Summer and Smoke

C+

This revival of Tennessee Williams’s 1948 drama marks the first time that either of the two co-producers, Classic Stage Company (CSC) and Transport Group, has presented one of his works. Williams, who took over three years to write the play, was never fully satisfied with it and ended up revising it substantially under the title The Eccentricities of a Nightingale in 1964. Nevertheless, it has been frequently revived, probably because the juicy part of Alma Winemiller has been catnip to a series of fine actresses including Anne Jackson, Geraldine Page, Betsy Palmer, Mary McDonnell, Laila Robins and Amanda Plummer. This time around, Marin Ireland (Big Knife, reasons to be pretty), does the honors, giving a solid performance as the neurasthenic preacher’s daughter who falls in love with the boy next door, John Buchanan (a fine Nathan Darrow; Richard III), son of the town doctor (Phillip Clark; Come Back, Little Sheba). Alma, who is quick to point out that her name is Spanish for “soul,” is looking for spiritual love while John is a sensualist wastrel. He argues that his anatomy chart has no place for a soul. Alma’s father Rev. Winemiller (T. Ryder Smith; Oslo) is strict with her and her mother (Barbara Walsh; Falsettos) is emotionally challenged. Alma gives voice lessons; her favorite pupil is Nellie Ewell (Hannah Elless), a talentless girl with a disreputable mother. John becomes involved with a Mexican beauty Rosa Gonzales (Elena Hurst) whose father (Gerardo Rodriguez) owns the local casino. A tragedy leads John and Alma to reconsider their lives and they essentially switch their philosophical positions. This being a Tennessee Williams play, don’t expect things to end well for the heroine. The minimalist set design by Dane Laffrey (Come Back, Little Sheba) presents a long white rectangle overhung by a matching white dropped ceiling with no props except six antique chairs, an easel with an oil painting representing the angel sculpture/fountain in the town square and, for part of the play, another easel with an anatomy chart. With no other props, the actors must mime such acts as making a phone call, using a stethoscope and eating an ice cream cone. The lack of any division of space sometimes makes it difficult to discern where a scene is taking place. Kathryn Rohe’s costumes effectively set the period as early 20th century.  Director Jack Cummings III; Strange Interlude), artistic director of Transport Group, deals effectively with the problem of playing to an audience seated on three sides. I was glad to have the opportunity to see this minor play by an important American playwright, but I disliked a lot about the production. Running time: two hours 30 minutes including intermission. 

NOTE: CSC managed to annoy me before the play even began. As usual, I had to run the gauntlet of coffee house patrons to get their box office. Today, after making it to the auditorium, I learned that programs would not be distributed until after the play. For no discernible reason, the audience was forced to watch the play without the names of the actors, the setting of the play or whether there would be an intermission. I cannot think of any possible justification for this policy. When I finally got my hands on the program, I perused it carefully for possible “spoilers” but could find nothing other than the fact that one of the actors is married to the director. I hope they stop this ridiculous policy immediately.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

B-

A well-timed tax refund gave me an excuse to indulge my inner child and spend a king’s ransom on a ticket for this award-winning two-part extravaganza from London. As an avid fan of the seven Potter novels and eight films, I was curious to see how well J.K. Rowling’s creations would translate to the stage. Clearly the producers expected a very long run or they would not have invested $60+ million on a stunning renovation of the Lyric Theatre. Because of all the hype, I was afraid that the play by Jack Thorne, based on a story by Rowling, Thorne and John Tiffany, could not live up to my high expectations. My fears were, to some extent, justified. The play, set 22 years after the end of the last novel, has a timeless theme — the fraught relationship between parent and child — particularly father/son. The plot device of time travel opens up the opportunity for several clever touches. There is a wonderful cast of 40, mostly imported from London, a striking set design by Christine Jones evocatively lit by Neil Austin, terrific movement direction by Steven Hoggett, excellent costumes by Katrina Lindsay and seamless direction by John Tiffany. The illusions and magic by Jamie Harrison are often breathtaking. We meet Albus Potter (Sam Clemmett), awkward younger son of Harry (Jamie Parker) and Ginny Potter (Poppy Miller), as he is about to begin his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ron Weasley (the droll Paul Thornley) and his wife Hermione Granger (the terrific Noma Dumezweni) are also seeing their daughter off to Hogwarts. On the train, Albus befriends the nerdy Scorpius Malfoy (the wonderful Anthony Boyle), son of Harry’s archrival at Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy (Alex Price). The relationship of the two outcast boys reaches bromance proportions. The problem for me was that I found the plot both convoluted and repetitious. It did not succeed in holding my interest for over five hours. Even though I consider myself fairly well-versed in the Potter canon, I occasionally became confused. At times, the British accents were surprisingly difficult to understand. Unless you are familiar with either the novels or the movies, you will be totally lost trying to figure out what is going on or why the audience is wildly applauding the appearance of a new character. While I am not sorry I saw the show, I would have enjoyed it more if there had been less of it. I suspect it is critic-proof and will run for several years. Running time: about 2 hours 40 minutes for each of the two parts, including an intermission.

