Beauty Queen of Leenane, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 Thank the Banyan for the cool theater and gripping drama that provide relief from Sarasota's summer heat outside and claustrophobic air of the bleak Connemara cottage recreated inside. Dimly lit, with living room-kitchen cabinets and walls turned a tint like bile, Jeffrey Dean's meticulous set holds props that act as spokes on a wheel. At its command center of table and rocker reigns lumpy, squinting, gray Mag Folan (Kim Crow), continually at war with daughter Maureen (Jessica K. Peterson).

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Hair

 It would be impossible for any recording to fully capture the thrill of experiencing the revival of the seminal Gerome Ragni-James Rado-Galt MacDermot rock musical, Hair at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, but Ghostlight Records' cast album comes very close. This is one of those cases in which it might have been interesting to record the show live in performance, but of course, that method entails tremendous challenges.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
West Side Story

 
The cast album for West Side Story is emblematic of what's wrong with the current revival of this musical theater masterpiece. It starts off on a bad note with a sluggish, slack reading of the prologue by music director/conductor Patrick Vaccariello -- but not as sluggish and slack as "The Rumble" that ends Act I. There are plenty of other blunders throughout, such as the ludicrous "soprano sing-off" in "I Feel Pretty," one of the songs that have unwisely been translated into Spanish for this production.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Rock of Ages

 When the London cast recording of Mamma Mia! was released, I predicted that it probably wouldn't sell all that well. After all, I thought, even if multitudes of people loved the show, why would they want an album packed with ABBA covers that were crafted to sound as close to the originals as possible when they could buy the ABBA Gold collection and have the real thing instead?

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Next to Normal

The sad word on that street is that 2009 Tony Award winner Alice Ripley has been having trouble getting through eight a week of Next to Normal at the Booth Theater, her voice apparently having been compromised by her no-holds-barred performance and, in my analysis, by flawed technique. (Ripley sang consistently flat during the performance I attended, and she yielded the role of bipolar wife and mom Diana to her understudy for the show's first performance after the Tonys.)

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Allegro

 This is something of a miracle: A complete, two-disc, state-of-the-art, all-star studio recording of a lesser-known show by the greatest musical theater writing team of the 20th century, a show that was previously (mis)represented only by the severely truncated, monophonic original Broadway cast album.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Les Miserables

 The recent, belated release of a CD of highlights from the original London cast album of Les Misérables gives me an excuse to rant about something I noticed a while ago: Cameron Mackintosh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and other movers and shapers behind Brit musicals and cast albums apparently have so little respect for performers that they sometimes exclude their names from CD covers.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Farragut North
Geffen Playhouse

 It's not a pretty picture, the making of politics. Beau Willimon, who was a campaign aide to Sen. Charles E. Schumer and former Vermont governor Howard Dean before becoming a playwright, has tapped into his past to fashion a drama, Farragut North, which exposes just how awful our political system is.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
West Side Story
Stratford Festival - Festival Theater

 After the tumultuous response at the end of the opening performance of this production, I was thinking fussily of my reservations about the chorus and orchestra sounding less impressive than in the 1999 West Side Story under the previous musical director and this Tony's unfortunate tendency to sing like an American Idol contestant and other small gripes. Then I saw the granddaughter of a friend, who is a Canadian theater critic, and she brought me back to my senses.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Ever Yours, Oscar
Tom Patterson Theater

 Unsurprisingly, Oscar Wilde was a great letter writer, and this selection from his earliest to his final letters presents an impressive biography of an extraordinary person and a gigantic talent. It is arranged to expose the private as well as the famous public Oscar Wilde and develops from his beyond-precocious early ideas and wit through his great fame and celebrity to his chastened, unhappy, but movingly humane final thoughts during and after his brutal imprisonment.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Free Gift
Community Actors Theater

 Israel Horovitz's Free Gift is a sweet, tender play. Yes, I wrote "sweet."

