Brighton Beach Memoirs
Davidson College - Hodson Hall

There's good news up north. Davidson Community Players is presenting Neil Simon's autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs with a finely detailed set from Sandra Gray and evocative lighting from John Hartness. More importantly, there's an outstanding performance in the lead by the diminutive Anthony Napoletano as 14-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome.

Now the bad news. Audiences at Hodson Hall have little reason to stand and cheer before Napoletano takes the final bow.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Cafe a Go Go
Cafe a Go Go

The musical, Cafe a Go Go, which takes us to a working-class London nightclub in the 60s, is a fun take on the Grease generation: teenage romance with verve, spirit, life, youthful enthusiasm and vigor. Written and directed by The Heather Brothers, the songs are bouncy and clever and the action is more contemporary than Grease, and reaches levels of comedy more entertaining for today.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Capitol Steps: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Houseman Theater

There is a large audience hungry for good political satire, and Capitol Steps, playing again at the John Houseman Theater on West 42nd Street, give us the best in town, this time titled "Between Iraq and a Hard Place." As I said in my 2002 review of them, this is a troupe of grownups whose insights and satires show mature writing with depth and intelligence as well as humor, and they are all Broadway-level singers.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Celebration of Silliness!, A
Shelton Theater

The usual (and ever-entertaining) array of juggling, card tricks and audience-participation magic, made worth the visit by the genial performer, Fred Anderson. On the night I attended, he held his own -- both in skill and verbal patter -- despite the presence of a voluble teenage tour group.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Das Barbecu
WaterTower Theater

Das Barbecu, with book and lyrics by Jim Luigs and music by Scott Warrender, opened July 25, 2003 at the WaterTower Theatre in Addison, Texas. It represents one of their most egregious squandering of talent to date. Warrender's wonderful music is far better than Luigs' sophomoric script deserves.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Description Beggared: Or, The Allegory of WHITENESS
Children's Theater of Charlotte - Black Box

Mac Wellman has been an Off-Broadway mainstay for 20 years, producing a steady stream of poetic plays that joyously joust with language, impishly flirt with American mass culture, and triumphantly elude all meaning. Description Beggared, currently running in the cozy Black Box studio theater in the catacombs of Children's Theater, is wedded to songs composed by longtime musical accomplice Michael Roth. Or it was -- until the young banshees of the Farm Theater Company got hold of it.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Fantasticks, The
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

Few shows can boast as proud a heritage as The Fantasticks. It debuted in an Off-Broadway playhouse in 1960. Audience numbers grew over time, and eventually, this show became the longest-running musical in history. Its appeal, though elusive to some, has drawn more spectators than Cats, A Chorus Line, The Lion King or any number of mega-musicals you can name.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Bible, The: The Complete Word of God (Abridged)
Cabot Theater

One of the creators of The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged) once stated that the purpose of the play was to put the "fun in fundamentalism." What they have achieved is a giddy, sophomoric send-up of the Great Book. Some of the "shtick" in Bible is as lame as a Jack Benny joke, while other moments are more inspired and indeed funny. It is not likely that audiences will leave the theater without finding at least something to tickle their funny bone.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
American Airlines Theater

There's no denying Roger Miller had a unique and tuneful talent, and that, pushed by producer Rocco Landesman, he rose to the challenge of writing a Broadway musical score to fit the story of Huckleberry Finn. The catchy songs feel right and flavorful, but Landesman should have pushed the tunemeister a notch more. Just when a song seems about to get going, Miller simply repeats the best lyrics - two or three times - instead of coming up with something new or clever to say.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Caught In The Net
Derby Dinner Playhouse

When last we encountered John Smith (Cary Wiger), the fast-talking, fast-moving London-area cabdriver happily married to women in two suburbs, it was in Ray Cooney's riotous farce called Run For Your Wife. That was one year ago in Derby Dinner Playhouse's gloriously entertaining presentation. Now the enterprising playhouse is revisiting with equally hilarious results Smith's bigamous little world, as it offers the regional premiere of Caught in the Net, Cooney's whiz-bang sequel.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Dream A Little Dream
Village Gate

