Infinite Life

 C

It’s hard for me to believe that more than three months have passed since I set foot in a theater. I wish I could say that my return to theatergoing this afternoon was a positive experience, but, alas, I cannot. Today’s performance was a late preview of Annie Baker’s latest play at the Atlantic Theater Company. My expectations were not high because, with the exception of John, I have not found any of her plays enjoyable. I was baffled that Circle Mirror Transformation won an Obie and even more surprised when The Flick bagged a Pulitzer. The Antipodes had no point that I could detect. While her ability to capture the quotidien is admirable, her plays often seem to meander aimlessly. The current play is set in an alternative medicine clinic for pain management in Northern California where the treatment is based on fasting. Of the five female patients we meet, four are of retirement age, while one, Sofi (Christina Kirk; Clybourne Park), is in her late forties. Eileen (Marylouise Burke; John, Fuddy Mears) is a returning patient who once was a Christian Scientist. Yvette (Mia Katigbak; Awake and Sing!) seems to suffer from every disease imaginable. Elaine (Brenda Presley; The Lyons) has thyroid problems, as does her absent cat. Ginnie (Kristine Nielsen; Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike) is unabashedly nosy. Midway through the play the handsome Nelson (Pete Simpson; Is This a Room) arrives, and upsets the equilibrium. The play covers the ten or so days that Sofi is there for treatment. Her ailments are closely tied to her psychosexual problems. She is strongly attracted to Nelson. Some of the scenes are at night with the audience seeing little more than shadows. Sofi occasionally addresses the audience to inform us how much time has elapsed between scenes. Sofi’s experiences form the center of the action, to the extent that there is any. The other female characters are underdeveloped. The acting is uniformly strong, with Kirk and Burke standing out. The usually wonderful Nielsen is essentially wasted in this role. The scenic design by dots (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) features seven rather dilapidated lounge chairs sheltered by a wall of ornamental blocks. The costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter (John) suit the characters well. Director James Macdonald (The Children, Cloud Nine) gives the play lots of room to breathe. The audience included many young adults who laughed frequently. I envied them for finding the play congenial. Running time: one hour 50 minutes; no intermission.

Days of Wine and Roses

B-

It’s over 20 years since Kelli O’Hara (The King and I, The Light in the Piazza) suggested to Adam Guettel (The Light in the Piazza, Floyd Collins) that he write a musical for her and Brian D’Arcy James (Sweet Smell of Success, Into the Woods) based on Blake Edwards’s 1962 film about Kirsten and Joe, a couple struggling with alcoholism. That project has finally come to fruition on the stage of Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater. One might wonder why anyone would choose this screenplay to musicalize. The answer, in short, seems to be to provide a showcase for O’Hara’s prodigious vocal talents and acting chops. In that regard, it succeeds. However, the film does not yield itself easily to musicalization. Craig Lucas’s (Prelude to a Kiss, The Light in the Piazza) book generally hews fairly close to the screenplay, incorporating large blocks of dialog, but Guettel’s songs are not hummers and some of his lyrics neither advance the action nor deepen the characterization. The main difference in the musical is that the role of their daughter Lila (Ella Dane Morgan, Waitress) has been substantially enlarged, which somewhat blurs the focus. For some reason, the locale has been changed from San Francisco to New York. It is mentioned that Joe served in the Korean War and there is a brief hint that he suffers from PTSD. Since that war didn’t start until the middle of 1950, it seems strange that 1950 is listed in the program as the year the play is set. The other non-singing characters are well-cast. Byron Jennings (She Loves Me, Is He Dead?) is strong as Kirsten’s father and David Jennings (Tina, Once on This Island), no relation to Byron, is fine as Jim, Joe’s AA sponsor. Lizzie Clachan’s (Blindness, A Number) scenic design economically suggests a wide variety of locations. Dede Ayite’s (Slave Play, How I Learned To Drive) costumes fit the period. Michael Greif’s (Dear Evan Hansen, Machinal) direction is fluid and unfussy. For Kelli O’Hara fans, the show is a must see. I just wish that I found everything else as stirring as her performance. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission.