Roselle (Kathryn Kelly), a white English woman, found a baby in a box on her doorstep 15 years ago. It was Heather's (LaNae DePriest) baby. Heather, a black girl, had just turned 15 years old. After years of legal machinations, Roselle and her husband legally adopted the child, which they named Max (Ty'Reek Hill). Subsequently, her husband died leaving her a single mom.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Shirley Valentine
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz Theater

 When Kate Alexander directed Susan Greenhill last season as the frumpy conservative Haddie in "...And L.A. is Burning," I wrote that the two were becoming a first-class FST team, bringing out what's deeper in women characters than seen on the surface. With Shirley Valentine, the team scores again, sending an empty-nest wife, too long bound to routine and house like a prisoner in limbo, on a voyage of self-rediscovery.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Cyrano de Bergerac
Stratford Shakespeare Festival - Festival Theater

 I'd like a superior Roxane and a slightly more theatrically vivid emphasis and pacing in direction, but this Cyrano de Bergerac is intelligently directed, beautifully cast, and handsomely, if rather darkly, designed. Colm Feore played a flashier one at Stratford in 1994; but this subtler, more thoughtful Cyrano is certainly romantic and filled with action and poetry.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Julius Caesar
Stratford Festival - Avon Theater

 For me, the looks of this production diminish its rhetorical and dramatic excellence. Director James MacDonald crafts a reasonably conventional and straightforward version of the popular history play, making gestures with modern-looking designs and props and suggestive video effects toward emphasizing contemporary political relevance. Nothing new there: my first recollection of Julius Caesar is a revival I saw of Margaret Webster's interpretation which incorporated World War II uniforms and Nazi symbols.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A
Stratford Festival - Avon Theater

 It's odd and pleasing to realize what a superb and influential composer Stephen Sondheim has become. When this musical debuted, most thought him a great lyricist (he had already written the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy) but not an impressive writer of music. In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, only "Comedy Tonight," the famed number that opens and closes the musical, has a memorable melody. But it demonstrates that inevitable wedding of words, music and unique style that has come to define Sondheim's leading stature in the genre.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Amish Project, The
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

 In The Amish Project, written and performed by Jessica Dickey, this amazing actress shows extraordinary ability to capture, with total immersion, a display of characters of all ages and both sexes with a wide range of accents, attitudes and postures.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
New Century, The
GableStage at Biltmore Hotel

 The laugh lines in The New Century pile up quickly, but playwright/screenwriter Paul Rudnick is dealing in quantity, not necessarily quality and not always for the broad audience at GableStage in South Florida. There may be something in the play for almost anyone, but there are stretches when there's almost nothing for everyone. Reaction can be spotty: a couple of guffaws from one part of the audience now, some chuckles from another pocket later.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Naked Girl on the Appian Way, A
American Airlines Theater

 A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, Richard Greenberg's play about a middle-aged couple's interaction with their three grown adopted children, is a low-level sitcom that tries hard to be funny but spends a long time bogged down in banal drivel. There are a few good jokes, but there are few ideas, little action, and mostly reminiscing for the first forty-five minutes. Richard Thomas is very busy acting, and the charming, talented Jill Clayburgh, who is capable of real humor and real drama, does her misdirected (by Doug Hughes) best to give some reality to her character.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Never Gonna Dance
Broadhurst Theater

 Of course he's gonna dance. He's gonna dance from the minute he steps onstage to the moment the curtain falls. And that's as it should be with a nutty, old-fashioned show like Never Gonna Dance, which yearns to be a screwball confection the way they used to make `em, and, more often than not, succeeds. Lead Noah Racey doesn't have Astaire's height and sings just passably, but when he moves, so does the show. Peter Hatcher's book, adapted from the MGM film "Swing Time," has enough contrivances to raise even the long-shut eyebrows of Louis B.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Never Gonna Dance
Broadhurst Theater

 Based on the film "Swing Time," with marvelous songs by some of the best old timers, Never Gonna Dance is a show about tap dancing, and some of the numbers are breathtaking as choreographed by Jerry Mitchell. The rest are merely superb. The leading man, Noah Racey, charming and tasteful, is almost an Astaire, and there are fine comic turns by Peter Bartlett and Peter Gerety. David Pittu delights as an absurd Latin Lover, and the real charisma is Karen Ziemba, who lights up the theater whenever she's on stage. And Second Bananas Eugene Fleming and Deidre Goodwin dance up a storm.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Night Mother
Bernard B. Jacobs

`Night Mother by Marsha Norman is in its second Broadway run, and there was a movie of it. So someone liked it a lot. Well, it is a great vehicle for actresses, and Edie Falco and Brenda Blethyn as inept mother and suicidal daughter are two of the best, and it's rewarding to see them in action pouring their guts out. There is a certain tension in the play when the daughter declares at the opening that she is going to commit suicide and shows us the gun.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2004
Night Mother
Bernard B. Jacobs

