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edjames

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  1. Good review from Ben B in the NYTimes... Review: Great Pretenders Pocket Laughs in ‘The Nap’ When you’re feeling burned-out, fed-up and generally disgusted — like now, maybe? — there’s nothing more therapeutic than a tickling session at the theater. Relax, it involves no squirmy physical contact. I mean the sort of tickling administered by a team of master farceurs who frisk you into a state of sustained laughter, as involuntary and contented as the purr of a kitten at play. It’s the noise being artfully coaxed from audiences by the British dramatist Richard Bean and a precision-tooled ensemble of great pretenders at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. That’s where Mr. Bean’s delicious new comedy “The Nap” opened on Thursday night, directed with an assured balance of blatancy and subtlety by Daniel Sullivan. While the name of this Manhattan Theater Club production might seem to promise a snooze, the title refers not to a siesta but to the baize surface of a snooker table — or specifically to the resistance it gives to the balls that skim across it. Does that sound too esoteric? Don’t worry if you’re unacquainted with the arcana of this British cousin of billiards and pool. Not speaking snookerese is no disadvantage in experiencing Mr. Bean’s story of a young working-class phenom from Sheffield and the criminal friends and relations who love (and nearly destroy) him. Besides, the dominant game of “The Nap” isn’t snooker. It’s farce. And like most sports, farce requires from its players hair-trigger timing and an intuitive grasp of the physics of bodies in motion. Its success is achieved not by sustained assault but by dexterity, and by always keeping the other guy (in this case, the audience) off guard. The best examples of the genre on Broadway in recent years have originated in Britain. For the form at its most elemental, there’s the current demolition derby called “The Play That Goes Wrong.” But the sterling English-language farce of this century is Mr. Bean’s “One Man, Two Guvnors” (2012), the commedia dell’arte-style caper that made an American star of James Corden. “The Nap” is less frenetically funny than “One Man,” and more modest in scale. But it shares with its predecessor a fondness for the subterfuges and archetypes of classic farce, which Mr. Bean translates fluently into modern-day terms. Our idealistic hero, Dylan Spokes (Ben Schnetzer), is a blue-collar lad with the kind of back story that makes television producers drool. Dylan was brought up by his dad, Bobby (John Ellison Conlee), who selflessly sold recreational drugs to finance a snooker shed in the backyard, where the boy could hone his craft. Dylan knows that without snooker, he’d probably be on the dole and grifting, like his dear old mom, Stella (Johanna Day as squalor incarnate). “Without snooker, what am I?” he asks. “I’m cooking meth, I’m on welfare, I’m getting me legs blown off in Afghan.” But enough of the anthropology, except to say that it informs Dylan’s commitment to his sport. But as his star ascends — with the possibility of his reaching the world championship finals — temptations block his path. First of all, there’s his sponsor, the expensively dressed, one-armed, transgender Waxy Bush (Alexandra Billings in a sensational Broadway debut), who, before her transition, dated Dylan’s mum. Waxy now wants her protégé to throw a frame (or round) in his next big match to appease some mysterious Philippine gamblers. Word of possible foul play has already reached the ears of Mohammad Butt (a sublimely fatuous Bhavesh Patel), the Integrity Officer for International Sports Security, who shows up in the Sheffield legion hall where Dylan is practicing. (David Rockwell did the sociologically specific sets and Kaye Voyce the spot on, tacky costumes.) Mo is accompanied by a distractingly attractive police detective (and former pole dancer), Eleanor Lavery (Heather Lind). Will the noble, vegetarian Dylan be able to withstand the onslaughts upon his integrity? After all, the hungry fellow refuses a shrimp sandwich, saying he eats nothing with a brain, causing Bobby to remark, “They’re shrimp. They’re not novelists.” Cheering Dylan on, albeit in different directions, are Stella and her malodorous new boyfriend, Danny Killeen (Thomas Jay Ryan), and Dylan’s flashy agent, Tony DanLino (Max Gordon Moore, a riot of jittery, sincere phoniness), who of course would address Dylan as Dylzo. As is customary in such plays, each character has some signal, off-center trait that is worn like an ID tag, which is embellished, with variations, ad infinitum. Tony is the epithet-slinging fabulist. Stella keeps coming up with whiny “poor me” rationalizations for her criminal acts. And Waxy is the play’s resident Ms. Malaprop, who misquotes Shakespeare and refers to Dylan as a “child effigy.” Ms. Billings, a marvel of glamorous menace, delivers such mangling with a smooth, sinister confidence that keeps the others from laughing. Not us, though. Ms. Lind — who has appeared as a docile Shakespearean heroine in Public Theater productions — shows a wicked comic wit here as a badge-toting femme fatale. And as the bewildered straight man to everybody else, Mr. Schnetzer more than holds his own, finding intriguing ambivalence within Dylan’s virtuous persona and also proving himself a dab hand at snooker. The cast members shape their characters with just enough comic exaggeration to stay credible and also to suggest that not everyone is what she or he seems. For “The Nap” is also a comedy of deception, including self-deception, and the sort of willful, hilarious misunderstandings that have always been a basis for slapstick. (In this case, they include not one but two anarchic variations of movie-title guessing games.) The play’s second, shorter act, in which all is revealed, isn’t as satisfying as the first, and it rushes its final moments into anticlimax. On the other hand, where else are you going to be able to watch a live snooker game (with video simulcast) in which you feel so personally invested? That’s when Dylan faces off against two champions (both played by the real snooker ace Ahmed Aly Elsayed), in matches described by two unseen commentators. With their time-filling, vacuous babble, these voices will be familiar to anyone who follows sports on television. And just in case snooker still confuses you, these announcers keep explaining its rules, with priceless condescension, to unenlightened listeners. They include those who might be “on the internet in Antarctica” or “on a canoe in Tahiti.” Those at the Friedman Theater, however, know that no matter how the match ends, this gratifyingly silly show has — now, what’s the term? — potted all its balls. The play’s second, shorter act, in which all is revealed, isn’t as satisfying as the first, and it rushes its final moments into anticlimax. On the other hand, where else are you going to be able to watch a live snooker game (with video simulcast) in which you feel so personally invested? That’s when Dylan faces off against two champions (both played by the real snooker ace Ahmed Aly Elsayed), in matches described by two unseen commentators. With their time-filling, vacuous babble, these voices will be familiar to anyone who follows sports on television. And just in case snooker still confuses you, these announcers keep explaining its rules, with priceless condescension, to unenlightened listeners. They include those who might be “on the internet in Antarctica” or “on a canoe in Tahiti.” Those at the Friedman Theater, however, know that no matter how the match ends, this gratifyingly silly show has — now, what’s the term? — potted all its balls.
