95 Hours in New York

[+ Lucky]

Whew! I just got back from 95 hours in New York. It seemed like it took 95 hours to get home, and I am pooped. I do want to thank skynyc for meeting me and sharing his theater smarts. He lives the life I want to live, going to shows all the time, anytime he wants!

The city was packed, despite fears that the volcano would keep the 13000 Europeans who typically come in each weekend to enjoy the cheap dollar. I think every high school in the area was in Times Square at some point.

I guess skynyc is letting me have the first go at these reviews , so here are mine:

 

The Lucky Seven

Here are my thoughts on the 7 shows I saw this past week in New York:

 

On a previous visit I tried to watch Next to Normal. I didn't like my seat, I didn't like the screeching, I thought that making a musical about mental illness was insulting, so I left at intermission. Subsequently, many folks told me that I had made a mistake, not to mention those Pulitzer folks giving it the drama award. So, since I made it in town early enough for a 7 pm show on Tuesday, I went to TKTS and snagged a house seat for the show. 4th row center, with each seat next to me empty. Since the Booth seats are for midgets, this worked out.

I now felt much more a part of the show, and the characters were performing right in front of me, especially the adorable Kyle Dean Massey, playing the son to Alice Ripley's ill mother. All that screaching that bothered me the first time I saw the show I now saw as expressions of pain and frustration at the endless problems caused by the mother's illness. I felt it, and I saw how hopeless the family, especially the father, (I saw the understudy-quite good) as he tried to cope with his wife's declining state and the corresponding decline in his marriage and family. So, sure, I was wrong to walk out the first time. This is a really great show.

 

Everyone seems to agree that La Cage Aux Folles is better in its new, streamed down version. I don't. I liked the big theatrical version, with the songs becoming anthems, and the Cagelles looking like great showgirls and not muscled men. Not that I didn't enjoy the show, I just missed the bigger version. Nick Adams, who had to hide his muscles from Mario Lopez in a Chorus Line, gets to show them off as a Cagelle...and I wish he didn't! Almost all critics agreed that Robin de Jesus (Camp, In the Heights) was great in his role.

 

Wednesday night I saw Fences with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. I had seen another production of this in LA with some very good actors, so I wondered what the two marquee names brought to the show. The answer is crowds- enthusiastic ones too. But even with the big names, the fact remains that Fences is just a good show, and not a great one. Denzel could only do so much with it. But I do recommend it to those who have not yet seen a production of one of August Wilson's most popular plays.

 

 

Thursday night was Enron. The effort to make a show out of one of history's worst financial disasters was a huge challenge, one largely unmet despite some great acting and showy staging.

Norbert Lee Butz, a Tony winner for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, learns what a scoundrel is all about here as he plays Jeffrey Skilling in what I think is another Tony-worthy performance. All the acting is good, but the production is just awkward. I wondered what the point of it is. Do we really expect to inform the public about Enron in this method? Surely not. A New Yorker article would be better and cheaper. So, I'd skip this one if your schedule is tight. There is a gross and funny line about a tissue that should never had made the final cut, so if you aren't going, let me know and I will tell you what it is.

 

Friday I did a double-header, even more difficult due to the location of the shows. First I went out to Randall Island for an afternoon performance of Cirque de Soleil's OVO. It's described in Time Out Magazine as "unapologetically lightweight by Cirque standards" and I won't disagree. Insects are the theme, and I respect that others may have liked the show more than I did.

 

I hurriedly left OVO to head to BAM for Creditors. The Post called it "riveting" and the Times made note of the "surgical exactitude" that brings out the "feral poetry in (August) Strindberg;'s prose, this portrait of a fatal sexual triangle...both coldly objective and scathingly passionate." Creditors is a show for those who appreciate great acting, but do not expect to enjoy the show for more than that unless you just love to watch people get destroyed.

 

Readers of my other posts know that I gave up my ticket to Looking For Billy Haines in light of its horrible reviews, so I saw The Temperamentals instead. Lucky me. This is a great show, well-staged and well-acted. I didn't know that the cute Michael Urie of Ugly Betty was in it, but as I wondered who was this fine actor, I found the info buried in his Playbill bio. This show is a must-see, in my opinion. There is an issue raised by Harry Hay that resonates today as he gripes that today's young gay men, in their race to assimilate, value masculinity and avoid their feminine sides. Hogwash, I say. Some men are more masculine than others, and vice versa. We are gay men who like men, so why would we not prize masculinity?

 

One other note: The Time Out New York Magazine critic has this to say in the blurb about RED: "{The play} falls into the usual trap of leaden research and hagiography. The playwright dares to be grandiloquent, pompous and wildly pretentious- qualities he passes on to Rothko, depicted as a bullying bore desperate to burnish his legend before suicidal impulses overwhelm him. Molina is lusty and engaging, but Eddie Redmayne's assistant is a thin, obvious foil. The piece's best moments are when these two just shut up and paint."

 

He doesn't mention that Redmayne won the Olivier Award for his role (leaden research?), but the rest of his description could be applied to his own blurb, wouldn't you say?

 

Sadly for me, no New York trips in the coming months, unless some would take up a collection. They did at Next to Normal, with the cute Massey making the bid for the "twice annual" collection for Equity Cares/Broadway Fights AIDS. The pitch seems to be made every time I go to New York, so it is not "twice annual." But, if it means I get to look at Massey longer, I will take it. It does bother me that they now make such an effort to show that the money doesn't really go to AIDS so much anymore. Only two of the shows I saw made the pitch though.

[skynyc]

Enron's Collected Pink Carpet

 

I can fully concur with Lucky's evaluation of Enron. Flashy staging, some terrific performances, and high-tech set and props. But why and to what reason? We know that greed is prevalent in the U.S. Isn't Goldman Sachs speaking on Capital Hill today? We also know that since greed has become a virtue in our society and is no longer one of the seven deadly sins, that we are going to encounter it over and over. But as Lucky very humorously pointed out...this is a magazine article...not a Broadway show. $5.95. NOT $121.50.

Norbert Leo Butz is energetic and unrepentant in his role, and does a great job, but when you truly don't care about anyone on stage, all the flash in the world won't make it an interesting show.

 

I really surprised by Leslie Jordan's show: My Trip Down the Pink Carpet. There were some funny moments and some touching ones. And Jordan is pretty adept at combining the two. Several of his stories go on too long, and end with a "what was the point" moment, but with him, the tale is more in the telling than the punchline. We heard about a myriad of failed sit-coms but surprisingly no mention of Sordid Lives. I am guessing he is saving those stories for another show. Which I will certainly go see.

 

Collected Stories starring Linda Lavin is now on the Great White Way after two previous outings at the Manhattan Theater Club. The two-hander is really more suited for a more intimate production, but in Lavin's astonishing hands, it works very well at one of Broadways most intimate houses. (The 699 seat Friedman.) The story of a successful short prose writer and professor who takes an eager student under her wing, and eventually into her life, it is an interesting look at both friendship and creativity. I suspect Lavin's reviews will be terrific, and she will garner another Tony nomination, filling an all ready very full category of Lead Actress in a Play. Sarah Paulson is good as the hard-to-like protege, first because she seems over-eager and even rather stupid, and later because her drive and personal fears lead her to make some questionable decisions, but this play is all about the senior actress. I was close enough to see Lavin look over at Paulsen at the very beginning of the curtain call and give her a little wink. It was a lovely moment between performers.

 

And it was great to have Lucky here for a couple days. Next time, we'll actually see a show together!

[+ Lucky]

Thanks, skynyc. Enron is presenting its opening night as I write, so the reviews will be out tomorrow. Will they agree with us?