THEATER: "Forbidden Broadway" Is Back and Broadway Trembles (With Giggles)

FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: THE NEXT GENERATION *** out of ****
THE TRIAD

Don't take it for granted. The silly, sly new edition of Forbidden Broadway is comfortably ensconced at The Triad on the Upper West Side. Let's hope it runs and runs so long the show has to toss in new numbers (Mrs Doubtfire, anyone?), bring in new performers and then we can all take it for granted again. Right now, creator Gerard Alessandrini's franchise is as fresh as ever. Sure, you know what to expect and thank god for that.

Clockwise from left Immanuel Houston(standing), Aline Mayagoitia, Jenny Lee Stern, Joshua Turchin and Chris Collins-Pisano

Photo by Carol Rosegg ©2019

Here's where I run down the list of songs and tell you which spoofs are spot on, which performers do the best at capturing the vocal quirks of such and such a star and maybe which ones are a little wide of the mark. Hey, you can't reinvent the wheel when covering a revue like this.

And Alessandrini doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to delivering the goods. After all, it's not the idea of Forbidden Broadway that's so clever. It's the execution. Needless to say, the wigs of Conor Donnelly and the costume of Dustin Cross work overtime (and must be awfully sturdy since they get thrown on and ripped off at a furious pace). The choreography of Gerry McIntyre delivers on a small stage while skewering the big moves of Broadway. Musical director and pianist Fred Barton seamlessly papers over any tiny pauses in action or momentary blips during scene changes. And above all Alessandrini's book and lyrics are up to his usual high standards.

Everyone in the cast has a winning moment, though Joshua Turchin as the juvenile is a modest weak link. It doesn't really matter, not in the context of its "let's put on a show" vibe. Immanuel Houston is especially fun as André De Shields. Chris Collins-Pisano tackles everyone from Beetlejuice to Harold Prince with amusing energy. And Aline Mayagoitia delivers a delicious Bernadette Peters.

But first among equals is Jenny Lee Stuart, with her terrific voice and equally terrific comic timing. She's hilarious as Gwen Verdon in a Fosse/Verdon bit (jumping in to say her name right on top of Collins-Pisnao saying 'Fosse"). She elevates the easy mocking of Renee Zellwegger in the bio-musical Judy by creating a fully realized Garland. Indeed, the lyric "Zellwegger smells in my part" is not Alessandrini's finest internal rhyme. But who cares when Stuart is killing it in every way? And her Mary Poppins was equally splendid and served a much better spoof.

I'd already blocked the godawful movie Mary Poppins Returns from my mind. But I especially disliked the bathos of "The Place Where Lost Things Go," a cloying ballad that seemed to suggest to children that their mother wasn't really dead, just misplaced, perhaps lost in the seat cushions of the couch or buried under a pile of stuff in the attic. Ok, that's not precisely what it tries to say, but it's perfect for satirizing. Alessandrini turns it into a ballad called "The Place Where The Lost Shows Go," an ode to the flops and forgotten musicals of yesteryear. The costumes and wigs capture the practically perfect nanny to a t, the flood of posters from old flops will warm the heart of any theater lover and the number is easily appreciated by casual fans. Plus, Stuart's performance is indeed practically perfect and dry as a martini. Hey, if my praising Stuart causes some backstage tension, they can always write a song about it!

Jenny Lee Stern and Chris Collins-Pisano 

Photo by Carol Rosegg ©2019

Indeed, Forbidden Broadway always balances between insider dope and tourist-friendly fare. Sometimes it's easy to do. Even casual fans will guess King Kong The Musical was both really expensive and lost a lot of money for its investors, so any jokes about it can kill.

My modest caveats are the spoofs that only work if you've seen the show. It's funny to mock Oklahoma! with "Woke-lahoma!" Actually, the song title alone is a winner. Still, I thought the numerous digs in this number work far better if you've actually seen the current production. (My guest disagreed and since he hasn't seen the current revival but laughed at the spoof, what do I know?) Similarly, I suppose the grim nature of Irish drama is always a rich target and "How Are Things In Irish Drama" is kind of funny. But since The Ferryman closed more than a year ago this number already feels outdated though Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation just opened!

