THEATER: "Network" Has A Star, But No Show

NETWORK * 1/2 out of ****
BELASCO THEATRE 

Mediocre talents fail in dull, uninteresting ways. They mount a play, you shrug and forget it the next day. Bold, visionary talents fail in spectacular fashion. What were they thinking, you wonder, jaw agape? But at least you know they were thinking, striving, doing something or at least trying to do something. Director Ivo van Hove and his team of collaborators fail in marvelous fashion with this stage adaptation of Paddy Chayevsky's all too prescient film Network.

That movie was a scathing cry from the heart about the commercialization of journalism. A once-sacred area of television was becoming a profit center. Instead of providing a public good, corporations realized they could provide product in the guise of news and make money. A lot of it. Chayevsky saw it happening and created a wicked satire that showed news anchors expressing opinions on air! The more shocking their opinions the higher the ratings. It was absurd, over the top, ridiculous...and now seems quaint in comparison to what TV news has actually become.

At least with the terrific Bryan Cranston present, you're never in confusion as to why they tackled it in the first place. His supporting character -- newscaster turned prophet Howard Beale -- is fatally turned into the star of the show. It's like watching a second banana in a sitcom get their own spin-off; that rarely works and it certainly doesn't here.

For one thing, the adaptation by Lee Hall doesn't give Beale a bigger story or any sort of arc. In the film, he has a mental breakdown and those on-air rants he delivers ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!") are terrific thunderbolts. They break up the main story, which is really about an aging newsman cheating on both his wife and his journalistic conscience. (In the film, that character of Max Schumacher is played by William Holden; here it's Tony Goldwyn.) Beale doesn't change or grow -- he has a breakdown and that's about it.

Unfortunately, the same is true in this play. Beale has a breakdown early on...and that's about it. But this time around he dominates the action; in fact, whenever we interrupt his mania for a peek into Schumacher's disintegrating marriage it's kind of a jolt. Oh yeah, that's happening too. And Beale's rants grow increasingly predictable in every way. Playwright Hall jazzes up Beale's show a la the film with an elaborate new presentation. He's given a late night talk show sort of intro (rather than the sober air appropriate to a newsman) and an announcer and crew member urging applause give an elaborate spiel asking us to repeat Beale's catchphrase and then applaud loudly. That's fine once; it's even ok twice. But when they do it again and again and again it goes beyond making some sort of point and just feels lazy. They've made Beale the star of the show but they realize he has nothing to offer. If they're driving home the emptiness of the spectacle, well we got it the first time.

Cranston does what he can with the part. A skilled TV actor (as well as a Tony winning veteran of the stage), the part is in some ways perfect for him (if only it were better). He plays to the camera beautifully and if you feel drawn to watch him on one of the many video screens adorning the stage, well that makes perfect sense. After all, the TV is where Beale comes alive and that's rightly where Cranston pitches his performance.

Fans of the film may be aghast at how tepid the heart of the movie comes across here. Goldwyn and Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black can do nothing with their doomed romance. And the corporate politics on display barely make an impression as the cameras whirl back around to another spiel from Howard Beale. They are sideshow to the prophet and he is sideshow to the real star of the show and the real tragedy: the directorial vision of van Hove and his team.

For years now, van Hove and a  crack team of production talent have dominated theater and opera. Here it's Jan Versweyveld (scenic and lighting design), Tal Yarden (video design), An D'huys (costume design) and Eric Sleichim (music and sound). No matter what Van Hove tackles, it's sure to have a bold vision, a striking conceit that dominates his take on a classic of stage or screen. You may not always agree with his take on a piece (my personal favorite is his View From The Bridge as boxing match) but by God you had to deal with it.

Here they have come a cropper. As one might expect, this production of Network includes lots of tv cameras, lots of video screens and a stage that usually includes an announcer's desk front and center with a studio booth on stage right. What one doesn't expect is that stage right is dominated by...a bar facing the wall? With a few scattered tables and audience members who eat a meal while watching the show? And a couch from Schumacher's home? Now, the handful of audience members sitting on stage -- almost as if by accident -- aren't a studio audience. That would have made sense, I guess. Nor are they people in a bar or restaurant who might be coached into becoming glued to TVs playing in the bar when Beale goes on a rant. No, they're just sitting on stage, watching the show and eating dinner brought out by wait staff during set changes while we watch them and wonder what the heck they're doing up there.

The bar is used in maybe one and a half scenes, including a very early one where Cranston and Goldwyn sidle up to the bar for a heart to heart and stand in a far, far corner with their backs to the audience (though of course we can watch them on camera). Other than a sex scene that took place either in the bar or somewhere else (I wasn't quite sure), I can't for the life of me imagine why they had the bar onstage in the first place. Making matters worse, the studio booth is so narrow and cluttered (and so poorly covered by the cameras), that virtually nothing that happens in it is dramatically interesting or even visible, except for one brief line by Maslany late in the show. It's literally a jumbled mess that's ignored 90% of the time and a deeply awkward set when van Hove does try and stage some action there.

