Man of La Mancha
Martin Beck Theater

Man of La Mancha remains an inspiring musical for all time. This production, with a magnificent, ponderous yet airy expressionistic set by Paul Brown and magical lighting by Paul Gallo, starts with acting on the level of Children's Theater, with lines declaimed. Pretty dull, until a bit of theatrical magic when they create horses out of scraps, Brian Stokes Mitchell opens up his pipes, and it's a musical!

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Medea
Brooks Atkinson Theater

Well, it sure isn't boring, though in the first ten minutes, with the female chorus yapping away incoherently, this Deborah Warner-directed Medea is damned annoying. And then Fiona Shaw arrives, a truly fascinating actress who manages to be simultaneously mannered yet mercurial. It's as if Warner told her to find specific gestures for every line of dialogue--and then kept every one of them in the show.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Medea
Brooks Atkinson Theater

Fiona Shaw's performance in the title role is the talk of Broadway, the surest Tony Award up there. With a new translation of the venerable Euripides text by Kenneth McLeish and Frederic Raphael and a radically fresh vision of the tragedy by director Deborah Warner, this is not the majestic termagant Medea of old. The murderous mom has been transplanted to the modern world and deposited in a curiously imposing villa with a plexiglass facade.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Hank Williams: Lost Highway
Manhattan Ensemble Theater

Country & Western star Hank Williams, one of our country's most dynamic and influential singer/songwriters, established his reputation and influence in only five years. He cut his first single, "Move It On Over," in 1946, at the age of 23, had his first of many hits "Lovesick Blues" and his spectacular Grand Ole Opry debut two years later. Death claimed him, the victim of painkillers and alcohol, in the back seat of his car en route to a concert New Year's Eve, at the age of 29.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Amour
Music Box

Amour reached Broadway in September 2002 and closed a month later. It was the first Broadway musical to come from Michel LeGrand, the tunesmith who gave us such terrific songs as "I Will Wait For You" and "What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?," as well as the film scores to "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and "Yentl." With a cast of nine and a four-piece orchestra, it was a slight, through-sung musical, running ninety minutes and drawing its flavor from the opera bouffe.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Acts of Providence
Sande Shurin Theater

Acts of Providence, two one acts by Edward Allen Baker, a strong writer with a good ear, is an intriguing evening of theater. The first play, Jane's Exchange, sets up a fascinating mystery about the relationships among four people in the kitchen of a bakery. The four actors, Amorika Amoroso, Joe Capozzi, Julie Karlin and the scintillating Tonya Cornelisse fulfill their roles perfectly, and Russell Treyz directs this engaging, fully satisfying piece with verve.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Annie
Paper Mill Playhouse

Leapin' Lizards! Can it really be time for another revival of Annie? The Paper Mill is reminding us that this is the musical's 25th anniversary. Although it seems like yesterday, it has been 19 years since the Paper Mill last staged the musical that ran five-and-a-half years on Broadway.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Betty Rules: The Exception to the Musical
Zipper Theater

Girls with electric guitars - even after Chrissie Hynde, Heart, the Bangles, etc. - it's still a relatively rare and empowering sight. So when Elizabeth Ziff cranks up her Gibson and giraffe-like Alyson Palmer thumps her thumb to the bass, there's a gusto and freedom present that goes beyond just the basic energy you get from hearing rock and roll. BETTY Rules follows the 17- year history of the New York trio, sisters Elizabeth and Amy and their partner in harmony, Alyson.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Book of Days
Signature Theater Company at Peter Norton Space

Lanford Wilson's best play in ages makes you feel like he's picked up a rock in Our Town and looked for what crawleth underneath. Dublin, Missouri seems like an idyllic American town, with good Christian folk going about their business, which includes tolerating the local theatrical production of Saint Joan and rooting for the son of the town's most successful businessman, a cheese maker, to make something of himself.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Celebration
Patio Playhouse

A "Celebration" it is not! Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt gave their audiences the longest-running production in New York, The Fantasticks. Celebration did not fare so well. One member of the audience at Patio Playhouse summed it up: This must have been during their dirty old men years.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Chicago
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