Finally, I think the Harry Potter bit is off target. Alessandrini's spoofs are funny because they come from a great love for musicals and a gossipy awareness of what's happening on stage and behind the scenes. Not here, where he mocks the super-high prices of the two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. But that take on the show is about seven months out of date. Ever since the original cast left, the box office for Harry Potter has dropped in half, from more than $2 million a week to more often $1 million. (It's still sold out and still worth seeing.) Discount ticket offers have been coming fast and furious, as any theater-goer should be aware. So you can find a lot of bargains -- relatively speaking -- to this show.  If you were going to mock anything, it should have been that. And if you want to talk high ticket prices, Moulin Rouge! has been charging (and getting) eye-watering premium prices from its first preview, while Hadestown brazenly doubled its prices the day after winning the Tony for Best Musical. I expect Forbidden Broadway to be on the cutting edge of the inside dope and this is one time the show misses the mark.

Not that it matters! Two or three numbers that spoof stuff you haven't seen is probably par for the course for most people attending. Most of the time, you're a big enough fan to get the joke anyway or you can just enjoy the performances and songs in their own right. That's surely the case for this edition. In the Star Trek universe, the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation is arguably the best of all the shows in the franchise. I haven't seen enough of Forbidden Broadway during its illustrious history to make that claim. But Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation sure is fun.


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 ***



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: "Soft Power" In Hard Times

SOFT POWER ** out of ****
THE PUBLIC THEATER

In 2015, playwright David Henry Hwang had a very bad November. First, Hillary Clinton was the choice of most Americans, including Hwang. But the antiquated and ill-conceived Electoral College system meant Donald Trump became President of the United States. If that wasn't bad enough for a Tony-winning New York liberal, Hwang was attacked on the street. He was stabbed in the neck, nearly dying from a random hate crime. The assailant took no money and fled after Hwang shouted out in clear, unaccented English "What the fuck?," which apparently threw the bastard for a loop.

These twin assaults on democracy and decency led Hwang to question everything. Is the American experiment reaching an end? Will he always be too Chinese for some Americans and too American for some Chinese? Where does he belong? Where does anyone belong? And why do musicals starring Asians appear on Broadway only once every decade or so? And why is it almost always a revival of The King and I?

Like any real artist, Hwang turned his pain and probing into art. Soft Power is an awkward, ugly duckling of a play that yearns to transform into a swan of a musical. It's a mess but boy is his heart in the right place: on his sleeve.

Actually, I've just described the set-up of the show. In it, the character DHH (a too-earnest Francis Jue) is meeting with a producer from Shanghai named Xūe Xíng (Conrad Ricamora). Xūe company wants to turn Shanghai into the Broadway of Asia (though it kind of already is), starting with a big, fat, American-style musical with a Chinese perspective. And they want DHH to write it!

The movie they want him to adapt into this show? A hugely popular romantic comedy about a husband and wife who are both miserable, explore the idea of dating others but end up staying together for the sake of their vows and their child. It's called Stick With Your Mistake and the very Chinese idea of sacrifice for the greater good (of the marriage, the family, the community, the country) is precisely what appeals to Xūe and turns off Hwang.

Nonetheless, they go to a performance of The King and I, dissect the musical's very problematic attitude towards non-Westerners, acknowledge its emotional power, grab a chance to meet Clinton at a meet-and-greet...and then Hwang is stabbed in the neck.

Hwang slips into a fever dream while recovering from his attack (in which he lost a third of his blood). Hwang's desire to flip The King and I on its head comes to life, with Xūe in the role of Anna coming to the United States to civilize the barbarous Americans. Soft Power turns into a full-on musical through the looking glass, showing how China might see the US, from its obsession with guns to its ethnic prejudices to its absurd system of government where the people choose their leader, rather than an elite group of professionals. In China, Xūe tempts Hillary, she'd already be the leader since Clinton is so clearly qualified and ready. Maybe democracy is over-rated.

