Cable Street

A

Every Spring 59E59 Theaters hosts a series of productions imported from the UK. To kick off the current season, they have chosen this ambitious musical about an event little known outside the UK, the Battle of Cable Street in early October 1936. Cable Street is a side street in the East End of London which was largely occupied by Jews and Irish. The Jews were mostly tailors and the Irish worked on the docks, where the Jews could not get jobs. The residents were just scraping by during the Depression, beset by rent increases and threats of eviction. Oswald Mosley, head of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), planned a provocative march through East End to intimidate its residents. When they appealed to the government to cancel the march, the government not only refused but sent police to protect the BUF marchers. The British Communists, busy recruiting for the Freedom Brigade in Spain, were initially reluctant to help but were persuaded that it was also important to fight Fascism at home. And so, when the Fascists arrived in the East End, protected by police, they met barricades that forced them to use some of the side streets including Cable Street, where they were met by a coalition of Communists, Jews and Irish. Chaos ensued. While this might not seem a likely subject for a musical, Tim Gilvin (music & lyrics, orchestrations & vocal arrangements) and Alex Kanefsky (book) have created a work that is consistently engrossing, entertaining and even educational. The clever framing device of a present-day tour guide (Jez Unwin) taking people through the East End and, to provide comic relief, repeatedly encountering a Jack the Ripper tour group, leads us to the story. The tour members shed their coats and become the neighborhood residents of 1936. The story focuses on three families – one Jewish, one Irish and one British. The Sheinberg family has two sons, Sammy (Isaac Gryn) and Moishe (Ethan Pascal Peters), the former a hothead boxer who lies about his name to get a job operating a press and the latter a devout scholar. The Kennys have an open-minded daughter Mairead (Aoife MacNamara, u/s for Lizzy-Rose Esin Kelly), who works in a Jewish bakery. Ron Williams (Barney Wilkinson) is a Brit from the North who has been driven by the closure of the mills to move to London with his alcoholic mother Edie (Preeya Kalidas) to find work. The book concentrates on Sammy, Mairead and Ron, but there are many other characters who are played by the other fine actors (Max Alexander-Taylor, Debbie Chazen, Michael Dantes, Natalie Elisha-Welsh, Romona Lewis-Malley and Annie Majin) who assume multiple roles irrespective of gender or race. They are all excellent, but I especially enjoyed MacNamara, Wilkinson and Unwin, who manages to be convincing as the tour guide, the devout Jewish father and the head Fascist thug. The music is a mix of Irish folk, Jewish liturgical, British music hall, rock and roll and rap and runs the gamut from ballad to anthem. The lively choreography by Jevan Howard-Jones adds much to the production. The costumes by Lu Herbert befit their characters well. The minimalist set by Yoav Segal consists mainly of a well-worn wooden counter, a few tables and several chairs that are moved around constantly to create different settings. Director Adam Lenson keeps things moving at a brisk, almost relentless, pace. At one point in the play, father Sheinberg says that the Jews will never be fully accepted as British and should keep a low profile. On a day that two Jews were stabbed in London, I have to wonder if he was right. Running time: two hours 30 minutes, including intermission.