For me, the Mamas-and-Papas musical, Dream a Little Dream, is a flash to my past. I performed in the coffee houses and night clubs of Greenwich Village and, after 1965, in Los Angeles, and knew the people the Denny Doherty character (played in the performance I saw by the very engaging Eric Michael Gillett) talks about on the stage of the old Village Gate, now called the Village Theater, on Bleecker Street. So for me, the show may have more resonance than for other, younger, people.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Footloose
Central Piedmont Community College - Pease Auditorium

Miracles continue as CP Summer Theater's 30th season reaches a raucous climax. Two weeks ago, an audience returned from intermission and applauded the scenery change, when prosperity succumbed to heaven's wrath in God's Favorite. Old Testament prophets would surely be inspired by the current goings on at the panoramic Pease Auditorium, when the cast members of Footloose take their bows. Even that celebrated lion-lamb accord is eclipsed. And the bluehairs shall scream like teenyboppers.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
God's Favorite
Central Piedmont Community College - Pease Auditorium

Churches are thinking about cutting their losses and closing down a couple of days each week. Synagogues are merchandising the High Holy Days, selling tickets at a discount. Welcome to the new Neil Simon apocalypse. In the King of Broadway's 1974 comedy, God's Favorite, the trials of Job are transported from the land of Uz in the era of the Old Testament patriarchs to the edge of Long Island in the age of Carvel franchises and 800 numbers.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Graceland
Central Avenue Playhouse

Ever since the palace of The King opened to the public in June 1982, the Memphis mansion of Elvis Presley has been the epicenter for the most outrageous celebrity worship that our outrageous nation can produce. So it's no wonder an American playwright would seek to probe the depth of the mania of two women vying for the honor of being the first to set foot on newly hallowed ground. What is somewhat surprising in Ellen Byron's Graceland, then, is the decorous modesty of the playwright's characterizations.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Hamlet
American Players Theater

Shakespeare gives us so much latitude in interpreting Hamlet that an audience is never sure what it is going to get. The current version playing at the American Players Theater in Spring Green is a curious hybrid. This Hamlet, played by veteran actor James DeVita, is neither particularly young nor particularly mad. Instead, he comes across in a cold, calculating, almost detached way. At times, DeVita seems unable to connect with this enigmatic character. He seems older and wiser than "Hamlet" often appears to be. He is cynical, conniving and ruthless.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Plymouth Theater

If we were to gauge the opinion of the collective American theater as to our best play, the answer would almost certainly be Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill's overpowering portrait of his family -- parents, brother, and self -- on the day they were told he had tuberculosis. One of the few modern plays that can be classed with classical tragedy, it expresses oceanic pain with impossible honesty. O'Neill nearly dispensed with plot, and dramatized ananke (fate) in every moment of the play.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Bat Boy: The Musical
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

Who knew that the hit of Milwaukee's summer theater season would be a rock 'n roll musical about a half-bat, half-boy? Despite the show's odd premise (drawn from a tabloid story, we're told), Bat Boy: The Musical is flapping its wings all over the country. From San Francisco to Minneapolis, St. Louis to Los Angeles, watch for upcoming announcements of Bat Boy coming to a town near you.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Broadway By The Year: The Broadway Musicals of 1960
Town Hall

Not only has the "Broadway By The Year" series continued to attract the attention and admiration of musical theater lovers, but the recent edition, The Broadway Musicals of 1960, proves to be the best so far. You might be tempted to say 1960 wasn't that brilliant a season for musicals to be considered classics, and that many of the most tuneful shows were actually flops. But show for show and song for song, 1960 is the year that probably best defines what has become known as the last years of the golden age of original American musicals.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Dream'in New York
Producers Club

A foreigner coming to New York to start a new life -- sounds like you've heard that story before. But this one has new twists. And the cast is unusually good.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Falsettos
Diversionary Theater

William Finn, who conceived Falsettos over a 10-year period, so named his musical because "these were characters outside the normal range." A musical about a man who leaves wife and son for a male lover, a psychiatrist who get close and way-too personal with his patients, a lesbian couple, and a challenging love story -- that barely touches the themes of Falsettos. Funny, amusing, poignant, and sad are just a few words that describe Finn's music and lyrics, which demand a lot from the cast.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Fully Committed
Vogel Hall at Marcus Center For The Performing Arts

