THEATER: Another "Christmas Carol," God Bless 'em

A CHRISTMAS CAROL ** out of ****
LYCEUM THEATRE

Who wants to be a Scrooge when reviewing A Christmas Carol in any form? Not me, hence the generous two stars and a shout outs to some of the pluses in this holiday production imported (much like our modern conception of Christmas) from Merrie Olde England. It's a warm, inviting stage on display, with lots of lamps casting a cheerful glow, the cast appropriately garbed (by and large) and some Christmas snow (that's not a spoiler; you know there's going to be snow) that's quick melting and fun rather than boring confetti.

Campbell Scott is a fine Scrooge that can hold his head high next to his dad's solid work in the same story. He harrumphs and galumphs and melts just as quickly as that snow. But it's a real performance, not a panto bit of fun winking at the audience and not too hard-edged either. Indeed, Scott has a twinkle when dismissing his nephew early on that hints at an even fuller characterization he might tackle someday in a better version.

But here's the main thought I had upon leaving A Christmas Carol. The story is endlessly malleable of course and has been done in every setting from TV sitcoms to lavish feature films. But the vast majority of them remain pretty darn faithful to the details of the novella by Charles Dickens. From versions starring Mr. Magoo to Alistair Sims to Patrick Stewart, they know the bones of a good story when they see it and leave well enough alone.

So the many, many diversions and additions by Jack Thorne this time out are all the more notable. And unnecessary. And harmful. A story that's larded with well-earned sentiment doesn't need more. of it.  A tale positively full of lessons -- as full as a child's stocking by the fire on Christmas morning  -- does not need those lessons repeated again and again. A show with warmth to spare does not need bonus hugs.

What it does need is a black box space or a theater in the round. This Carol was conceived in the round and Broadway desperately needs more spaces that can accommodate immersive productions. They can't all be squeezed into Circle In The Square, after all. Lincoln Center would be the other ideal space for this, but shows like Hadestown deserve an ideal setting, not a compromise. So if you go, sit close and on the side to glimpse the in-the-round pleasure of being amidst the fun that director Matthew Warchus charmed up in London.

In general, the vibe is the winner here and you can overlook the silly changes and enjoy yourself. Carolers and musicians begin playing long before the show begins. Cast-members and others like Tim (one of the gift givers wandering the aisles in good cheer ,not the lad in the show) cheerfully hand out clementines and cookies before it begins. Bells are rung. The entire space of the theater is used, an echo of the London staging but a poor substitute when Scrooge's nephew must shout his lines from the upper level. And at the very, very end they play a lovely carol on the handbells that is sweet and simple and just right for the evening's end.

Scott is quite good and that counts for a lot. But as much as I want to applaud the generally fine production design and costumes (both by Rob Howell), the lighting (Hugh Vanstone) and sound design (Simon Baker), they also make some odd choices. The stage is littered with piles of old, discarded lamps, giant piles of junk that menacingly capture the ugly spirit of the miserly Scrooge. I assumed these would rise up and out of the way or be transformed into something nice or do...something. But those inert piles remained throughout most of the show, serving no purpose and ultimately proving a distraction. And did the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future have to be garbed in bathrobes quite so garish and awful? (Andrea Martin and LaChanze embody two of them with good grace if little effect.)

My guest rebelled when the Spirit of Christmas Future was embodied by Scrooge's sister Little Fan. I found it unbearable when Scrooge literally hugged his inner child. And no one needed to see Scrooge's funeral where his employee Bob Cratchit (a fine Dashiell Eaves), his nephew and his lost love all repeated their sad feelings we'd already heard before. All these lardings onto the classic tale have a modest pay off when Scrooge speaks to his one-time love Belle. Sarah Hunt gins up some genuine emotion and her talk with him at least covers some new emotional ground, rather than rehashing what Dickens did so much better before. One can almost overlook Thorne turning the delightful, jovial Mr. Fezziwig (her father here) into an undertaker of all things. 

Oh dear, I'm bah humbugging again. The tale is indestructible, though Thorne takes some awful mighty whacks at it. Say rather it's indestructible if you leave it alone. But god bless 'em for trying. God bless them.... See, you wouldn't change that line would you? Why change anything? You should have a darn good reason and they don't. Still, God bless Jack Thorne and indeed, everyone.