Wouldn'tcha know? Just as the first snowflakes settle on Milwaukee, along comes a blazing hot musical to warm things up.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Dirty Blonde
George Street Playhouse

Who could imagine that two misfit singles, who meet at Mae West's mausoleum in Queens, might build a future together? Claudia Shear, the actor-author of the hit one-woman autobiographical play Blown Sideways Through Life and co-author James Lapine did imagine just that and came up with a lovely play that many considered (including myself) the best new play to hit town in 2000. It uses an unlikely yearly pilgrimage on Mae West's birthday as the catalyst for an endearing romance, with a little biography of West woven through it.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Debbie Does Dallas
Jane Street Theater

Debbie Does Dallas is hilarious. The satirical little musical at the Jane Street Theater about five nitwit cheerleaders, led by Debbie, who want to go to Dallas to cheer for the Dallas Cowboys, is entertaining from start to finish. It has the funniest choreography in town, by Jennifer Cody, marvelous idiotic performances by the girls, who never cross the line into actual pornography, fine comic support by the three men who play many roles, and some of the most brilliant comic timing and direction in town by Erica Schmidt.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Movin' Out
Richard Rodgers Theater

Moving perilously close to Billy Joel-meets-The IceCapades, the all-dance musical Movin' Out wants to use Joel's tunes to tell the story of America's loss of innocence from the 1950s to the 80s. But the results, in the hands of accomplished but repetitive director/choreographer Twyla Tharp, dwell too often on dances of youthful courtship and only come to life in scenes where the Vietnam War and its psychological aftermath affect the characters.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Movin' Out
Richard Rodgers Theater

With the emphasis on "movin", let it be understood that this is a dance production, a modern ballet, not a Broadway musical or even a dansical, and it doubles as a Billy Joel concert.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Amour
Music Box

Amour is closing, and too bad. It's a unique, original, entertaining romantic fantasy about a shy young man who can walk thru walls and the woman he loves from a distance, with some of the cleverest lyrics in town by Dieter van Cauwelaert, translated by Jeremy Sams, fine tunes by Michel Legrand and brilliant vocal arrangements by Todd Ellison. Some songs are Gilbert and Sullivanesque, some are Dr. Seuss. Direction by James Lapine is brisk, bright, imaginative.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Antony and Cleopatra
Connelly Theater

Shakespeare with a Bollywood overlay makes this Antony and Cleopatra unique. Director Rebecca Patterson slips in Indian music, costumes, and above all, dance, but Shakespeare's text is thankfully untouched. As always, The Queen's Company puts a multi-ethnic, all-women cast to the task, and the result is both professional and believable. A lot of thought and practice must have gone into preparing principal male characters such as Mark Antony (DeeAnn Weir) or Pompey (Aysan Celik).

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Butter And Egg Man, The
Atlantic Theater

There are entertaining moments in The Butter and Egg Man, but you can see clearly why George S. Kaufman joined with other writers in his subsequent works. There are good gags in this play about a novice going into showbusiness, and clever lines, but it's a creaky antique that doesn't work anymore.

In act two director David Pittu has everybody shouting, but that doesn't engage us as we are asked to identify with a lucky idiot. John Ellison Conlee's acting gives the play a better balance towards the end, but "the play's the thing" -- and this ain't it.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Bailey
Theatrx

It was first-timer Bailey Warner, playing the title role in Bailey, who stole the show, upstaging seasoned talents Sam and Cheryl Warner. Bailey was a bouncing beauty. While her dialogue was limited, her charming smile ruled. After the show I took her into my arms and congratulated her (she's next scheduled for a role in Theatrx's upcoming version of The Nutcracker.) By then Bailey will be a seasoned performer at the age of five and a half months.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Bible, The: The Complete Word of God (Abridged)
Poway Performing Arts Company