We Live by the Sea

B-

The 2018 season of Brits Off Broadway at 59E59 Theaters is off to a strong start with this powerful play about autism. “Devised by” the London theater company Patch of Blue, working with the National Autistic Society, the play tells the story of Katy (an amazing Alexandra Brain), a 15-year-old year on the spectrum, who lives with her sister Hannah (Alexandra Simonet) and her imaginary dog Paul Williams (Lizzie Grace) in a seaside English village. Their mother ran off when Katy was diagnosed and their father died a year ago, so Hannah has had to put her own life on hold to care for Katy. When Ryan (Tom Coliandris), an 18-year-old who has just moved to town from London after a tragedy, meets the sisters, the three draw strength from each other. The stories Katy likes to tell to provide order to her experience are cleverly recreated with such simple props as an electric fan and a pair of desk lamps. Two onstage musicians, Josh Flowers and Julianna Zachariou, enhance the production with music by The Mason Brothers. Alex Howarth, founder of Patch of Blue, directs with assurance. My heart went out to Hannah, because Katy’s erratic behavior with its frequent outbursts of raw emotion was hard to endure for 90 minutes, let alone 24 hours a day. My center aisle seat in the second row turned out to be too close for comfort when the actors sat down on the steps just inches away. Much as I admired the play, I often found it painful to sit through. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Transfers

B+

Through a scheduling fluke, we have two interesting plays about college admissions running at the same time — Admissions by Joshua Harmon at Lincoln Center Theater and now Transfers by Lucy Thurber in an MCC production at Lucille Lortel Theatre. Both are worth seeing. (Go to https://gothamplaygoer.blogspot.com/2018/03/admissions.html for my review of Admissions.) In Ms. Thurber’s play, we meet two students from a New York community college, one African-American, the other Hispanic, who are vying with six other applicants for a chance to attend an elite New England liberal arts institution. This university admits two worthy low-income transfer students annually as a rather grudging token gesture toward affirmative action. We also meet the three members of the selection committee, an African-American humanities professor, a women’s rugby coach and a recruiter for the scholarship program. Clarence Matthews (Ato Blankson-Wood; Iphigenia in Aulis, Lysistrata Jones) is gay, black and an avid reader. Cristofer Rodriguez (Juan Castano; A Parallelogram) is a great wrestler, rough-edged and unfiltered. It turns out that the two boys knew each other in the Bronx when they were younger, under fraught circumstances. David DeSantos (Glenn Davis; Wig Out!) not only has recruited them but attempts to prep them for their admissions interviews. The bookish Clarence’s interview with Professor Geoffrey Dean (Leon Addison Brown; The Trip to Bountiful; Master Harold and the Boys) seems to go very well. Cristofer’s interview with Coach Rosie McNulty (Samantha Soule; The Philanthropist, Barbecue) is both hilarious and moving. When the committee meets, the behavior of its three members does not always conform to our expectations. Interesting questions about readiness for college versus worthiness for college are raised. Ms. Thurber (The Hill Town Plays) knows how to create vivid characters and write lively dialogue. The scenes occasionally run on too long. The story of what happened back in the Bronx remains a bit murky. The ending seemed a bit contrived. Nevertheless, the play fully engaged my interest. The actors are all fine, especially Mr. Castano, whose Cristofer is one of the most memorable characters I have seen on a New York stage this season. The scenic design by Donyale Werle (The Legend of Georgia McBride, Peter and the Starcatcher) transforms smoothly to five different locations. The costumes by Jessica Ford (Stuffed, These Paper Bullets) are apt. Jackson Gay’s (Stuffed, These Paper Bullets) direction is seamless. This will be MCC’s final production at the Lortel before their move to the Far West 50’s. I will miss them, but am glad they are ending on a high note. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

The Band's Visit revisited

I have been eager to attend this show again to see how well it made the transition from off-Broadway to Broadway. I didn’t want to spend a fortune so I have been entering the show’s $40 lottery (thebandsvisitlottery.com) whenever I could and finally got lucky, landing a good seat in the second row of the mezzanine.