THEATER OF 2019

Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar  Festival at the Public  ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III * 1/2
Broadbend, Arkansas **
Einstein's Dreams * 1/2
The Crucible (by Bedlam) *** 1/2
Pump Girl ***
A Christmas Carol (Bway w Campbell Scott) **


Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

THEATER: "Pump Girl" Finds A Gusher At Irish Rep

PUMPGIRL *** out of ****
IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE 

A strong, satisfying production of a strong, satisfying play and precisely the sort of work that makes The Irish Rep so important. Take this and their acclaimed O'Casey Cycle earlier this season and you've got reason enough to support this company for years to come.

The 2006 drama Pumpgirl and Irish playwright Abbie Spallen are both new to me. The story centers around three people we slowly realize are interconnected. They alternate monologues addressed to the audience, but the overlapping plots and rising tension keep the story pulsing along. These aren't set pieces that stand alone so much as lonely voices that slowly merge into one confused cry of pain and need.

It begins in a gas station in the North, but only just, as the program notes put it. Pumpgirl is a tomboyish woman who works there, dealing with obnoxious regulars but waiting for visits from her pal Hammy. Our second character is a man who competes at the local motor raceway when not avoiding the burden of his wife and kids. And the third is a woman who dreads the moment each night her drunken husband comes home, ping-ponging up the stairs and then slipping into bed beside her, a bed with barbed wire strung right down the center.

The wife cheats on her husband with some random man at a local market. Pumpgirl goes off with Hammy for quickies in his car. And the cocky but lost lad who competes as a race car driver when not cleaning out bird shite at the local chicken farm (off the books of course, so the dole doesn't know) is both the husband and the "mate." He's the central, empty fact in both their lives amnd no happier on his own then with either of them.

Photo ©2019 by Carol Rosegg

The cramped little theater at the basement level of the Irish Rep is made full use of here. Set designer Yu-Hsuan Chen ably creates three distinct spaces for each character, with the gas station brought to life via a counter crammed with junk food like Tayto's and a diesel pump. Hammy has a car seat for his racing scenes and the many times he takes Pumpgirl for a ride or just tries to escape his screwed up life. And propped against the wall stage right is the marital bed of Sinead. This combines very well with the just-right costumes of Molly Seidel, the crucial lighting of Michael O'Connor and the sound design of Fan Zhang, who smoothly works in everything from the music of Glenn Campbell to bar sounds, a terrifying dream, the sounds of racing and much more.

Full credit to director Nicola Murphy for marshalling that talent in service of the text and a superb trio of actors. Labhaoise Magee is heart-rending as Pumpgirl, still hoping to hang out with her friend after he's abused her trust in the most shameful way imaginable. Clare O'Malley is equally good as the stronger Sinead, a woman who wakes up to her needs only to be blindsided by a husband who suddenly wants to mend his ways. What the bloody hell is up with that? Did her cheating subliminally stir his guilty conscience. And Hamish Allan-Headley is an ideal Hammy, just good enough to be the handsome stud of a small town without being so good-looking you can't quite buy it. He nails Hammy's conflicted combination of bad choices, regret, shame and yearning to maybe, maybe get something right for once. I look forward to seeing all three of them again, soon.

Towards the very end, the play gets quite a bit darker. For me, the stakes were already high enough so I resisted this, even though nothing was out of whack with what came before. It's a small reservation about Pumpgirl itself, not the sterling and loving presentation it's been given here.


THEATER OF 2019

Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar  Festival at the Public  ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III * 1/2
Broadbend, Arkansas **
Einstein's Dreams * 1/2
The Crucible (by Bedlam) *** 1/2
Pump Girl ***


Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

THEATER: "The Crucible" Is Bedlam In Every Way

THE CRUCIBLE *** 1/2 out of ****
BEDLAM AT THE CONNELLY THEATER 

I wasn't in the mood to see a new production of The Crucible. That's hard to justify since it's my favorite Arthur Miller play and the all-but-forgotten film version is to my mind a masterpiece. Plus, I've never seen a great stage production. But there you are: I just wasn't in the mood. It can run nearly three hours! And didn't we just see it? Yes, if by "just" you mean three years ago on Broadway.