 The last night Jessie Cates spends at home is pretty much like the rest of her life: she makes plans, but they don't work out. Before her suicide, she plans to give her mom Thelma a manicure and enjoy a cup of hot cocoa. The cocoa doesn't turn out to be satisfying, and there isn't enough time to do the manicure before Jessie is scheduled to pull the trigger. Such is life, you say, but Jessie has leaped to the conclusion that nothing will ever work out for her. She wants to get off now before the train proceeds to a worse place. Thelma is horrified, angry, and guilty.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
December 2004
Night Must Fall
Lyceum Theater

 Everyone loves a good thriller, and because we have had so few lately, the National Actors Theater revival of Emlyn Williams' 1935 chiller Night Must Fall proves a real treat. To hear an entire audience scream with the curtain up only a few minutes into the play should say something about its power. Actually, it says more about the cleverness of director John Tillinger, who has devised a stunning new opening sequence. We get a glimpse of a nude man burying a body.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
June 1999
Nine
Eugene O'Neill Theater

 Although its plot revolves around the character of Guido, a Fellini-like Italian film director, Nine is most impressive as a vehicle for the women in Guido's life. John Stamos has taken over from Antonio Banderas as the male lead, and he sings and acts well. His words are more clearly understood, and he exudes his own star quality, though he seems a bit young for the part. The director is supposed to be just 40, and Stamos is approaching that age, but one expects the character to be older.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Nine
Eugene O'Neill Theater

Whereas most other musicals currently on the boards are, for better and worse, cartoonish and relentless, Nine is sophisticated and dreamlike.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2003
Nine
Eugene O'Neill Theater

I loved The Lion King and The Producers, but I have never been invited back to see how they look now. Most new musical productions -- however ingenious and attractive -- I'm not desperate to see a second time. But even after such long runs, I'd still love to see Lion King and Producers. And now I can add Nine to that list. Frankly, I didn't initially care for Arthur Kopit's reworking of Mario Fratti's original BMI Workshop book for this adaptation of Fellini's "8 1/2." But I now see the problem was largely in the way the show was originally staged.

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
April 2003
Nine
Eugene O'Neill Theater

 Act One of the revival of the musical Nine, with book by Arthur Kopit and songs by Maury Yeston, is really two shows: one when Jane Krakowski takes the stage, and one when she is not. She enters and the stage lights up -- our eyes open wide, our anticipation tingles - something is happening! I want it to last. Jane is a Broadway show in herself, beautiful and sensual in her magical floaty costume by Vicki Mortimer. When she enters, drifting down from the flies, she's an angel; her ascending exit is a moment I'll never forget; she sings, and her lovely voice reaches deep inside us.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2003
Noises Off
Brooks Atkinson Theater

 Michael Frayn's Tony-winning play Copenhagen, which concentrated on the meeting of two scholars commiserating over atomic theory, left me colder than a blizzard breeze in Niagara Falls in January. Many adored this brainy, ultra-serious account of science versus intellect, but I likened it to a lecture by a brilliant professor who knew little of the ways of the human heart. The show was a surprise hit, though I suspect many patrons went along with it while secretly wishing they were having more fun elsewhere.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Noises Off
Brooks Atkinson Theater

 Two years ago, the intricate beauty of Copenhagen reminded us what a great craftsman Michael Frayn is. Like Alan Ayckbourn on acid (and speed), Noises Off becomes a clockwork comedy machine, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny but mostly awe-inspiring, with the playwright five steps ahead of the audience (who are busy trying to take in five different gags all happening onstage at once). I'm with John Simon that the Broadway revival cast is good, but an all-British ensemble would be better.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Noises Off
Brooks Atkinson Theater

 Michael Frayn's Noises Off is the funniest play ever written, especially for those in the theatrical trade, and the current production is hilarious. The star-studded cast, including Patti LuPone, Peter Gallagher, Faith Prince, and the incredible Katie Finneran, whose quadruple-take alone is worth the price of admission, keep us laughing throughout this play about an English theater company on the road. Director Jeremy Sams has invented intricate schtick that constantly dazzles and amazes, and Robert Jones' set and costumes totally fulfill the script.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Oklahoma!
Gershwin Theater