In short, one third of the stage is taken up by a jumbled studio booth that's hard to see into, the other side of the stage is taken up by an unnecessary bar and theater goers are seated in the midst of this, chowing down on food and drinking wine. If that's not enough, multiple scenes are staged out of sight entirely. You can (almost) always see the actors on a video screen but you also waste a lot of time peering around the set, wondering where in fact the actors who are talking to one another might actually be. One scene is actually set in front of the theater for no good reason, though it was nice to see New Yorkers know enough to not look at a camera and just keep walking, even if Tony Goldwyn and Tatiana Maslany are making out in front of them.

It's so...ugly, such a godawful mess, so unsatisfying and cluttered and so very, very different in every way from what van Hove and his team have done so many times before that it's hard to believe this was staged in London, they saw it...and then kept it intact for New York. What were they thinking? I haven't a clue but undoubtedly they were thinking of something and Cranston's magnetic if wasted turn as Beale let them think they were onto it.

As a final head-scratcher, the show ends, the cast takes its bow, the lights come up...and as the audience gathers its things, the video monitors begin to show news footage of Gerald Ford being sworn in as President of the United States. Huh? Maybe it's a testament to the power of TV or maybe the audience was just intrigued enough by the sheer randomness of this, but most everyone stayed put. Ford was followed by Jimmy Carter being sworn in and he was followed by Ronald Reagan. Well, it's clear where this is headed and you get no points for predicting like I did how the audience would react. George Bush Sr. got some polite applause (since he'd just died) while Bill Clinton received notably modest clapping himself. (His stock has fallen hard in recent years.) George W. Bush was mostly ignored, Barack Obama of course received thunderous applause and Donald Trump even louder boos. (Except for one yahoo in the orchestra who applauded. Tourists!)

It was admittedly a fascinating bit of tracking the popularity of recent US Presidents. But surely if they wanted to make some point connected with the show we just saw, they should have shown footage of Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer and Glenn Beck breaking down in tears on air a la Howard Beale and Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly and Sean Hannity today. Sure, they could have ended with Trump though that seems too obvious to bother. Presidential swearing-in footage? It's just one more missing piece of the puzzle that is this messy, confused, mixed message of a show from one of the most noteworthy talents in theater. Like Beale, van Hove might fall on his face sometimes, but he's never boring.

THEATER OF 2018

Homelife/The Zoo Story (at Signature) *** out of ****
Escape To Margaritaville **
Broadway By The Year: 1947 and 1966 ***
Lobby Hero ***
Frozen **
Rocktopia *
Angels in America ** 1/2
Mean Girls ** 1/2
The Sting **
Mlima's Tale ** 1/2
Children Of A Lesser God ** 1/2
Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance ** 1/2
The Metromaniacs ***
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical *
The Seafarer **
Henry V (Public Mobile Unit w Zenzi Williams) * 1/2
Saint Joan **
Travesties *** 1/2
Summer and Smoke ** 1/2
My Fair Lady ** 1/2
Broadway By The Year: 1956 and 1975 ** 1/2
Bernhard/Hamlet * 1/2
On Beckett ***
What The Constitution Means To Me **
The Winning Side *
Oklahoma **
Mother Of The Maid *
Love's Labour's Lost ** 1/2
The Lifespan of a Fact **
India Pale Ale *
Thunderbodies ***
The Ferryman *** 1/2

Eve's Song *

King Kong *

American Son * 1/2
The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui ***

Mike Birbiglia's The New One ***
The Hard Problem **  
The Prom **
Ruben and Clay's First Annual Christmas Show ** 
The Prisoner ** 
Network * 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: "The Prisoner" Can't Get Free

THE PRISONER ** out of ****
THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE AT POLONSKY SHAKESPEARE CENTER

Legendary director Peter Brook returns with this fable-like story about a young man punished for an unspeakable crime. The story is presented on a mostly bare stage with a minimum of props. The cast includes some actors for whom English is a second language (which makes them one up on me) and so they speak slowly and stiffly. The Prisoner is quiet, elusive and ultimately as tad confounding and one is made to feel a rube for thinking so -- no wonder they applaud us at the end, as if to gently pat us on the head for grappling with their art. It is admirable, of course; how could something involving Peter Brook and his longtime collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne not be admirable? But it is far from satisfying.

The narrative is so slim I will begin where Brook begins: with his note in the Playbill explaining the show's genesis. He traveled to Afghanistan and saw a man sentenced to an odd fate: he must sit outside a prison and face it, only leaving when he felt justified in doing so. Recognizing prison as a dehumanizing force, the idea was that this man might atone for his crimes, "repair" himself and go on to a productive life, rather than just being punished. Brook was intrigued by this image, it stayed with him and many years later he created this play, co-writing and co-directing it with Estienne.

So we see a young man in the aftermath of a terrible deed. His uncle sees the brutal life in prison and convinces a judge to change the sentence to the one described above. And so the young sits on a hill near some woods, facing a prison. Years pass as he is accosted by or simply encounters locals, an executioner, guards, a fellow prisoner and travelers. As one might expect for such an internal struggle, The Prisoner is meditative, modest and demands your full attention for its 85 minute running time. That attention is not squandered but neither is it rewarded.