None of this captures the loopy nature of the show. It lovingly spoofs and quotes everything from A Chorus Line to The Music Man and of course The King and I, among many other shows. At one point, when Hillary is trying to dumb down her message to appeal to the masses, she belts out a song at a McDonald's and rides rodeo on a giant french fry. My Fair Lady's "The Rain In Spain" is transformed into a number where Xūe genially coaches Hillary on how to pronounce his name and the meaning of fourth tone and so on.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court even goes all Schoolhouse Rock on us to explain our election system and the glory of the Ballot Box. Remember, this is all from the perspective of a Chinese-funded and mounted show that becomes Asia's seminal idea of what America is really like, just as The King and I symbolized Western attitudes towards Asia. Indeed, there's even a bizarre detour for a 50th anniversary celebration of the musical we're watching, complete with panel discussion and a silly Westerner they can gently mock. (Gently, because they're the one with all the power and America has long since faded from preeminence.)

You might imagine Hwang delivering a scathing take-down of the US or a sly skewering of China's imagined fears about America and democracy. But you'll get neither. Soft Power is indeed soft in every way -- it's gentle, earnest, polite and really not out to offend much of anyone. Are we meant to be amused by China's distorted idea of America or perhaps laugh at ourselves when seeing the US through the eyes of outsiders? Neither happens. McDonald's as a symbol of US consumerism? Well, sure. (And hey, they've got one in Beijing.) An obsession with guns? Duh. If that's how China sees us, well, they're pretty spot on there too, aren't they? So what's the point?

It's a treat to see an almost all-Asian cast in a musical. But that's not enough. Soft Power is too timid to do more. If this is the flip-side of The King and I, why is Xūe talking to Hillary? She lost, Hwang! Hillary is not the leader of the country. Xūe (or really, a Chinese woman) should be civilizing Trump. I can't blame Hwang for not wanting to grapple with Agent Orange, even in his imagination. But if he's going to update The King and I, that's what he needed to do.

Since they kept Clinton, why cast a white woman? Alyse Alann Louis has a lot of fun in dual roles, especially when Hillary is chowing down on ice cream and pizza while singing the blues and surely her casting is there to clarify the gap between East and West. But since Broadway (and Hollywood) has such a long history of casting white people in yellow face, surely it would have been more on point to include, say, the sole Japanese actor in a sea of Chinese faces to play the white woman. (Or at least a woman of color.) This certainly isn't a criticism of Louis, one of the show's bright points.

The cast is game for this grab-bag of a goof, even though Saturday Night Live tries to be more pointed on a weekly basis. (And South Park actually succeeds.) By far the show's best element is Conrad Ricamora as Xūe. He's sexy, charming, magnetic and all on his own rescues the evening.

Ricamora was terrific in David Byrne's Here Lies Love. You can have fun going through the Playbill and spotting how many cast members appeared in that show. It's a testament to the top-notch talent here, but also a comment on how few roles written for Asian actors. Ricamora's Broadway debut after that breakthrough? The King and I. It's enough to make you cry.

In his Broadway debut, Ricamora played Tuptim's lover and I felt he was not up to the task vocally on the duet "I Have Dreamed." Here, his singing demands are quite different. Ricamora shines on the show's one solid number "Happy Enough," a piece illuminating the Chinese idea of sacrificing for the greater good. He is terrific in the serious drama, the romance and the song-and-dance, not to mention smoothly delivering two different accents. Thank goodness his hit TV show How To Get Away With Murder has just begun its sixth and final season. Ricamora should be available for a lot more theater and film work soon.

But this is mostly a musical and I fear the melodies by Jeanine Tesori are akin to her work on Caroline, Or Change and Fun Home. Sometimes her score can be beautiful and the 22-piece orchestra certainly does it justice. Yet she has no interest in melody and it shows. I don't need Jerry Herman, but I need something and Tesori offers it up rarely and grudgingly. You'll find no equivalent to Fun Home's "Ring Of Keys" here, though in its way "Happy Enough" comes close.

That song is also the show's best effort at exploring cultural differences between the US and China. Stereotypically, the US champions the individual, while Chinese culture celebrates the greater good. The song offers a nuanced moment and is worthy of Hwang's best intentions -- here, he's not spoofing or making a point, merely revealing. Otherwise, he can't bring himself to question much about the US any more than he can acknowledge that Trump won and is the real King right now.

If this show were the mirror-image of that Rodgers & Hammerstein show, it would end with the the King being "civilized" by the Chinese interloper who offers a new way of ruling. Instead, Hillary firmly rejects Xūe's idea of a one-party state or anything less than full democracy. If there's anything much to learn from Chinese culture (as opposed to the current Chinese government, of course), Soft Power doesn't grapple with it. No wonder director Leigh Silverman handles traffic nicely but can't bring this muddle into focus.