 The Gershwin Theater has finally found a tenant sizable enough to fill its outsized reaches, and for the most part, Trevor Nunn's unsurprising but perfectly respectable revival of Oklahoma! makes good on being the latest Cameron Mackintosh spectacle. This transfer of the Royal National Theatre's acclaimed production (which catapulted Aussie Hugh Jackman to international stardom) makes good of the show's old-fashioned intentions, though its makers are clearly trying to fashion an Oklahoma! for the new millennium.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Oklahoma!
Gershwin Theater

 Before I nitpick Trevor Nunn's mounting of Oklahoma! to death, let it be said that his production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein tuner makes a full and lively evening of theater, that the orchestra - placed above the stage rather than under it - sounds lovely, and Susan Stroman's new choreography for the act one dream sequence proves highly effective. The musical as a whole still casts a spell -- its slapdash, should've-been-cut trial scene notwithstanding. Performances, however, are hit and miss.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Oklahoma!
Gershwin Theater

The new Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! is, from start to finish, a gorgeous rendition. This is a musical for all time, one of the very greats, with a hit song every ten minutes. And this production outdoes all others I've seen in its integration of all the elements, particularly the dance numbers by Susan Stroman -- a perfect blend of music and movement. All the cast members can really sing -- I somehow like that in a musical.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Old Acquaintance
American Airlines Theater

 The Roundabout is now presenting John van Druten's 1940 romantic comedy Old Acquaintance on Broadway, directed by Michael Wilson, and it's mostly lots of fun. 

Harriet Harris is a great farceur (farceuse?), and her over-the-top portrayal of an idiotic, narcissistic pop writer lifts the entertainment level of the play and drives the show. Her literary-writing closest friend, in love with a younger man, is played by the beautiful Margaret Colin in a solid performance. Corey Stoll is fine as the young man. 

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2007
On Golden Pond
Cort Theater

 On Golden Pond, by Ernest Thompson is a sentimental and ultimately very moving play about diminishment in old age, as an elderly couple spend their last summer in Maine. Thompson's words are bright and insightful in the very realistic conversations between James Earl Jones and the beautiful Leslie Uggams as Jones' character, a man who is "losing it," expresses his anger and frustrations. In the beginning, it's homey dialogue but seems to be directed, by Leonard Foglia, at a snail's pace (which picks up later).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Royale Theater

 One can visit this revival of Dale Wasserman's mental-institution drama about individuality vs. conformity and men vs. women without paying too much attention to those somewhat clumsily handled themes. It's enough to relish Gary Sinese taking a role utterly identified with another actor and giving it a compelling spin all his own. (By contrast, Amy Morton's Nurse Ratched is too reminiscent of Louise Fletcher's hushed control freak.)

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
One Mo' Time
Longacre Theater

 The history behind One Mo' Time, the current revival of the wildly successful late 1970s musical about a New Orleans black vaudeville house, is infinitely more interesting than anything contained in this well-meaning but lackluster update. Set cabaret-style amidst a deluge of revues (Ain't Misbehavin' was just one), it seemed right in its time, highlighted the underground movement of black jazz, and arguably paved the way for current acts like many you might see at Joe's Pub on a weekend evening.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
One Mo' Time
Longacre Theater

 Throughout the time One Mo' Time occupies the Longacre stage, we keep wondering when will the fun stop? When will the same-sounding songs start to grate? And when will we want more than a wisp-thin backstage plot to fill out the evening? Credit writer/director Vernel Bagneris for staring down those questions for two full hours, right up to the ebullient curtain call.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
One Mo' Time
Longacre Theater

 Don't go see One Mo' Time unless you want to smile for two hours. This show is basically a concert of happy New Orleans music, a 1920s "Colored Show" on tour. Written and directed by Vernel Bagneris, who, with his relaxed sleepy tone, defines the soft shoe dance. Singing and dancing, he's the epitome of cool. Co-starring three spectacular women who sing, dance and characterize, B.J. Crosby, Roz Ryan and Rosalind Brown, with a scintillating five-piece band, the show is part Bessie Smith, part minstrel show, all good natured, all entertaining, all fun.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Pacific Overtures
Studio 54

 The Broadway revival of Pacific Overtures, with songs by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Jerome Weidman, is a mish-mash. Its sort of a "The Americans Are Coming! The Americans Are Coming!" in 1853 Japan, and the production is in several styles. It doesn't seem to know if it's a farce or a drama; real so that we can identify with someone or spectacle that we can watch without emotional involvement. It's like the director/choreographer, Amon Miyamoto, didn't trust the material to just say the words and sing the songs (and do the movements).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2004

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