  2. NYTimes review is in: Review: What’s a Woman’s Role? All of ’Em, ‘Bernhardt/Hamlet’ Argues Is it chance or synchronicity that brings “Bernhardt/Hamlet,” a muscular comedy about a woman unbound, to Broadway at this grim transitional moment in gender politics? Either way, Theresa Rebeck’s new play, which opened on Tuesday at the American Airlines Theater, is so clever it uplifts, so timely it hurts. That’s a depressing thing to say about a story set in 1899 in that temple of chauvinism, the French popular theater. Janet McTeer stars as Sarah Bernhardt, then in her mid-50s and aging out of the dying courtesan roles that made her world-famous. As far as Shakespeare is concerned, she is caught in the gap between Ophelia and Gertrude. So why not try Hamlet? Jason Butler Harner, left, as the playwright Edmond Rostand, with Ms. McTeer. Enter the men: Edmond Rostand (Jason Butler Harner), one of France’s greatest young dramatists; Alphonse Mucha (Matthew Saldivar), the Art Nouveau illustrator of Bernhardt’s gorgeous posters; and Louis (Tony Carlin), a critic so parsimonious with praise I suppose it’s only fair that he’s given no surname. “A woman with power,” he says of Bernhardt, and right to her face, “is a freak.” It is not just the assumption of male opportunities and prerogatives that bothers these men; to be fair, Rostand, whom Ms. Rebeck posits as Bernhardt’s lover, is actually turned on by her Hamlet boots. “It is delightful to undress a man and find a woman inside,” he says, undoing her drag after rehearsal. To which Bernhardt responds, with the hungry air of the often disappointed, “It is equally delightful to undress a man and find a man.” Though Ms. Rebeck sees herself as a storyteller and not a polemicist, this exchange typifies her knack for jokes that score points. The gender crisis even then, “Bernhardt/Hamlet” suggests, was not about femaleness but maleness. What’s wrong with men that they can’t tolerate strong women? From there it’s barely a step to an even more taboo question: What’s wrong with Shakespeare? In letting Bernhardt dissect Hamlet in rehearsal — to ask why, undressing him, she never finds a man — the play locates a marvelous side door to its subject. Hamlet, after all, is all words. Beautiful ones, yes: But untethered to meaningful action, what is the value of beauty? That’s precisely the box that Bernhardt — who knew from boxes because she sometimes slept in a coffin — feels trapped in by her gender. And so she hits upon the brilliantly perverse idea of having Rostand rewrite Shakespeare to eliminate the poetry. Until that point, “Bernhardt/Hamlet,” a deluxe Roundabout Theater Company production, is breakneck backstage comedy, swiveling like its Lazy Susan of a set (by Beowulf Boritt) among scenes of romance, Rialto gossip, rehearsal drollery and literary exploration. (Thesis topic: How old is Hamlet?) Bernhardt makes the persuasive case that men who are youthful enough to play the role are too inexperienced and men who are experienced enough are too unyouthful. A boyish woman is the only sensible solution. In these scenes, Ms. McTeer, best known on Broadway for playing Nora Helmer and Mary Stuart, turns her tragic intensity inside out. Trying on emotions as if they were samples at a perfume counter, she flits through moods both pungent and evanescent. Dudgeon quickly melts to delight and narcissism to apology. She hardly needs Rostand, Louis or Mucha to define her; she is author, critic and self-portraitist in one. But it’s also worth noting that in Mr. Harner, excellent as Rostand, the play supplies her with a worthy backboard and erotic partner. That’s rare enough in plays about strong women. Rarer yet, as Bernhardt locates the heart of Hamlet Ms. McTeer the comedian becomes a riveting Shakespearean, exploring new pathways through scenes with the ghost and with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Suddenly you want to see Bernhardt — or Ms. McTeer — as everyone in the canon. But in the second act, after the big decision, the play loses some of its internal logic. Not because it departs from history; Bernhardt did commission and eventually triumph in an adaptation of “Hamlet,” if not by Rostand. And Ms. Rebeck’s confidence as a storyteller in any case moots the historical infidelities that mar so many period pieces. Her tale has its own inevitability and that is enough. Instead, the problem with the second half of the play is that it fritters its focus on a new set of concerns, including Rostand’s wife, Rosamond (Ito Aghayere); his new play “Cyrano de Bergerac” (which actually had its premiere in 1897); and Bernhardt’s adult son, Maurice (Nick Westrate). Ms. Rebeck writes about all of these with her usual verve, and her analysis of “Cyrano” is devastating. It’s just that we cannot now invest ourselves in developments that seem to lead away from, instead of toward, the character we care most about. But with great effort Ms. Rebeck does eventually bend this all back to Bernhardt. (She has devised one of the most thrilling endings I’ve seen in years.) And perhaps the time away was useful to the extent that we now see the character less in the context of her own personal quest and more in the context of the play’s central question: “Is the female self exposed the same as the male self exposed?” We still don’t know the answer to that, but if we’re going to find out, the stage is a good place to start. And the exceptional thing about Ms. Rebeck’s no-excuses attack on the matter is that she models this as a question in which men, too, must be vividly involved. In that sense, “Bernhardt/Hamlet,” directed with wit and verve by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, is a deep-inside love letter to the theater as a kind of laboratory in which experiments in both art and equality are possible. Among all her supposed fans and supporters, it is only Bernhardt’s company of actors, led by the old-school Constant Coqueline (Dylan Baker, great), who fully support her gender daring. Even the ingénue (Brittany Bradford) quite happily experiments with full-on Hamlet-Ophelia frottage. That’s more than a wicked valentine: It’s a vision. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/theater/bernhardt-hamlet-review.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftheater&action=click&contentCollection=theater&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