In real life, Brook never found out what the "unspeakable crime" committed by the prisoner actually was. For the play, they invented one and more's the pity. An unspeakable crime has a lovely, fable-like ambiguity to it. Instead of a terrible crime, the play plainly states that the young man's father had recently been widowed. When the boy came home, he found his father in bed with the boy's sister -- in a rage, the son killed his dad. Patricide, even over a dreadful crime like that, is a tremendous taboo throughout history. But the incestuous act becomes a tremendous roadblock for the rest of the play.

First it explains what the young man did. Then he confesses his real fear: that it was a crime of jealousy, not rage and that he too wants an incestuous relationship with his sister. Then his sister tells him to stop all this self-flagellating nonsense and come home and be a father to the child she has born from sleeping with their dad. (It's unclear to me but she seems to be offering herself as his lover in the bargain.) When he turns her down, she drops off the kid with their uncle and heads to America to become a doctor. And the uncle tells the prisoner that yes, many cultures look down on incest but when he saw the father sleeping with the daughter, the uncle saw only love.

What the hell? Brook is not making any argument about Afghanistan's culture -- indeed, the show itself is explicitly universal and located nowhere in particular. Why in heaven's name he decided to introduce incest and then make everyone BUT the prisoner seem fine with it -- and to no particular purpose -- escapes me. You're so confused by the slow drip of details (it takes half the play or longer for all this information to get out) that it keeps you from understanding the motives of everyone involved...except the prisoner, who is the only one being punished. I'd be perfectly happy -- if dubious -- to watch a drama where characters argue cheerfully for incest. But The Prisoner doesn't so much argue for it as simply mention it in passing and then furrow its brow over your parochial complaints.

All of this is offered in a scrupulously poetical setting. Very little of it has dramatic heft, though Hiran Abeysekera as the prisoner and Hayley Carmichael as the wide-eyed traveler (and other roles) keep our attention when center stage. Nonetheless, running times matter and when a play is said to run 70 minutes but actually runs 85 minutes, that's telling. Running 20% long is a sure sign of actors indulging themselves or more likely here struggling to find something to play. It would be churlish to say one was a prisoner at this drama -- I'd rather see a failed work by real artists over a failed work of commercial pap any day of the week and Brook is indeed legendary. But whatever insight into human nature and crime and punishment this show strives for remains a mystery.



THEATER OF 2018

Homelife/The Zoo Story (at Signature) *** out of ****
Escape To Margaritaville **
Broadway By The Year: 1947 and 1966 ***
Lobby Hero ***
Frozen **
Rocktopia *
Angels in America ** 1/2
Mean Girls ** 1/2
The Sting **
Mlima's Tale ** 1/2
Children Of A Lesser God ** 1/2
Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance ** 1/2
The Metromaniacs ***
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical *
The Seafarer **
Henry V (Public Mobile Unit w Zenzi Williams) * 1/2
Saint Joan **
Travesties *** 1/2
Summer and Smoke ** 1/2
My Fair Lady ** 1/2
Broadway By The Year: 1956 and 1975 ** 1/2
Bernhard/Hamlet * 1/2
On Beckett ***
What The Constitution Means To Me **
The Winning Side *
Oklahoma **
Mother Of The Maid *
Love's Labour's Lost ** 1/2
The Lifespan of a Fact **
India Pale Ale *
Thunderbodies ***
The Ferryman *** 1/2

Eve's Song *

King Kong *

American Son * 1/2
The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui ***

Mike Birbiglia's The New One ***
The Hard Problem **  
The Prom **
Ruben and Clay's First Annual Christmas Show ** 
The Prisoner ** 

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: Ruben and Clay's Holiday TV Special (Minus The Cameras)

RUBEN AND CLAY'S FIRST ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CAROL FAMILY FUN PAGEANT SPECTACULAR REUNION SHOW ** out of ****
IMPERIAL THEATER

Okay, if you have any interest in Ruben and Clay's First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show, by all means go ahead! If you're on the fence, one has to wonder why? Are you worried they won't sing enough Christmas songs or make enough American Idol references or deliver enough groan-worthy jokes? Fear not! If you're asking yourself, who are Ruben and Clay, well then this probably isn't for you. Unless that is, you're a tourist and you'd like to go to a Broadway show but don't want to spend $200 and you've already seen the Rockettes and you're in town and apparently Hamilton tickets are really hard to get (who knew?) and you just want a break from walking in which case, I think you're in luck!

This is the second year in a row someone has plopped a TV-centric holiday show onto Broadway, but this time it's actually more of a present for tourists instead of a trap. That earlier show included winners of The Voice, America's Got Talent and the like, which is to say shows that aren't American Idol. And we all know American Idol is the talent show that has actually discovered talent in recent years: Oscar-winning, Grammy-winning and (eventually) Tony-winning talent. (Constantine Maroulis was nominated for a Tony Award in 2009 for Rock Of Ages and Fantasia deserved a nomination when she stepped into The Color Purple.)  Heck, Clay Aiken already appeared on Broadway during the run of Spamalot. So this isn't even his Broadway debut!

Have you guessed that I'm a fan of American Idol? Toss in the fact that I own a ridiculous amount of Christmas music AND I enjoy good/bad holiday specials of yore and you can imagine I am the perfect audience member for Ruben and Clay's First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show. 