Innocence

A

Apparently lightning can strike twice in the same place. Following the enormous success of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay earlier this season, the Metropolitan Opera now has a second brilliantly adventurous new work on its stage, Simon Stone’s production of Kaija Saariaho’s final opera, Innocence. Opera is not usually a place I look to for social relevance, but this opera’s topic is one we hear about practically every week – a school shooting. While that may not seem like a promising topic for an opera, Saariaho and her excellent librettists, Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barriere, prove otherwise. A student at an international school in Finland kills ten classmates and a teacher. Ten years later a young man (Miles Mykkanen) is getting married to a Romanian orphan (Jacquelyn Stucker) he met on holiday. We soon learn that the young man is the shooter’s brother and the waitress (Joyce DoDonato) called in as a last-minute substitute to serve at the wedding is the mother of Marketa (Vilma Jää), one of his victim’s. The groom’s parents (Rod Gilfry and Kathleen Kim) give the initial appearance of having been able to move forward with their lives, but they really haven’t; nor have the families of the victims, nor the survivors, nor the teacher (Lucy Shelton) and the priest (Stephen Milling) who overlooked warning signals. Even one of the victims appears from beyond the grave and begs to be released from her mother’s grief. The opera’s title is ironic, because no one connected to the incident, including some of the victims, is blameless. Will the waitress tell the bride about her brother-in-law’s crime? What facts about the crime has classmate Iris (Julie Hega) kept hidden? Can anyone put the shooting far enough behind them to have a reasonably normal life? The music, conducted by Susanna Mälkki, serves the story beautifully, from providing an ominous undercurrent for the large part of the libretto that is spoken to the outbursts of emotion in the arias. Among the strong singers, it’s hard to single anyone out, but Stucker, Jäa, Shelton and Hega made an especially strong impression. As the libretto skillfully intertwines the various strands, the remarkable set by Chloe Lamford rotates in synch, revealing a catering hall, a classroom, a kitchen, a supply closet, a school cafeteria, a lavatory and other locations. (It works so well that I forgive her for the ugly set of the current Broadway production of Death of a Salesman.) The costumes by Mel Page fit each character well and the lighting by James Farncombe is excellent. The five acts are performed without intermission in one hour 45 minutes. I highly recommend it, but unfortunately only two more performances remain. 

The Balusters

 

B+

Pulitzer- and Tony-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire and Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) have a long, fruitful history together, going back to Fuddy Meers in 1999. Other plays by him that were produced at MTC include Kimberly Akimbo (not the musical), Wonder of the World, Rabbit Hole, Good People and Ripcord. Marylouise Burke, the perky, petite actress with a unique voice who has come to be regarded as his muse, has been featured in five of them, including the present comedy of manners, The Balusters. In case you do not know what a baluster is, Merriam-Webster tells us that “a baluster is a vertical, often curved or vase-shaped pillar that supports a handrail on a stairway, porch or balcony, collectively forming a balustrade." To the nine members of the Vernon Point Homeowners Association, who are tasked to preserve the landmarked status of their urban enclave, allowing a neighbor to remodel a porch with historically inaccurate balusters would be the first step on the road to hell. The long-time president of the association is Elliot Emerson (Richard Thomas), the local realtor and unofficial gatekeeper of the neighborhood, who has consistently bullied the other members to get his way. The vice-president is Melissa Han (Jeena Yi), who as an East Asian and a lesbian, scores double points for diversity. The ditsy secretary is Penny Buell (Burke), who continually confuses Melissa for another Melissa, who is Pakistani, much to her chagrin. Willow Gibbons (Kayli Carter), whose partner is trans, is the group’s political correctness enforcer. Isaac Rosario (Ricardo Chavira) is a successful contractor who may or may not exploit his workmen. Brooks Duncan (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) is a partnered gay travel writer who keeps forgetting to close his back gate. Ruth Ackerman (Margaret Colin) is flamboyant and needs lots of attention. Alan Kirby (Michael Esper) is a feckless private school teacher who rarely gets things right. Kyra Marshall (Annika Noni Rose) is the newest member, in whose beautifully restored home the monthly meeting is set. She is determined to make a good impression and recover from a previous foray into board membership that ended badly. Lastly, we meet Luz Baccay (Maria-Christina Oliveras), Kyra’s housekeeper, who recently stopped working for Elliot. Kyra wants to have a stop sign installed on her corner where there have been a few crashes and near misses. Elliot is opposed for aesthetic reasons. We witness meetings of the entire group as well as smaller groupings. There are lots of laughs, mostly at the foibles of the members. Larger issues, such as racism, classism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, DEI and preservation vs. progress are lightly touched upon rather than addressed. It seemed like a cross between the recent Eureka Day which was funnier and The Minutes which was nastier. The acting is uniformly strong. Derek McLane’s classically balanced set is elegant. Emilio Sosa’s costumes are apt. The lighting by Allen Lee Hughes does neat tricks between scenes. Director Kenny Leon let things sag occasionally. At just under two hours without an intermission, it might benefit from a slight trim. If you want to see ten talented actors go after each other amusingly while poking gentle fun at our societal shortcomings, you will enjoy yourself. If you are looking for something with more bite, you might not. Before leaving you, I must confess that I am a victim of the John-Boy effect: It is extremely difficult for me to picture Richard Thomas either as an old man or as a villain.