So what? It's Bedlam and that much-lauded company has mounted some of the best shows in recent years. If it's faced a little bedlam off-stage, well that might just be the kick in the pants it needs after some recent work that was less thrilling than usual. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, it turns out I was absolutely in the mood to see a new, strong production of The Crucible. Indeed, three exceptionally well-acted, entertaining hours with Bedlam is far preferable to a 70 minute show with no intermission that plods along.

A modest caveat: it is three hours and the Connelly has just one tiny, unisex bathroom with three stalls. So plan accordingly. The only torture should be onstage, not while you wait anxiously in line during intermission.

But do plan to see it. This Crucible thrillingly reminds us why Bedlam made such a stir in the first place. Their production is beautifully cast, fluidly directed and so clear-eyed that what you're seeing is not some flashy troupe calling attention to itself or imposing some conceit on top of a show. What you see is a great play held up to the light.

The first clever touch is the staging. A semi-circle of seats are on the stage area while most of the audience is seated stadium style. The Connelly also has a second level with lighting and the such so the sense of a world on trial is vivid. You enter the theater and go around a hanging bit of plastic to this area. But when the show begins that plastic collapses and the first scenes are staged in the "lobby" area. It immediately expands your ideas of where the story begins and ends.

Those opening moments are performed in a manic, almost vaudevillian style. It's hyped-up realism and off-putting. But before you know it the show settles down into naturalism. I seem to recall this Bedlam gambit before: open with an artificial style that underlines the theatricality of what you're seeing and then the vast majority of the play will seem all the more "real" thanks to the contrast. My guest says I'm nuts and they haven't done this before. Whatever your thoughts on this throat-clearing approach to the text, it passes quickly.

Soon you're caught up in Arthur Miller's drama, famously written in the heat of the McCarthy Era. It's the late 1600s at the Massachusetts Bay Colony and teen girls are caught dancing in the woods. This is scandalous and one of them collapses into a faint. Or perhaps she just feigns illness out of fear for her preacher father's anger. Nonetheless, her sleep seems bizarre, so a Rev. Hale is called in to rule out anything unnatural (ie demonic). Before you can say "broomstick," accusations of witch craft are flying.

The girls put the blame for their misdeeds on a Bahamian servant and she turns it right back on them. The net widens. More and more women are accused of witchery. One woman insists a midwife is a witch, merely because this woman resents giving birth to one stillborn child after another. One man accuses another simply because he lusts after the fellow's land.

Hovering about them all is Abigail, the teen who leads the other girls in panicked testimony about witches and possession and being unable to breathe when a sinner scoffs at them. Abigail slept with the married man John Proctor only to be turned out by his wife. She bluntly tells John his wife will die and Abigail can take her place. John must sully his good name to reveal Abigail's treachery and even then, who will believe him? The town has gone mad and anyone who dares to question the court's proceedings soon finds themselves hauled before it.

Truett Felt and Ryan Quinn in The Crucible. Photo ©2019 Ashley Garrett

It's a chilling tale and the hysteria, the sheer panicked insanity that overcomes the people of the colony is captured very well by director Eric Tucker and his team. Truly, this is theater as it's meant to be, theater that engages the imagination with just a few props and inventive staging. John McDermott created the set design that makes a plus out of the Connelly's lack of a backstage or any other niceties found in most theaters.

A few desks and chairs and a bed frame are pushed this way and that to take us to the preacher's home, a public hearing, John Proctor's house, the outdoors, the place where prisoners are held before execution and so on. Truly it's almost magic. During a scene, the entire cast leaps into action and suddenly a judge on the stage floor is perched on a chair above a stack of tables, peering down at a witness with an awful intimidation. At other times, witnesses are suddenly perched precariously on chairs against the far wall -- they too are above the audience but their position is vulnerable and exposed, not imposing. Often this is accomplished in a babble of overlapping dialogue, heightening the tension of these unhinged times and keeping us off balance. Give two actors flashlights, turn off all the lights and suddenly John and Abigail are meeting in the dead of night for a confrontation which exposes them both as surely as those beams that stab out of the dark. Credit to lighting designer Les Dickert and costume designer Charlotte Palmer-Lane for their key contributions.