Clay Aiken promises right at the top of the show that it will be modeled after those Bing Crosby/Perry Como/Partridge Family holiday specials and Ruben Studdard insists that means a very cheesy vibe. Mission accomplished! The medleys are so non-stop, the gags so dad-worthy, the skits and sentimentality so on-cue that I looked in vain for the TV cameras. It's not especially good. And it's  not so-bad-it's good. It's just what it is -- a holiday special with two guys who rose to fame together via one of the most-watched TV showdowns of all time, enjoyed some success on their own and genuinely don't mind being joined at the hip even 15 years later. They don the same duds they wore for their Idol audition, Clay keeps trying to get his name listed first in the show's title, Ruben kids him about being the runner-up and if any of this makes you roll your eyes, well that's the point.

It all slips by painlessly, though not as fast as it should. Act One was heavier on the jokes -- including an admirably timely rewrite of "Baby It's Cold Outside." I especially enjoyed the goofy, Laugh-In style series of one liners. Actors stuck their heads through the curtain a la that variety show to deliver zingers. The winning gag for my group: "What does Santa Claus use to clean his sleigh? Comet!" Act Two was more serious, with the two leads each sharing videotaped memories of Christmas amidst a showcased ballad, then bringing tears to their eyes when they chatted about their friendship.

The supporting cast of three women and two men did a lot of heavy lifting on this nonsense. Saddled with bland material, they did their job and stayed out of the way of Clay and Ruben. Julian Diaz-Granados made the most of his chance, delivering the best vocals, the right goofy (but not dismissive) attitude to the nonsense and CW-ready looks (he should soon book a comedy or at least a guest spot on Riverdale).

The whole thing looks like it cost about $5, which actually helps -- the flimsier the material, the more a hometown, just-doing-it-for-fun vibe let's you feel supportive, the way one might at a school production. The night I attended they were gifted with a very eager audience member chosen to come on stage for a game of word association. Her hijinks alone raised the spirits (and I hate audience participation). Still, at two hours and ten minutes, it's easily 20 minutes too long. For starters, a PSA for the worthy charity Inclusion Project unnecessarily began act two. (They work to integrate kids with disabilities anywhere and everywhere and a portion of proceeds benefit them.) The video should have been displayed during the intermission. Then, cut one medley from each act, cut the jarring joke about Ruben using a bathroom installed in the set's chimney and maybe one or two of their heart-tugging videos and voila, you've just improved things mightily. (The only other joke that doesn't work is having Ruben flatly reject one of the cast members as a date right at the start. Her interest in a boyfriend is a very minor thread, but why shoot her down at the beginning or do it so coldly?)

If you'll notice, I haven't mentioned the music. What's to say? By and large, the medleys and arrangements are unmemorable and uninspired, if competent. The exception, unfortunately, is when Ruben tackles one of my favorite holiday songs: Stevie Wonder's "One Little Christmas Tree." Here music director Ben Cohn gets in the way of the song (and Ruben's singing) with a clunky arrangement. In terms of voice, I'd say Ruben's smooth vocals have risen a bit over the years (rather than lowered) and hold up better than Clay's. Of course, Clay still hits the Olympian heights, which sent the crowd I saw the show with into ecstasy. And Clay is far more comfortable onstage, bantering with the audience, delivering the goofy lines and setting the right tone. Ruben is so laid back he almost disappears at times, though he notably wakes up during a brief bit imitating a preacher to introduce one of Clay's showcases. (His dry wit comes across better on video.)

You can't complain all this is corny because Ruben beats you to it. Yet their chemistry come across nicely here, from the opening gags to their final duet on a Christmas standard that ends the night on a touch of faith...and another big, big note from Clay. Hey, they know their audience. Whether that audience is big enough to bring them back for Ruben and Clay's Second Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show, only time (and the box office) will show. It's doubtful. But if American Idol wants to extend its brand to a holiday special (and why not?) they've got the perfect hosts.


THEATER OF 2018

Homelife/The Zoo Story (at Signature) *** out of ****
Escape To Margaritaville **
Broadway By The Year: 1947 and 1966 ***
Lobby Hero ***
Frozen **
Rocktopia *
Angels in America ** 1/2
Mean Girls ** 1/2
The Sting **
Mlima's Tale ** 1/2
Children Of A Lesser God ** 1/2
Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance ** 1/2
The Metromaniacs ***
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical *
The Seafarer **
Henry V (Public Mobile Unit w Zenzi Williams) * 1/2
Saint Joan **
Travesties *** 1/2
Summer and Smoke ** 1/2
My Fair Lady ** 1/2
Broadway By The Year: 1956 and 1975 ** 1/2
Bernhard/Hamlet * 1/2
On Beckett ***
What The Constitution Means To Me **
The Winning Side *
Oklahoma **
Mother Of The Maid *
Love's Labour's Lost ** 1/2
The Lifespan of a Fact **
India Pale Ale *
Thunderbodies ***
The Ferryman *** 1/2

Eve's Song *

King Kong *

American Son * 1/2
The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui ***

Mike Birbiglia's The New One ***
The Hard Problem **  
The Prom **
Ruben and Clay's First Annual Christmas Show ** 

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.

