I Became We

A

Who would have thought that the inner musings of a mid-thirties Manhattanite could be the basis for a cantata for a 16-member choir? Fortunately, Mona Pirnot (lyrics) and Jack D. Cohen (music and lyrics) thought so and created this delightful work that is now onstage at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater. This semiautobiographical work turns Pirnot’s day-to-day thoughts about her marriage, her friends, her mother and her future, including the decision whether to have a child, into a seamless musical work of a complexity worthy of a modern-day Bach. The singers (Alison Cheeseman, Paul Chwe MinChul An, Nathan Fletcher, Natalie Holt, Oliver Holt, Heather Jones, Helen Karloski, Kathryn McCreary, Neil Netherly, Logan Pitts, Carrie Quarquesso, AnnMarie Sandy, Michael Steinberger, Gregorio Taniguchi, Tyler Tejada and Zen Wu) all have wonderful voices that blend together beautifully; I wish I could single out the soloists and the quartet that sings a capella, but the program doesn’t identify them. Midway through the piece, a 17^th choir member appears (Paige Nesle), a child who personifies the protagonist as a girl. The contrast between the ordinary, conversational lyrics, which often rhyme, and the elevated musical idiom is pleasurable. The supertitles over the stage are helpful. There are lots of laughs too. The narrative arc runs from lighthearted to philosophical. Mimi Lien’s simple set includes a set or risers and three large wooden acoustic panels. The Steinway grand piano on the left is skillfully played by the composer. Louisa Thompson and Gylanni Carrington have dressed the choir members all in black. The subtle lighting by Tuçe Yasak enhances the production. Andrew Henderson conducts the choir and Sarah Benson is director. It is truly a unique experience that I very much enjoyed. My guess is that many choirs will be eager to perform it. Running time: 70 minutes, no intermission.

Wanted

 

B-

When an earlier version of this show, then called Gun and Powder, ran at Paper Mill Playhouse two years ago, the New York Times named it a Critic’s Pick. While my reaction is considerably less enthusiastic, I can say that it contains lots of wonderful singing, especially by the actors playing the two Clarke sisters, Mary (Solea Pfeiffer) and Martha (Liisi LaFontaine) and their mother Tallulah (the phenomenal Ledisi). The story, set in 1893 Texas, is “inspired by ancestral family lore” of Angelica Chéri, who wrote the book and lyrics. The Clarke sisters, who were light-skinned, decided to leave home for somewhere else where they could pass for white and get better jobs than cotton picking. Their goal is to earn enough money to buy their land from their evil landlord Mr. Billingsley (Nathan Quay Thomas). They inadvertently stumble into a life of crime. When they meet the handsome, wealthy Jesse (Bradley Jaden) he takes a shine to them and sets them up in his hotel and outfits them with all the accoutrements of fine ladies. He is particularly drawn to Mary, who reciprocates his interest and is more than happy to abandon her roots. Meanwhile, Martha is attracted to Elijah (Luke James), a black man in Jesse’s employ. We also meet Sissy (Aurelia Williams) and Flo (Awa Sal Secka), Jesse’s two black housemaids, who provide comic relief. A chorus of eight in white robes comments on the action. I won’t say more about the plot in order not to spoil it for you. Ross Baum’s score, which combines gospel, rock and other popular genres, provides ample opportunities for the actors to show us their vocal talents. Chéri’s book moves in fits and starts and left me with lots of questions. I cannot comment knowledgeably about her lyrics, because I couldn’t make out a substantial portion of them due either to poor diction or overloud orchestration. A large “Wanted” poster curtain opens to Beowulf Boritt’s set, consisting of the timbered frame of a house which reconfigures smoothly to create other settings. At one point the timbers light up with neon-like tubing, which seemed out of place. The costumes by Emilio Sosa, particularly the fancy dresses, are eye-catching. The video and projection design by Stefania Bulbarella is hyperactive. The choreography by Chesley Arce blends smoothly into the production. Stevie Walker-Webb’s direction is fluid. I am curious how the show, now in previews at the James Earl Jones Theatre, will be received. In its favor, there is a dearth of new musicals currently on Broadway. The gorgeous singing may be enough of a draw.  They seem to have a good marketing plan – I was sitting in the midst of a group of church ladies who had come by bus from Hartford and were having a wonderful time. I might have enjoyed it more if I could have made out more of the lyrics. I found the ending more satisfying vocally than dramatically. It was interesting to be exposed to a story and idiom that was different from my usual fare. Running time: two hours 35 minutes, including intermission.