Some subjects are believed to be sacrosanct. To the historian it could be the history of the United States, to the scholar, probably the great works of literature; to the thespian it would be Shakespeare, and to the fervent Christian, it is The Bible. Thus, all these subjects are fodder for the writing and performing skills of The Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Call the Children Home
Primary Stages

Late in this rousing musical, Eugene Fleming, as "Professor," the loyal piano player in Madame Mary's New Orleans Bordello, concludes, "I'll finish my opera, got lots of material now" and, indeed, there is almost too much material in the late Thomas Babe's over-ambitious "libretto" for Call the Children Home. However, while the book reeks of operatic-style melodrama, it serves the music, and luckily so.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Carousel
Carnegie Hall

Possibly the most-anticipated event of the Richard Rodgers centennial year was the gala concert performance of the composer's favorite show, Carousel. It was great to hear a big orchestra playing this rich score, to see the original Billy Bigelow, John Raitt, introduce the evening and share a bow with Hugh Jackman at the end, and to enjoy fine performances by an all-star cast. There was, however, some disappointment. Leonard Slatkin led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a brisk reading, with few expressive ritards.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Clue: The Musical
Derby Dinner Playhouse

Many a murder mystery in book, play, or TV form has baffled me pleasurably up to the point where the guilty party is finally exposed.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Cocktail Hour, The
Bunbury Theater

WASPS -- the derisive acronym pinned on white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in our diverse society -- may, as some contend, be a dying breed, but playwright A. R. Gurney has found them to be fertile ground for canny observations throughout his career. The Cocktail Hour, in Bunbury Theatre's hugely enjoyable production, crisply directed by Juergen K. Tossmann, is classic Gurney, in which he gently kids but also uncovers certain values in the culture that produced him.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Crowns
McCarter Theater

Holy Bible: Corinthians (1.11.5) "But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved." Who's to deny that demonstrating one's flair for flamboyant style in the service of a spiritual activity, is a good thing? And who's to deny these are ingredients for a musical? We all know about dressing for success.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Dirty Blonde
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

I made myself platinum, but I was born a dirty blonde.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Fantasticks, The
Boulevard Ensemble Theater

Few chestnuts have weathered the seasons better than The Fantasticks, a musical fable about life and young love. Even now, 40 years after its debut, it continues to charm with its tuneful balance of innocence and wisdom. Perhaps it's fitting that The Fantasticks arrives in Milwaukee not long after its final Manhattan performance (the longest-running play there ended its 40-year run on January 13, 2002). With its signature song, "Try to Remember," The Fantasticks reminds us how our own follies have shaped us into the adults we have become.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

Soon after the overly-miked opening number, "A Hundred Million Miracles," Flower Drum Song settles into its quieter storyline, and we soon agree with heroine Mei-Li in thinking, "I'm going to like it here." That we're never really bowled over by this Rodgers & Hammerstein revival has as much to do with the pleasurable but not extraordinary score ("You Are Beautiful" excepted), and the rather mild romantic conflict in the original book as it does with David Henry Hwang's occasionally too-revisionist, too-spoofy, yet still contrived new version.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

Get used to it. This is not the fragile little Flower of the past; this is a brand-new version, and any comparisons with the lightweight production of 1958 and its subsequent Hollywood version will only confuse the issue. Purists may object to the revamped version, but there was little heft in the original, which was less honest than this production about the assimilation of the Chinese into American culture.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

There's only one Flower Drum Song now playing on Broadway. Somehow, the reviewer for the New York Times seems more concerned with a production 40 years ago than the one now on the boards. Maybe he has a time machine, and that's why he persists in advising us to see a show that no longer exists. The new production is a terrific show about a Chinese girl's try at becoming an American, with spectacular staging by Robert Longbottom and flashy, inventive, humorous costuming by Gregg Barnes.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Exonerated, The
45 Bleecker

No matter how good the writing, shows that have actors reading scripts from lecterns require an extra level of patience from audiences and start to wear out their welcome quickly after the first hour, mainly because of the lack of design elements and movement. Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's The Exonerated is no different, even though Tom Ontiveros's varied spotlighting is nicely done, and the play offers gripping, real-life, in-their-own-words stories of wrongly-convicted people who spent years on death row until DNA or other new evidence cleared their names.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, The
John Golden Theater

What can you say about a play that makes you feel sympathy with a goatfucker? If you're offended by that word, don't go to the Golden and watch a brilliantly funny, deadly serious play that so provokes the audience to genuine moral reflection that, night after night, much of the crowd lingers under the marquee for a long, long time -- just talking it over. The Goat is that good.