You won't find any agenda in this production, no artificial lens through which to view the play. It's just Arthur Miller's story delivered in all its complexity. And the cast is terrific, top to bottom. Ryan Quinn keeps John Proctor from being too self-righteous. Susannah Millonzi is his equal as Elizabeth, a woman who can be too easy to blame as a cold shrew. Millonzi shows an Elizabeth hard on herself most of all. Truett Felt has the tricky role of Abigail, managing to be hateful without ever playing the villain. Forgive me for not mentioning everyone, but they're all good. No one is trying to excuse or explain their characters. Paul Lazar's Judge Danforth is of course proud and pompous, aghast by the suggestion he might have been fooled by little girls. Yet Lazar doesn't begin and end with this one idea so clearly suggested in the text. Like Abigail, he's scary in his determination, but no villain.

And full credit to the director Tucker who plays Rev. Hale. I always remember Hale as the real villain and I'm always happily surprised when this earnest man of God realizes the error of his ways and struggles to mitigate the damage. In the past, Tucker has sometimes seemed more focused on directing than his own performance. But here he gives a very good, nuanced turn that is creepily sincere at the start and fully human at the end. Even after he strongly doubts the claims of Abigail and the others, when they weep and wail and point to the spirits hovering over them, his Hale stares up earnestly, even removing his glasses to try and get a better look. It's funny but also shows this man's mind and heart is always open to the truth.

It's not quite perfect. As a show opens, the tendency is to sag a little. Here's hoping Tucker and the cast look to tighten things up. It's a three act play but on Broadway it ran two hours and 45 minutes. This one runs three hours and those fifteen minutes matter. A few moments could be shortened, especially the calm stretches. Better we feel ourselves hurtling towards the finale than ever catch our breath. And while the only score comes from whistling that underlines a few scenes, it's not effective when the show uses that whistling as a fade-out at the very end. They had their finale and should have plunged us right back into darkness, not let the moment fade away. Nonetheless, right now and at this length, The Crucible reminds you forcefully of what you love about theater in general and Bedlam in particular.


THEATER OF 2019

Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar  Festival at the Public  ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III * 1/2
Broadbend, Arkansas **
Einstein's Dreams * 1/2
The Crucible (by Bedlam) *** 1/2



Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

THEATER: "Einstein's Dreams" Too Elusive For Reality

EINSTEIN'S DREAMS * 1/2 out of ****
PROSPECT THEATER COMPANY AT 59E59

Alan Lightman's charming novel Einstein's Dreams was a best-selling sensation in 1992. Lightman's day job is a physicist and his first and best work of fiction playfully combines both disciplines. In it, he imagines Einstein is working on his Theory of Relativity and dreams about the various ways one can think about time. What if time really did stand still? What if time proceeded in circles? Or skipped and stuttered or reversed itself unexpectedly? Each dream of time is captured in a fragmentary passage lasting just a few pages at most. It's not really a novel or even a collection of short stories, but more like a variation on a theme.

Lightman lets you feel you grasp certain abstract scientific ideas, all while entertaining you thoroughly. But there's no plot to speak of, no over-arching thread. It's just fanciful fun. Even the packaging of the book added to its appeal: Einstein's Dream was about 5 inches wide by 7 inches tall, almost a square, friendly little book. It fit into your hands comfortably and made this Italo Calvino-like work quite approachable. Instead of thinking, a book about physics and running away, you saw it and smiled and picked it up.

I read it, I enjoyed it and not for a single moment did I think, this should be adapted for the stage! It's one of those works that would seem to resist a transformation into film or theater or TV. Of course, I felt the same about Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Turn that daunting, philosophical novel into a film? Absurd! Turn the classic Powell-Pressburger movie A Matter Of Life and Death into a stage play? Ridiculous! 