Hwang's message, his big revelation is the same as that Chinese romantic comedy: "stick with your mistake." In other words, you don't give up on the US just because Trump won an election. You stay and fight for the greater good. Well, I don't know about Hwang, but I had no intention of divorcing the US after the election. I never wanted to trash the American experiment. After 2016, I just wanted to trash the Electoral College.


NOTE: Read more on the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact at Wikipedia or its official website.

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 ***



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: "Dublin Carol" Hits a Mournful But Hopeful Note

DUBLIN CAROL ** 1/2 out of ****
IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE

The new spoof Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation has fun teasing the recent Broadway drama The Ferryman. That show brimmed over with children and drinking and the Troubles, so Forbidden Broadway sings the question: "What is the state of Irish drama?" The answer? "Grim, grim, grim."

Well, the Irish Rep tackles what might be playwright Conor McPherson's idea of a holiday show. You''ll find loads of drinking and troubles (if not THE Troubles) and the tone is indeed grim, along with some black humor. But given its setting on Christmas Eve, at least Dublin Carol has the grace to avoid crushing your spirit completely. It features a small, wavering candle flame of hope at the very end. I'll take it.

Still, it's no surprise the holiday setting has not fooled Irish Rep into delivering this play during the actual holidays. Dublin Carol ends its run before Thanksgiving and the Irish Rep offers the enjoyable nonsense of a London Assurance revival through the New Year. This is the sixth play by McPherson revived by the company (including their exceptional production of The Weir). Here's hoping they keep working their way through his body of work. Maybe a double bill of the one acts This Lime Tree Bower and Come On Over is next? And is it too soon to bring back The Night Alive? McPherson and the Irish Rep are lucky to have one another.

Still, this is my first time seeing it and I'm not quite sure what I think of the play. Or, rather, I'm not sure if it's the play or the production that doesn't quite satisfy.

The story is a familiar one, somehow. John Plunkett is a sad wreck of a man, an alcoholic whose eyes are always darting towards a bottle...or studiously trying not to look at a bottle calling to him. He's the senior man in charge of a funeral parlor while the owner is slowly dying in hospital. It's Christmas Eve, 1999, and John is teaching the new lad Mark the ropes. They've just finished working a job and Mark perks up a bit when John insists he was grand, proved a natural at what was apparently Mark's first assignment. Sitting in a tatty, tired office decorated with a few modest holiday decorations, Mark sits with John for a few minutes and then makes to go.

John leaps to his feet, offering a cookie, another drink, another task -- anything to keep the lad from leaving him alone. John's story pours out of him: a marriage ruined by drink, a son who is too much like his dad, a daughter he hasn't seen in years. You've heard it all before. Mark should be off duty but he is dragooned into doing the same job he did at the funeral: sitting around looking politely mournful while other people vent their emotions or struggle not to let go.

In the next scene, John's daughter Mary shows up with painful news. John's wife is also in hospital and dying. Mary urges him to visit today, assuming he can stay somewhat sober. He can't quite believe his presence is welcome, but Mary says it is. Soon they're trading painful tales. Mary describes John's dreadful behavior and then John tops her with even more self-flagellation. In the show's best moment, John insists he can't say he's sorry because that's such a pathetic request given the damage he's done...and then he drops to his knees and begs for it anyway.

In the third and final scene, Mark returns for his pay but John is too distraught and too drunk to have bothered with a trip to the bank. He clings to the lad but is soon alone with his thoughts and memories. Alone on Christmas Eve, with his daughter soon to return, John wrestles with the bottle and his desire to maybe take one small step towards redemption. Maybe, for just a minute, he can play a carol on the radio, put out some poor excuse for a gift (probably grabbed at the local chemists) and not screw things up. Maybe.

While the elements may be familiar, there's no reason on God's green earth that Dublin Carol couldn't be so specific it came to life. Or it might surprise in some way, such as The Seafarer, where the Devil manages to shake up another familiar tale. But Dublin Carol does not offer an unexpected surprise or the shiver of familiarity, the moment where you think, "I know this person." Instead you think, "I know this play." Still, the tech elements are spot-on and it's directed ably if without fire by Ciarán O'Reilly.