  3. My parting words to you are "Good luck and be at peace."
  4. I can't have oatmeal now because of my diabetes. Oh but you can have oatmeal for breakfast! I am a diabetic and I eat lower carb oatmeal. Better Oats brand made by Post Cereals has 100 calories, 18 carbs per serving and 1g sugar. (available in stores, like Target, and amazon.com ) Proti Diet has 90 calories, 6 carbs per serving, and 0 sugar. (Available online at https://protifoods.com or amazon.com) Also, when making oatmeal you should add protein to your mix, so when making instant oatmeal, add 1/4 cup of egg beaters or egg whites to the mix, and 2-3 tablespoons of natural, unprocessed peanut butter (go to Whole Foods and grind your own peanut butter!) to your mix. Your eating habits are atrocious for a diabetic. You need the services of a registered diabetes nutritionist who will help you meal plan. Stop ordering Burger King and for God's sake, stop drinking diet soda, or adding "sugar-free" mixes to your water! The labels on these products are misleading and the chemicals used to make them, along with the artificial sweeteners will cause your blood sugars to spike. Start counting carbs, calories and add more fresh vegetables to your diet.
  5. Another London import,The Nap is a very funny look at the world of snooker - the British version of pool. Dylan Spokes, a fast-rising young star arrives for a championship tournament only to be confronted by the authorities warning him of the repercussions of match fixing. Before he knows it, Dylan's forced into underhanded dealings with a cast of wildly colorful characters that include his ex-convict dad, saucy mum, quick-tongued manager and a renowned gangster, to boot. It's a fast-paced comedy thriller where, in an exciting twist, the tournament unfolds live on stage. Worth seeing. Great cast. Funny play. Manhattan Theater Club. Opens Sep 27.
  6. Opening this week (Sep 25) at the American Airlines Theater, this London import stars the wonderful actress Janet McTeer. This is the tale of the great French actress, Sarah Bernhardt, and her gender-bending turn as Hamlet. Bernhardt was quite the controversy in her day. A stunning beauty, she took many lovers and was prone to play roles meant for men. That said, this production is good but failed to arouse my interest, perhaps because I saw a matinee and had been out late the night before(!). McTeer is very good, the set, especially her dressing room is sumptuously decorated, and the supporting cast very good. We'll see what the reviewers say soon.
  7. Currently running in Chicago and coming to Broadway next spring... Early Tony buzz for Broadway-bound ‘Tootsie’ musical By Michael Riedel September 13, 2018 | 7:07pm Dustin Hoffman starred in the 1982 movie "Tootsie."Everett Collection With only a couple of previews in Chicago under its corset, “Tootsie” is shaping up to be a hit. Buzz was building during rehearsals for Santino Fontana, as the main character, and it exploded after the first performance Tuesday night at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. “I just saw next year’s Tony-winning performance for Best Actor in a Musical,” a high-powered Broadway executive texted when the curtain came down. Fontana plays the Dustin Hoffman role of Michael Dorsey, an actor so fussy and demanding, nobody will cast him. He transforms himself into Dorothy Michaels and becomes a star — and a better person. The stage version retains “the bones” of the 1982 movie, a production source says, “but has been completely rethought for the stage.” The big change is the setting. The movie took place in the world of soap operas. The musical’s creators — composer David Yazbek, writer Robert Horn and director Scott Ellis — have set their story on Broadway, where Dorothy becomes a musical-comedy sensation of Bette Midler-like fame. While the film had Dorothy’s rise chronicled via magazine covers, accompanied by the lyrics “Go, Tootsie, go!,” the musical shows her name appearing on one Broadway marquee after another. Michael’s love interest, Julie (Lilli Cooper, late of “SpongeBob SquarePants”), still throws a martini in Michael’s face, but the musical has eliminated her father (played by Charles Durning in the movie), who unwittingly falls in love with Dorothy. In the stage adaptation, her admirer is now the male lead in the show within the show. Dorothy’s director in the musical is modeled on Dabney Coleman’s sexist soap director. As played by Reg Rogers, the character is still arrogant but, in these #MeToo times, no longer a predator. Michael McGrath has a memorable turn as Michael’s long-suffering agent, but the restaurant they meet in has been switched from the Russian Tea Room to something resembling Joe Allen. Gone altogether is the most famous line in the film: “How do you feel about Cleveland?” But the musical has some fresh zingers from Horn, who’s written for some funny TV series, “Designing Women” among them. “It’s a real book musical,” says a source, adding: “The wit and romance from the movie are in place.” “Tootsie” opens Sept. 30 in Chicago. Previews begin March 29 in New York at the Marquis Theatre. Santino Fontana
  8. edjames

    Skin Care

    The thing to keep in mind is that everyone's skin is different. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another. I would suggest starting off with a visit to the dermatologist if your having problems with acne, discoloration, age spots and other issues, however, get a recommended dermatologist and beware of anyone who's going to push a line of beauty products at you. I've gone back to basics and use some of the L'Oreal daily cleansing products and facial scrub. I also use mosturizers from Kiehl's, the longtime NYC based skin care brand, now sold in major department stores, like Macy's, Bloomingdale's and others. They also have several stores in the city (upper East side, Hells's Kitchen, and the "mothership" on 13th St and Third Ave.).
  9. Today's NYTimes reports... Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin Will Star in New Taylor Mac Play Sept. 11, 2018 Who cleans up after politicians make a mess? Taylor Mac, the intentionally outrageous performance artist/playwright, has been pondering that question, and will offer an answer on Broadway next spring. The producer Scott Rudin announced Tuesday that he would present Taylor Mac’s “Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus” at the Booth Theater, opening April 11. The production will star Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin, and will be directed by George C. Wolfe. “I’m really interested in — especially right now — cycles of mess, cycles of revenge,” Mr. Mac said in an interview last year with the theater website Howlround. “That cycle is fascinating, and it seems we need a play about it from the perspective of people who are responsible for the cleanup, but who don’t get any of the benefits of the mess or the cleanup.” “Titus Andronicus,” referred to in the play’s title, is an especially gory Shakespeare tragedy about revenge and power at the end of the Roman Empire. “Gary” is set during the fall of that empire, when, according to press materials, “The years of bloody battles are over. The civil war has ended. The country has been stolen by madmen, and there are casualties everywhere. And two very lowly servants — Lane and Martin — are charged with cleaning up the bodies.” The MAP Fund, which gave a grant to support the play’s development, called the work “a grotesque, an existential romp, and a political treatise about onslaught, escalation, and sequels.” Mr. Mac (who prefers the pronoun “judy”) is best known as a performance artist who wrote and has been appearing around the country in “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” an ambitious, sprawling and provocative examination of the American story as understood through song; the work was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. But Mr. Mac is also a playwright, recently represented Off Broadway with “Hir,” a well-reviewed comedy about a wildly dysfunctional family. Mr. Lane is a three-time Tony Award winner, for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “The Producers,” and last season’s revival of “Angels in America.” Ms. Martin has two Tonys, for “My Favorite Year” and “Pippin.” “Gary” is the fourth play produced by Mr. Rudin announced for the current Broadway season. He is also producing a new adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” as well as revivals of “The Waverly Gallery” and “King Lear.”