Well, as a film, Unbearable became another masterpiece. As a play, A Matter Of Life and Death was a disaster. But hey, they tried! So anything can be turned into anything else and the less likely, perhaps the more remarkable it will be if you get the alchemy right.

Apparently, people have been trying and trying with Einstein's Dreams ever since it was published. Per Wikipedia, this work has been adapted endlessly into plays and song cycles and dance pieces and here a musical, one that first debuted in 2005. As far as I know, none of them have worked. This version is no different. Joanne Sydney Lessner did the book and Joshua Rosenblum did the music and they both worked on the lyrics. Here, Time is personified into a dream-like lover for young Albert Einstein. He keeps dreaming of Time in all her fickle possibilities and she teases him on towards the revelation of the Theory that will make him immortal.

Little of this works, despite a game cast that struggles to sing the awkward songs the creative team  crafted. However, the Prospect Theater Company has given this ineffective mess directed by Cara Reichel an exceptionally handsome production. Einstein's desk at the patent office sits on a round dais stage left. A staircase on stage right swoops up to a wide platform on the second level. Striking design work covers the stage floor with expected but effective details of time and the such. And a giant round clock face hangs above the stage, serving as a screen for countless projections, the vast majority of which are impressive and on point.

David Bengali did the excellent projection design and Sidney Shannon the period-friendly costumes. Kevin Heard dealt with the sound design that balances actors, singers and a fine six-piece orchestra led by music director and pianist Milton Granger, not to mention various subtle sound cues. And the ravishing scenic design is by Isabel Mengyuan Le. It's a pleasure to behold while you wait for the show to begin and something to study when the show quickly goes awry. I remember very little of the musical's feverish attempts to give the erudite and funny and odd musings of Lightman some sort of plot. But the set? I'd love to spend more time with it.

THEATER OF 2019

Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar  Festival at the Public  ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III * 1/2
Broadbend, Arkansas **
Einstein's Dreams * 1/2
The Crucible (by Bedlam)



Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

BOOKS: Is Finance The Root Of All Evil?

Book lovers and anyone ready to take on inequality, check out my review of "The Finance Curse" By Nicholas Shaxson! It's exclusive to Book and Film Globe!  See an excerpt below.

We’re in the midst of a bull market when it comes to books on inequality, the ills of Wall Street, tax justice and how to fix the whole damn mess. Though well-intentioned, many of these books have flaws.

The Finance Curse gets it just right. Journalist Nick Shaxson has written for The Guardian and works with the Tax Justice Network. Here he provides a sharp history of finance and the many storied criminals of the past, among them robber barons like Rockefeller and his ilk. Then Shaxson smoothly and lucidly dives into a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of global finance and how it’s swallowing up the world economy. 

At the heart of his story? Not Wall Street, but London. The British Empire led to its second empire of inherently criminal tax havens. And that led to the Bill Clinton/Tony Blair Third Way of neo-liberalism to Ireland’s paper Celtic Tiger right up to the rapacious hedge funds and private equity firms of today....

Read the rest only at Book and Film Globe! 

THEATER: Good Intentions No Substitute For Good Melodies In "Broadbend, Arkansas"

BROADBEND, ARKANSAS ** out of ****
TRANSPORT GROUP AT DUKE ON 42ND STREET

Good intentions do not a good musical make. Composer Ted Shen's heart is in the right place with this odd duck of a two-hander show. In Act One, nursing home orderly Benny narrates an on-going feud between two women at his place of work in 1961. Then this widowed father of twins feels compelled to join the Freedom Riders fighting for justice in the deep South. He shadows a bus filled with a rainbow of protestors, protects a friend when the police move in, gets proudly arrested and finally heads back home though he'd love to ride on that bus to the next town.

In Act Two, it's 1988 and the struggle continues. Benny's daughter Ruby is in a cemetery looking for the strength to carry on. We soon realize Benny was killed by a policeman just miles from home. And now his grandson is in the hospital after being brutally beaten by yet another lawless cop. For all we know, that cop might be the grandson of Benny's murderer. Will it ever end?