The cast is fine. Sarah Street has the most detailed and vigorous character in Mary, a woman who isn't there to condemn or hold hands. Cillian Hegarty's Mark is harder to pin down. I've no idea what kind of person Mark might be. But it's notable that Mark spends much of the play listening and Hegarty felt alive and present with nothing more to rely on than his own stage presence. I look forward to seeing his next role. Jeffrey Bean has by far the biggest part as John, which means he either lets the play down a tad or reveals its limitations. Still, he's not bad (cruel compliment, that), just...unsurprising.

That's the same complaint I've made throughout and it holds. Like a new holiday song hoping for airplay alongside "Jingle Bells" and "Fairytale Of New York," Dublin Carol must compete with the other strong plays by McPherson, not to mention every drama ever made to justify its existence. In this production, it strikes a note too similar to distinguish it from so many other shows that have come before.

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 ***



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: COLE PORTER REVUE "DECLINE AND FALL" IS THE TOP

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENTIRE WORLD AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF COLE PORTER *** out of ****
YORK THEATRE COMPANY 

Seven years ago, the York Theatre Company delivered a sterling revival of the Maltby & Shire revue Closer Than Ever. It ran and ran. Now they're presenting the legendary but little seen 1965 revue called The Decline and Fall Of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter. It could run and run.

Closer Than Ever was a fully mounted, fully rehearsed production. Decline and Fall is the middle show in a three-part season of York's Musicals In Mufti series. For York, Muftis are their term for staged concert performances. A game cast is handed a script and just a few days to learn the songs, practice choreography, rehearse their lines and then stand up in front of a paying audience and deliver.

The first show in the Mufti season devoted to Porter was Fifty Million Frenchmen and that's exactly the sort of show an Encores-style series should be tackling. Not musicals with one eye on a big budget Broadway revival, but shows that rarely if ever are done anymore and probably won't get a Broadway revival no matter how well received. Up third is an Ethel Merman vehicle called Panama Hattie. 

And smack dab in the middle is the show I'm certain will be the best of the bunch. Decline and Fall was mounted in 1965 and apparently hasn't been seen in New York City since, despite running some 15 months and being one of the biggest hits of its kind in history. Masterminded by Ben Bagley, Decline and Fall is the very model of a modern musical revue.

Pictured: Lee Roy Reams, Danny Gardner, Diane Phelan, Lauren Molina 

Photo Ben Strothmann ©2019

By focusing on the lesser known songs of a major talent like Cole Porter, Bagley underlined what a tremendous songbook Porter had to offer. A four member cast is given plenty to do, Bagley's between-song patter is swift and informed, the tunes vary from solos to duets to trios and so on, from sad (rarely) to happy (often) to witty (always) and the evening breezes by.

That's precisely what this revival accomplishes too. The master of ceremonies is Tony nominee Lee Roy Reams, surely the only actor to play both Cornelius and Dolly Levi in legit productions of Hello, Dolly! Reams offers the right touch of avuncular charm and dry wit to the proceedings. You almost don't notice how well the show eases its éminence grise into the proceedings -- it's halfway through act one before Reams solos on an amusing "I'm A Gigolo." Then he's a constant presence, whether offering up a Sophie Tucker imitation, duetting wonderfully on "Well, Did You Evah?" with Danny Gardner, nailing an obscure song cut from Anything Goes and then ending the night on a wistful, hopeful note with "Experiment."

Gardner has a lot of fun on that warhorse "Well, Did You Evah?" But he's the show's core throughout, whether playing a tap dancing fool in a few welcome bits, using his square-jawed charm to goofy effect in the opener "I've A Shooting Box In Scotland" or getting serious with "At Long Last Love." Gardner enjoys an easy rapport with...well everyone, from the two female co-stars Diane Phelan and Lauren Molina to Reams and the audience. His reactions to the hijinks around him accentuate the pleasures of the night without ever calling attention to themselves. A stand-out in the Dames At Sea Broadway revival, Gardner is right at home in the musicals of the 1930s, proving he was born about 70 years too late.