 

Fallen Angels

B-

This early play by Noel Coward, now in previews at Roundabout’s Todd Haimes Theatre, is definitely one of his minor works. When it first played Broadway in 1927, it only ran for 36 performances. It has more slapstick and less wit than I associate with Coward. Nevertheless, it provides three juicy roles for actresses and can be featherweight fun at its best moments. Julia Sterroll (Kelli O’Hara) and Jane Banbury (Rose Byrne) are friends since childhood who now live with their respective husbands of several years Fred (Aasif Mandvi) and Willy (Christopher Fitzgerald) on different floors of the same building. The Sterrolls have a new maid, Saunders (Tracee Chimo), who is a voluble expert on any topic that arises. The heat of passion has long since been extinguished in their marriages. On the morning that their husbands are leaving for a weekend golf trip, the two wives each receive a postcard from Maurice Duclos (Mark Consuelos), a Frenchman with whom each had an affair before her marriage, announcing that he is arriving in London imminently. After an initial urge to flee to avoid testing their unresolved feelings for him, they change their minds and decide to face him and see what happens. They dress for dinner and jump at each phone call, hoping it will be from him. The humor at the center of the play is entirely based on the effects of drunkenness, which I find a low form of humor. After many cocktails and too much champagne, the two wives get very drunk and let all their rivalries and grievances come out. Mayhem ensues. When Maurice finally arrives, it is almost anticlimactic. The women get the better deal here. O’Hara and Byrne both turn out to be experts at pratfalls and other physical comedy. In the first scene, I had trouble understanding Byrne, who speaks very rapidly. Chimo is a delightful scene stealer. As the husbands, Mandvi and Fitzgerald don’t really have much to do except to act smug and entitled. Consuelos still shows traces of the red hot lover of their dreams. David Rockwell’s set design is an Art Deco knockout. Jeff Mahshie’s gowns are gorgeous. Director Scott Ellis shows an affinity for the material. Taken as sheer fluff, the play somewhat succeeds. The audience seemed to be loving it. If there’s any message, I suppose it’s that men shouldn’t take their wives for granted. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Death of a Salesman

A for acting
B for play
C for production

I bring bad news, good news and not-so-good news.

Bad news first. I had misgivings when I learned the producers of the latest revival of Arthur Miller’s iconic 1949 play had selected the Winter Garden as their theater. Both the stage and the auditorium are extremely wide, far more suitable for a spectacle than an intimate family drama. When I entered the theater, my misgivings were more than justified. In Chloe Lamford’s scenic design, the enormous stage resembled an abandoned garage or warehouse with square pillars covered in cinder block and a few pieces of metal furniture scattered here and there. A large garage door dominated the back wall. Everything was painted in a dark gray that could be the color of gloom. Fog is rolling in from offstage. The set practically shouted “Nothing happy is going to take place here.” It also unmoored the play from Miller’s very specific instructions that gave it a place and time – Brooklyn in the late ‘40s when apartment houses were springing up around two-family houses, blocking the air and light, and when the age of travelling salesmen was ending and company loyalty was on the wane. My guess is that the intent was to make the play seem more universal and more brutal, but for me the way to universality is to get the details right. When the play begins, the huge garage door opens and Willy drives in at the wheel of WHAT? – a 1964 Chevy that didn't roll of the assembly until 15 years after the play was written! The play mentions that his current car is a Studebaker, but his fond memories are of the ’28 Chevy he owned that his sons loved to polish. I guess a ’28 Chevy wouldn’t look good on a billboard or Playbill cover. All this may sound petty, but starting the play on a false note is not a good way to begin. By the way, the car sits there for almost the entire play. Except for throwing out the staging instructions, casting separate actors for the young sons, which has been justified by early versions of the script and making a few very minor cuts, director Joe Mantello sticks to the text and lets the tragic tale unwind. Even with the cuts, the play runs for almost three hours.