King James

 B

After well-received runs at Steppenwolf in Chicago and Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, Rajiv Joseph’s (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Describe the Night) two-character play about fandom and friendship has reached New York in a Manhattan Theatre Club production at City Center Stage I. The royal personage of the title is LeBron James, whose basketball career in and out of the Cleveland Cavaliers is the focus of both devotion and frustration for Matt, a manically neurotic wine bar manager, and relatively more grounded Shawn, a would-be writer, who meet when Matt is forced by financial problems to sell his season tickets to the Cavs. The two bond over their shared fandom and become good friends. We observe the ups and downs of their friendship over twelve years at four key moments in LeBron James’s career. Luckily for us, the roles of Matt and Shawn are performed by Chris Perfetti (Sons of the Prophet, The Tutors) and Glenn Davis (Downstate, Wig Out!), who play exceptionally well together. The playwright shows us how shared fandom can serve as a socially acceptable basis for a platonic bromance. Matt is white and Shawn is black, a fact that becomes relevant for a brief scene late in the play. The lively dialog has a convincingly natural flow but I would have liked a stronger narrative arc. Todd Rosenthal’s (August Osage County, Linda Vista) set for the first act presents the rather generic looking wine bar where Matt works; the second act is set in the funky antiques cum upholstery store owned by Matt’s parents, which offers lots of interesting objects to look at. The costumes by Samantha C. Jones are apt. Kenny Leon’s (Soldier’s Play, Topdog/Underdog) direction is smooth. My only serious objection is to the inclusion of a DJ (Khloe Janel) who plays loud hip-hop music before the play and during intermission. Do we really need a trendy version of the national anthem complete with crowd noise before the play begins? In case you are concerned that the play is strictly for knowledgeable sports fans, you need not worry. It is completely accessible to all. Running time: two hours ten minutes including intermission

Primary Trust

 B+

Eboni Booth’s (Paris, “Julia”) new play at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre has much to recommend it, including a superb cast, a wonderful set, lovely musical accompaniment and sensitive direction. My reservations about it originate with the script, which takes a long time to reveal where it is leading us and is sparing with its dramatic moments. The acting could not be better. William Jackson Harper (After the Blast, “The Good Place”), playing Kenneth, a 38-year-old loner whose hard-won stability is suddenly undermined when the job he has held for 20 years disappears, is so likeable and vivid that he immediately draws us in. Eric Berryman (Toni Stone) makes a believable person out of Kenneth’s longtime imaginary friend Bert. The always excellent Jay O. Sanders (Uncle Vanya, Rhinebeck Panorama) makes the most out of three roles, Kenneth’s past employer, his new employer and a snooty waiter in a white tablecloth restaurant. April Matthis (Toni Stone, The Piano Lesson) plays Corrina, a waiter at Kenneth’s favorite bar who tries to befriend him, as well as other waitpersons and bank customers whom she convincingly inhabits. Luke Wygodny (Hundred Days), on keyboard, guitar and cello, provides unobtrusive but welcome music to support the action. Marsha Ginsberg’s (English) delightful set presents miniature versions of the buildings surrounding the town square of Cranberry, NY. A feature of Qween Jean’s (Black No More) costumes is the use of changing shoes to represent different social roles. Knud Adams (English) directs with sensitivity. One problem that I had was that Harper made Kenneth such a sympathetic character that it was difficult to realize how troubled he really was. A minor annoyance was the overuse of a service desk bell to punctuate scenes. The excellence of the acting makes it well worth seeing. Running time: 95 minutes; no intermission.

 

The Comeuppance

 C

My reaction to the works of playwright Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins has been mixed. Three enthusiastically received plays that I enjoyed very much (Appropriate, An Octoroon, Gloria) were followed by two that I did not (War, Everybody). It has been six years since he has had a new play on a New York stage. Now he is winding up his Signature Theatre residency with this puzzling play now in previews at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre. In it we meet five friends who, except for one, are celebrating their 20^th high school reunion. These four, the membership of the self-styled Multi Ethnic Reject Group, have gathered for a pre-reunion get-together on the porch of Ursula (Brittany Bradford, Bernhardt/Hamlet), an underdeveloped character distinguished mainly by the fact that she has become a recluse since losing her sight in one eye. Her female friends are the childless Caitlin (Susannah Flood, Birthday Candles), who married a bigoted cop with two children and Kristina (Shannon Tyo, Regretfully So the Birds Are), a doctor who got her medical education in the military. A good Catholic with five children, Kristina has seen a lot, both in the military and in the pandemic, and eases her pain with booze. She has unexpectedly brought along her cousin Paco (Bobby Moreno, 72 Miles To Go) whose military service left him with a bad case of untreated PTSD. Emilio (Caleb Eberhardt, Choir Boy), a trendy artist living in Berlin who is back in the States briefly to supervise an installation of his work at the Biennale, has not seen the others in 15 years. There is another character as well. Through electronically modified voices, each character, at some point in the play, takes on the role of Death. By the third go-round, I had to stifle a giggle, which I don't think was the desired effect. The play touches on a checklist of traumas that the group has experienced, including Columbine, 9/11, and January 6. Furthermore, many underlying tensions within the group surface as the play progresses. The problem for me was that none of the characters or situations was sufficiently interesting to justify rambling on for two hours and twenty minutes without an intermission. The actors were all fine and the direction by Eric Ting (The Far Country) was fluid. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (A Strange Loop) set creates the cozy front porch of a small house, complete with swing, Adirondack chair, lots of plants and a bug zapper. Jennifer Moeller’s (Camelot) costumes are all suitable to their characters. I was disheartened when Jacobs-Jenkins decamped for the greener pastures of Hollywood to become showrunner, executive producer and writer for a Hulu series. Alas, his new play does not make his return to the stage cause for celebration.