Lauren Molina, Danny Gardner and Diane Phelan 

                                                        Photo Ben Strothmann ©2019

Molina was a hoot in the York's very successful musical Desperate Measures and is at her best on the comic numbers here, especially "Make It An Old-Fashioned Please." Phelan has fun too, including her winning duet with Gardner on "But In The Morning, No." Yet she also delivers on the quieter numbers like "After You, Who?" and too many duets and trios and full company numbers to mention. Indeed, the list of songs in the show program is 30 titles long, not counting the medley at the end. Onstage pianist, occasional chimer-in on songs and music director Eric Svejcar works overtime.

Half the fun of a casual staged concert performance like this is the complicity between the performers and the audience. When a little something goes wrong, Reams quickly smoothed things over with an amused comment, turning the tiniest of off moments (like Phelan grabbing a stool Reams needed) into a happy accident. Director Pamela Hunt has a gentle touch on the proceedings, lending this evening the casual but assured atmosphere it needs. 

But eleven performances? This show can and should run longer. If it does, the projections by Jamie Goodwin should be given a punching-up. And certainly the complicated medley at the end will improve mightily once the cast has more performances under its belt. Yet, the let's-put-on-a-show vibe is precisely right here.

The notes by Charles Wright give a wonderfully detailed look at the show and the career of Bagley, who delivered a string of revues and even more influential run of albums. When Wright says this 1965 revue prompted a reassessment of Porter, I'll assume he means a reassessment of what shows and what songs mattered. A number of the songs here are standards, but the suggestion is that Decline and Fall rescued them. Mind you, Porter was hardly forgotten by 1965. He had a string of hit Broadway musicals into the 1950s, ending with Silk Stockings. And the feature film High Society opened in 1956, the same year Ella Fitzgerald launched her legendary tribute albums with Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Song Book. 

Porter's legacy was ensured. Still, even now a good chunk of the songs in Decline and Fall aren't well-known or often recorded but are a treat to hear. As Bagley knew and this Decline and Fall revival prove, string them together and present them with care and you can have a swell party indeed.


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
Soft Power
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cole Porter ***



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: "Terra Firma" Is On Shaky Ground

TERRA FIRMA ** out of ****
THE COOP AT BARUCH PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 

Terra Firma is a muddled allegory of a play by Barbara Hammond. It features a hugely impressive physical presentation, but that can't compensate for several flaws. Acting styles range all over the map, basic information is withheld from the audience without cause and the setting is fundamentally wrong.

The plot is simple, even fable-like, though it's closer to one of those dark and disturbing Grimm tales, not the sort of story that ends with "and they all lived happily ever after."

In the not-so-distant-future, a group of people live on a gigantic steel platform somewhere out on the "Vast Sea." It's an abandoned relic from earlier days (a War era naval defense platform, per the show notes). The three inhabitants style themselves a Queen (Andrus Nichols), a King (Gerardo Rodriguez) and Jones (John Keating), a Citizen.

Their impromptu world is invaded by a man known only as the Hostage (Tom O'Keefe). The Hostage says he's a fisherman but who can be certain? The inhabitants of this platform call it Terra Firma and feel beset on all sides. It's one of eight such platforms they can spy in the vicinity and the others are exploding into bits, the victims of some nefarious enemy, they believe. The Hostage might in fact be a Spy! And so they keep him tied up and under guard, with occasional breaks for a game of chess.

Paranoid, scared, defensive and longing for attention, the people of Terra Firma simply don't know what to do about the Hostage or much of anything. They slip messages into bottles and toss those into the sea, wondering if anyone will ever acknowledge their existence. They long for the return of their children, the Prince and Princess who left some time ago. And every once in a while another explosion rocks their world and another platform is blown into bits. Are they next?

Soon, Prince Teddy (Daniel Molina) clambers back on board, though where he's been and what he's seen is barely hinted at. Then another stranger appears, a self-styled Diplomat who found one of their messages and tracked them down. He offers his services as negotiator for the Hostage, though adding that a crust of bread would also be quite welcome. What follows are multiple games of chess, fireworks, a boxing match, a pistol (fired, as per Chekhov) and the spooky falling of ash, accompanied by a reference to nuclear winter.

We spend most of the show simply wondering what is going on. At some points it leans toward Beckett, at others a satirical comedy, but never much of anything for long. And once Terra Firma reveals its hand by telling the audience what the characters have known all along, it has nothing else to say and ends. 

