Kweerspirit

Friday, December 09, 2011

Relatively Speaking

Nov. 30 - Wed. Matinee
The final show of my 3 day entertainment marathon was so good (but honestly, not any better than The Devil's Music).

Relatively Speaking is at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre which is a lovely space on West 47th Street.
I was 3rd row orchestra (not first...why be greedy all the time?!), but still close enough to see everyone spit.

RS is made up of three one-act comedies: Talking Cure, George is Dead, and Honeymoon Motel.

Each has its own playwright and its own cast (though three or four actors wind up in two of the plays).

The entire show was directed by John Turturro (actor in such films as Jungle Fever, Do the Right Thing, Quiz Show, etc.) but is also a very accomplished film and theatre director. He's currently acting in The Cherry Orchard with Dianne Wiest (downtown, eastside).

RS is star studded (as Broadway has to be these days), but let me regale you with one one-act at a time.

Talking Cure:
A guy on lock down in a mental hospital is being treated by a psychiatrist. the patient, a postal worker (I know, right?!), apparently snapped one day when an elderly woman complained about the condition in which her package arrived. Mr Postal Worker responds by beating her down with a tape dispenser.
Most of this play takes place in a "cage" (which, those not very therapeutic, is where the therapy sessions are taking place...i suppose it was meant to show how "trapped" the patient felt not only in the hospital but also in life).

At the end of the play, we are given a flashback to the man's beginning...the day his mother goes into labor with him. His parents apparently loathe each other and are in a heated argument when she goes into labor. The dysfunctional family hostilities are meant to show us how the patient started life without much hope of sanity.

Predictably, the therapy sessions swing from rage to hilarity and back again. and while there is a breakthrough when the patient admits he has self-image/self-esteem and anger management problems, and why (the parents, of course), we never get to see the broken fragments of psyche reintegrated.

The patient, doctor, attendant (walk on part), mother and father are all the characters.
The patient was played by Danny Hoch....Danny is a playwright and an actor (not the playwright of this show, that would be Ethan Coen...he's done a million things, but is probably best known for his screen plays - Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and for his adaptations of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and Charles Portis' True Grit).

Hoch gives a caricature more than a character. He is so preoccupied with clownish facial expressions, exaggerated hand movements, and perfecting a stereotypical Brooklyn Italian accent that there isn't much space left for developing a three dimensional human being for us to care about. Still, his gimmicks were funny enough and the writing was so good that it was still a worthwhile venture.

The mother, played by katherine Borowitz seemed familiar, but her career has consisted mostly of theatre (regional and off-broadway), and I don't think i've seen any of her films (Illuminata, Men of Respect, Internal Affairs, A Serious Man)...but maybe i've seen her in ads or previews for the flicks. Anyway, she was good, though her character isn't given a lot of time to show who she really is. the entire scene with the parents are the two of them arguing at dinner over petty annoyances (which have them at the point of violence) and then her going into labor. So all we see of her or her husband is a comical, petty bickering session.

Meanwhile, its Broadway Cares collection time again, and she was the actor who accepted my contribution at the door :-)

The doctor may be the most famous of the cast: Jason Kravits (you've seen him as an ADA on the Practice, a guest spot on everything, including the fabulous Grey's Anatomy, the final episode of friends, and various films. He not only was the biggest name for the opening act, but he was also the strongest actor with what seems to have been the best written part.

It was cute, funny, enjoyable...but no masterpiece.

George Is Dead:
This was the jewel of the show and should have been the final/anchor piece.
It was written by Elaine May, probably best known for her screen writing, (True Colors, Heaven Can Wait - for which she was nominated for an Oscar, and The Birdcage).

It starred Broadway biggie Lisa Emery, Grant Shaud (the cute producer, Miles, on Murphy Brown...PS - he's fat now), and super brilliant stage goddess Marlo Thomas. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE HER! If you only know her from That Girl (which was funny btw) and St Jude Hospital pitches, and her recurring role as an attorney on Law/Order:SVU (which she is fine in, but of course any capable actor could provide plausible cameo appearances as an attorney)...you might not know that she is GENIUS.
OMG, she was comedic like Bea Arthur and Carol Burnette and Phyllis Diller and Toti Fields and Betty White all rolled into one human...but she didn't camp it up or throw it away...she took her comedy very seriously and played a shallow, wealthy, and apparently friendless woman who receives a phone call in the middle of the night that her husband has died in a skiing accident.

