It’s hard to view Strindberg’s Miss Julie—even Patrick Marber’s updated After Miss Julie—in light of today’s values. The tragic weight of the play stems from the fact that after two people of a difference social class make love, their world is turned upside down.
Today, a quickie with someone below you in social status is not a shocker, but an exercise in branding—a step on the celebrity ladder of success. In our world of sex tape “scandals” and Levi Johnson posing for Playgirl (one year after standing on the podium of the Republican National Convention next to Sarah Palin) how can we seriously buy the morning-after angst of Julie and her father’s valet? Regardless of whether its set when Miss Julie was written (1888 Sweden) or updated in Marber’s version to 1945 England, the only dramatic question for modern audiences is: will she text her snooty friends and brag about shagging the help—or whether he’ll slip the news to the Post or TMZ in the hopes of a long career of snogging rich debutantes? read more
A Steady Rain, which recently broke the weekly record for highest grossing play in Broadway history, is simply a Chippendales show for women (and men, I suppose) who like to like to watch two hunks show off their brains as well as their muscles. (For those New Yorkers whose internet has been out of service for the past month, A Steady Rain stars James Bond and Wolverine—Daniel Craig and High Jackman—as two ethically challenged Chicago beat cops.)
Keith Huff’s two-hander is a serviceable piece of theater. I hesitate to call it a play since it’s basically two monologues, intercut without much style or grace. (The production values are top notch at least: the moody lighting courtesy of Hugh Vanstone, the ghostlike sets by Scott Pask, not to mention John Crowley’s sure-handed direction.)
The plot is solid but feels more like the draft of a pilot for new Primetime cop show (CSI: Chicago, anyone?). Both men tell their side of the story concerning a wild evening that begins with a blind date and bullet hole in 52-inch plasma screen. read more
The summer of 2009 was the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock and the end of the sixties. It was also a short summer in New York City. Storms and gray skies reigned over the city for much of the months of June, July and August; but for those still hoping to let the sun shine in a little longer (figuratively or metaphysically) there is one way to reheat the memories of summers’ past: the current Broadway revival of Hair.
Set during the infamous “Summer of Love” of 1967, Diane Paulus’ staging of the Tony-winning musical by Galt MacDermot, James Rado and Gerome Ragni, has a giant sun painted on the back of the theater wall and it is hard not to be warmed by its rays which are metaphorically brought to life by the classic songs and a young, energetic cast.
The legendary original production of Hair began at the downtown Public Theatre in 1967 and then went to Broadway the following April where it ran for four years; this production debuted last summer in Central Park before re-opening on Broadway in March. read more
Last summer season, the Public Theater paired Hamlet with the musical Hair—which subsequently went to Broadway and won the Tony for Best Revival. This year, the Delacorte played host to another Shakespeare classic, Twelfth Night, paired with another bawdy piece: the Greek drama The Bacchae, scored with new music by Philip Glass. Alas, this Bacchae is not likely to transfer or win any awards. JoAnne Akalaitis’s concept has some interesting and ambitious notions, but they never quite fuse with the text or the performances. The result is a sluggish 90-minute show that feels much longer. (And which inspired numerous walkouts on the evening I attended—the first time I’ve witnessed that in years of attending the Delacorte). read more
New York audiences are most familiar with West Side Story from choreographer Jerome Robbins’ same-titled suite for New York City Ballet, from the 1961 film directed by Robbins and Robert Wise, and the essential story from myriad renditions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But it is on Broadway now after nearly 30 years (!), and a chance for a new generation or two to become acquainted with a wonderful show.
Leonard Bernstein wrote the score for the show, which premiered in 1957. Arthur Laurents, who wrote the original book and is now in his 90s, directed the new production. Most notably, it incorporates Spanish dialogue and lyrics to give the ethnic divide some real bite, but refrains from using technological wizardry. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote In the Heights, was charged with the translating some of Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics into Spanish, although the songs are so familiar that it’s almost irrelevant what language they’re sung in. In some of the conversations, the actors elide from Spanish into English, as Nuyoricans might. All in all, if you don’t speak Spanish, don’t worry. read more
By now, you’ve probably heard about Patti LuPone’s show-stopping incident on the next-to-last day of Gypsy’s Broadway run, on January 10, demanding that an audience member stop taking photographs. If you didn’t read about it in the Village Voice or Gawker or Life’s a Pitch blogs, you’ve heard the actual outburst itself: in an ironic stroke worthy of an O. Henry short story, someone in the theater managed to audio-record the moment, which is now on YouTube. read more
I have a suggestion for the producers of Shrek the Musical: Give Sutton Foster four—or six—more songs and rename the show Fiona the Musical. It’s clear who the real star is here, so why not give her more room to roam? Not to detract from Brian d’Arcy James, who as Shrek does the best he can under a cumbersome costume and heavy latex, but Foster owns the show. When she’s on stage, she’s magnetic; when she’s not, her presence is still felt, like a phantom limb. read more
The revival of Arthur Miller’s 1947 play All My Sons, currently on Broadway, has been dividing critics. Some praised director Simon McBurney’s approach, which eschews the strict naturalism so beloved on the Great White Way in favor of a certain stylization, while others disliked the production for pretty much the same reason (though they tended to word their objections along the lines of, “I can’t feel for the characters”).
I fall squarely in the first camp—if you happen to be in the New York area, this is one of the finest nights at the theater you can find—and one of the reasons is that in addition to its aesthetics (this is a starkly designed but very elegant show), the production offers a point of view on the material. In other words, McBurney is no mere illustrator: He’s thought about the play and gives us his interpretation of it; it’s then up to us, the audience, to argue about whether or not we buy his reading. Sure, interpreting material is what directors are meant to do, but watching All My Sons, I was reminded of how rarely it actually is the case.McBurney, for instance, is very smart about when happens onstage when someone’s talking. read more
I’ve been watching the San Francisco Symphony’s Carnegie Hall opening-night celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s 90th birthday year on Great Performances. Fittingly, there’s a little bit of everything Lenny here, early and late, Broadway, symphonic, dance, opera, song cycle—symphonic dances from West Side Story, “What a Movie” from Trouble in Tahiti (with Dawn Upshaw), “I Can Cook Too” (Christine Ebersole, pictured), and Meditation No. 1 from Mass (cellist Yo-Yo Ma). Everyone is clearly having a great time, and when conductor Michael Tilson Thomas joins in singing during “Ya Got Me” from On the Town, it works perfectly, like something Lenny himself might have done. It seems appropriate for a Lenny celebration that there are “high-art” singers like Upshaw and Thomas Hampson, kids from the Juilliard School, and Ebersole representing Broadway: Lenny straddled some of the traditional boundaries between the classical and popular-music worlds, tackling composing, conducting, and educating with equal fervor.
The concert is part of the city’s months-long Lenny celebration, The Best of All Possible Worlds. And I think Lenny would have approved. read more
I’m not entirely sure why the performing arts take such a long summer break in New York. If you’re a sports fan, there’s something for each season, and summer is very busy for rock and pop tours. But if you like theater, dance, opera (and even the visual arts, as museums don’t open big shows), you’re out of luck in the hot months. There’s very little from late June to August, then suddenly everybody’s trying to open something or other between mid-September and November. It’s crazy, I tell ya! So what do we have to look forward to this fall? read more
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