(Photo by Ashley Garrett ©2019)

One can't praise the technical elements of this show enough, a real credit to the hotly anticipated new theater company The Coop. The playwright certainly can't complain about her work's presentation. However, the real-world specificity of the set works against the show's inclination towards absurdity and allegory. (It's no coincidence the script begins with a quote from Gulliver's Travels.) Still, the physical production is a triumph.

The stage is filled with a massive steel platform solidly placed on top of giant round cement pillars. We're told it rises 60 feet above sea level and you never doubt its solidity and immense presence. A rickety staircase leads skyward on the right, with one step tilting dangerously down. Each cement tower houses unseen lower decks, including a spiral staircase on the right and a more cellar-like entrance on the left. Even better is the curved screen that hugs the entire stage, depicting a vast and beautiful ocean as far as the eye can see. The effect is wonderfully convincing.

That scenic triumph is by Andrew Boyce and it works hand in hand with all the other tech elements. The lighting by Eric Southern is a treat, from explosions to fireworks to the simple but necessary suggestion of life on the water. Ditto the sound design of Jane Shaw, which is just as essential for bringing this world to life without ever calling attention to itself. (Though I must admit, I did tend to look around wondering if there was an actual cat wandering around.) The costumes by Ntokozo Fuzunina Kunene similarly manage to be realistic and yet attuned to each character's plight. Even the fight choreography by Carman Lacivita is a treat. Realistic fights are never easy to do under the best of circumstances; here she has the added challenge of actors tumbling around the lip of a platform with a pretty serious drop to the ground below.

That's where the consistency ends. The actors seem in warring camps when it comes to style and one must blame the director Shana Cooper and more to the point a story that doesn't know what it wants to be. Nichols is the Queen and she's been a treat on stage before. Here she walks around in a comic opera style, her hand raised high in the air to maintain a self-defeating "royal" air. That mild absurdity is echoed by T. Ryder Smith as the Diplomat. They're good but seem in a different show from the rest.

Tom O'Keefe is closer to them as the Hostage, thanks to a shifty accent, but he seems to exist in the real world. As does the inestimable John Keating as the citizen Jones. Invariably at home in any setting, Keating is a solid center here. The playwright doesn't always know what to do, but his character is never in doubt. Less can be said about Rodriguez as the King and Molina as Teddy since it's never clear what sort of people they're meant to be. They're not comic figures of even a modest sort like the Queen and the Diplomat. But they aren't flesh and bone either, like the Hostage or Jones. They barely register at all.

How much blame can one place on the notes in the program? It goes to great lengths to describe the inspiration Hammond took from the real world "country" of Sealand, an abandoned WW II military platform now claimed as the smallest nation in the world by its precious few inhabitants. That platform has been the site of a pirate radio station servicing the UK, pitched battles both real and legal and ultimately the "founding" of Sealand complete with Constitution and national anthem.

The media loves the place, needless to say. You can learn about its story everywhere from the movies to countless newspaper articles and the new book The Outlaw Ocean by New York Times reporter Ian Urbina. (He devotes a chapter to Sealand.) Hammond even used a grant to visit the platform herself and soak up its history and anarchic spirit. I can't imagine why since the real story of Sealand doesn't inform the fanciful play in the least.

She doesn't quite mock our brutal desire for nationalism above humanity. And she doesn't quite skewer how people reject society a la Burning Man...and then inevitably start to recreate that society in their own brave new world. All she does is give us people trapped in a strange, perhaps desperate situation that teeters between reality and fantasy.  We don't quite grasp their predicament until the very end. In this case, withholding information from the audience doesn't create poignancy, just annoyance.

Here's the problem. Sealand represents a rejection of the real world, an escape from a stultifying life. You don't get trapped on Sealand; you choose Sealand. It's a powerful symbol of nonconformity. And it makes no sense as a setting for a post-apocalyptic story, where characters by definition are forced into desperate straits. You can't turn your back on the world if the world no longer exists. Better to have played out this story on the iconic "island" of countless cartoons and comics, a mound of land with a lone coconut tree floating in the midst of an empty sea. That would be a start. But then Hammond would need to figure out what story she wants to tell, rather than just hinting at 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) **


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 Glass Menagerie" Sans Tricks Or Treats

THE GLASS MENAGERIE ** out of ****
WILD PROJECT

Sometimes, thankfully, you just do the play. Classics can bring out the devil in artists. What meta conceit can they slap onto a familiar drama to "bring it to life"? Change the time period? Perform it Kabuki style? Cast all men? All women? They become so desperate to leave their stamp on a classic that they forget it's a classic for a very good reason. The play is worth doing, as is.