Here is what I had to say about the show the first time I saw it:

 Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Band's Visit

B+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting this musical adaptation of the popular 2007 Israeli film about an Egyptian police band that inadvertently becomes stranded overnight in an isolated town while on a goodwill visit to Israel. The music and lyrics are by David Yazbek (The Full Monty) and the book is by Itamar Moses (Bach at Leipzig). The songs are well-integrated into the story with much of the music being performed by actors playing band members. The book, faithful to the screenplay almost to a fault, incorporates large chunks of dialog from the film. It is virtually impossible to develop 20 characters in any depth in 95 minutes even without making time for a dozen songs. In some cases, we get a bare sketch, but in others, the characterization actually goes deeper than in the film. The show is greatly enhanced by a fine cast and high production values. Katrina Lenk (Indecent) is excellent as Dina, owner of the town cafe. John Cariani (Something Rotten!) brings richness to the role of Itzik. Ari’el Stachel is just right as the band’s young hunk Haled. George Abud and Sam Sadigursky are standouts as actor-musicians. Last but not least, Tony Shalhoub (The Price) brings dignity and compassion to the role of Tewfiq, the bandleader. The evocative scenic design by Scott Pask (Something Rotten!) makes effective use of a revolving stage. Sarah Laux’s (The Humans) costumes fit their characters well. The direction by David Cromer (Tribes, Our Town) is fluid and assured. The result is an intimate, engaging show with an edge of poignancy. I could not suppress a twinge of regret over how badly the situation in Egypt and Israel has deteriorated since 1996, the year in which the story is set. Running time: one hour, 35 minutes; no intermission.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that very little had changed. Except for the replacement of Tony Shalhoub by Dariush Kashani (Oslo, The Invisible Hand), the cast was the same. The beauty of the score remains the highlight for me, along with the strong performance by Katrina Lenk. Kashani is creditable, but lacks Shalhoub’s barely masked sadness. The pacing seemed a bit sluggish, but it clocked in at only five minutes longer than at the Atlantic. Somehow, the various elements did not cohere as well for me this time around. The band’s musical number during the curtain call was enjoyable, but seemed tacked on. I heard considerable grumbling from people around me who were expecting a more traditional Broadway musical. Apparently, it’s not for everyone, but if you enjoy a low-key poignant story with gorgeous music, you will be rewarded. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

Mlima's Tale

B-

This new work by two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage (Ruined, Sweat), now at The Public Theater, is a moral tale about the illicit ivory trade. If you have been hiding under a rock, you might not know that poachers are still killing elephants for their tusks even though the ivory trade has been outlawed. Ms. Nottage traces the path from the brutal killing of Mlima, one of Kenya’s oldest and largest elephants, to the unveiling of the art work created from his tusks at a rich collector’s penthouse. Along the way, we meet the greedy and corrupt people who fund the poachers, bribe the police, shipping company and customs officials; commission the art and carve the ivory with pretended concern for its  source. All these people are played by three fine actors — Kevin Mambo (The Fortress of Solitude), Jojo Gonzalez (Small Mouth Sounds) and Ito Aghayere (Junk, Familiar). Occasionally  I became confused about who they were playing at any given moment. The fact that the first roles played by Ms. Aghayere are men compounded my confusion. Ms. Nottage attempts with intermittent success to give the characters enough individuality to keep them from seeming just cogs in a machine. Her most stunning creation is Mlima, charismatically portrayed by Sahr Ngaujah (Fela!, Master Harold and the Boys) more by movement than by words. Mlima is a witness to the action who daubs each character with white paint as each becomes a guilty participant. Perhaps this marks them for future haunting or punishment; they receive none here. The spare set design by Riccardo Hernandez (Miss You Like Hell, Indecent), expressively lit by Lap Chi Chu, avoids distraction. Between scenes, texts that I assume are African maxims, are projected. Jennifer Moeller’s (Sweat, Cardinal) costumes are a big help in identifying the characters. Musician Justin Hicks plays the drums and occasionally sings evocatively. Jo Bonney (Father Comes Home from the War) directs with great fluidity. It’s all admirable, but a bit remote and didactic, unlike previous plays by Ms. Nottage that I have enjoyed. Running time: one hour 20 minutes, no intermission.

