Month: October 2019

Review: The Sound Inside

On By dramaqueennycIn Broadway, play, review, theatreLeave a comment

This subtle play probes enormous life and death issues facing people with big intellects and small lives. Brilliant but defensive (and damaged?) Yale creative writing major Christopher Dunn (Will Hochman) vies for the attention of his self-possessed, reclusive professor Bella Baird (Mary-Louise Parker). She finds herself drawn to him, and mentors him in writing his novel. But life gets in the way, in a big way.

The Sound Inside is above all a vehicle for the actor playing Bella who either narrates or monologues for much of the play. Parker is at the peak of her powers here, playing playwright Adam Rapp’s sometimes purple prose with great precision and restraint. The problems she faces put her in contact with life’s biggest questions, and neither Bella nor Parker flinches in the face of these massive subjects. Hochman rises to her challenge, giving warmth and softness to a young man who could come off as unpleasant. Both performances are remarkably honest and vulnerable.

Director David Cromer does masterful work here, particularly in his collaboration with designers Heather Gilbert (lighting) and Aaron Rhyne (projections). Images and colors appear out of nowhere, and fade back into obscurity with equal delicacy. They wrap Alexander Woodward’s minimalist set in a cloak of mystery and darkness. Daniel Kluger’s music punctuates the play with the lightest of touches. Rapp, for his part, portrays the world of academia with a knowingness that is equal parts affectionate and cynical. Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.

Review: Marilyn Maye

On By dramaqueennycIn cabaret, reviewLeave a comment

She embraces her audience, she overpowers, she electrifies – Marilyn Maye is like no other singer. At 91, she sings and moves like a singer in their 40s. It might not be an exaggeration to call her the best jazz cabaret singer in the world. She’s certainly the last great performer in that style of her generation, still in astonishingly full command of her vocal powers. And at 54 Below right now, she’s turning her towering talent mostly to showtunes. Lucky us!

Maye has been rediscovered by New York audiences over the last decade or so, and you can feel the ever growing lovefest between fans old and new, which only adds to the fun. But she’s had fans in good places for a long time: Johnny Carson gave her a standing invitation to sing on “The Tonight Show” whenever possible, and she ended up appearing 76 times while Carson was in the chair, a record no singer has broken since!

She’s always included showtunes in her act, so there’s plenty of familiar stuff, especially from Hello Dolly and Mame, shows whose title roles she played in now-legendary regional productions. There are several other medleys, but Maye and her music director Billy Strich handle medleys in an unconventional way, undercutting their potential for corniness with thoughtful storytelling and sophisticated jazz musicianship. If you love show tunes sung in sparkling and surprising ways, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.

Review: Forbidden Broadway The Next Generation

On By dramaqueennycIn cabaret, musical, Off-Broadway, review, theatre2 Comments

Forbidden Broadway has relentlessly and lovingly assaulted the Great White Way since 1982, when lyricist/conceiver Gerard Alessandrini, then a struggling singer-actor, created the first edition for himself and his friends to perform. It lampooned the Broadway shows and stars of the day – to put things in perspective that was the year Cats (a top Alessandrini target) opened, and Ethel Merman (who has turned up frequently in the revue over the years) still had two years to live.

This new edition, subtitled The Next Generation takes aim at Hadestown first featuring “Andre De Sheilds” singing “Forbidden Hadestown” – about the harshest thing Alessandrini has to say about this show, which he clearly liked, is that it is “pretentious.” Next up is Moulin Rouge , which Alessandrini uses to roundly eviscerate jukebox musicals as a whole.

Some of the harshest barbs go to Renee Zellweger in Judy – Alessandrini has Judy Garland sing “Zellweger stinks in my part” to the tune of “Zing Went the Strings.” His song about Fosse/Verdon is basically a love letter, as is a number he has Mary Poppins sing about beloved flops, “The Place Where the Lost Shows Go.” The finale, as often is the case for Forbidden Broadway, is a love note to the future of musical theater. Alessandrini seems to see plenty of hope (which he didn’t in 1982), and that’s a very good sign.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing work see jonathanwarman.com

Review: The Great Society

On By dramaqueennycIn Broadway, play, review, theatreLeave a comment

Robert Schenkkan compellingly told how Lyndon B. Johnson won the 1964 election in his play All The Way. After Johnson won, he passionately articulated a bold plan to build a just society for all Americans, an agenda of several acts he collectively called “The Great Society.” In the play The Great Society, Schenkkan’s sequel to All the Way, we explore how LBJ went from his landslide victory to his exhausted decision not to run for re-election just three years later.

“The Great Society” was one of the most ambitious reform programs in American history, but would eventually be derailed by ruthless Republican stonewalling, as LBJ himself sank into the quagmire that was the Vietnam War. The Great Society‘s inventive creative team brings this very troubled period of history to vibrant life. Director Bill Rauch deftly arranges the frequent shifts in locale and mood with deceptive simplicity. It also helps that playwright Robert Schenkkan successfully conveys a strong sense of time, place and stakes in every line of his jazzy dialogue.

Playing LBJ, Brian Cox brilliantly captures that president’s tireless energy and ruthless political gamesmanship being worn away by circumstances out of his control. The Great Society has the heft of a Shakespeare history play, which is unsurprising given the play’s origin as a commission from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Cox’s almost tragic performance as Johnson is the real heart of this production, a moving portrait of a man’s ambitions and dreams rapidly evaporating. Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.