Mini reviews

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seminar

For a while, there were two Harry Potter alumni on Broadway. While Daniel Radcliffe was playing scheming businessman J. Pierpont Finch, Alan Rickman was once again playing a teacher. This time, a fiction writing teacher of four very different students. Seminar had a number of funny lines, and a wonderful set change late in the show, but even while I was laughing, the logical part of my brain kept having issues with the action. Why is this fiction class being held in the apartment belonging to one of the students? Why hasn't Leonard (the teacher) read any of the assignments before class time? How come one of the students gets a pass at actually handing in an the assignment? Oh, wait, did he actually assign stuff or is the stuff they're reading stuff they've already writing and want critiqued? When is Rickman's character actually going to talk about WRITING? And why does Jerry O'Connell's character opening monologue run so long and make him seem so gay? And if he is gay, why is he then pursuing Izzy? Is this the type of place where playwright Theresa Rebeck learned her craft? And ultimately, why should I care about any of these people? The show has moments of greatness, especially an eruption of temper of Rickman's that could easily have been stereotype and shaded too much into his character of Snape, but which was actually quite well done. But at the end of the day, I was glad when this Seminar had ended and I could admit that I didn't really care what happened to any of these characters.

look back in anger

Again, a show where I had to wonder why I should care about characters. This four person show comprises Jimmy Porter, who may or may not own a candy store or just run it, his wife Alison, who is apparently from a wealthy family, their friend/roommate Cliff, and Alison's friend Helena who wanders into the dysfunctional trio with an agenda of her own. This revised version cuts out the character of Alison's father, and drops at least one scene from the original. Jimmy is the prototype for the "angry young man" of the 1960's, but I found him too grating to be sympathetic. And I'm not sure what the author (or in this case, perhaps the director) was trying to say about women that Helena slips easily from her independence into Jimmy's bed when Alison leaves, or the fact that Alison returns to a man that seems to me to be emotionally, if not physically, abusing her. Are we supposed to root for anyone in this squalor? The director made a choice with this play to construct a wall across the stage and give the actors a very narrow playing area. While I understand the attempted metaphor, I just found the playing area too crowded and instead of drawing me into the action, it jolted me out of things when the actors had to exit through the rear theater door instead of being able to just go off stage through the wings.



porgy and bess

The Gershwins' (and in truth Dubose and Dorothy Heyward's) Porgy and Bess has always been in my mind as an opera, not a musical. Now, please understand, opera is not meant as a derogatory term. Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserable and Miss Saigon also fall into my mental category of opera. And I love all three of them. But Porgy and Bess had an operatic quality to it that made it harder for me to like; the use (in fact overuse) of high soprano singing. If I can't understand what the singers are singing in a show that is almost all sung with little dialogue, I'm not going to be satisfied. Especially since I knew very little of what the actual storyline of the show is. All I knew was that it was about a woman named Bess (Audra McDonald) and a man named Porgy (Norm Lewis). Now, Audra's acting of the town tramp with a good heart falling for the crippled Porgy was good, but I lost a lot of her singing in the high notes. Norm Lewis does an incredible job as Porgy, contorting his body in a way that must be extremely painful. The highlight and surprise of the show was David Allen Grier as drug dealer Sportin' Life. I vaguely remember seeing him years ago in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, but forgot how well he can move, and sing. People who know Porgy and Bess well have been commenting that this is a pared down version, and runs much shorter than the almost 3 hour usual version. I'm glad. I don't think I could have taken much more of this show than I did.



Godspell

If Jesus had 12 disciples, why don't productions of Godspell have 13 actors? Why are there only 10 actors on stage at Circle In the Square? And why does the same actor play John the Baptist and then Judas Iscariot? Okay, and why am I analyzing these things this much? Godspell should just be a nice afternoon, good songs, fun enactments of parables, and then let's go home... The problem is that the show is uneven. Some of this comes from the fact that since the show ends with the crucifixion, the show has to change tone in the second act. Some of it comes from the fact that the show attempts to stay current by updating pop culture references, not all of which really work. And some of it comes from use of audience members in the show. This is something that I almost always dislike. I find that dragging someone out of their seat to play pictionary or charades, or act the part of Lazarus just pulls me out of the story and makes me cringe. Godspell is an ensemble show, giving all the actors a chance to have their moment in the spotlight, and while all the actors in this production were enjoyable, some were stronger than others. Telly Leung was his usual wonderful self, not only singing well, but doing a great job of piano playing for the entre'acte. I also enjoyed Uzo Aduba's By My Side. Hunter Parrish was good as Jesus, but just once, I wish they would cast someone not blonde and blue-eyed for that role.



Carrie

On May 12, 1988, a musical adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie opened on Broadway. It closed on May 15, 1988. You'd think would be the end of it, wouldn't you? But nope, some 23 years later, it has resurfaced in an updated form, off-Broadway, at the Lortel Theatre. I didn't see the original, and while I think I might have heard some of the songs from it at some point, I don't really remember them, so I can only comment on this production. I also don't really remember the book all that well, in fact, I'm not sure if I ever read it. And I know I've never seen the movie. Well, this production seemed to me to be more a treatise against school bullying than a horror story about a girl with telekinesis. And it felt like Sue Snell, the narrator, had more stage time than Carrie White, the title character. But Christy Altomare was enjoyable as Sue, so I didn't really mind that fact. The entire cast was quite good, with Jeanna De Waal well cast as snotty Chris, and Derek Klena fine as football captain/poet Tommy Ross. Of course, a good production of Carrie rests on the abilities of the actresses playing Carrie White and her mother, Margaret. And both Molly Ranson and Marin Mazzie do wonderful jobs in their roles. The set is minimal, but the projections used help set the tone and are excellent in the "destruction" scene. The show is a limited run at this time, but I'm holding out hope for a new cast recording.



Wit

We know very early on in this play that there will be no happy ending. As Cynthia Nixon as poetry professor Vivian Bearing informs us, "I believe I die in the end." But the journey getting to the end is well worth watching. Nixon owns the stage as the overbearing, always in control woman who slowly loses control over her body as she undergoes chemotherapy for metastatic ovarian cancer. While her character seems fully fleshed, some of the others strike me as a bit cookie cutter. The researcher who has a brilliant mind for science but no bedside manner, the compassionate nurse who may not be the sharpest tack in the box, the older mentor who is so far into analyzing poetry that she even finds metaphors for the soul in a children's book. They seem to be there only as foils for the main character to work with, not people in their own right. I had seen the show in its original off-Broadway incarnation, so knew the key scenes, and found myself cringing in advance of one disliked scene, while anticipating another that I always enjoy. I found myself drifting at points, but the show does not really run that long, so it might have just been me being tired.

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