  10. Sorry to hear about your condition. You need help and its gonna be up to you to find it. There have to be services available to you in your area. I don't know what part of the country/state or town you live in but at least here in NYC Adult Protective Services provides a variety of services for the elderly and disabled. Check with organizations such as churches or non-profits that might assist you. You might be able to get someone to assist you once or twice a week with those tasks you cannot perform. SAGE, a wonderful organization for gay seniors now has locations throughout the county. Even if they are not close by to you, it might be worth it to give them a call, speak to a rep and get some idea of what you can do in your area. We wish we could help...
  11. And to no one's surprise this announcement... ‘Gettin’ the Band Back Together’ to Close Sept. 16 “Gettin’ the Band Back Together,” a new Broadway musical comedy about a group of middle-aged New Jersey men who decide to try reforming their high school band as a response to dissatisfaction with the course of their lives, will close Sept. 16. The show’s lead producer, Ken Davenport, announced Friday night the abrupt end to the show, which opened Aug. 13. At the time of its closing, it will have run 30 previews and 40 regular performances. Mr. Davenport, for whom the show had been a longtime passion project, wrote a blog post in which he called the decision to close “heart-crushing,” but said that “we can’t get the sales traction we need as fast as we need it.” The show has been selling quite poorly — during the week that ended Aug. 26, it grossed $181,549, which is just 23 percent of its potential; it sold just 60 percent of the seats at the Belasco Theater, with a very low average ticket price of $39, according to the Broadway League. Many reviews were negative, with Jesse Green, a New York Times critic, calling it “empty-headed entertainment.” Mr. Davenport cited the reviews as one factor in the closing. “I never expected to get rave reviews with this type of show (even though we got good ones out of town), I just didn’t expect so many of them to be so … well … mean,” he wrote. The show, directed by John Rando, features music and lyrics by Mark Allen and a book by Mr. Davenport and The Grundleshotz, with additional material by Sarah Saltzberg. It had an initial production in 2013 at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J. It was capitalized for $12.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that money will be lost
  12. If not The Players Club, try The National Arts Club next door, also on Gramercy Park in the Tilden mansion, an exquisite and historical building.
  13. Sorry, I have no idea how this post wound up in The Gallery. I would ask the Moderator to please move it to The Lounge. Thank you.
  14. OK, I've answered lots of threads asking for opinions and/or advice on various topics, so now it's my turn. Have any members had any experience with hearing aids? My ENT did a complete hearing test about 2 years ago and to no surprise revealed that my hearing in both ears has decreased sharply. Due to some other health issues, I was unable to followup up until about 2 weeks ago when we repeated the tests and once again, no surprise, hearing loss in both ears. I know he wants to discuss fitting me for hearing aids but before I go I thought you guys might have some advice or tales of experience to divulge. A friend just got hearing aids about 4 months ago and is thrilled with them. One of my former doctors got fitted and after wearing them told me they did not help to increase the clarity of voices, and only amplified the sound. I was a bit shocked to learn that Medicare, and private insurance, does not cover hearing aids and the cost can be expensive. Anyone have any experience with private insurance programs for hearing loss? On the other hand, I told the doc that I truly enjoy living a "quiet life"! HELP! Ed
  15. I said they removed the videos, not the booths. Again, it's been awhile, probably a year or so, but they were showing non-porn in the video booths. No doubt NYC did a crackdown. The purpose of the booths is still obvious. Older guys hanging out looking for a hookup. I've visited my fair share of porno places over the years, here in NYC and other locations. have you ever visited a place that wasn't seedy and needed a good cleaning, not to mention disinfecting? You would have to visit Les Hommes and do a survey on why customers still frequent the place. We eagerly await the results!
  16. I concur, not worth it. It's been awhile, but last time they had removed all the porn videos in the booths.
  17. Good for you! Both cities are wonderful. If you're staying in central Barcelona, getting around is easy. I suggest doing a lot of walking, and don't forget to visit the Gaudi architectural masterpieces, especially the cathedral of Sagrada Familia. As for Venice, well, walking is a must. Getting to your hotel from the airport will require a boat, so check with your hotel to see what they suggest. The public transport is called the Valporetto. Easy travel at an affordable price. https://www.tripsavvy.com/vaporetto-transportation-system-1548043
  18. It should be noted that Ms. Ambrose HAS NOT been performing seven times a week. It was announced earlier this summer that Ms. Ambrose would not be performing in the Sunday matinee performances. Diana Rigg Concerned Lauren Ambrose Is Not Willing to Destroy Her Voice for My Fair Lady By Jackson McHenry Sing out, Lauren! In order to protect her voice, Lauren Ambrose is ducking out of the Sunday matinee performances of My Fair Lady. She has young kids and is playing Eliza Doolittle, a role that nearly destroyed Julie Andrews, so this seems fairly reasonable, though certainly a disappointment to anyone who bought tickets to see her Tony-nominated performance. It is also a major disappointment to Dame Diana Rigg, who plays Henry Higgins’s mother, and who decided to air her grievances about it In an email — and we shudder at the thought of anyone getting an email from Diana Rigg — obtained by the Post, Rigg wrote, “I learnt, courtesy of a newspaper, that our leading lady will not be appearing in future Sunday matinees. It is time managements put their audiences first and insist on the old adage, slightly adapted by me, ‘The show must go on — with ALL principals.’” (Impeccable em-dash use from the dame.)When the Post called her up, Rigg stood by her statement, complaining about the work ethic of a younger generation of actors, and pointing out that when she did Medea in 1994, she busted a vocal cord in rehearsals and moved on. “There was a note in the spectrum of my voice that I could not hit. No sound would come out,” she said. “So I had to reorchestrate all those speeches and arias to avoid that note. It was a fascinating exercise in learning how to keep going.” Kids these days, with their avocado toast and their functioning vocal cords!