Good Night, Oscar

B

As a fan of both Oscar Levant and Sean Hayes (Promises, Promises; “Will & Grace”), I was excited by the opportunity to see the latter portray the former on a Broadway stage. Hayes has been developing the project for almost a decade and, after a false start with another playwright, chose Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife, Grey Gardens) to do the script. The result is a cleverly crafted showcase for dramatic and pianistic talents that Hayes has not had a previous opportunity to display. The emotionally unstable Levant was a frequent guest on Jack Paar’s show because Paar (Ben Rappaport, Fiddler on the Roof) thought his unpredictability was good for ratings. He did appear on Paar’s LA debut show, but not, as the play posits, after being sprung under false pretenses for a four-hour pass from a mental institution by his wife June (Emily Bergl, The Ferryman). Until the telecast begins, we must get through lots and lots of exposition supplied by Paar, June, NBC head Bob Sarnoff (Peter Grosz, A Kid Like Jake), a star-struck aide Max (Alex Wyse, Waitress) who just happens to be Sarnoff’s nephew and Alvin (Marchant Davis, Ain’t No Mo’), the orderly who is tasked to keep an eye on Levant during his brief leave. We also get two rather awkward appearances by George Gershwin (a dapper John Zdrojeski, Heroes of the Fourth Turning) who, although dead for 20 years, appears to Levant during his hallucinations. At the end of his live on-screen conversation with Paar, Levant is wheedled into playing an excerpt from Rhapsody in Blue, which Hayes performs superbly while also remaining in character. Designer Rachel Hauck’s (Hadestown) set is an apt homage to mid-century modern and Emilio Sosa’s (Sweeney Todd) costume for June is a delight. Director Lisa Peterson (Light Shining in Buckinghamshire) gets us through the long exposition before the fun begins as expeditiously as possible. While the other actors served their roles well, most of the success or failure of the play rests on whether Hayes can create a plausible version of Levant. Although I thought he initially overdid the tics and restlessness, I found him increasingly convincing as the play progressed. Although he bears absolutely no physical resemblance to Levant, he actually started to look more and more like him. I’m not sure how much those who did not know Levant as actor, conductor, raconteur or pianist will appreciate the show, but Hayes’ performance is well worth seeing. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

Oliver!

 A

 By coincidence, the two finest musicals in New York right now are both set in the underbelly of 19^th-century London. My previous review was devoted to one of them, Sweeney Todd, which is essentially tragic with comic undertones. Oliver!, on the other hand, is basically good-natured with a touch of tragedy. Lionel Bart’s score has a super-abundance of delightful songs that, in this Encores! production, receive their due both from the orchestra and the actors. The voices, starting with 12-year-old Benjamin Pajak (The Music Man) in the title role, are superb. He stopped the show with “Where Is Love?”, as did the excellent Lilli Cooper (Mack & Mabel) as Nancy with “As Long As He Needs Me.” Raul Esparza (Company, Seared) creates an almost sympathetic Fagin, a far cry from Dickens’ creation. Tam Mutu (Moulin Rouge) is a properly menacing Bill Sikes. Julian Lerner’s Artful Dodger was more subdued than usual. Brad Oscar (The Producers) and Mary Testa (Oklahoma!) go well together as Mr. Bumble and Widow Corney. Thom Sesma (A Man of No Importance) and Rashidra Scott (Company) are fine as Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry. Michael Siberry (INK) is a sympathetic Mr. Brownlow. One of the show’s biggest treats is its young ensemble who are triple threats with first-rate singing, acting and, especially, dancing. Lorin Latarro’s (Into the Woods) ample choreography is inventive and makes the most of the stage’s shallow performing space. David Rockwell’s (She Loves Me) efficient set places the orchestra on a platform of rough wooden beams, with a backdrop of the London skyline at night, and two stairways that get lots of use. The score sounds wonderful under the baton of Encores! musical director Mary-Mitchell Campbell. Director Lear DeBessonet (Into the Woods) shows a real affinity for this material; The future of Encores! looks promising under her artistic direction. The production runs until May 14. Running time: two hours 20 minutes including intermission.