Miss You Like Hell

C

Take some social issues — an unforgiving immigration policy, a broken justice system, suicidal teenage depression, Latin pride, same-sex marriage — add music, shake lightly, sprinkle with a dash of feminism, and you might end up with something like the new musical at the Public Theater. The book by Pulitzer winner Quiara Alegria Hudes (In the Heights, Water by the Spoonful) is actually a reworking and musicalization of her earlier play 26 Miles. The two principal characters are Beatriz (Daphne Rubin-Vega; Daphne's Dive, Rent), an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, and Olivia (Gizel Jimenez; Party People), the 16-year-old daughter she had with an Anglo-American. Olivia lives with her father in Philadelphia and has not seen her mother in four years since Beatriz took off for California. Beatriz suddenly shows up in the middle of the night, allegedly to spend a week with her daughter after reading her suicidal threats on her blog “Castaways.” Her ulterior motive is to get Olivia to California to testify as a character witness in her final hearing before possible deportation. How a 16-year-daughter who hasn’t seen her mother in four years could serve as a plausible character witness is one of the weakest plot points. Olivia reluctantly agrees on the condition that they stop at Yellowstone so she can meet Pearl (Latoya Edwards; Polkadots), a young park ranger who is a loyal reader of her blog. Along the way they meet Higgins (David Patrick Kelly; Once) and Mo (Michael Mulheren; Kiss Me, Kate), a gay couple who are on a mission to renew their vows in all 50 states, and Manuel (Danny Bolero; In the Heights), a widowed tamale vendor. The diverse ensemble cast also includes Marinda Anderson, Andrew Cristi, Shawna M. Hamic and Marcus Paul James. Ms. Rubin-Vega and Ms. Jimenez are both quite strong in their roles. The music by Erin McKeown, in a variety of generic styles, is serviceable. The scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez (Indecent, The Invisible Hand) reconfigures the Newman Theater to offer a deep square stage platform with two rows of audience seats on the sides and seats for the performers at the rear. Emilio Sosa (On Your Feet!, Sex with Strangers) has costumed the characters aptly. The lighting design by Tyler Micoleau is important to varying the mood. Lear deBessonet (The Tempest, Venus) directed. I really wanted to like it, but was disappointed that it did not offer any real illumination on the many issues it touched on. Honesty requires that I report that most of the audience seemed quite enthusiastic. Running time: one hour 40 minutes, no intermission.

My Fair Lady

A

Bartlett Sher and Lincoln Center Theater have done it again. With their wonderful revivals of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific and The King and I, they had set the bar for musical revivals very high. Nevertheless, they have managed to outdo themselves with this spectacular production of Lerner and Loewe’s much-loved musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. In the roles created by Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, Sher boldly cast two actors whose names are not instantly recognizable and who had not previously been seen in musicals, Harry Hadden-Paton ("Downton Abbey," "The Crown") as Professor Henry Higgins and Lauren Ambrose (Awake and Sing!; "Six Feet Under") as Eliza Doolittle. Sher’s gamble has paid off handsomely. In addition to her considerable acting chops, Ms. Ambrose turns out to have a lovely voice. Mr. Hadden-Patton is a fine actor who negotiates the transition between speaking and singing with great skill. As Eliza’s father Alfred P. Doolittle, the ever-enjoyable Norbert Leo Butz (Catch Me If You Can, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) threatens to steal the show. Allan Corduner (Titanic, "Topsy-Turvy"), a stalwart of the London theater scene, is excellent as Colonel Pickering. Theater icon Diana Rigg (Medea, The Misanthrope) lends dignity and warmth to the role of Mrs. Higgins. Jordan Donica (The Phantom of the Opera) makes a handsome, vocally adept Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a role I find underwritten. Linda Mugleston (Beautiful, On the 20th Century) is properly unflappable as Higgins’s housekeeper Mrs. Pearce. Manu Narayan (Bombay Dreams) seems a bit too broad and effete as Hungarian linguist Professor Zoltan Karpathy. In addition to his wonderful two-level revolving main set for the interior of 27A Wimpole Street, Michael Yeargan (Oslo, The King and I) has created an evocative Covent Garden, an opulent embassy ballroom, a minimalist but clever setting for Ascot, for Mrs. Higgins’s solarium and for the interior of Doolittle’s favorite pub. The period costumes by Catherine Zuber (Junk, Oslo, The King and I) are superb. The choreography by Christopher Gattelli (The King and I, Newsies) is fine, although I didn’t understand why there were gender-bending chorines in the pub scene. The large orchestra under Ted Sperling is wonderful and gets to appear onstage en masse at the ball. The music, lyrics and book remain among the best ever written for a musical. Bartlett Sher (also Oslo, Golden Boy, Fiddler on the Roof) has brought it all together seamlessly and satisfyingly. It’s a near-perfect production of what many have called the perfect musical. My only reservation is about the ending, where Sher has chosen to follow Shaw rather than Lerner and Loewe (Camelot, Brigadoon, Gigi). Without that quibble, I would have given it an A+. Running time: two hours 55 minutes including intermission.