She turns to the daughter (Doreen, a woman she hasn't seen in decades) of her childhood Nanny for comfort. Doreen takes her in and provides her support even while her own marriage is disintegrating in front of her. The old nanny eventually comes in to save the day, which is sweet and painful...sweet b/c she still cares about the child she raised professionally...painful b/c she never seemed to care that much about her own daughter.

There is pathos, and grief, and silliness, and intelligent humor, and amazing timing, and unhealed wounds, and helplessness, and strength all in the space of less than half an hour!
The men provide good support for the women (a funeral director, his assistant, and Doreen's unsympathetic husband played by Grant Shaud), but Marlo Thomas, Lisa Emery (Doreen), and Patricia O'Connell (the nanny/mother) make the show. It would almost have been as good if the men weren't ever seen (in fact, i think it would have worked just as well). and the giant of the cast was Marlo Thomas. The very next thing she does, I hope to see!

Honeymoon Motel:
Written by Woody Allen (and the real reason I went to the show)...best known for his quirky and smart comedic films, this was actually his fourth play to be produced. As far as laughs, it was a knee slapper. Lots of schtik, and good schtik, lots of "insider" Jewish and NYC jokes (very Allen), and a plot that was uncomfortably close to his real life (A woman leaves her fiancee at the altar and runs away with his still married to his mother step-dad)...funny and a little yucky too (but maybe less yucky if you didn't know Allen's T).

This had the largest cast with the most "names" -
Steve Guttenberg (remember super cute Steve Guttenberg? Well, he's aged badly and bears little resemblance to the 80s actor we couldn't wait to see shirtless); he's funny, but plays for laughs which makes his character seem a little less real and a little less likable.

His almost daughter-in-law turned paramour played by Ari Graynor (from Veronica Mars and The Sopranos) is very pretty and sexy and plays the pretty, sexy, husband steeling vamp as well as anyone could.

Grant Shaud is in this one act also, as a more likable character than in George Is Dead. But he's just the friend who supplies straight lines for Guttenberg and throws in a few obvious laugh lines himself.

Caroline Aaron, playing Guttenberg's wife, is a striking woman with a powerful presence and she's very funny (not Guttenberg, "look at me i used to be cute and i still try to exude boyish charm so please laugh at my silliness and tell me i matter" kind of funny, but really, strong, good comic timing, has a sense that the person she's playing is a person even if the emotions she is sharing are contrived for comic effect). You'd know her if you saw her - she's done everything...Sleepless in Seattle, Primary Colors, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Edward Scissorhands, etc. She was one of two great performers in the piece.

The other great performer was Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson, Rhoda's sister...THAT Julie Kavner) who was hilarious! Julie and Caroline should put together a two woman show and take it on the road! Julie played Graynor's mother.

There was a rabbi (Richard Libertini), and Danny Hock played the pizza boy (though his character was indistinguishable from the patient in Talk Therapy), and Jason Kravitz played a psychiatrist (not the same psychiatrist he played an hour earlier), and Mark Linn-Baker (Perfect STrangers) was Kavner's husband.

The tart who dumps her man for her man's step dad, the step dad, his buddy, his wife, the tart's parents (Kravner we learn has had two affairs during the course of their marriage...one with her boss, and one with the marriage counselor they were seeing because of it...funny b/c it is so preposterously unethical, and Linn-Baker retaliated by sleeping with her sister), the rabbi who was performing the ceremony, Guttenberg's therapist (?!), the step-son/dumped groom, and a pizza guy (Graynor is hungry for pizza and orders delivery) all wind up in a cheap motel room where Guttenberg and Graynor have taken refuge for their night of post-wedding disaster love-making. In the end, everyone leaves, relatively OK with life, and Guttenberg and Graynor kiss as the lights go down.

Allen, Turturro, Guttenberg, Shaud, Kavner, Graynor, Linn-Baker, Libertini...You'd think, wouldn't you? I mean, this has got to be 4th of July kind of fabulous. It was more like Presidents Day kind of acceptable. Big laughs. A couple of comic diva geniuses. But at no point did i ever care what happened to any of them, and was actually a little deflated when Graynor and Guttenberg wind up together in the end without any remorse for the lives and families they've destroyed. The pizza boy gives some home spun wisdom about a morally neutral universe (or, in his words, "there are no rules") and there are some very brief ponderings about metaphysics in general...but mostly, its "let's laugh at a lot of one liners, question the existence of a higher power as Allen so famously does, and, thumb our noses at any sense of caring for the feelings of others...break as many hearts as you can as long as you end up happy, or at least relatively pleased"...a decent sit-com for TV, but not especially good theatre.

