Archives for 2015

“Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.”

Eric Hoffer, Working and Thinking on the Waterfront

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review two regional Stephen Sondheim revivals, a Passion in Philadelphia and a Company in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Here’s an excerpt.

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The gold standard for revivals of “Passion,” the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical about a lonely invalid racked with obsessive love, was set two years ago by Classic Stage Company’s off-Broadway version, which featured once-in-a-lifetime performances by Judy Kuhn and Melissa Errico. But Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre Company did so well by Mr. Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George” in 2010 that I was eager to find out what Terrence J. Nolen, who runs the Arden and directed that handsome-looking, unusually well-sung revival, would make of the even more demanding “Passion.” Rejoice greatly: Mr. Nolen’s new production is a masterpiece of unified staging and design in which the love-starved Fosca is played by Liz Filios in a manner so desperately needy that she’ll be on your mind days after the fact.

Ms. Filios, to be sure, is not a natural Fosca. In addition to being far too pretty for a character whom Mr. Lapine describes in his stage directions as “an ugly, sickly woman,” she has a sweet but very small singing voice. Hence her interpretation is a triumph of mind over matter—but triumphant it is. You’ll have no trouble seeing how a soldier-hunk like Giorgio (Ben Michael) could fall victim to her all-consuming desire. As for Mr. Nolen’s production, it makes well-judged use of the shallow thrust stage of the Arden’s 360-seat house, which shows off Ms. Filios to ideal advantage. To see how he gets his points across by putting the 10-person cast in the right places at the right times is to learn a lesson in effective direction….

The Bucks County Playhouse, a grist mill by the Delaware River that was turned into a theater in 1939, used to be one of America’s top summer-stock houses. Alas, it fell on hard times, closing down in 2010, but now it’s back in business and presenting an increasingly ambitious roster of mainstream shows. When it comes to musicals, you can’t get much more ambitious than “Company,” the 1970 musical about modern marriage in which Stephen Sondheim and George Furth rewrote Broadway’s postwar playbook. So I’m thrilled to report that Bucks County’s new production, directed by Hunter Foster, choreographed by Lorin Latarro and starring Justin Guarini as the commitment-phobic, sexually ambivalent Bobby, is outstanding in every way….

Working in tandem with Jason Sherwood and Jennifer Caprio, respectively the set and costume designers, Mr. Foster has chosen to produce “Company” not as a “Mad Men”-style period piece but in a modern-dress-and-cellphones version, discreetly altering the now-whiskery cultural references (Eleanor Roosevelt becomes Ruth Bader Ginsburg) to give it a fresher air. Not only does this approach work dramatically, but Bobby’s morbid fear of settling down is, if anything, more to the point today than it was 45 years ago. The staging, which makes shrewd use of a turntable, speeds the cast from scene to scene with unostentatious fluidity…

Mr. Guarini’s splendidly sung Bobby put me in mind of Dean Jones, who created the role in the original Broadway production. Initially affable yet guarded, he opens up in “Being Alive” to overwhelming emotional effect….

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To read my review of Passion, go here.

To read my review of Company, go here.

“The average man doesn’t want to be free. He wants to be safe.”

H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
• Hand to God (black comedy, X, absolutely not for children or prudish adults, many performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, reviewed here)
• On the Twentieth Century (musical, G/PG-13, virtually all performances sold out, closes July 19, contains very mild sexual content, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, original production reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• The Flick (serious comedy, PG-13, too long for young people with limited attention spans, closes Aug. 30, reviewed here)

IN GLENCOE, ILL.:
• Doubt (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN BOSTON:
• Light Up the Sky (comedy, G, not suitable for small children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CHICAGO:
• Sense and Sensibility (musical, G, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• The Visit (serious musical, PG-13, far too dark and disturbing for children, reviewed here)

an optimist is a guy
that has never had
much experience.

Don Marquis, archy and mehitabel

Ray Charles performs “You Don’t Know Me” and “What’d I Say” on The Dinah Shore Show in 1963:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

“Delay is the deadliest form of denial.”

C. Northcote Parkinson, The Law of Delay

• If you visit this blog with even modest regularity, you know that the next stop for Satchmo at the Waldorf is San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre, where the John Douglas Thompson-Gordon Edelstein off-Broadway production will be transferring in January. On Friday A.C.T. ran a full-page ad on the back page of the San Francisco Chronicle announcing its 2015-16 season, and my agent e-mailed me a photo that morning. It is, if I may say so without undue immodesty, way, way cool.

Later that same day, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel ran a story about Palm Beach Dramaworks’ 2015-16 season that contained, among other things, reproductions of the posters for the five plays being produced there this coming season, all of them created by New York’s Fraver/Fraver Design, a major name in theatrical poster art.

I saw and approved the Satchmo at the Waldorf poster a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve been boiling over with eagerness to show it off. Now that it’s been released for publication, you can see it for yourself. I hope you like it as much as I do.

• I know not how or why, but Duke, my 2013 biography of Duke Ellington, unexpectedly turned up on the New York Times’ list of best-selling books about culture for June 7, 2015. Among the other books on the list: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Pioneer Girl, Anne-Marie O’Connor’s The Lady in Gold, Harold Bloom’s The Daemon Knows, and Reynold Levy’s They Told Me Not to Take That Job.

To see the complete list, go here.