Yerma

B+

Although the Olivier which it was awarded was for Best Revival of a Play, the Young Vic production of Yerma now at the Park Avenue Armory is hardly a revival in the usual sense. With a different location, period, social class, motivation, outcome and text, there is not a lot left of Lorca’s 1934 drama except for the theme of a woman undone by infertility. What we get instead, in the words of the program, is a “radically reimagined adaptation.” Author/director Simon Stone has confined the actors to a glass box with stadium seating on facing sides. The voyeuristic effect is striking, but also distancing. The fact that the actors are heard only as mic’d voices is a bit unnerving. The play is divided into seven chapters. Video surtitles during blackouts announce the chapters and scenes and occasionally contextualize them. Some of the set changes between scenes are magically rapid. The downside is that to drown out the sounds of moving sets, there are deafening blasts of choral music. In this high-concept environment, the actors have their work cut out for them. Fortunately, they are up to the task and then some. As the title character, known in this version only as Her, Billie Piper plays a London newspaper journalist and blogger. Her long-time lover and then husband John (Brendan Cowell) is a businessman who is often away on international trips. Her mother Helen (Maureen Beattie) is a cold-blooded academic who is anything but maternal. Her sister Mary (Charlotte Randle) doesn’t let a bad marriage prevent her from repeatedly getting pregnant. Her ex-lover Victor (John MacMillan), whose child she had aborted a decade before, suddenly reappears in her life. Her young assistant Des (Thalissa Teixeira) encourages Her to blog about the painful experiences of trying to conceive, irrespective of the embarrassment it might cause others. It is painful to watch Her change from the brash confident woman we initially meet into the desperate, unhinged woman she becomes. Ms. Piper does not hold back; it is easy to see why she won the Olivier for her performance. Mr. Cowell is a fine foil for her. I admire Mr. Stone and designer Lizzie Clachan for the originality of their concept, even though I found it somewhat alienating. It was a stimulating evening. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

Children of a Lesser God

C+

The years have not been kind to Mark Medoff’s drama about deafness. Since it arrived on Broadway in 1980, there have been better plays, e.g. Tribes, and better films, e.g. Sound and Fury, on the subject of deafness and deaf rights. I would assume that it won its Tony and Olivier more for the seriousness and, at the time, novelty of its subject matter than for its artistic merit. In any case, it’s back on Broadway in a Roundabout production that has been imported basically intact from a Berkshire Theatre Group run. Joshua Jackson (Smart People, "The Affair") plays James Leeds, a speech instructor at a residential school for the deaf. When the school’s head, Mr. Franklin (Anthony Edwards; A Month in the Country), asks him to work with Sarah Norman (Lauren Ridloff), a graduate of the school who is still on campus as a maid, Leeds promptly falls in love with her. He tries unsuccessfully to persuade her to learn lip reading and to attempt to speak. He visits her mother (Kecia Lewis; Leap of Faith, Marie and Rosetta), who placed Sarah in the school as a child and has basically turned her back on her. Orin Dennis (John McGinty; Veritas), a student who has learned to read lips and speak, has been Sarah’s close friend for years and is jealous of her relationship with Leeds. Lydia (Treshelle Edmond; Spring Awakening) is a childlike student who has a crush on Leeds. When James and Sarah marry, the outlook is uncertain. In the second act, the play turns polemical when Orin tries to enlist Sarah to join him in an action against the school for job discrimination against the deaf. Edna Klein (Julee Cerda) is the attractive lawyer whom Orin recruits. Much of the second act is clunky. Mr. Franklin, James, Sarah and Mrs. Norman get together for an unlikely bridge game. The polemic and the personal compete awkwardly for our attention. Near the end, there is a big cathartic scene that, for many, will have made the long buildup worthwhile. The strongest argument for seeing this revival is the powerful performance by Ms. Ridloff. It is easy to see why James would be so attracted to her. Mr. Jackson gives a creditable performance in a demanding role, although I would have liked a little more variety. Mr. McGinty is strong as Orin. Kecia Lewis is impressive as Sarah’s mother. Mr. Edwards and Ms. Edmond do their best with cartoonish roles. The direction by Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun, Fences) is assured, but I wish he had made a few cuts. I did not care for Derek McLane’s (The Parisian Woman, The Price) set, which features several blue door frames painted a garish salmon pink on the inside and several tree trunks. The costumes by Dede Ayite (School Girls, Mankind) are fine. There are surtitles above the proscenium arch which you will not be able to read if you are sitting in the first few rows. Running time: two hours 25 minutes, including intermission.