 

The Visitors

 

B

When you enter the Irene Diamond Theater at the Pershing Square Signature Center to see Second Stage’s new dramedy by Bryna Turner, you are greeted by a set (by Kate Noll) that is sure to evoke real estate envy – a sprawling Manhattan loft with double height windows, a sleeping loft, and a surfeit of furnishings that give it a thoroughly lived-in feel. I could have spent an hour examining it up close. It’s the home of Joanna (Mary Wiseman) and Naomi (Esco Jouléy), a lesbian couple in their thirties. Joanna has summoned to New York her three siblings – Henry (Will Pullen), her abrasive older brother who seems perpetually angry; her older sister Theresa (Celia Keenan-Bolger), an unfulfilled homemaker undergoing a middle-age crisis; and younger brother Rory (Danny Wolohan), the family pariah, who has been absent for many years due to an addiction problem and whom Henry hates with fierce intensity – to ask them for a mysterious major favor. It’s probably not the one you expect. It’s very hard to discuss the plot without spoiling it for you. Suffice it to say that Joanna’s request puts her siblings’ love to the test and brings out tensions that have been kept under wraps for years. There are some enjoyable twists and turns along the way. The acting is uniformly strong and the dialog is snappy. There are a few weaknesses in the plot. It wasn’t clear to me why Henry arrived with his infant but without his wife; I at first thought that Theresa was his wife, not his sister. There are subplots about Naomi’s strong attachment to her recently deceased mother and Theresa’s latest obsession that don’t really blend in well. At the granular level, I couldn’t figure out where the brothers were sleeping. More consequentially, the ending was a letdown. The costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter seemed apt. Other than the fact that the actors had to work hard between scenes moving furniture, Jenna Worsham’s direction was seamless. Despite the problems I have mentioned, I was glad to have seen the play and can give it a qualified recommendation. Running time: 95 minutes without intermission.

The Unbelievers

c

My previous experience with Nick Payne’s plays is mixed: I hated If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet but liked Constellations and found Incognito interesting. I tried to approach his family drama now in previews for its American premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage 1 with an open mind. The main draw for me was Lauren Ambrose, whose career I have followed from young daughter on “Six Feet Under” to Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. It was somewhat of a shock to see her playing an unglamorous mother of three. She plays Miriam, whose 15-year-old son Oscar has disappeared. We meet her two ex-husbands, Rev. Karl Khoury (Hadi Tabbal) and David Wright (Tom Riley), her two young adult daughters, Nancy Khoury (Nina Ross) and Margaret Wright (Elizabeth Yeoman), Margaret’s boyfriend Benjamin (Jack DiFalco), Police Constables Jay Shah and Angela Fisher (Jaspal Binning and Brittany Bradford, both of whom also play another small role), Detective Constable Elizabeth Hawkins (Marjan Neshat) and Lorraine (also Neshat), David’s new love interest. The action takes place over a period of seven years in short scenes that are unfortunately scrambled out of sequence, making it difficult to know where in the story the scene you are watching fits. It took me the first 20 minutes or so just to figure out who was who. The play depicts the different effects Oscar’s disappearance has on different family members. The title apparently refers to those who refuse to consider the possibility that Oscar is still alive, which, after seven years, includes everyone but Miriam. There are a few moments of levity along the way and a pair of songs sung by Nancy for reasons unclear, but the emphasis is on Miriam’s fierce, relentless behavior that boils over at times to frightening proportions. We learn very little about any of the characters other than how they react to Oscar’s disappearance. The inclusion of a second ex-husband for Miriam seemed to me completely gratuitous. The ending leaves us completely up in the air. On the positive side, the acting is excellent. Ambrose throws herself into the role to a point that she is truly terrifying at key moments. Neshat is very strong as Lorraine. The puzzling scenic design by Paul Steinberg turns the right third of the stage into four pairs of pews for part of the audience. Although Karl is a vicar, there is nothing in the play to justify this strange choice. The costumes by Enver Chakartash were suitable. Director Knud Adams might have done more to differentiate the scenes to clarify when they occurred. There is room for a thoughtful play about the effects of the disappearance of a family member on those left behind and their need to let go and move on with their lives. Unfortunately, this is not the play. Running time:110 minutes without intermission.
                  

