Month: May 2023

Review: Marilyn Maye

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There is nothing more magical than seeing the marvelous Marilyn Maye in an intimate nightclub. Johnny Mathis, in a birthday message to Marilyn a few years back, said “it’s just you and me now, kid!” Mathis meant that they are the two jazz-pop singers of the ’50s and ’60s still actively performing. Mathis maintains an active tour schedule, as does Maye, and neither has fallen far from the peak of their powers. Maye just did Carnegie Hall!

Back in those halcyon days, Ella Fitzgerald called Maye “the greatest white female singer in the world” (which of course allowed Ella to be the very greatest). I can think of no other singer who possesses Maye’s combination of interpretive ability, rhythmic verve, and vocal range. Maye is a singer worthy of being included in the company of Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn or Blossom Dearie, and her phrasing is the finest I’ve heard in that style from a living female singer. This is a classic act in every sense of the phrase. Maye exquisitely tailors her style of singing to the individual song, smooth for the ballads, swinging for the standards, and truly gritty for the bluesier numbers.

Her new show, “Come Celebrate” is a selection of her favorite songs, curated to address the themes of love, and, tangentially, smiles and spring. She includes one of her most requested songs, “Guess Who I Saw Today”; she said to her fans “you have all heard this something like 12,000 times” but then looked at a couple of fresh-faced queerlings in the front row and teased, “well maybe not you!”

Maye appeared on Johnny Carson’s edition of “The Tonight Show” a total of 76 times, a record not likely ever to be beaten by any other singer with any other host. Her run at 54 Below returns us to “Café Society” or what she likes to call “Paradise Cafes” after a song she does (but not in this set). If you love classic songs sung like they’re meant to be sung, it doesn’t get any better than this. My very highest recommendation.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.

Review: Shucked

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

Stupidly clever, relentlessly hilarious. This is the kind of joyful “feel good” musical we need so sorely right now! Shucked follows Maizy (Caroline Innerbichler) and Beau (Andrew Durand), young lovebirds who live in the isolated rural Cobb County, a place whose main product is (you guessed it) corn. When the crop dries up, our heroes are forced to postpone their wedding. Maizy resolves to find a solution to the blight, and heads to (of all places) Tampa. In that bustling metropolis she meets shyster Gordy Jackson (John Behlmann), who claims he can solve the problem, but clearly has ulterior motives.

Innerbichler, Durand and Behlmann anchor the show with rock-sold performances, but the most dazzling moments come from supporting roles. Alex Newell plays whiskey distiller Lulu with lots of brass and bluster, and their roof-raising belting in “Independently Owned” truly stops the show, getting the song its own spontaneous standing ovation.

Above all it’s Kevin Cahoon as corn-fed philosopher Peanut. It’s a big help that super-witty bookwriter Robert Horn gives Peanut the most absurdly funny lines in the show, but it’s Cahoon’s crack timing that turns funny into uproarious. The primary goal of Shucked is pure fun; that’s not to say it doesn’t have earnest thoughts on its mind, but no comedy can really succeed with out some serious themes at their heart.

The unfailingly tuneful score by Clark and McAnally seamlessly blends country grit with Broadway splash. Choreographer Sarah O’Gleby works some real magic with things such as barrels, and of course ears of corn. Director Jack O’Brien pulls everything together with the sure hand of a veteran professional. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.

Review: Jackie Hoffman

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This lady is monstrously funny. Jackie Hoffman has named her latest show “It’s Over. Who Has Weed?”, and when she she says “it’s over” she means everything! In the opening song, also called “It’s Over”, she says (I have to paraphrase because it went by so fast): “Before the pandemic the questions were, ‘who do I want to fuck? Who has weed?’ Now it’s: “Oh my god! We’re heading towards civil war! Or is it WW III? We’re all going to die because Earth’s becoming uninhabitable! WHO THE FUCK HAS WEED?!?”

To use the title of one of her previous club acts, the kvetching continues, yes it does indeed. Hoffman’s every last frustration and annoyance provides terrific grist for her comic mill. In most of her previous acts she complained about the state of her career. However, in the last few years she has played a series of recurring roles on hit TV shows, most recently Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. That show shoots in Vancouver, and she sings a tongue-in cheek tribute to the city.

What Hoffman does kvetch about is her housing in Vancouver, especially in a song named “Beware the Airbnb Booking”. The apartment looked good on the website, but when she got there she found out the neighborhood “is where the term skid row was born!” She states that the area is filled with junkies, “But it’s Canada so they’re polite junkies.” There are also lots of birds in the area but the various species “fight each other like the Jets and Sharks in West Side Story,” which she goes on to hilariously demonstrate.

I’m letting you in on some of the jokes to give you the flavor of the show, but I’m just fine with that, because the laughs are a mile a minute with this one. And even though the first song strikes a note of hopelessness, but at the end she does express reasons to hope. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.

Review: Life of Pi

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

Undeniably the most spectacular play of the Broadway season! Based on the novel by Yann Martel (which was also made into an Academy Award-winning film), adapted by Bengali-British Lolita Chakrabati, this version of Life of Pi swept the Olivier Awards in 2022. The taut Hiran Abeysekera plays Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel; it’s no surprise he’s taut, Pi is an extremely physical role.