The stage is filled by just two actors and they are far and away the best and only reason to check out this piece. As Benny Justin Cunningham fills the stage with his warmth and presence, even if the elderly women he briefly assays aren't terribly distinct in our minds. As Ruby, Danyel Fulton has the less interesting half yet she too brings complexity and passion to a part that offers little of that on its own.

Sadly, they are not enough. The tech elements are minimal but even those go astray. Lighting cues by Jen Schriever don't clearly indicate when Cunningham is tackling a different character, though sometimes they seem to do so. The costumes by Peiyi Wong don't seem period enough. And director Jack Cummings III doesn't mold all this together to give the two actors the support they need and deserve.

Photo by Carol Rosegg ©2019

But it all begins with this essay/history lesson disguised as a work of theater. Though the two acts are intimately connected, the first act is written by Ellen Fitzhugh and the second by Harrison David Rivers. The music and additional lyrics are by Ted Shen.

Curiously, about half of act one involves that feud between two women. One is the owner of the nursing home while the other is a patient. They bicker and fight over a game of Scrabble. But really their fight is over the man they shared: the patient's husband left her for the much younger owner of the nursing home, but not before the wife wounded him with a steaming hot iron. Benny claims to be refereeing the two women and making peace but really he's just narrating their story. Cunningham doesn't create two distinct women but that's partly the fault of Fitzhugh since their voices tend to blur together. Abruptly this ends and Benny goes off on his civil rights crusade.

The big problem? The feuding old biddies are by far the most interesting and fresh part of the musical. Their story feels like a story, not a noble speech dressed up as a story. And yet, they have nothing to do with the rest of the evening. Half of act one is devoted to this essentially separate tale and then switches over to civil rights. I suppose you could pretend they make peace and so can blacks and whites, but that's quite the stretch.

The other half of act one flows right into the story of Ruby, the daughter of Benny. here actress Fulton has far fewer roles to tackle. It's essentially a monologue and not a particularly fresh or interesting one. Worst of all, the presentation glides back and forth between dialogue and music. Shen seems wary of anything approaching an actual song or memorable melody. Part 5 of "The Bridge" sticks briefly in the mind as Benny sings about how "It's such a comfort to take the bus." And Ruby comes briefly to life via song when she remembers her twin sister telling anyone who would listen that their mom was a backup singer for Diana Ross.

That's it. The rest is sincere, principled, polite, sometimes politely righteous and even angry! But always, always forgettable. I can't figure out why the story of two feuding old ladies takes up half of act one. I certainly know all why they wanted to illuminate the bravery of the Freedom Riders and show how that struggle goes on. (Act Three might easily have jumped to Black Lives Matter.) But whether you're creating a musical about shopping or slavery, you better have the songs. As Duke Ellington and Irving Mills put it, it don't mean a thing.... See, you knew how to finish the lyrics ("...if it ain't got that swing") without me telling you. High art should not mean a disdain for the low appeal of a catchy tune.


THEATER OF 2019

Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar  Festival at the Public  ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III * 1/2
Broadbend, Arkansas **



Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

THEATER: "Richard III," A Schemer Undone By Greed, Violence And A Poor Production

DRUIDSHAKESPEARE: RICHARD III * 1/2 out of ****
LINCOLN CENTER'S WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL 
GERALD W. LYNCH THEATER AT JOHN JAY COLLEGE

Richard III is undone by distrust. This cruel manipulator is never trustworthy so he can't imagine anyone else being trustworthy either. Ultimately it makes him paranoid and incapable of holding onto the power he has so ruthlessly seized.

But DruidShakespeare: Richard III is undone by too much trust. All ideas are welcome no matter how unconnected to one another they might be. The mishmash of sets and costumes and periods and acting styles turns what was a dully traditional production at the start into a confusing bore by the end.

Happily, they found a solid Richard in Aaron Monaghan. He scuttles about the stage a la Antony Sher and proves charmingly evil. Has Shakespeare ever written a more appealing villain? If his vocal tics seem increasingly desperate by the end, we can pretend it's the character spiraling down rather than an actor trying to hold together a production spinning out of control.