MOVIES: "Amazing" Aretha

AMAZING GRACE **** out of ****
FILM FORUM

Ok, in general I want audiences to behave themselves. We're here to watch the movie, not you! No cell phones, no texting, no chatting. But that's not really true. Movie-watching is a communal experience and when the movie's a comedy, an audience laughing along makes it that much funnier. At a tense moment in a thriller, we hold our breath. And sometimes, at a concert film, we...react. We clap or we let loose some sound of appreciation; we are present. The very first film I ever saw at a screening for critics was Stop Making Sense. I was in an empty theater in Gainesville, Florida and it was so damn good I practically clapped along even though I was alone and had never (yet) listened to a single Talking Heads album. When I saw a restored print of The Last Waltz at the late, lamented Ziegfeld Theatre (w Martin Scorsese in attendance), the audience cheered each number as if they were at an actual live concert. Who could blame them, with performances that good? When I saw Jazz On A Summer's Day at Lincoln Center, the hep cats snapped their fingers and burst into cheers at the end of Anita O'Day's legendary "Tea For Two."

So while I was thoroughly transported, agog and beside myself when (finally!) watching Amazing Grace -- the documentary film capturing Aretha Franklin's live recording of her legendary gospel album -- it was not exactly an ideal audience. A dozen sleepy critics on a weekday morning and not an "Amen" from one of them. No thank you. I want to see Amazing Grace again with a paying audience that is ready to take part, to applaud, to uh-huh, to laugh and be swept up in one of the best concert films in history. Quiet contemplation is not on the agenda.

I've waited decades to see this film, which was filmed way back in 1972 and then bedeviled by technical issues and then rights issues for 46 years. I bought Franklin's legendary gospel album when it came out on compact disc and the liner notes from that original 1972 release were maddeningly enigmatic. Apparently, a young Sydney Pollack had captured the two nights of recording on film -- the liner notes said so! Just as clearly, the film had never surfaced. What the heck happened? Years of mystery followed until details leaked out: Pollack had failed to sync image and sound with clapboards and it was literally impossible to match them. When technology finally caught up, Pollack handed the whole mess over to Alan Elliott who struggled and labored over the project for ages until he and editor Jeff Buchanan finally delivered a finished film. Now finally, it is making an Oscar qualifying run at Film Forum. The movie will have stiff, stiff competition but it is unquestionably worthy of winning Documentary and if Buchanan isn't at least nominated for Best Editing, Pollack should roll over in his grave.

How could it possibly match decades of anticipation? Heck, Orson Welles couldn't do it when his long-lost film The Other Side of The Wind finally surfaced. Well it does. Amazing Grace is exactly what I was hoping for, even if I didn't know it. It captures two nights of performance, showing a somewhat nervous and tense Franklin who nonetheless delivers from the first note of the first song on the first night and never looks back. (On night two she is notably more relaxed, if still wholly focused on singing and ignoring the countless distractions whirling around her.

Pollack is everywhere, as are a seeming army of people wielding 16mm cameras. He urges one to capture a wide shot, points others to good angles, discusses segueing from a rehearsal of a song into the actual performance (which is exactly what the film does) and so on. It's gorgeously shot but not in the strikingly beautiful way of say a performance piece like Stop Making Sense. It's more like cinema verité, raw and beautiful, with the cameras finding the right point of view and sticking with i and the lighting capturing Franklin and the mostly black choir, musicians and audience in every glorious shade under the sun. (No easy trick, especially without the lighting ever seeming harsh.) And what a talented bunch to film. Gospel great Rev. James Cleveland is a treat, whether introducing Franklin, schooling the audience on how to behave around the cameras, playing the piano or singing along. Just as magnetic is the Southern California Community Choir, led by a young man named Alexander Hamilton (!), who has so much personality as he leads them and interacts with Aretha that it's a joy to watch. Individual choir singers stick in your memory like friends, along with audience members (who dance in the aisles when the spirit moves them) or the celebrities in attendance like Aretha's father (who makes his presence known) or gospel great Clara Ward (who whoops in appreciation at various points on night two).

Every detail feels right, even the bizarre fact that the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, California wasn't filled to the rafters with people. (Apparently, they failed to get the word out? Though you'd think even a whisper that Aretha was singing would be enough to line folk up around the block.) So it's frustrating to think my six year old self might have wandered in, slipped into a seat in a back pew (near Mick Jagger) and been taken to a higher ground. But it's also kind of beautiful that the church isn't full, that this isn't an "event" choreographed down to its every detail, but a gathering of people creating a beautiful noise and above all worshipping.

The clothes, the attitude, the raw human feel of the 16mm film stock -- it all just works. And of course there's Aretha. I can imagine singers studying certain moments of this film just to see how she's doing what she does, the way her mouth and tongue and breathing are so beautifully controlled in building up a moment and then bringing it back down and then building it back up again.

It's a thrill from start to finish but a climax comes at the end of night one when Aretha tackles that old warhorse "Amazing Grace." Yes, there's a reason the album is titled after it. Aretha dives in and her performance is so moving, so meaningful, so completely the opposite of a diva showing off and instead the sound of someone moved to rapture while exploring with her artistry exactly what she can do with this melody at this moment in time with this choir and this audience and it just...flies. The choir has been seated throughout the evening. But you know why a choir is seated, don't you? They're seated so that when they STAND UP, you will feel it as a momentous event. They don't actually stand up as a group, on cue. Here, they simply begin to rise up out of their seats one by one in appreciation, roaring their approval as Aretha soars above them. They leap and laugh and raise their hands and sit back down again to wipe away tears. Rev. Cleveland himself steps away from the piano and takes a seat on the side, covering his head with a handkerchief, seemingly overwhelmed with emotion. The choir director Hamilton takes over on piano and after composing himself Cleveland takes over directing the choir as Aretha's masterful, transcendent performance comes to a close. I've heard this classic performance many times on disc but seeing the high drama, the intense joy, the sheer spectacle of it all as it was happening all those many years ago was breathtaking.