If the decent first play (though one of its two prime characters was played in my opinion by a weak actor) was followed by the Allen amorality farce and then the Marlo Thomas piece had ended the show...it would have gone from strength to strength and would have made for a better theatrical experience. Almost any time spent in any NY theatre is worth the experiment, and this play as a whole has value for the laughs (however cheap some of them may be), but the bread slices that surrounded the Marlo Thomas meat were jsut that...something to hold up the tasty thing you really want to consume. Marlo's performance and the entire cast/performance/writing of "George is Dead" made what would have been an acceptable theatre outing into a true joy. But honestly, if they had simply done the one act with Marlo in some Off-broadway venue, it would have been a far better venture.

here endeth this NY excursion...

durrell

The Devil's Music

Nov. 29-"The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith"
Best musical review EVER!

It was at the St Luke's Theatre (basement of St Luke Lutheran Church on 46th Street (between 8th & 9th Aves, closer to 8th). Even though it is off-broadway, it's just three blocks or so from Broadway theatres also on 46th. So, being all up in the theatre district but still having an off beat, slightly bohemian feel makes it a really good venue.
Not as glam as the Lortel...after all, it is subterranean (while LL is a stand alone building with the playwrights walk of fame in front)...St Luke's theatre only has about 100 seats (and while there isn't a bad seat in the house, i had the BEST seat in the house...front row center - i know, right, two nights in a row!).

Devil's Music is sort of one a woman show, but really there are 4 characters. Three are men who make up her band, and they are actually musicians (piano/bass/sax...sax player also plays clarinet for one number). One of the three guys has a few lines (and a character name, "Pickle"), but really, it's all about Bessie.

The title character is played by Miche Braden. I hadn't seen her before, but i hope to see her again. She sang her face off! The bluesy quality of her voice and the way she embodied the message of every song was in itself performance art.The show starts with a voice describing Bessie's funeral, then suddenly we fly backward in time 9 days to her last concert, and at that concert, she weaves her life-story around great old blues classics.

The audience learns so much about Bessie Smith...her being orphaned as a child, being married to someone who died shortly thereafter, and then being married again to an abusive ne'er do well, her active bisexuality, her adopting a son (and having that son taken away from her by the courts when her second husband reported her for being "unfit" - and what primarily made her "unfit" was her "carnal relations with women"), her sadness as Blues starts to be replaced by Swing in popularity, her success in spite of racism and the Great Depression.

We see (as she drinks almost every minute on stage) that she probably is a problem drinker if not an alcoholic, and while the play is intentionally very accurate about the details of Bessie's life, the playwright does add one bit of foreshadowing by having Bessie get a cold chill every time she mentions death.Finally, the show ends the way Bessie's life did...with a car accident (at only 43). Then, as an encore, the resurrected Bessie comes out and reprises the song she opened the show with.

In addition to her amazing singing voice, and the way Bessie's life is told by way of Bessie herself giving her last concert, there are two other things that really struck me about this play.1. Miche Braden, at least as Bessie Smith, is super sexy! Not beautiful. Not even pretty really. But so embodied, so alive, so confident and strong and still willing to risk vulnerability, so light on her feet (though in reality, about 200# are supported by those feet), so comfortable talking and singing about sex/uality...she was just very sexy.
2. Unlike charles busch, Miche B. does not resort to imitation/impersonation to create her character. She uses her voice (which is risky since BS was a recording artist and her voice is so well known); but much as Charles B. so thoroughly imagines himself to be the lady he is portraying that his/her femininity is the one thing the audience never questions, Miche B. so thoroughly WAS Bessie Smith, so completely believed that she was the incarnation of Bessie Smith, that she didn't need to imitate...she believed she was Bessie, and so we did too. He could have sounded like Kermit the Frog and looked like Lady Gaga, and i think we would have left saying, "that was the Bessie down to the last detail!"
side note - (isn't that what make believe is...when we make ourselves believe that the pretense is true?, and when we believe it, we make others believe it too...).

Where was I? Oh, yes...Devil's Music is FABULOUS!