Photo by Robbie Jack ©2019

Playing off a reference to a slaughterhouse, the entire stage is framed in harsh metal by set designer Francis O'Connor, with all the trappings of a modern slaughterhouse, including the dirt-covered floor and a cattle gun (the weapon employed by Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men). Tall metal doors line the sides and the back. All that's missing is a maze to lead the royal cattle to slaughter so they won't realize what's happening until the last moment.

Richard pops out of a grave site and launches into his opening gambit of winning over the audience to his wicked, wicked ways. "Now is the winter of our discontent...."  The bodies do pile up, with Richard wooing and wiling away towards and past and around his victims. He keeps his eye on the throne of England, symbolized by the crown resting on a skull displayed in a box hovering above the stage. It's almost within his reach.

The show sort of works, for a while. Richard's wooing of Lady Anne (Siobhán Cullen) has a power that can't be matched when a similar scene is reenacted again and again throughout the play. Richard's rapport with Buckingham (Rory Nolan) sort of convinces. And the anachronistic cattle gun wielded is ok, though Marty Rea's monotone executioner soon pales.

Many of the supporting performances simply fall flat, their lines delivered without purpose or meaning. But the story moves along on its own momentum just enough to get us to act two.

Photo by Richard Termine  ©2019 

Nothing is dramatically different in act two except all the poor choices you ignored in act one become inescapable. While Druid mainstay and co-founder Maria Mullen has fun miming the confusion and easily played emotions of the Lord Mayor, the uninteresting secondary performances pile up as much as the bodies. Even something as minor as the actress playing one of the Princes in the Tower doubling as a page annoys when the costumes by O'Connor (and Doreen  McKenna as co-costume designer) do so very little to set the two roles apart. And the clothes become increasingly odd, such as the sort of metallic bronze and silver royal cape Richard III dons after being crowned king. It's echoed by the red metallic cape uneasily sported by Richmond in the final battle, a piece of clothing that clashes unpleasantly with his odd regalia and almost gets tangled up in the climactic sword fight.

Worse is the cartoonish, massive hood sported by an executioner called in to dispatch the beloved tykes in the Tower. Presumably used to allow one actor to more easily double up on roles, it looks like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. (The actor's cartoonish gravel pit of a voice doesn't help.) Worse than that are the somewhat similar cheap black hoodies sported by servants and the like who rush in with a stream of bad news for Richard. The action starts to look like a Monty Python sketch. A rain machine drips throughout the show here and there as you keep wondering what exactly is falling from the ceiling until the rain scene happens and you think, ah, that's what that was! Worse, it drips pretty consistently throughout the scene after it's supposed to stop.

The night before the battle, Richard's army sets up tents for the king, tents which are made of long neon polls lit in red. Why, one can't imagine. Then they turn to pale blue, indicating, it seems, that night has come. Richard gets into his tent but then the other tent turns red again and in pops Richmond for his nap. When the battle is about to commence, they are clumsily lifted up into the rafters, the poles bouncing off one another and seemingly alive like the legs of neon spiders. It's a distracting and bizarre choice from start to finish.

Scene after scene passes woodenly, such as the meeting/confrontation of the royal women. Queen Margaret scores the most points, as always, thanks to her venomous curses, but not enough to wake the moment up. The lighting by James F. Ingalls rarely sets one moment off from the next. The music by Conor Linehan crashes in obtrusively once or twice to announce the beginning of an act or that something exceptionally dramatic might be going on. A vague mist appears every once in a while, uncertain as to whether it's wanted or not before timidly slipping away again. And the battle choreographed by David Bolger is simply inept.

As a final dashed-off thought hoping to tie it all together, Richmond (Frank Blake) is crowned king only to echo the misshapen and scuttling spider silhouette of Richard. Does power corrupt? Perhaps, but it's certainly not been the through line of a show devoted to a traditional take on Richard as an inherently cruel man, not one bent by the weight of the crown.

Director Garry Hynes co-founded the venerable Druid in 1975 and has undoubtedly delivered the goods before, though we've had precious few chances to witness it in New York. Still, her work here is slapdash and poorly thought out. Unlike England, a play needs a ruthless leader.


THEATER OF 2019

Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar  Festival at the Public  ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III * 1/2
Broadbend, Arkansas



Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.