  19. Replacement in lead role announced: Laura Benanti to Join ‘My Fair Lady’ on Broadway Aug. 23, 2018 Henry Higgins will have to grow accustomed to a new face: the Tony-winning actress Laura Benanti is joining the cast of “My Fair Lady” as Eliza Doolittle. Ms. Benanti, a favorite of audiences and critics, will step into the role on Oct. 23, succeeding Lauren Ambrose, who is leaving to shoot a television show. Ms. Ambrose’s final performance will be Oct. 21. The current Broadway revival of “My Fair Lady,” directed by Bartlett Sher, has been running since March at Lincoln Center Theater, where it opened to outstanding reviews. It has also proved to be popular, grossing more than $1 million a week. Ms. Ambrose, best known for her work on the television show “Six Feet Under,” received a Tony nomination for “My Fair Lady.” She is departing to shoot a series being produced for Apple by M. Night Shyamalan. Ms. Benanti is a five-time Tony nominee who won in 2008, for “Gypsy.” Recently she has achieved wider recognition for her impersonation of Melania Trump on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” Ms. Benanti, like Ms. Ambrose, will play the role seven times a week, opposite Harry Hadden-Paton as Higgins, through Feb. 17. On Tuesday nights, Kerstin Anderson will play Eliza.
  20. NYPost columnist Michael Riedel writes in today's column: How these late theater greats changed Broadway forever By Michael Riedel. August 23, 2018 | 7:27pm Brian Murray, Barbara Harris and Craig ZadanGetty Images; Everett Collection Not to drop a name, but I was at a dinner party once with Robert De Niro (thump!) who said the actress he admired most was Barbara Harris. De Niro was a student at the Actors Studio in New York in the 1960s where Harris, then on the verge of Broadway stardom, was a member. She rehearsed scenes and monologues in front of De Niro and other aspiring young actors, who were awed by her style and technique. Harris died this week at 83 from lung cancer, after acclaimed performances in Broadway’s “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” and films including “Nashville,” “Family Plot” and “The Seduction of Joe Tynan.” She could have been a big star, says her “On a Clear Day” co-star John Cullum, but she never pushed for it. Louis Jourdan (who was replaced by John Cullum) and Barbara Harris during tryouts for “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.” “She was so fast and so talented,” he says. “She could have been tops in her field, but I don’t think she thought acting was the most important thing you could do with your life.” She’d drop out of sight after a show closed and friends would be surprised to see her working at an art gallery in the Village or, in one instance, behind the perfume counter at Bloomingdale’s. She was eccentric, onstage and off. “You never knew what she was going to do,” Cullum says. “She loved to improvise. If I had a line — ‘Why are you smiling?’ — she’d frown. It was charming, but it was difficult. She’d be floating all over the place, and the audience loved it.” And there was always an edge to her performance. “She was always on the verge of something,” he says. “She never went bananas, but there was something lurking there, something a little dark.” Offstage, Harris would sometimes dress like a bag lady and duck out of the theater before VIPs could come backstage to meet her. She had little interest in promoting herself, or her show. When “Clear Day” began to wilt at the box office, the press agent lined up a Time magazine profile of her. A Time story, back in the ’60s, always sold tickets. But at the last minute, Harris refused to do the interview. “I never knew why,” Cullum says. “She just didn’t want to do it. It didn’t matter to her … And the show closed.” One of Edward Albee’s favorite actors was Brian Murray, who died this week at 80. “You never have to worry about your play when you have an actor like Brian in it,” Albee once told me. “He doesn’t get things wrong.” Murray, who was born in South Africa, appeared on Broadway in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “The Little Foxes” and an acclaimed revival of “The Crucible.” He had remarkable stage chemistry with another of Albee’s favorite actors, Marian Seldes. They turned in memorable performances in Albee’s 2001 play “The Play About the Baby.” “It was my extraordinary luck at a very advanced age to work with Marian,” Murray once said. “She was a leading lady, and I really have to use both those words actively. She was leading. And if ever there was one, a lady.” Murray loved to tell the story of how Seldes caught an early preview of a production of “Tartuffe” that he directed. “It was dreadful,” he said. “I was hanging my head and she came up to me and said, ‘Darling, it’s got to get better!’” Craig Zadan, the movie, theater and TV producer, also died this week — at 69, from complications following shoulder surgery. He produced the revival of “Promises, Promises” starring Kristin Chenoweth, as well as 2002’s movie musical of “Chicago” and the live TV broadcasts of “Hairspray” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Many Broadway fans have his book “Sondheim & Co.” in their libraries. Zadan, who as a young man was close to Stephen Sondheim, wrote it in the 1970s and ’80s. While there have been many other books about Sondheim since then — two by the great man himself — for my money, Zadan’s is still the best. Sondheim gave him many hours of interviews and spoke candidly about his musicals “Company,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music” and “Merrily We Roll Along.” “Sondheim & Co.” has good gossip but is never malicious. It’s clear Sondheim trusted Zadan, and the composer’s assessments of his shows are lively and sharp. Sondheim & Co.” in their libraries. Zadan, who as a young man was close to Stephen Sondheim, wrote it in the 1970s and ’80s. While there have been many other books about Sondheim since then — two by the great man himself — for my money, Zadan’s is still the best. Sondheim gave him many hours of interviews and spoke candidly about his musicals “Company,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music” and “Merrily We Roll Along.” “Sondheim & Co.” has good gossip but is never malicious. It’s clear Sondheim trusted Zadan, and the composer’s assessments of his shows are lively and sharp. It’s a book well worth re-reading, or catching anew.