This new production of The Glass Menagerie co-directed by the estimable Austin Pendleton & Peter Block implied some high-concept makeover this war horse doesn't need. Press releases threatened it would be Wes Craven meets Tennessee Williams, with a score inspired by The Exorcist. Boo! Well, the trick was on us. No, the set is not filled with props made out of glass, just the usual display of glass animals on a side table. The score by Sean Haggerty is moody but not intrusive, as indeed are all the other tech elements. Sure, the sad and ghostly Laura (who already haunts the house when not roaming the streets) can often be seen holding a lonely vigil behind a scrim when she's not onstage.

And that's about it. This is your mother's Glass Menagerie and thank goodness for it. It's modest pleasures are a straightforward presentation of the text. It's not tilted towards one character over the others. The directors don't strive you to think about what they're doing instead of what Williams was doing. They honor the text. This production may not catch fire, but at least it has the decency to hold the play up to the light and let it illuminate what they do, rather than the other way around.

Surely you know the story. The Wingfield family is a sad group, living on dreams of yesterday or tomorrow because today is too depressing to bear. The father took off years ago, leaving behind a wife and two children, his only contact being a postcard from far away stating "Hello Goodbye." His photograph looms over the stage and their lives.

The mother Amanda (Ginger Grace) tells and retells about her glory days as a desirable catch, the bygone era when gentlemen callers would floor her porch. The daughter Laura (Alexandra Rose) pretends to go to typing school but spends most of her time wandering the parks of St. Louis. Mostly, she hides at home, dreamily fussing over her glass menagerie, obsessing over a physical defect (a slight limp) and on rare good days remembering the boy in high school she fancied. The son Tom (Matt de Rogatis) struggles with the strait jacket of his life. He is trapped in a miserable job at a shoe warehouse, can't find a moment's peace to do the creative writing he longs for and wonders how he became the sole support for two women. He's not the one who chose to get married and have kids so why is his life over before it began?

With one eye on heading out to sea as a sailor, Tom invites over an amiable coworker named Jim (Spencer Scott) as a potential love interest for Laura. Jim turns out to be the very high school boy she had a crush on, raising and then crashing all the hopes of the Wingfields one last time.

The best aspect of this show is the balance. Sometimes, the character Amanda dominates this drama. Other times it's the dreamy Tom as a stand-in for Tennessee. And once in a while, Laura steals the show, especially when her time with the Gentleman Caller Jim raises our hopes even when we know better.

Not here. Everyone is admirably in their place. Amanda nags Tom, but isn't an overbearing harpy, thus allowing us to forgive him for running away at the end. She can also be played as semi-delusional, like Blanche at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire. Grace keeps Amanda relatively grounded and real. Though Tom is often played as gay (he's a stand-in for Tennessee, after all), de Rogatis presents an angry young (straight) man restless with a yearning for freedom. He shines especially during the monologues addressed to the audience.

Often the Gentleman Caller is played by a drop-dead gorgeous actor, the better for us to suspend our disbelief. But Scott convincingly looks the part of a high school star who has gotten soft in the years since those glory days. His athleticism is far behind him and Jim yearns for those who can still remember the big man on campus he once was. Spencer makes his moments with Laura make sense. A dreamboat who kisses her can seem hard to believe or even cruel. (Amanda is quite fragile and strange after all.) But this Jim is swept up by finding someone who remembers him the way he was and not the way he is. Her attention to him is just as intoxicating as his attention to her.

The weak link unfortunately is Rose, making her professional debut. In a production titled towards the mother or son, her lack of readiness for such a major role wouldn't matter as much. But the balance they strive for simply can't work when one of the four legs of this sturdy table isn't ready to bear its weight. So it's uneven and ultimately unsatisfying. Yet a Glass Menagerie that doesn't attempt to outdo Tennessee will always be welcome.



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) **


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.