Now for the good news. The acting is top-notch. The four leading roles of Willy Loman (Nathan Lane), Linda Loman (Laurie Metcalf), Biff Loman (Christopher Abbott) and Happy Loman (Ben Ahlers) are superbly played. The men play it big while Metcalf takes a somewhat quieter approach. The supporting roles of Young Biff (Joaquin Consuelos), Young Happy (Jake Termine), Young Bernard (Karl Green), The Woman (Tasha Lawrence), Charley (K. Todd Freeman), Uncle Ben (Jonathan Cake), Howard Wagner (John Drea), Bernard (Michael Benjamin Washington), Stanley (Jake Silbermann), Miss Forsythe (Katherine Romans) and Letta (Mary Neely) are also all well played. Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you already know the plot. The big moments still work. Linda’s act one monologue is still gripping. Willy’s scene begging his boss for a New York job is still excruciating to watch. Willy and Biff’s big scene together is the emotional heart of the play, bringing many a tear. Only Linda’s final words did not achieve maximum impact for me in this staging. There seemed to be a subtle shift in the play that emphasized Biff at Linda’s expense. Kudos to Rudy Mance for the wonderful period costumes.

And now for the not-so-good news. The play itself has not aged well. It has never been my favorite Miller play – I’ll take View from the Bridge or All My Sons -- and it has problems that were more apparent to me this time out. The interweaving of timelines and actual conversations with imagined ones no longer seems daringly experimental. The frequency of the expressions of delusional hopes becomes wearisome. One major question hovers over the play that has always bothered me. Since the play is set in the late 1940’s -- the introduction of the wire recorder as a consumer item clearly establishes that – where were Biff and Happy during WWII? Surely two such strapping lads would have been drafted. Is it possible that they served but their service had so little effect on them that it is never mentioned? Another puzzler is why is Willy so reluctant to take the job that Charley repeatedly offers? Why is he happy to let Charley support him surreptitiously but won’t work for him? Just asking.

Running time: Just under three hours including intermission.
 

Becky Shaw

A-

I had seen Second Stage’s original production in 2009 but only remembered two things about it: 1) the title character does not appear until late in the first act; 2) another character, superbly played by David Wilson Barnes in that production, was one of the most entertainingly loathsome people I had ever seen on a stage. He made me hate him but also miss him every minute he wasn’t onstage. As Max Garrett, Alden Ehrenreich may not quite reach the heights – or depths – that Barnes reached, but he comes close enough. Nearly everything he utters is at least borderline abusive, but presented so wittily that you almost forgive him and beg for more. The wonderful Linda Emond shines as Susan Slater, the woman who took him in when he was 10 and raised him. She is also a straight shooter who has no tolerance for sentiment. Lauren Patten is very good as her sourpuss mid-30s daughter Suzanna who is emotionally dependent on Max. In the less showy role of her husband, Andrew Porter, Patrick Ball makes a fine, empathetic good guy whose goodness may not be a blessing. Finally, there is our enigmatic title character, well played by Madeline Brewer, who is either a mousy sad sack or a master manipulator or both. The play has an interesting structure – a first act with two long scenes, the first in New York, the second in Providence, and a second act with six short scenes alternating between Providence and Boston and a final longer scene in Richmond. The play opens four months after the death of the Slater paterfamilias, who has left behind financial chaos and a surprising secret. Suzanna can’t stop mourning, while Susan has moved on to vacationing in Key West with a gigolo. Max attempts to pull Suzanna out of her sorrow to reengage with life. He suggests she try skiing. Eight months later, she has a shiny new husband that she met on a ski trip. When the newlyweds decide to fix Max up on a blind date with Becky Shaw, a temp in Andrew’s office, we get a vivid demonstration of the adage that no good deed goes unpunished. Playwright Gina Gionfriddo’s dialogue is continually snappy, her characters are vivid, and there was more laughter than I had heard in a theater in a long time. Some of the laughs came at times that puzzled me -- it was as if the audience had decided to provide a laugh track to the play. Ball, Brewer and Ehrenreich are all making promising Broadway debuts. David Zinn’s minimalist scenic design astonished me with a lavish set change for the final scene. Kaye Voyce’s costumes are apt. The songs played between scenes are well-chosen. Trip Cullman’s direction is well-paced. All in all it was a very entertaining afternoon and I predict it will be one of the season’s hits. I don’t have a clue what message I am supposed to take away from it, but just being entertained is sometimes enough. Running time: two hours 30 minutes including intermission.

