February Theater Wrap Up

After the first weekend in January we all lamented the multiple Broadway closing. "Boo, hoo, where will I do all of my discretionary entertainment spending?" All we could talk/tweet/blog about was Spiderman, because there wasn't much else going on. But with February, off-Broadway is alive and well, and Broadway previews for the spring season have begun.

The first show I saw in February was The Importance of Being Earnest. It actually opened in January, the first Broadway show to open in 2011. I had a  $22 HIPTX from Roundabout, which I wrote about earlier. Brian Bedford was excellent, as all reviewers have noted. I am far more interested in new theater than revivals and I don't love period pieces, but Earnest was laugh-out-loud funny. The plot of confused identities and people trying to cover their lies could have been a modern romantic comedy. As an overtired teacher, I am a fan of the 100 minutes no intermission performances (and I do love a 7pm curtain), so I was daunted by the three acts listed in the Playbill. I'm sure Wilde wrote it as a three act, but it was also necessary, because there were elaborate set changes that we don't see often anymore. Overall, I liked the show more than I expected to. I always struggle with what to take my mother/grandmother to when they're in town (the conflict of what do I want to make them pay for me to see vs what would they actually enjoy) and I think this would be a great show to bring older out of town guests to.

In my very biased opinion Peter and the Starcatcher had a lot going for it before I walked in the door: Alex Timbers as a co-director and two of my NYC stage favorites - Greg Hildreth and Arnie Burton (forget about the better known cast members, these are my guys). I went on the first Sunday night of school vacation, $20 ticket Sunday, and was blown away by all of the children in the audience. I don't know the last time I sat behind and next to a little boy at the theater. It brought me back to the children's theater of my youth (shout out to the Harwich Junior Theater). I had trouble following the story at the beginning, but all of the kids were up to speed because they had read the book that the play is based on. I caught on, though, and really enjoyed it. Christian Borle provided continuous comic relief. My guys (Hildreth and Burton) turned out to play a bit of a couple, which proved funny and deeply satisfying for me. And of course the whole back story to Peter Pan, boys that don't grow up, kids who can fly, etc is timeless and delightful, regardless of your age. The best parts were the staging and the low budget, low tech affects. In addition to having co-directors, there was also a movement director, Steven Hoggett. The actors' bodies were used to great affect, to show the movement of the ship or to become a wall with doors. Their bodies were very well directed and disciplined to  the audience's pleasure. In addition, the use of a floppy yellow glove as a bird, or a simple green light as Tinkerbell were effective and enchanting. The show was wonderful, my only complaint was about the hand that Black Stache loses - it's his right hand that gets cut off, but the prop hand they used was a left hand. I wouldn't have noticed, except that Christian Borle holds the prop hand in his left hand, so the thumbs line up perfectly. It was very distracting. I saw a preview, so maybe they will change this before opening. It's a great play and I recommend seeing it.

Compulsion at the Public Theater - I didn't love it. First of all, it was staged in the Martinson Theater, where they did Gatz, and I find it to be the most uncomfortable, poorly organized seating. Mandy Patinkin, however, gave a marvelous portrayal of an obsessive man, and the use of puppets was excellently executed. I was skeptical of the marionettes, but they were great. The puppeteers were clearly very skilled and the Anne Frank puppet had very human, nuanced movement. The story was very protracted and slow, though.

Angels in America Part I: Earlier in the winter we snagged $20 tickets to the otherwise sold out Angels In Amercan Part II, due to a cancellation, I assume. I thought Part I would never happen, but when the show's run was extended (and Michael Urie added to the cast) we decided to go for the full price tickets. Signature Theatre's production blew me away again. I had forgotten about the amazing video projections and multiple, detailed, moving sets. I keep coming back to the word "vivid" to describe it, which is impressive for a show full of hallucinations. When we saw Part II, my only complaint was about Zoe Kazan; she was not vivid, she was over-acting and projecting her voice. Much of the cast has been changed since we first went, and moving Keira Keeley into the role of Harper Pitt was a huge improvement. She plays crazy well. I was also glad to see Zachary Quinto go; I have beef with him for being a closet case and refusing to come out to The New York Times  while playing Louis Ironson and making an "It Gets Better" video. Adam Driver, as the Louis replacement, was an improvement in my eyes. I have loved Michael Urie since The Temperamentals. He gave a great line in their talk back series, "I have all kinds of gay guys in here" and he proved it with his Prior. Angry, sick, scared, lonely - he nailed it. All in all, the production is still among the best in New York and the cast changes didn't hurt it all.

I saw American Idiot over the summer, after watching their performance at the Tony Awards (I love a good rock musical). I was very disappointed. I didn't follow the plot and I thought it was way too loud. In short, I didn't like it because it made me feel old and I like to think of myself as young and hip. As the producers employ stunt casting to keep the show open, theater-goers are making return trips to see Billie Joe play St. Jimmy. As I am not especially a Green Day fan, this wasn't going to draw me back in. Casting Melissa Etheridge, however, would do the trick, because I am a good lesbian who loves musical theater. I couldn't sit this one out. I had an amazing row G center orchestra seat, was more familiar with the plot and further from the speakers, so I enjoyed the show a lot more. However, Etheridge made me cringe. In 1985, when I was four years old, my mother went to a Halloween party dressed tragically as a "punk rocker." Etheridge was wearing hair to match my mother's that night. Tragic. In American Idiot the cast runs up and down stairs to the ceiling of the St. James; when Etheridge came down the stairs she walked and held the railing. She just seemed so much older that the cast, not at all Johnny's alter ego. I didn't feel quite as old after leaving that performance.

Last weekend my 22 year-old brother came to visit. He is a straight boy with a penchant for musicals. Last summer he actually said to me, "You know what I'd like to see on stage? Annie." Seriously. He and I share an appreciation for dumb/funny guy movies, and I would have loved to take him to see Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson or The Book of Mormon, but neither of them were options in mid-February so I was at a loss. Last minute, I booked us tickets to see The Divine Sister at the Soho Playhouse. It was just barely ninety minutes, full of cheap laughs and a perfectly reasonable way to spend a Saturday afternoon. We were the youngest people there, but it was fun to see a show in Soho. It just felt very commercial to me. Great for tourists, or a date with my brother, but nothing to stick with you for the train ride home.

Lastly, I was invited to attend a reading of a new musical Harmony Kansas by Anna K. Jacobs and Bill Nelson (Jacobs also wrote the music/lyrics for the musical Pop!, which I saw at Yale Rep and am dying to see get a run in NYC). It is the story of a gay men's chorus in Kansas, and oh, was it good. There was definitely a Brokeback Mountain aspect, men having sex in barns, but they need to sing, and they sing about needing to sing. And they're bitchy and argue about who can bring snacks, which leads to a number called I bring the snacks. It was delicious, as men in jeans and plaid shirts singing about their forbidden love tend to be. They battle with the fear of actually performing with their closeted private chorus. And one of the characters, who we never actually see, is very, very sick with . . . cancer. Men losing men to cancer, finally. Love and loss and singing and closets and farms. I hope this show has a future. I could see it running at Theatre Row, and I would be running to see, nagging all of you to buy tickets too.

I'm thinking March will bring me some Broadway shows. How about you?