  21. One or the greats of Broadway. A short career. She left the business in search of a less public life. A talented stage and screen actress. May she rest in peace.... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/obituaries/barbara-harris-dies.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftheater&action=click&contentCollection=theater&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront Barbara Harris, Stage, Screen and Improv Actress, Dies at 83 Aug. 21, 2018 Barbara Harris, who was a founding member of the Second City improvisational theater and went on to win a Tony Award for her lead role in the musical “The Apple Tree” and to appear in films like “A Thousand Clowns” and “Nashville,” died on Tuesday in hospice care in Scottsdale, Ariz. She was 83. Charna Halpern, a friend and a founder of the Chicago improv theater iO, said the cause was metastatic lung cancer. Ms. Harris was part of a revolution in improvisation in Chicago — first with the Compass Players, whose members also included Mike Nichols, Elaine May and Ed Asner, and then with the Second City, which Paul Sills, her husband at the time, helped start in 1959. She was the first performer seen onstage at the Second City’s opening night, singing “Everybody’s in the Know” while framed by a spotlight. “It all began with Barbara Harris,” the Second City said on its website on Tuesday. When a revue called “From the Second City” opened on Broadway in 1961, Ms. Harris was lauded by Howard Taubman of The New York Times for her “unusual and varied talents.” He cited a “hugely diverting encounter” in a sketch in which she played an introverted girl and Alan Arkin played a guitar-playing beatnik spouting nonsensical lingo. Ms. Harris shifted easily between comedy and drama, from kooky to serious, on both screen and stage. But she was a reluctant star who disliked fame, chose films she thought would fail and preferred not to be recognized for her work. “I’m much more interested in what’s behind acting, which is the inquiry into the human condition,” she told the newspaper Phoenix New Times in 2002 after she had retired to teach acting. “Everyone gets acting mixed up with the desire to be famous, but some of us really just stumbled into the fame part, while we were really just interested in the process of acting.” For a while, though, she was a famous actress. In 1965, , the psychically gifted young woman with a past life, in the Alan Jay Lerner-Burton Lane Broadway musical “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.” After earning a Tony nomination for that role, she won the Tony in 1967 for her performance in “The Apple Tree,” three stories that were set to music by Jerry Bock, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. In the first piece, Ms. Harris played Eve to Alan Alda’s Adam. “She is Eve to the toenails,” Walter Kerr wrote in The Times, “Eve to the single ringlets that spill down over her shoulders, Eve to the baby-bright eyes that are so enchantingly startled as they look into a reflecting pool. A man couldn’t make do without this Eve, it turns out.” Ms. Harris never acted on Broadway again, but by the late 1960s her film career was in full swing. She received an Oscar nomination for her supporting role in “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?” (1971), starring Dustin Hoffman, and Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Robert Altman’s “Nashville” (1975), Alfred Hitchcock’s “Family Plot” (1976) and Gary Nelson’s “Freaky Friday” (1976), in which she and Jodie Foster, as mother and daughter, traded bodies. In his review of “Nashville,” which was directed largely as an improvisation, Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times praised Ms. Harris’s portrayal of a runaway wife who sings to a frightened crowd after a shooting. The film’s closing minutes, he wrote, “with Barbara Harris finding herself, to her astonishment, onstage and singing ‘It Don’t Worry Me,’ are unforgettable and heartbreaking.” Barbara Densmoor Harris was born on July 25, 1935, in Evanston, Ill. Her father, Oscar, held various jobs, including tree surgeon and restaurant owner. Her mother, Natalie (Densmoor) Harris, taught piano, played organ and made costumes. “I wanted to be a dancer,” Ms. Harris told The Times in 1965, “but I stopped dancing in high school.” After high school, she began performing at the Playwrights Theater Clubin Chicago, the precursor to the Compass Players. Mr. Sills was also a founder of the Playwrights troupe, and the performers included Mr. Asner and Zohra Lampert. Ms. Harris’s marriage to Mr. Sills, which was brief, ended in divorce. No immediate family members survive. After the 1970s, Ms. Harris acted less frequently; in her final film, “Grosse Pointe Blank” (1997), she played the mother of a hit man (John Cusack). “I don’t miss it,” she told Phoenix New Times. “I think the only thing that drew me to acting in the first place was the group of people I was working with: Ed Asner, Paul Sills, Mike Nichols, Elaine May. And all I really wanted to do back then was rehearsal. “I was in it for the process,” she continued, “and I really resented having to go out and do a performance for an audience because the process stopped; it had to freeze and be the same every night.”
  22. Apparently the justice department in Austria can tell.... Gay Afghan Teenager Denied Asylum in Austria Because He Didn’t Fit Stereotype, Rights Group Says BERLIN — A gay Afghan 18-year-old who was seeking asylum in Austria because he feared persecution in his country had his application denied because the authorities said he did not act like a stereotypical gay man, citing his walk, behavior and clothing, according to a Vienna-based organization that helps refugees. In a case that illustrates the plight of many L.G.B.T. refugees coming to Europe, the organization, Queer Base, said the teenager, whom it did not identify, provided testimony at an asylum hearing this spring that he became aware of his sexuality when he was 12 and living in Afghanistan. He migrated to Austria as a minor, according to the organization, which kept all other details of the teenager’s life and journey confidential at his request. But after he applied for asylum, the document outlining the decision quoted an official as saying that the man’s claim that he was gay was not believable based on how he had acted while living in Austria. “Neither your walk, nor your behavior nor your clothing give the slightest indication that you could be gay,” says the decision, which was more than 100 pages. “They reported that you frequently got into fights with roommates,” it said. “You clearly have the potential to be aggressive, which would not be expected in a homosexual.” It also said that the young man was not described as having many friends while in Austria. “Don’t homosexuals tend to be rather sociable?” it said. Human Rights Watch said in its 2017 report on Afghanistan that the country’s law criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual conduct, and the report cited harassment, violence and detention of gay people by the police. The organization’s report this year noted that same-sex relations are punishable by five to 15 years in prison under a law that bans all sex between individuals not married to each other. Advocates for L.G.B.T. people operate largely underground out of fear of persecution, the organization said. And while laws in places like Austria are much more gay-friendly, L.G.B.T. refugees often face challenges coming out, even if it would help their cases for seeking asylum, gay-rights experts say. On the other hand, pretending to be gay or lesbian to increase one’s odds in the asylum process is relatively rare, those experts say. It’s more common for L.G.B.T. refugees to continue to hide their sexual identities and to lie about the reasons for seeking asylum, said Patrick Dörr, who runs Queer