Don't get me wrong. Cleveland is a performer. Maybe he gets so moved during every service he must step aside and compose himself. I've never seen him in concert -- or in church -- before. But if that's a performance, he's a method actor because he was feeling it. And with Aretha singing her heart -- or should I say her soul -- out, who can doubt it? Can I get an amen?

NOTE: An introductory text sets up the film for us and how it came about. However, it unintentionally also misleads. It describes Franklin's remarkable popular success but then claims -- wrongly -- that she had enjoyed 11 consecutive #1 hits on the pop and r and b charts, from "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) to "Spanish Harlem." She had indeed scored 11 #1 hits on one or both of those charts, but they weren't consecutive. After three #1 hits in a row on the r and b charts (with "Respect" also hitting #1 on the pop charts), Franklin's fourth single for Atlantic was "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," which peaked at #8 on the pop charts and #2 on the r and b charts. Later, "The House That Jack Built" also peaked at #2, "See Saw" peaked at #9 and so on. Franklin released twenty singles from her Atlantic debut through January of 1972 when she recording the gospel album Amazing Grace. And yes, eleven of them hit #1 on the r and b charts. (She would enjoy ten more #1 hits in the US, including a duet with George Michael that was her only song to hit #1 on the pop charts but not do the same in r and b.) In the 1990s, she also had three #1 hits on the US dance charts. That's an amazing record and needs no exaggerating.


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: Time For Stoppard To Stop?; A "Prom" To Forget

THE HARD PROBLEM ** out of ****
MITZI E. NEWHOUSE AT LINCOLN CENTER

Most artists have a creative peak of 10 or so years, assuming they have any peak at all. Everything before and after that all-too-brief period when they have Something To Say or at least A New Way To Say It is just more of the same. It's the necessary work leading up to that breakthrough and the downslope where they repeat themselves, as one will. Stoppard is one of the many greats that disprove this rule, since he was dependably brilliant from at least 1967 through 2002 (or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead through The Coast of Utopia). For all I know, his radio play Darkside and the TV miniseries Parade's End would extend the streak another decade. I've yet to  catch either.)

So it's partially protectiveness and stupidity that makes me wonder after 15 or so years of unsatisfying stage work whether Stoppard should stop. The answer -- obviously -- is no, he should not. Not writing would perhaps be like not breathing for him. I would enjoy a memoir if he's the sort that might deliver a good one (some people are too circumspect for such an effort). And I'm not ready to give up the thrill of a new play by Tom Stoppard, the way friends ask in a rush if I knew he had a new play at Lincoln Center and why hadn't they heard of this and dear god it's already sold out and can I help them buy tickets somewhere, someway, somehow?

So the hard problem is not figuring out whether the new Tom Stoppard play is good or not. It's not. The hard problem is not figuring out when it goes off the rails. The play never really coheres but it falls apart precisely at the moment where a hard-charging American of finance chews out an underling and said underling collapses to the ground in a farce-like manner and you wonder for a second if you've wandered into a different play. The hard problem is figuring out exactly why it doesn't work. Since Stoppard has been grappling with this play for at least three years (it was first staged in London at the National in 2015), I imagine he's been grappling with this same question.

One thing is certain: The Hard Problem is unquestionably Stoppardian. It involves very clever characters discussing weighty and complex ideas, batting them about like tennis balls -- playfully or more often aggressively, to score a point. Two college students are sparring with one another on their way to what we assume will be an enjoyable shag. Hilary (Adelaide Clemens) takes the side of ethics and morality while her Teaching Assistant superior Spike (Chris O'Shea) mocks the very idea of morality and sees everything -- even altruism -- as a form of self-interest. Spike is mildly insufferable, until he takes his shirt off and one objectifies him quite rudely and is willing to let the smugness slide. The only moment of true surprise in all this is when Spike is showering and Hilary kneels primly on the floor and says her prayers.

Everything here feels slightly off, from the way Hilary prays (rather sheepishly, which makes the eight year old pretense of kneeling a little hard to swallow) down to their somehow unconvincing names. Spike? Hilary? I spent the entire play trying and failing to remember their names. He's not a bad sort and does offer helpful advice. Before you know it, Hilary is interviewing at a nonprofit called the Brain Institute. Most of its work is rigorously empirical and Hilary expects to lose out to the numbers guy Amal (Eshan Bapjay). Instead Amal is shunted into the world of hedge funds and Hilary gets to tackle the hard problem of defining consciousness. It all leads to an experiment led by Hilary and her whip-smart new assistant Bo (Karoline Xu) that goes smashingly, headline making, mainstream magazine reportably well. Sort of.