Lincoln in the Bardo

A-

To prepare for attending this opera, I felt obligated to read the book first, i.e. George Saunders’s 2017 Mann-Booker prize-winning novel about the fantastical events at Georgetown’s Oak Hill Cemetery the night after the funeral of President Lincoln’s 11-year-old son Willie. I must confess that, while I admired what Saunders was attempting, I did not enjoy reading the book. Furthermore, I thought it very brave of composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek to try to turn it into an opera. I am happy to report that they succeeded admirably. With the contributions of the rest of the creative team, including director Lileana Blain-Cruz, set designer Adam Rigg, costume designer Montana Levi Blanco, co-lighting designers Yi Zhao and Stacey Derosier, co-projection designers Hanna Wasileski and Hana S. Kim, puppeteer and creature suit designer James Ortiz, illusion and special effects designer Jeremy A. Chernick, choreographer Raja Feather Kelly, the Metropolitan Opera has a new remarkable work of stagecraft in its repertory. I am less enthusiastic about the music. Although the orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin plays the score beautifully and it serves the libretto perfectly, it does not linger on the ear – at least not on my ear. There are some excellent set pieces (I hesitate to call them arias) like Lincoln’s song about his son, “Poor Little Chap,” but nothing that I thought could have independent life outside the opera. The singers are all excellent: Everett Sobers as Willie; Peter Mattei as Lincoln, who is grieving not only over Willie’s death but the mounting casualties in the Civil War; Vollman (Ryan McKinny), the printer who was struck by a beam on the night he was to consummate his marriage [his frustration is signified by a giant phallus several feet long that rises and falls as needed with the help of a puppeteer and which, thankfully, disappears after one scene]; Bevins (Jonah Hoskins), whose rejection by his male lover led him to slit his wrists; Reverend (Christine Goerke), who is the only character who knows that everyone there in the Bardo, the transitional place on the way to their final resting place, is dead, not just sick; that what they call their sick-beds are actually coffins [I assume that the casting of the role with a woman was to obtain greater vocal variety]; Mr. and Mrs. Baron (Craig Colclough and Stephanie Blythe), the comic relief lowlife couple who were run over by a carriage while copulating in the road; Miss Elise Traynor (Anthony Roth Costanzo, in another cross-gender role), a teenage girl who died just as her life was flowering and is now trapped by tendrils in the cemetery fence for eternity; Mrs. Frances Hodge (Janai Brugger), a black woman who lives in a tree, who is consumed with the desire for vengeance against the man who took her children from her; Litzie (Viviana Goodwin), the traumatized young black girl that Mrs. Hodge protects; and Thomas Havens (Joshua Blue), a slave whose master worked him to death, who leads Lincoln to empathize with the lot of black people. The excellent performance of the chorus should not go unmentioned. The plot, in a nutshell, is that the Reverend, Bevins and Vollman want to persuade Willie to leave the Bardo before he is trapped by tendrils like Miss Traynor. Willie refuses to leave because he is certain that his father will come back to take him home. They must somehow influence Lincoln to say a definitive goodbye to his son. The stagecraft is filled with marvelous tricks: when someone “matterlightblooms,” i.e. leaves the Bardo, there is a flash of fireworks; at a simpler level, when a ghost inhabits Lincoln’s body, Lincoln’s white shirt lights up. Everything added up to a unique theatrical experience that I found quite rewarding. Running time: two hours 45 minutes including intermission.
 

Theater Bulletin: "School Girls" To Livestream Final Week of Performances

 

If you can't attend Manhattan Theatre Club's acclaimed production of Jocelyn Bioh's School Girls or The African Mean Girls Play (which I gave an A- rating) in person, you can stream the final week of performances in the comfort of your home, through the cooperation of Manhattan Theatre Club and the League of Live Stream Theater (lost.org). Audiences may purchase a $59 ticket (inclusive of $9 service fee) for one of the following performances at lolst.org . Tuesday, November 10 at 7:00 PM Wednesday, November 11 at 2:00 PM Wednesday, November 11 at 7:00 PM Thursday, November 12 at 7:00 PM Friday, November 13 at 7:00 PM Saturday, November 14 at 2:00 PM Saturday, November 14 at 7:00 PM Sunday, November 15 at 2:00 PM

The Heart

 B+

For its first musical at the Laura Pels Theatre in several years, Roundabout has chosen this import from La Jolla Playhouse on a topic that doesn’t sound like a promising one for a musical – a heart transplant. Composers and lyricists Anne and Ian Eisendrath and book and additional lyrics writer Kait Kerrigan have adapted Réparer les Vivants, the 2014 novel by Maylis de Kerangal into a fast-paced 90-minute musical about the events between the arrival to the hospital of a 19-year-old surfer Simon Lamar (Nick T. Daly) seriously injured in an auto accident and the successful transplant of his heart into Claire (Heidi Blickenstaff), a 50-year-old woman who, after three years, is about to give up on the transplant waiting list. We meet Simon’s divorced parents, Marianne (Joaquina Kalukango) and Sean (Jason Tam), who must make the awful decision whether to donate Simon’s organs once he is declared brain dead; Thomas (Lincoln Clauss), the hospital official who must gently coax them into a decision to donate; Cordelia (Bre Jackson), a nurse who is upbraided for singing to Simon; Marthe (Wren Rivera), the organ transplant list clerk who must make snap life or death decisions; Dr. Breva (Drew Gehling), the hotshot surgeon who will perform the transplant; and Juliette (Max Mackenna), Simon’s DJ girlfriend. Each gets a song to express their perspective. All the actors play secondary roles as well. The electronic score includes a few fine songs that could stand on their own elsewhere. Some of the actors, including Clauss, Jackson and Kalukango, have exceptional voices that I wished I could have heard more of. The majority of play takes place in the hospital and could pass for a musicalized episode of The Pitt. Mandy Moore’s choreography captures the seemingly disorganized mayhem of an ER and an OR. We also get flashbacks of Simon’s joy in surfing and Juliette’s dj work. I would have liked more about Claire and less about Juliette. Robert Brill’s scenic design is simple but works effectively with Lucy Mackinnon’s excellent projections. The costumes by Serafina Bush are apt. The direction, by Roundabout’s Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, is smooth and sure. While the show is uneven, at its best it is very good. Roundabout is to be commended for trying something a bit different. I was glad that I saw it. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.