Refugees, a German state-sponsored program for L.G.B.T. refugees coming to Germany. “Many of them have to overcome shame and stigma,” Marty Huber, a founder of Queer Base, said in an interview on Thursday. The teenager was interviewed for his application in late April and the decision was handed down in early May. The decision gained international attention this week when a Vienna weekly newsmagazine, Falter, published details of his case. Nina Horaczek, who wrote the initial article, published the key excerpts from the document that described the institution’s response to the teenager’s asylum request based on his sexual orientation. The teenager continues to live in Austria as he appeals the decision. He has declined to be interviewed, Ms. Huber said. Christoph Pölzl, a spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry, confirmed on Thursday that the decision was authentic. He said that the country’s Federal Immigration and Asylum agency had made decisions on about 120,000 asylum requests. “In the asylum process, the asylum seeker must make his reason for flight credible,” he said. He declined to discuss the specific case of the Afghan teenager. Migrants who flee their home countries for Europe face perilous and sometimes fatal journeys crossing by boat or over land, often at the hands of unscrupulous human traffickers. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said this month that more than 1,500 refugees and migrants had died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in the first seven months of 2018, with 850 deaths in June and July alone. About 60,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year, around half as many as during the same period last year, the refugee agency said. Spain has become the primary destination, with more than 23,500 people arriving by sea, compared with around 18,500 in Italy and 16,000 in Greece, the agency said. Most of the migrants who have ended up in Austria have traveled by land through the Balkans. Austria has recently tightened its asylum requirements. One such change gives the government control over where refugees are placed, which can mean that L.G.B.T. people find themselves in conservative states where it is harder to integrate. In June, Navid Jafartash, a gay refugee from Iraq, said on Austrian television that he was asked during an asylum application interview to explain what the colors on the rainbow flag stood for. When Mr. Jafartash, who lived with an Austrian partner at the time, was unable to do so, his asylum application was initially denied, he said in the television interview. Activists say that L.G.B.T. refugees are especially vulnerable because in many cases they do not want to discuss their sexuality at an official hearing. Translators often act as more of an impediment than the Austrian officials because they come from the same community as the asylum seeker. “Many of them have to overcome shame and stigma,” said Ms. Huber, whose organization is helping more than 400 L.G.B.T. refugees in Austria.
  23. Saw this production last night and enjoyed seeing Armie and Josh on stage. The production is rather puzzling, especially when I walked into the theater and was "accosted" by a woman, Kate Bernstein, billed as Person In Charge I, dressed in a circus ringmaster costume who proceeded to annoy the hell out of me. Yes, she's part of the show. The music, a high energy and loud mix of what can only be described as a zoomba exercise class mix of rap, was distracting and annoying. Not a good way to start a show, fo me. fortunately, Ms. Bornstein had a pocketful of ear plugs! Ms. Bornstein is joined by Ty Defoe, member of the Oneida and Ojibwe Indian Nations, and opening the show, and blessedly ending the music, they proceed to have an inane conversation. At long last when the show begins we are treated to an interesting tale of the interaction of three siblings and their father at Christmastime. (It was about 90 degrees outside last night, so Christmas was a stretch.) The boys act much as they have their whole life. Teasing and testing each others limits despite the fact that they've all reached middle age. The acting was good, and I have to admit I find Armie Hammer quite appealing. Alas, the show does not end on a happy note. All that said, I enjoyed the show, but could have done without all the extra production nonsense. Ends September 9th.
  24. NYPost says... ‘Pretty Woman’ musical just feels wrong in the #MeToo era By Joe Dziemianowicz August 16, 2018 | 10:01pm | Updated Andy Karl and Samantha Barks star in "Pretty Woman: The Musical."Matthew Murphy THEATER REVIEW "PRETTY WOMAN: THE MUSICAL" Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes, one intermission. Nederlander Theatre, 208 W. 41st St.; 212-921-8000. The hooker with the heart of gold is singing a new tune — but it’s the same old icky story. “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” which opened Thursday on Broadway, boasts slick direction and choreography (by Jerry Mitchell of “Kinky Boots”), plus fine performances. But, like so many movies churned into musicals, the show is a warmed-over copy of the original. Seriously: Why would anyone revisit such a funky fable, especially in the #MeToo age? It follows Vivian (Samantha Barks), a Hollywood Boulevard streetwalker whose $3,000 deal with Edward (Andy Karl), a cold-hearted billionaire, leads to love. It’s a fairy tale replete with condoms, cash and contrivances — and a nagging yech factor. That was there even in 1990, when “Pretty Woman” made Julia Roberts a star and cemented Richard Gere’s status as a hunk. It’s there when Viv plops a pillow on the floor and slithers between Ed’s legs. Watching the encounter on film and onstage, you imagine thought balloons over her head filled with dollar signs. The same goes when the duo redefines what it means to bang on a piano, as Edward tickles more than the ivories. The musical adheres faithfully to the film, with J.F. Lawton duplicating much of the dialogue — verbatim — from the script he wrote for the Garry Marshall film. Even Barks’ wardrobe is a replica of Roberts’, from her blue working-girl micro-mini to the flowing red opera gown. The pleasant score, by Canadian pop star Bryan Adams and longtime music partner Jim Vallance, is all soft rock and smooth grooves, though earworms are in short supply. Production numbers like the ridiculous fashion show, “Rodeo Drive, Baby,” become exhausting, even when it’s led by the explosively talented Orfeh, who plays Vivian’s streetwalking BFF, Kit. At least three songs (“Anywhere but Here,” “Welcome to Our World” and “You and I”) touch on Eliza Doolittle territory, enough to make you think you’re watching “My Fair Lady of the Night.” The look of the show is a head-scratcher. Skimpy set pieces — an arch here, a palm tree there — slide into place as locations change. Scenic designer David Rockwell appears to have been on a budget. In contrast, the leads go for broke. Karl (“Groundhog Day”) has a quirky way of making Edward his own: Whenever he sings about Vivian, he channels Adams, and his vocals morph into marshmallow-y lite FM. It takes guts to step into Roberts’ thigh-high boots, but Barks, late of the film version of “Les Miserables,” sings the hell out of the part, especially in her song of defiant reckoning, “I Can’t Go Back.” At times, she comes close to overselling, but she always has you rooting for her. One noteworthy theatrical tweak is merging several characters into one: A genial, gyrating Eric Anderson plays Vivian’s fairy godfather, who pops up everywhere — on the dirty boulevard, at the swank Beverly Wilshire Hotel and even in the orchestra pit. The show opens with a view of Los Angeles, seen from behind the iconic Hollywood sign. It’s an unusual vantage point, hinting at fresh angles and insights into a dated story. No such luck. “Pretty Woman: The Musical” is a singing rerun.