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Jackie Mason: Prune Danish
Royale Theater

To say there's nothing new here isn't exactly fair. Yes, there's stuff about Jews-versus-Gentiles in restaurants, but there's no Starbucks, no Ed Sullivan, and a just a little less Bill Clinton. About 50 percent of the material this time around deals with post-9/11 airport security, low-fat foods, and George Bush and Ariel Sharon.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Harlem Song
Apollo Theater

Harlem Song at The Apollo on 125th Street, written and directed by George C. Wolfe, mixes a fascinating photographic history of Harlem with narrative (by older long-time residents) and musical numbers, some of which are splashy and some balladic, all derivative. The show is uneven -- another clear example that a writer generally shouldn't direct his own show. The first two numbers are bland; the fun starts about ten minutes in when David St. Louis, dressed in white, comes down the steps, and tap dancers enter and lift our spirits.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

It must be a thankless task for an actor to impersonate another performer. Yet Frank Gorshin has been doing it for years, imitating everybody from Ed Sullivan to Marlon Brando. And if you're unlucky, you may remember him as The Riddler in the Batman TV series. His latest work is the one-man show Say Goodnight, Gracie (subtitled, believe it or not, "The life, laughter, and love of George Burns") a monologue by Rupert Holmes, which I saw in previews.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

Sweet, lightly amusing and ephemeral, Say Goodnight, Gracie brings George Burns - via the capable im-personage of Frank Gorshin - back to the stage one more time. Bracketed by a needlessly hokey set-up that catches Burns on the night before he goes to meet his maker (the "Oh God!" actor faces God himself; get it?), the rest is Burns telling his life story, interspersed with jokes, film clips, a passel of winning anecdotes, and a hats-off to Gracie Allen and Jack Benny that gives the evening just a little more emotional tug than a Vegas impression act.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

If you want to see a show with a moving, heart-warming story, great jokes performed by a master comedian with the rare sense of timing only a few of the greatest have, a show without a moment that isn't entertaining, go see Say Goodnight, Gracie, written by Rupert Holmes and starring the incomparable Frank Gorshin. Aided by the wonderful Didi Conn as the voice of Gracie, this show, about 100 year old comedian George Burns and his adventures in romance and show business, directed by John Tillinger, is captivating, joyous, brilliant comedy. What more can I say?

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
42nd Street
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

Among those rare chestnuts that stand the test of time is 42nd Street, which tap-danced its way into Milwaukee for a week-long run. This town doesn't get many national tours, but when it does - wow! The pure energy of more than 50 tap dancers onstage was a sight to behold, not to mention the zillions of gorgeous, glittering costumes and the Art Deco-themed sets. This is a dance show to end all dance shows, and it makes this point very clear from the opening number.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Boys From Syracuse, The
American Airlines Theater

Encouraged by the success of the appropriately-lauded Encores! 1997 concert version of Rogers & Hart's 1938 musical comedy, The Boys From Syracuse, the Roundabout understandably chose to re-mount it. But the concert version scrapped the book and concentrated on the music, which is, as has been once again proven, indestructible.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Burn This
Union Square Theater

Watchable but not especially rewarding revival of Lanford Wilson's tale of a grieving woman finding solace in hot nookie with a vaguely dangerous asshole.

I was lucky enough to see the original production, with John Malkovich torching the stage indelibly, albeit to the detriment of the love story's credibility—i.e., what did Joan Allen's Anna see in him? With Edward Norton's funnier, greasier turn, Pale's tantrums are more childlike and less overtly threatening, though there's still an oil-and-vinaigrette taste to their twosome.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2002

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