The problem is none of it convinces. One of the great marvels of Stoppard's career is how the clever-clever showing off of early plays like Travesties and Jumpers deepened into the rich, glorious humanity of his mature masterpieces Arcadia, The Invention of Love and The Coast Of Utopia. From start to finish, Stoppard tackled big themes. But he created a body of work where those ideas were embodied in and illustrated by characters we cared about, living and breathing people who brought those ideas to life. You don't have to give a toss about the gardening philosophy of England's past to be moved by Arcadia or follow the cross-currents of the Russian Revolution to root for the people in Coast  of Utopia. Stoppard made both the ideas and the people thrillingly real and important.

Not so here. The play trots along -- deceivingly enough -- nicely elevated by the performance of Clemens and O'Shea and Robert Petkoff, who makes Hilary's boss Leo interesting through sheer talent alone. You never quite buy it but it's watchable. Then it disintegrates. That bizarre pratfall of a scene where Amal faints during an atypical tirade by the institute's founder Jerry seems from another planet. Hilary at times breaks down over the memory of the daughter she had to give up in her youth, though she does so in a manner that is strange and unconvincing, to say the least. (No points for making a connection -- at least emotional -- between this long lost child and the similarly named adopted daughter of the Brain Institute's founder.) Then Spike behaves in a viciously rude manner that has no link to his earlier behavior; Spike was sometimes boorish but never mean. Toss in not one but TWO unrequited loves that we'd never know existed if it wasn't suddenly spelled out, not to mention a drawn-out ending that ties everything up too neatly and you've got a mess of a play that at least knew enough not to bother with an interval.

Jack O'Brien directs smoothly but can't make emotional sense of this hash. It is presented in the intimate Mitzi E. Newhouse as well as can be expected. If the staging comes from the play, it too is confusing. A group of observers dubbed the ensemble watches the play from the wings and gracefully moves in and out with props and the like. They and the cast very modestly interact -- smiling at or acknowledging each other and the audience in a mysterious, if friendly way -- but to what purpose I can't imagine.

For me, the play barreled past one decent ending, the moment when one character looks up to heaven and says simply, "Thank you." It was a graceful nod to the inexplicable, the ineffable, the desire to knock on wood and be grateful when things go right for a bloody change. But it didn't stop there, sad to say.

The hard problem the title refers to, the question of where and how and really IF consciousness arises is a challenging one. I imagine you can tell when a play you are writing gains consciousness, that is, becomes its own living breathing thing. Characters start saying things that surprise the playwright. Those lines are unexpected, "wrong," but so very right. Events start to insist on happening even when careful plotting was supposed to go that way instead of this. Even a playwright as great as Stoppard might not know how such a thing happens. But he's seen it time and time again. And I'm willing to bet he'd admit it never really happened with The Hard Problem. Ah well, there's always next time.


THE PROM ** out of ****
LONGACRE THEATRE

Ok, I never cared about my high school prom. You asked a date, you wore a tux, you danced, so what? Maybe it was self-defense for an (unwittingly) closeted gay kid who was too nerdy/dorky to snag the head cheerleader (or football quarterback) of cinematic dreams even if he wanted them. I was above it all, I guess, or wanted to be, though not so superior I refused to go or anything like that. I wasn't a rebel. I just didn't take it seriously or expect this was the night I'd lose my virginity or remember as a romantic highpoint of my young life. I also never thought high school (or college or middle age) was supposed to be the best time of my life. Call me Buddhist but I stay in the moment. I enjoyed high school. I enjoyed college. And I'm enjoying now.

But, you know, I get it. Prom. Prom!! I've seen enough movies to know it matters or is supposed to matter to others. So I'm perfectly willing to go along with The Prom, the benign new musical about a teen girl in the heartland who just wants to take her girlfriend to the prom. (In London, the musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie! is about a boy who just wants to wear a dress to prom.) Actually, it's not really about that lonely lesbian standing up for herself.

It's really about some self-centered Broadway stars trying to recover from their flop new musical about Eleanor Roosevelt. It gets such poisonous reviews they know they must do something to rehabilitate their images. Sure, "self-centered" and "Broadway star" is redundant but Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel) and Barry Glickman (Brooks Ashmanskas) are really self-centered, even by the standards of the Great White Way. They need a cause, something to prove they care, damnit! Then they can get some good publicity and move on to their next shown with a nice little boost in their Q ratings. Lo and behold, they stumble across the story of a poor little teen in nowheresville who can't bring her girlfriend to the prom. Before you know it, they and their friends (and the cast of a non-Equity production of Godspell) have descended on that small town to raise some holy hell.

You can plot out the rest. The stars get a little humbled and realize to boot that the hicks in hicksville aren't such hicks after all. Said hicks learn not all sodomites are sad and big city folk aren't so bad once you get to know them. Everyone sings a little, dances a little, lessons are learned and if you don't know whether that lovelorn teen Emma (Caitlin Kinnunen) gets to go to prom with her gal, well then you've never seen a Broadway musical comedy OR the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

What's surprising is how often The Prom fails to match even those modest standards. The book is by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, the lyrics by Beguelin and the music by Matthew Sklar. And between them in various configurations they've been involved with shows like The Drowsy Chaperone (Martin's triumph), The Wedding Singer, Elf and Aladdin (a terrific show and a triumph for Beguelin). Toss in Casey Nicholaw of The Book of Mormon (and Mean Girls and Something Rotten and the new London Dreamgirls) and you've got a lot of talent that should know better.