Every town seems to have its local clown, and in Milwaukee, there's no competition for this honor. It belongs to John McGivern, a crew cut-wearing, gap-toothed, 50ish-looking guy that everyone seems to love. Although he's a Milwaukee favorite, McGivern is no slouch on the national scene. He has been featured in the film, "The Princess Diaries" and has appeared on TV's "Comedy Central" and an HBO special. All this matters little to his Milwaukee fans, who'd love him even if he never left the neighborhood.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Hedda Gabler
Seiner Pavilion at New College of Florida

In the mise en scene, Hedda surveys her living room, dominated by a portrait of her father, General Gabler, which she embraces before darkness overtakes the Tesman villa in 1890 Norway. When morning light shines coldly, her husband George's Aunt Julie, talking cozily (!), with her former servant, marvels at the expensive furnishings, what with the Tesmans just returned from an extended honeymoon abroad. So much exposition then follows so soon, we had better listen carefully.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Master Harold...And The Boys
Royale Theater

It has been 21 years since Master Harold...and the Boys, by masterly South-African playwright Athold Fugard, premiered on Broadway. Since then apartheid, for all intensive purposes, has officially been ended. However, the tragedy of South Africa's embrace of that insidious system, and its effect on the people, remains a key theme of Fugard, despite his more recent preference for less incendiary plots.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Cafe A Go Go
Cafe a Go Go

It’s loud, it’s fast, it gets the job done, and it’s watchable all the way through—and it’s also a show I could have left at any moment without feeling I missed much.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Bat Boy: The Musical
Theater Three

Theater Three opened Bat Boy: The Musical, the off-Broadway horror musical, on April 24, 2003. A spoof based loosely on a newspaper account of a half-boy, half-bat creature discovered in a West Virginia cave and dubbed Bat Boy, the story depicts how he longs desperately to be accepted by 'normal' people. Patrons in Dallas' theatrt loop know that director Kyle McClaran will take this musical over-the-top. Those expecting a traditional musical are quickly disavowed of their expectations.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
American Magic
Altered Stages

The only magic seen at Altered Stages in this very peculiar political protest play was that it made half the audience vanish at intermission! Gil Kofman's fevered fantasy of Ashcroftian Investigative Techniques - dealing with presumed Muslim Terrorists - proved a thoroughly gratuitous exploration of S & M scenes. The energetic cast struggled valiantly with the materials, but this script should have died in Workshop. For Protest Theater: Bring back Bertolt Brecht! Or even Eric Bentley!

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
As You Like It
Public Theater

Director Erica Schmidt has brilliantly managed to recreate As You Like It inside, with an ensemble of only six actors. She also did Debbie Does Dallas with a very small cast -- but that's another story. This ingeniously-edited adaptation was originally staged in a natural environment, but it survives quite well on a bare stage. Cross-dressing & cross-casting make cast reductions possible, but they also remarkably speed up the pace of playing.

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Ain't Misbehavin'
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

When the onstage band strikes up the first notes to Ain't Misbehavin', all one can do is echo the words of the press materials: "this joint is jumpin.'" A polished and well-cast production is drawing full houses to Milwaukee's Cabot Theater, as well it should. This is the second time that Skylight Opera Theatre's has staged Ain't Misbehavin'. If the1994 show was anything like the current production, no wonder it busted the box office. This time, the show has a musical pedigree in the form of Neal Tate, whose work goes back to the days of Cab Calloway.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Broad Channel
Phil Bosakowski Theater

One of my CUNY PhD students lived in a tiny clapboard house in Broad Channel, Queens. Just under the flight-pattern into Idlewild Airport - now JFK. When I first drove there in my old VW, I thought I was driving into a wetlands area. Everyone seemed to have at least a rowboat tethered on canals back of their houses. Most of the good folks I met there were shanty Irish, with scant aspirations of earning midtown Doctorates in Theater.

