El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego

 

B-

Having greatly enjoyed the two most recent new productions of the Met season, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Innocence,  I was hoping for a trifecta with this New York premiere. Alas, it was not to be. While I admire the ambition of composer Gabriela Lena Frank and librettist Nilo Cruz, the result of their efforts is a mixed bag. The overstuffed production by director/choreographer Deborah Colker is partly to blame. The libretto is almost a mirror of the Orpheus story. Instead of Diego going to the Underworld to bring Frida back, Frida returns from the Underworld on the Day of the Dead to bring Diego back. That’s the plot in a nutshell, except that it is padded by a totally unrelated subplot about a Garbo impersonator who wants to bring joy to a devoted fan with a visit from her. There are also philosophical meditations on art and life that don’t easily lend themselves to dramatization. The libretto does little to flesh out the two main characters. Isabel Leonard and Carlos Alvarez are credible in the title roles, but Leonard’s voice often did not project well over the orchestra. Most notable vocally and dramatically was Gabriella Reyes, as Catrina, Keeper of the Dead. Nils Wanderer was fine as Leonardo, the Garbo impersonator. I’m sure Jon Bausor’s cluttered sets have many allegorical meanings that I missed. The costumes, by Bausor and Wilberth Gonzalez, are a riot of color. Colker’s staging often crams the excellent large Met chorus onstage either to move around aimlessly or just stand there. Dancers occasionally reflect or emphasize the narrative. Finally, there’s the score, ably conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin. It provides a lush sonic carpet to support the voices but has virtually no highs or lows. There were no arias with a clear ending that provided opportunity for applause. All in all, it was a disappointment. Running time: two hours 25 minutes including one intermission.

Indian Princesses

B

This gentle seriocomedy now at Atlantic Theater Company in a coproduction with Rattlestick Theater is named for an actual YMCA program founded in 1954 whose purpose was to foster the bond between fathers and their young daughters through outdoor activities and crafts. As sensitivity to cultural appropriation increased, all Native American references were removed and it was renamed Adventure Princesses, under which name it still operates today. In the present play, we meet five members of a small new “tribe” in a midwestern city and the men in their lives. The time is specified as the recession of 2008, which actually is not that relevant to the story. The religiose Glen (the always excellent Frank Wood) is the tribe’s founder and his hapless granddaughter Samantha (Haley Wong) is its first member. Chris (Greg Keller, also an actor I am always glad to see), a lawyer from New York, has brought his two stepdaughters Lily (Annisa Marie Griego) and Hazel (Serenity Mariana), who actually have some Native-American blood. Mac (Pete Simpson), a construction worker who is mourning the recent death of his wife, has reluctantly enrolled his shy daughter Andi (Rebecca Jimenez), who, at 12, is the oldest of the group. Wayne (Ben Beckley), an out-of-work techie, is adoptive father to Maisey (Lark White), who is black. In decreasing order of importance, the story intertwines the relationships among the girls, between them and their father figures, and among the men. Moments of pathos occasionally punctuate moments of humor. The acting is all top-notch and the themes touched upon, including overzealous attempts to protect daughters from the real world, parental failure to be attentive, racism, the beauty and difficulty of friendships and the fear of new ideas are worthy of our attention. Almost all the characters created by playwright Eliana Theologides Rodriguez are vividly written and portrayed. The production values are high – the set design by Emmie Finckel captures the look of an all-purpose room at a Y and the costumes by Sarafina Bush sync well with the characters – and the direction by Miranda Cornell is assured. It’s a perfectly respectable effort which the audience received warmly, but somehow it never fully engaged me. Perhaps if I were either a father or a daughter I would have appreciated it more. Running time: one hour 50 minutes; no intermission.

Well, I'll Let You Go

B-

This 21st-century midwestern Our Town wannabe by first-time playwright Bubba Weiler has arrived off Broadway after a Brooklyn production at the Space at Irondale, where it received a Critic’s Pick designation from the New York Times and an enthusiastic review in the Wall Street Journal.  I therefore arrived at Studio Seaview with high expectations that I soon regretted. I might have had a more positive response had I approached it cold. Maggie (the always watchable Quincy Tyler Bernstine) is a recent widow whose husband Marv died under murky circumstances in which he may or may not have been a hero. The uncertainty freezes Maggie in her grief, preventing her from even planning a funeral, because she no longer feels confident that she knew him well enough to decide whether he even deserves one. The play consists of seven scenes during which one of the other seven actors shares the stage with Maggie. A la Wilder, there is a narrator (Matthew Maher) who sets the scene and fills in information about the characters. The other characters are Wally (Will Dagger), Marv’s extremely dependent cousin; Joanie (Constance Schulman), a ditsy funeral director; Julie (Amelia Workman), Maggie’s longtime friend and Marv’s brother’s wife; Jeff (Danny McCarthy), Marv’s brother; Angela (Emily Davis), a woman from Maggie’s past that she has forgotten; and Ashley (Cricket Brown), Angela’s daughter. Each scene builds on the previous one, adding a bit of information to explain the circumstances of Marv’s death. There are a few satisfying red herrings along the way. The plot is interesting and well thought out. What frustrated me was that the play was good enough that I wished it had been better. Strangely, the play opens with the two weakest and least essential scenes so it took me a long time to become invested in the story. After what I thought was a natural place to end, there were two more scenes that I wasn’t sure added to the whole. I wish that a play doctor had been engaged to tighten the play up because at almost two hours I was getting restless (especially on the theater’s uncomfortable seats). Another problem was the casting of the important role of narrator; the present actor, the only one new to his role, flubbed several lines and had a distracting lisp. The comic tone of the scene with the funeral director seemed at odds with the rest of the play. Frank J. Oliva’s set is bare bones, with folding chairs and table and props rolled in as needed. For the final scene, the set undergoes a transformation that is a direct steal from David Cromer’s Our Town; the payoff is much less here. Avery Reed’s costumes are apt. Director Jack Serio’s pace during the first few scenes is so slack that it is difficult to build interest. All that being said, I am not sorry I saw the play. I just wish it had been polished further before it reached the stage. Running time: One hour, 50 minutes without intermission.