Giant

 

 

A

To say that Mark Rosenblatt’s play about Roald Dahl is timely would be a gross understatement. In 1983 Dahl’s review of a photo book about the Israeli bombing of Lebanon crossed the line from moral indignation to anti-Semitism, holding all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions. If we added the word Gaza to Lebanon, this story might have been ripped from today’s headlines. The perplexing question of whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is still debated today. This fact-based drama presents a version of what happened when Dahl’s publishers tried to get him to issue an apology so that sales of his upcoming book The Witches would not suffer. I usually try to avoid spoilers, but the events are mostly a matter of public record. We meet Dahl (John Lithgow) in a lively discussion of the book’s proofs with his British publisher Tom Maschler (Elliot Levey) while they await the arrival of Jessie Stone (Aya Cash), a mid-level sales executive from his American publisher. Felicity (Rachael Stirling), Dahl’s fiancée and former mistress for the last 11 years of his 30-year marriage to Patricia Neal, is preparing lunch. Our first sense that things might not be quite right is when Dahl asks Maschler what “your lot” think about something. When Jessie arrives, she tells Dahl that she is a great fan and asks him to sign a book for her son. The momentary good feelings evaporate when Dahl abruptly asks Stone whether she is a Jew. This sets off an ever-escalating argument over Jewish identity, what responsibility Jews worldwide bear for what Israel does, and what is simply a cover for deep-rooted British anti-Semitism. Felicity tries to play the role of peacemaker with little success. The author is to be credited for giving complexity its due, for not offering easy answers and for not presenting Dahl as a monster. Moments of charm and humor peek through from time to time and Lithgow brilliantly captures how Dahl’s mood can change in a split second. Except for Jessie Stone, the four leading characters are based on real people. Jessie turns out to be a worthy disputant who holds her own against Dahl. They share a brief moment of mutual compassion discussing their brain-injured sons. Dahl keeps trying to drag their young cook Hallie (Stella Everett) into the argument, but she wisely eludes his attempts. He shares a relaxed conversation with his gardener Wally (David Manis) that briefly lowers the temperature and humanizes him. After much “civilized” passive-aggressive back and forth, Dahl seemingly agrees to make an apology but as soon as he is alone he calls a reporter from the New Statesman and gives him an interview that digs him into an even deeper hole and removes any ambiguity about his true feelings. The author has incorporated the actual words of Dahl’s book review and his telephone interview into the text. The main reason to see the show is Lithgow, who creates a complex character about whom it is nigh impossible not to have mixed feelings. We bump against the age-old dispute of whether you can separate the art from the artist. The other actors are excellent, but he is first among equals. Bob Crowley’s set gives us a rather ugly, mustard-walled living room under construction, with plastic sheets covering much of the room including the entire back wall. Perhaps the intent is to show how exposed Dahl is or how big a transition he is going through with his fiancée. Nicholas Hytner’s direction is exemplary. The title might refer either to Dahl's great height (6 ft 6 in) or to his position as an author of children's literature. Although the play makes the incident sound career-destroying, Dahl went on to enjoy many awards and successes. I guarantee that this is a play that will give you lots to talk about afterwards. Running time: two hours 20 minutes.

THEATER TIP: If you go to a Broadway theater for a winter Tuesday performance, dress warmly. The theater has been unheated since the Sunday matinee and takes a while to warm up.