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Cirque du Soleil: Varekai
Cirque du Soleil at Blue & Yellow Grand Chapiteau

Attending a performance of Cirque du Soleil is a transcendent, fantastic adventure as we experience the beauty of the human body going so far beyond what we might imagine possible that we are transported to another world -- a surreal world peopled with fairy creatures, lovers who fly (and we fly with them) music that lifts the audience onto another dimension and costuming that floats colors and shapes newly arrived on this planet.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Coyote Tales
Dallas Children's Theater

Adapted by resident playwright Linda Daugherty, Coyote Talesis based on Mexican folklore and performed in English and Spanish at Dallas Children's Theater. Coyote Tales spins a whimsical story of Coyote, a trickster who spends his every waking moment hunting for his next meal. But Coyote, who is several enchiladas short of the Wednesday night special, is no match for the forest animals including Dog, Fox, Rabbit, Raccoon, Chicken, and Prairie Dog, all of whom use their wily tricks to outfox Coyote.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Crimes of the Heart
Poway Performing Arts Company

Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart is a view of one 24-hour period in the lives of the McGrath sisters. At a trim, lean running time of 100-minutes it would have been a delight. Alas, this production, with its insightful but bloated dialogue, runs just over two hours.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Enchanted April
Belasco Theater

The idea of adapting that enchanting romantic film, "Enchanted April," for the stage seemed an odd choice. How could the visual beauty of that movie be recreated on the stage of the Belasco? But this delightful production is not a re-run of the film. Instead, it has been ingeniously adapted from the original novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. The walls of designer Tony Straiges' Italian island-castle are covered with great flowers - suggesting the beautiful gardens seen in the film.

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Enchanted April
Belasco Theater

Matthew Barber's Enchanted April is a fine English play done beautifully -- a domestic drama that peeks into a pre-feminist time as four women rent a chateau in Italy to get away from their London lives.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Fully Committed
Horse Cave Theater

It's ironic, I tell you, that while Horse Cave Theater is offering Fully Committed, that delightfully barbed look at the workings of a trendy New York restaurant, the small Kentucky town's funky and far-from-trendy restaurant called The Bookstore no longer serves meals at its main square location near the theater. The owner, who still has books to sell, says he can't afford higher insurance rates.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Fully Committed
Kalita Humphreys Theater

When Ethan Sandler steps onto the stage at Dallas Theater Center he is "Fully Committed" for 75 minutes of non-stop laughter, as he plays 30-odd (literally) characters. Based on author Becky Mode's experiences working in the restaurant business, Sandler uses his brush to draw his characters with a broad comedic stroke across the canvas of his life as Sam, the hapless reservationist at a posh New York restaurant where a reservation does not come easily.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Gem of the Ocean
Goodman Theater

We're all on an adventure declares Aunt Ester, keeper of a Safe House for fugitive slaves. The adventure in this chapter of August Wilson's epic play cycle centers on water -- the Pittsburgh reservoir in which an accused thief drowns, the mighty Mississippi up which Negroes flee in secret (even though it is now 31 years after the Emancipation Proclamation), and the vast Atlantic, in whose stygian depths lie the souls of the captives who died crossing -- or committed suicide upon landing.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Golden Boy
Raven Theater

I'd even settle for a lightweight! puffs exasperated manager Tom Moody, and in this classic American tale of an innocent violin-player chewed up in the brutal and corrupt world of pro boxing circa 1930s, that's what he gets. Jeremy Glickstein is a pale, skinny, almost boneless ferret of an actor, more often seen playing pasty-faced psychopaths, and the moment we see him, we know that Joe Bonaparte, the kid hungry for escape from poverty and squalor, hasn't a chance.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Gypsy
Sam S. Shubert

So how's Bernadette? That question has surely taken on more meanings than the producers of the current Gypsy revival intended. Of course, everyone wants to know how Bernadette Peters stands up to the memories of Merman and Lansbury (and, for some, Tyne Daly). But Peters' numerous health-related absences ended up giving the question a more urgent slant -- will she be playing tonight or will her understudy be offering "Rose's Turn," "Some People," and the numerous other classics Mama Rose belts as she fights for her daughters' careers?

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Gypsy
Sam S. Shubert

Bernadette Peters herself is a great theatrical experience, and in the current Gypsy on Broadway she brings a vulnerability as well as the strength and power of Mama Rose to her performance. Directed by Sam Mendes, it's a very entertaining, imaginative production, a tuneful treat with strong dramatic content, lively Sondheim lyrics, hummable music by Jule Styne, book by Arthur Laurents.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2003

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