).  Enver Chakartash’s costumes are a never ending parade of pitch perfect fashions of the era.  The sound design from Ryan Rumery is the critical element elevating the entire production.  Studio and engineering booth have to be heard differently which occurs beautifully and often simultaneously.  Musical moments are so fantastically staged (and sung) that the line between fiction and documentary gets blurry.

Most of the cast in Stereophonic are making their Broadway debuts following a successful mounting of this play last fall at Playwrights Horizons.  Mr. Adjmi has written memorably for all of them.  Like everyone, these people have flaws and dreams.  The real life Rumours album was a watershed moment for the band Fleetwood Mac.  Stereophonic ponders the hows and whys, the highs and lows, and the magical happenstance which afforded these people the opportunity to create a masterpiece.  This fascinatingly complex and totally satisfying play is an achievement at that level.

www.stereophonic.com