Pi is the son of a Tamil-Indian zookeeper. In the mid-1970s a time of turmoil in India called “The Emergency” compels his family and their animals to depart for Canada on a cargo ship. The ship sinks, forcing Pi to share a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Pi survives at sea for 227 days after the shipwreck. The tiger, and for that matter all of the animals in the zoo, are played by incredibly lifelike puppets designed by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell; the puppeteers bring them to magnificent life, fully acting their emotions. As a matter of fact the puppeteers won the Olivier for Best Supporting Actor!

The weight of the show’s story is on Abeysekera’s shoulders and he carries it with vigorous enthusiasm and athleticism. The video design and animation by Andrzej Goulding effectively evokes all the settings, from India to Mexico (where Pi ends up) and most stunningly the open sea. Director Max Webster packs the production full of surprises, with great help from Tim Hatley’s endlessly clever set design. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.

Review: Justin Vivian Bond

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“Being a cabaret singer is all I wanted out of life. And it’s all I’ve gotten out of life! So, yay me!” So says Justin Vivian Bond. This ambition was hatched at a very young age when her parents took her to see glamorous swing singer Helen O’Connell. Seeing the sequined chanteuse jazzily croon on the stage of the Contemporary Hotel in Orlando, she quite straightforwardly thought “That’s what I want to do!”

This trans legend is among the most unique interpreters of song: she can go from tender vulnerability to smirking irony to howling rage, sometimes in the same song. Her taste is impeccable, and she approaches her selections with the touch of a very careful curator. A curator, that is, who finds what is most explosive in the art they’re presenting, and then promptly detonates it. Justin Vivian Bond is a tower of song – mysterious, imposing, beautiful, powerful.

The title of JVB’s current show “Nose Gays” is apropos of nothing, except maybe of the majestic profile photo above. It’s a bit mellower than usual. She says “I’m just singing songs I want to sing. Just imagine that I’m singing in a foreign language, and attach to them…whatever you want!” The show finds Viv reprising songs from various points in her career, Joni Mitchell’s “Woman of Heart and Mind” from early San Francisco days, Kate Bush’s “Under the Ivy” from her most recent Christmas show, and several more. Her encore is a Patti Smith song (I won’t say which one) which she delivers in a full lioness roar.

One of the best features of all of Bond’s shows is her acidly funny, stream of consciousness, between-song patter. As always Bond is hilariously entertaining, wildly imaginative and vividly expressive. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.

Review: Bad Cinderella

On By dramaqueennycIn Broadway, musical, review, theatre1 Comment

CAMP AS CHRISTMAS!!! In particular, Carolee Carmello as the Wicked Stepmother plays it like the most over-the-top drag queen – such fun. And completely in tune with the joyously crazy tone of the show. The energy is high, the designs eye-poppingly colorful, the general feeling very gay (there’s even an ensemble number with shirtless hunks dancing like they are in a male strip club show!). And the score is peak Andrew Lloyd Webber – his scores can be hit or miss for me, and this is definitely in the hit category, to my mind his most tuneful this century. Sexy, silly, frolicsome, mischievous, just the kind of light entertainment we need in these dark days.

So why is this Cinderella “bad?” Mostly she is punk as fuck, and so self-possessed. The plot follows all the “beats” of the traditional Cinderella plot, but there is a twist every single time, some of them quite feminist and queer. Lindedy Genao in the title role is sassy as hell, and belts with the best to the back of the balcony. She may have too many ballads, but the powerful way she sings them makes it worth it.

Bad Cinderella is set in a fanciful version of belle epoque France that has elements as medieval as broadswords and as 21st Century as bikini waxes. The town in which Cinderella live is called Belleville, a town as obsessed with beauty as, say, Instagram or TikTok. Director Laurence Connor s things at a very lively clip, which just makes the camp even campier. Fun, fun, fun. Recommened.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.

Review: Good Night, Oscar

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If Sean Hayes doesn’t get a Tony nom for this, it’s a shanda! In Good Night, Oscar Hayes plays Oscar Levant, a composer / songwriter, great friend of George Gershwin, successful concert pianist and conductor. But he was probably best known for his quick, acid wit. Throughout the 1950s he was a frequent guest on all sorts of television shows, and for two years hosted a show of his own.

He was also seriously mentally ill. He was certainly what we today call bipolar, also definitely obsessive compulsive, and after a heart attack in 1952 addicted to a panoply of painkillers, Demerol being a particular favorite. Hayes, long since established as one of the greatest comic actors of our time, predictably kills Levant’s witticisms.

The most thrilling part, however, is how he portrays Levant’s pain, the cost of his genius. Hayes proves himself to be a titanically good dramatic actor as he delves boldly into Levant’s darker side. Good Night, Oscar portrays Levant’s appearance on The Tonight Show in 1958, when Jack Paar (Ben Rappaport), a raconteur on a par (pardon me for the raconteur-ish pun) with Levant, was the host. Much of the drama is corralling the wild child Levant into a pre-show ability to simply hold it together for national television.

Playwright Doug Wright captures Levant in full multi-colored madness, in all his complex unbalanced glory. Perhaps most touchingly he shows how haunted Levant is by the memory of Gershwin (John Zdrojeski) – his biggest hit was his recording of George’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, which was requested to the exclusion of anything he himself had written. Perhaps most spectacularly, Hayes plays piano with great virtuosity, in the style of Levant himself!!! Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.