Among the many problems? The big city know-it-alls never really learn a lesson. Not one. In act one Dee Dee Allen does deign to go to Applebee's with school principal Mr. Hawkins. But he's played by the charming Michael Potts and the principal is a super fan who can recount her every role. His idea of romance is telling Dee Dee how important her work is to regular folk ("We Look To You"). Any celeb might be willing to spend an hour to hear that, especially when it's so sincere. In act two, the celebs learn that when you fail at something you never really cared about, you can always buy some goodwill by breaking out the credit card.

Barry Glickman tries to be besties with Emma, the teen who really didn't want her life turned into a Cause, thank you very much. How does he do this? Well, when the prom seems to be happening, he asks Emma what she's going to wear and then scoffs at her desire for a tux and some high tops. Nope, he insists she glam and fem it up. Really? Really! In this post-Ellen, #MeToo world he simply ignores what Emma really wants and insists she conform to his cisgender, straight, John Hughes idea of what a girl SHOULD wear to the prom (as any self-respecting Broadway queer at a rally might loudly protest). You might well expect this is a set-up for Barry to learn a lesson! But no...she just goes along with it and wears what he wants and looks nice, as far as he's concerned. It's almost bizarre how tone deaf the show is on this key issue. And if you think it's a minor matter...well, IT'S PROM and what you wear matters! They even do a whole number about it, for Pete's sake. And if you don't care what you wear, well that should be respected too.

It gets worse. In act two, fellow actor Trent Oliver (a deadpan Christopher Sieber) points out that the PTA and the Broadway stars and the media are all arguing about the prom...but no one is talking to the kids! So he goes to talk to the kids. Of course, all he really does is put on a backwards baseball cap, hang out at the 7-Eleven and when the kids finally recognize him (he was in a hit sitcom way back when), well, HE does all the talking. And that's one of the good numbers!

The kids are clueless Christians who are supposed to be dumbfounded by the idea that passages of the Bible forbid tattoos and divorce and the like. (In the real world, Trent, they'd be quoting Scripture and dismantling his banal take on Scripture faster than you can say "Vacation Bible School!" Oh they'd be wrong when they say it's love to tell a lesbian she needs to change her ways, but they'd hardly be surprised by what he preaches.) In other words, small town folk aren't so isolated and clueless as the show thinks and lots of Broadway stars come from small towns and love small towns, even if they don't love its politics. You don't really expect a light Broadway musical comedy to be wildly nuanced but the stereotypes of 60 years ago don't work today. A show can be silly but it still needs to be smart. And surely one of the dozens of producers should have noticed that the thankless role of the agent/publicist played by Josh Lamon had about ten lines, none of them necessary and could be easily cut.

What does work is the talent on display, doing their best with very modest material. Act one is thoroughly forgettable, but act two starts out strong. It begins with "Zazz," a song where actress Angie (Angie Schworer -- and I could have schworn she is a kid sister to Jane Krakowski) shares a little showbiz stiff upper lip advice to Emma. It at least feels rooted in the real world, with a Broadway hoofer offering up what she knows best: jazz hands. That's followed by "The Lady's Improving," in which Dee Dee apologizes to the principal by reenacting the breakthrough number from her first big show. It has the benefit of ignoring the musical at hand and offering up a parody/tribute to showstoppers of the past, a la The Drowsy Chaperone. And even Trent's "Love Thy Neighbor" perks things up. That's three in a row of not-bad stuff, but that's about it.

Still, Leavel and Potts as the Broadway diva and the principal bring some actual humanity to their scenes together. Ashmanskas is too cheerful to dismiss entirely even in these flimsy surroundings, while Sieber has the best line of the night, thanks to his dry delivery. They all have moments, including Kinnunen as the teen Emma. It's easy to forget about her, just like the celebs do. But she is pretty winning, with an easy, open presence that makes you care for her even when the show can't be bothered.

THEATER OF 2018

Homelife/The Zoo Story (at Signature) *** out of ****
Escape To Margaritaville **
Broadway By The Year: 1947 and 1966 ***
Lobby Hero ***
Frozen **
Rocktopia *
Angels in America ** 1/2
Mean Girls ** 1/2
The Sting **
Mlima's Tale ** 1/2
Children Of A Lesser God ** 1/2
Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance ** 1/2
The Metromaniacs ***
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical *
The Seafarer **
Henry V (Public Mobile Unit w Zenzi Williams) * 1/2
Saint Joan **
Travesties *** 1/2
Summer and Smoke ** 1/2
My Fair Lady ** 1/2
Broadway By The Year: 1956 and 1975 ** 1/2
Bernhard/Hamlet * 1/2
On Beckett ***
What The Constitution Means To Me **
The Winning Side *
Oklahoma **
Mother Of The Maid *
Love's Labour's Lost ** 1/2
The Lifespan of a Fact **
India Pale Ale *
Thunderbodies ***
The Ferryman *** 1/2

Eve's Song *

King Kong *

American Son * 1/2
The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui ***

Mike Birbiglia's The New One ***
The Hard Problem **  
The Prom **

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.