  25. reviews are in and unfortunately, not glowing... NYTimes says... CREDITRICHARD TERMINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Review: Chasing Shopworn Dreams in ‘Pretty Woman: The Musical’ This wan resuscitation of the 1990 movie about a Cinderella prostitute is likely to make you nostalgic for Julia Roberts’s original performance. By Ben Brantley Aug. 16, 2018 No one should have had to step into that red dress again. I’m talking about the long, strapless number that Julia Roberts wore in the 1990 film “Pretty Woman,” in a moment of pure, movie-magic apotheosis. Let me refresh your memory of that occasion before I proceed to the less pleasant topic of “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” which opened on Thursday night at the Nederlander Theater without Ms. Roberts in the title role. In the movie, Ms. Roberts’s character, a prostitute named Vivian Ward, is going to her first opera (all too appropriately, “La Traviata”) with her date and client, Edward Lewis, a very rich and emotionally frozen businessman played by Richard Gere. She materializes with coltish grace and freshness in said dress, and the smitten Mr. Gere presents her with a small box, containing an obscenely expensive necklace. He playfully snaps it open and closed, and Ms. Roberts erupts into a spontaneous shout of laughter that totally and improbably dispels the creepy transactional haze of the scene. For many of us who saw “Pretty Woman” when it first opened, that was the precise instant when we realized that we had been watching a young actress turn into a singular, full-fledged movie star of a stripe we thought had ceased to exist. And I at least decided that I was going to sit through the rest of this unsavory movie, after all. A facsimile of that red dress — and of many of the other outfits worn by Ms. Roberts, including her skimpy hooker clothes — show up in “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” which lowers the already ground-scraping bar for literal-minded adaptations of film to stage. And once again Edward starts to hand Vivian the jewelry box and then abruptly opens and closes it. This time, Vivian (Samantha Barks) giggles halfheartedly, as if she were a little embarrassed. Edward (Andy Karl), too, seems slightly sheepish. Well, why wouldn’t they feel that way? Let me make it clear that I mean no disrespect to Ms. Barks when I say that she is not Julia Roberts. Best known for playing ” Ms. Barks is clearly a talented singer and actress. But being used as a paper doll for Gregg Barnes’s “I Love Julia” costumes, while speaking verbatim Ms. Roberts’s lines from the film, she has been given no chance to banish stardust memories of the woman who created her part. Directed and choreographed as if on automatic pilot by Jerry Mitchell, “Pretty Woman: The Musical” has a book by the original film’s director, Garry Marshall (who died in 2016), and screenwriter, J.F. Lawton, with songs by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. Its creators have hewed suffocatingly close to the film’s story, gags and dialogue. And what an uncomfortable story it is. A seemingly soulless Wall Street takeover king picks up a young hooker on Hollywood Boulevard and pays her $3,000 to be his companion, on social occasions as well as in the hotel suite, for a week. He introduces her to fine dining, fancy clothes, discreet makeup and the opera, while she transforms him from a cold fish into a free spirit. The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote that the film “manages to be giddy, lighthearted escapism much of the time,” but she also noted a classically 1980s spirit of materialistic “covetousness and an underlying misogyny.” Yet even committed feminists I know have a soft spot for “Pretty Woman,” and I suspect the principal, if not the sole, reason is Ms. Roberts. In her early 20s and previously a supporting actress of electric presence, Ms. Roberts unsheathed her full, unsullied radiance here, and it cast a cosmetic glow on everything around her. The biggest problem for the musical adapters thus becomes selling an essentially tawdry tale minus Ms. Roberts’s lewdness-proof, megawatt charm. Instead of retailoring Vivian to Ms. Barks’s specific talents, the creative team has chosen to play up the narrative’s twinkly fairy-tale aspects, which can be summed up in the lyric, “If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” Oops, that’s “Happy Talk,” from “South Pacific.” The words in “Pretty Woman,” to quote from the opening number, are “Hopes and dreams are what this town is made of./ Give it a shot, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.” This prescription is delivered by a character called (I swear) Happy Man (Eric Anderson), who also morphs into the kindly concierge at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where Edward takes Vivian on their first, uh, date. Mr. Anderson is likable, flexible and hard-working, which is not quite enough to keep us from wincing every time Happy Man starts to sing about dreams again. He doesn’t have to convince Vivian, who has dreams from the outset, though she’s not quite sure what they are. Others require more persuasion, including the money-minded Edward and Vivian’s roommate, Kit (the inimitable Orfeh, the cast’s loudest member), a fellow hooker who finally remembers she always wanted to be a cop. The score’s many, country-tinged power ballads bring to mind B-sides of Top 40 hits from the 1980s, the era in which Mr. Adams became a rock star. And they are often delivered with a straight-to-the-audience, note-holding “American Idol” earnestness. (In her big numbers, Ms. Barks brings to mind Whether the setting is luxurious Beverly Hills or seedy downtown Hollywood, David Rockwell’s set has a kind of “Sesame Street” friendliness, and Kenneth Posner and Phillip S. Rosenberg’s lighting saturates everything in Disney shades of orange and fuchsia. This is true even for the show’s sex (or foreplay) scenes, which find Vivian in a series of cleavage-enhancing bras and slips. Mostly, Ms. Barks conducts herself like a peppy, tomboyish cutup from a sitcom. She often doesn’t seem entirely at ease, but her discomfort is nothing compared to Mr. Karl’s. This fine musical performer, ” often looks as if he would rather be anywhere but here, especially when he has to sing internal monologues about how free Vivian makes Edward feel. “Pretty Woman: The Musical” is already doing big box office, proving that on Broadway you can’t go broke overestimating the popular appeal of clones. But it’s worth noting that at the performance I attended, the number that received the biggest applause wasn’t one of those wistful soliloquies about feelin’ free, or even a high-spirited number about following your dreams. No, the loudest clapping came when Allison Blackwell, the soprano performing Violetta in “La Traviata,” sang her character’s farewell declaration of love. Something like real passion had finally entered the building.
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