What a treat it was to find this off-broadway treasure. Money and time very well spent!
Tomorrow (Wednesday matinee) - "Relatively Speaking."I'll tell you about it tomorrow (after I've worshiped once again in the Temple of Dionysus).

durrell

PS - to see all this NY theatre only one month after seeing Follies on Broadway is an embarrassment of riches. meanwhile, i'm happy as a pig in shit!

Saw Tea at Five in NYC

Monday, Nov. 28 -
Tea at Five...a staged reading at Lucille Lortel theatre on Christopher St.
LL is a great small theatre...about 200 seats on the floor and another 20 or so in the balcony.
The stage is about as deep as ours at Sunshine Cathedral, and about half the width.
Of course, Charles Busch was fabulous.

You know he has a theatre degree from Northwestern...he really is a good playwright and actor. But of course Tea at Five wasn't written by him...it was originally done on Broadway with kate Mulgrew.

Charles looked like KH (he's known for the best wigs in the world) and he had her mannerisms and voice down...he's made a career of imitating the screen legends of the days of yore, or their screen personas anyway (though usually as composite characters of his own creation). he is such a good female impersonator that it's never a distraction that he is actually male (in fact, he so believes that he is an actress/diva on the stage, that the audience soon believes it too).
It was a one night only production/benefit for an LBGT shelter in NYC.

I've seen CB's play "Tales of the Allergist's Wife" on Broadway, Psycho Beach Party (regional theatre/Dallas), and the film versions of PBP and Die Mommy Die (with Charles in them), and the documentary film about him, "The Lady in Question." I also saw his film, "A Very Serious Person."
In January I got to see him in his play, "The Divine Sister" at the SoHo Playhouse. And now this staged reading of "Tea of Five."

A few years ago he played Auntie Mame (in the play, "Auntie Mame" in a summer stock production in Maine), but sadly, I missed it :-(

I'm a huge Charles Busch fan, and last night's performance did NOT disappoint. AND, PS, I was front row center. thank you very much.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Follies 2011 - FABULOUS

Once a decade a person should see Sondheim’s Follies. Some call the book “dark” and others say it is poorly written; but no one disputes that the music is haunting, beautiful, compelling, and evocative. And, when the show is well directed and well choreographed, the story seems to tighten up a bit too.

I’ve heard multiple cast recordings of Follies and have seen scenes and heard songs performed from it dozens of times, but in 2001 I finally got to see it on Broadway. I was enchanted. First of all, there are some complex (if habitually unhappy) characters and there are amazing songs. And the 2001 cast was star studded: Treat Williams (still gorgeous at the time), Gregory Harrison (also easy on the eyes), Blythe Danner, Judith Ivy, Betty Garrett, and Polly Bergen were all on the same stage for the same show! Sondheim’s music performed by superstars of stage, film and television all on the Broadway stage was a ShoMo’s wet dream! Betty Garrett soft sold (but very effectively) “Broadway Baby”, Polly Bergen gave dramatic gravitas to a song that is often just an excuse to show off a singer’s “pipes” and Treat Williams, much to my surprise, was a really good singer! Judith Ivy and Blythe Danner might have been odd choices for Sally and Phyllis, but even if their singing voices didn’t quite measure up to Broadway musical theatre standards, their acting more than compensated for it (I’ve always said I prefer to hear actors sing than see singers act). So, even though the costumes, lighting, and sets were over all uninspiring, I was all the same thrilled with the production and very happy to have experienced it in person.

But THEN there was the 2011 Broadway production. OMG! I saw it tonight and would gladly (at full price) see it again tomorrow!

Danny Burstein was maybe the most sympathetic, likable “Buddy” in Follies history. He’s no Treat Williams in the looks department, but his physical grace (he must have been a dancer at one point in his life), his musical talent, and the gentleness he brought the character were nothing short of genius!

Ron Raines, for me, was the worst of the best. He was adequate and his acting was believable but he just didn’t sell it like the others did. Honestly, I think Gregory Harrison was better ten years ago in the role.

Jan Maxwell played Phyllis and if she is not nominated for a Tony there is NO justice in the universe. The woman’s power (not aggression, but merely presence) completely overshadowed Bernadette Peters (who received top billing, but it should be given to Maxwell at once). Her singing, her dancing, her acting, her energy, her physical presence, her facial expressions were all flawless. She wasn’t scene stealing; she never broke character or any way dismissed the importance of anyone in the ensemble cast, and yet, her radiance almost hid the lesser beings on stage entirely from view! Surely, SHE is exactly what Sondheim had in mind 40 years ago. Finally, the REAL Phyllis emerges from the shadows!

Bernadette Peters’ squeaky voice was cute and predictable. She played the frail, delusional Sally very traditionally and adequately. The one time that she really lived into her diva image was when she sang “Loosing My Mind.” It was a dramatic masterpiece, and yet she had so underperformed by then, the audience didn’t seem to appreciate (or even notice really) how good that one moment of her performance was. The audience’s judgment was repeated during the curtain call. Maxwell was the penultimate cast member to come out and was greeted with thunderous applause, shouts, cat calls, and riotous enthusiasm. Then finally, Bernadette came out and while she was greeted warmly, the response felt lack-luster in comparison to the ovation Jan Maxwell received.

Mary Beth Peil’s “Solange” was acceptable, but I seem to remember Jane White’s performance of that character in 2001 being much stronger.

Terri White’s performance as Stella was a triumph! I used to go to Rose’s Turn in the Village to hear Terri sing. She released a CD which I had her sign. Her deep, smoky, bluesy alto voice could unseat Zeus himself, rendering his thunderbolts useless. I read a couple of years ago that Terri had fallen on difficult times but had made a comeback and it was thrilling to see her in this show. She looked better than ever, sounded as good as ever, was funny, and commanded the stage with her tap and jazz moves (I don’t remember Carol Woods’ Stella in 2001 moving much at all, or even being able to in her cumbersome costume).
(On a side note – Joane Worley performed the role, I believe, in 2007. I didn’t see her performance, but so wish I had. She undoubtedly brought some comedic skill to the part, but it would be nearly impossible to outshine Terri White as Stella).

Jayne Houdyshell is a long time theatre veteran, though maybe not as well known as the others I’ve mentioned. But her lack of celebrity status is in no way because she is anything less than brilliant on the boards! I never expected to see “Broadway Baby” performed in a way that I liked as well as Betty Garrett’s performance in 2001, but Ms. Houdyshell won me over instantly. She lacked the glamour or grace of the other women, but rather than allowing that to be a hindrance she used it to her full advantage. She was comedic without being clownish, moved with more confidence and purpose than her body shape suggested possible, and sang as powerfully and masterfully as any of the other creative geniuses in the cast.

Elaine Paige as Carlotta was another high point. She played the aging sex kitten perfectly and performed “I’m Still Here” as well as anyone I’ve ever heard. Still, as good as she was, I seem to recall Polly Bergen being at least as good or maybe better. And for me, though not nearly the singer Paige is, the quintessential Carlotta will always be Yvonne De Carlo. When Carlotta sings, “First you’re another doe-eyed vamp, then someone’s mother, then you’re camp”…that line will never sound as powerful as it sounded from an actor who had been a B-movie vixen and then Lillie Munster before accepting the role of a diva whose star was fading in Follies. Yvonne WAS Carlotta! Still, Polly in 2001 was amazing and Elaine in 2011 was a very close runner up. I guess Polly was a better actor and Elaine was a better singer…the actor sang well and the singer actor well, but I’ve already disclosed by personal bias.

Florence Lacy had a small role (“Sandra”), but I was excited because I just saw her 10 months ago in Sunset Blvd (in the leading role) at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA. So in my geekiest fashion I was all, “Hey, it’s HER…we just saw her in something else a few months ago.”

Finally, I must praise the 81 year old Rosalind Elias (“Heidi”). Ms. Elias studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and then continued her studies in Italy, and has had an impressive opera career. In her 50+ year career she has received Grammy awards and has performed in every major opera house in the world, but she now proves that there are always new goals to reach as she makes her Broadway debut with Follies! And not for nothing, but her mezzo-soprano voice is still rich and wonderful. She’s still got it.

The 2001 production had bigger “stars”…but the 2011 production had better choreography, sets, lighting, costumes, and direction. And rather than a collection of stars sharing a stage, this production was a true ensemble cast working together to make magic. I loved it 10 years ago, and I loved it 100 times more tonight. I hope I get to see an even better production of Follies in 2021 (though I wonder how that could be possible).

---Durrell Watkins
Oct. 19, 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011

sermons

http://sunshinecathedral.org/?p=2535
The Divine Mind Meld

http://sunshinecathedral.org/?p=2497
We'll Never Outrun God's Love

http://sunshinecathedral.org/?p=2481
Rescuing God from the Rubble

Saturday, September 03, 2011

Gay By God

Gay By God
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHZvL4FQSmA

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