No Holds Barred

Review: The Normal Heart

Golden Theater, New York

July 9, 2011

For a play so driven by immediacy, The Normal Heart lingers. When Larry Kramer wrote this diatribe against the AIDS crisis spreading through New York City, he was capturing the present: a time of anger and confusion, with lawmakers and medical practitioners turning a blind eye. AIDS (never referenced by name in the play; it was too early for that) had no basis in medical history. The beautiful thing about the recent revival of Kramer's play is the compassion beneath.

Protagonist Ned Weeks (a strong, grounded performance by Joe Mantello, known more as a director), is a stand-in for Kramer--a fighter who demands attention, demands to be treated with respect. Even angrier is his doctor Emma Brookner (Ellen Barkin, holding nothing back), who alone stands up in the medical profession to speak her mind. As a fly-on-the-wall look at the fear and paranoia surrounding the epidemic, the play still voices these fears. Kramer's play is more or less a soapbox; but though didactic, he provided an education to those who only got their news from The New York Times.

Ned falls in love with a Times reporter, Felix (John Benjamin Hickey, who provides the empathy and humanity the play needs), who is soon lost to the disease along with the hundreds in New York. At a time when gay marriages just began in New York, The Normal Heart feels just as necessary as it must have in 1985. Today we have more awareness about AIDS, more understanding. The revival doesn't seek to tear down walls but strives for togetherness. This may have been the strongest ensemble of actors I've seen in a play, all ten seemingly moved by the people they are portraying, acting without ego or self-consciousness. The play asks that we do the same.

You Gotta Get a Gimmick

Let's talk about TV ads. Most shows seem content with commercials, web campaigns, billboards. Ah, but when you live in a city, you see some interesting ways to get your show out there.

Like two weeks ago, when I was walking home through Coolidge Corner and handed free ice cream. My Nutty Buddy (delicious on an eighty-degree day) was wrapped in a sleeve for Necessary Roughness, some new USA network drama. I flipped through the promotional booklet hidden within my napkin, and noted that Necessary Roughness (which has a idiomatic two-word name just like every USA show) was premiering that tonight. 

Then last Thursday, we're looking out from the ninth-floor patio at work, and a protest goes down Newbury Street. Posters are held high, displaying "Who will save us?" over pictures that looked like Daniel Radcliffe from our high vantage point (ooh, Vantage Point... call the USA network!). Oh yeah, and the white Death Eater masks. It turns out that their banners for Miracle and eerie rally masks were not protesting the final Harry Potter film, but advertising Torchwood. Which prompted a colleague to say, "That's the first time I've thought about Torchwood in a year."

Awareness is everything. Do only third-tier cable shows pull off stunts like these? I did not watch Necessary Roughness. I did not watch Torchwood. I was too busy turning back to nab a second free ice cream cone.

Golly, Moses, Naturally They're Punks!

Review: West Side Story
Colonial Theatre, Boston
June 21, 2011

The recent Broadway revival of West Side Story, which I caught on tour, set out to capture the authenticity of the much-loved war horse. But with its gang warfare built on finger snaps, pirouettes, and frabba-jabbas, West Side Story can seem like a relic from your grandmother's attic. Bookwriter Arthur Laurents, before his recent death, sought to dust off the war horse with young, virile kids for the Jets and Spanish dialogue and lyrics laced in with the Sharks.

By the time the tour arrived in Boston, some of the songs translated to Spanish had already reverted back. Maria still se siente hermosa, but she also lets us know she feels pretty in English. On Broadway, she and Anita sang "A Boy Like That/I Have a Love" bilingually, but now one verse in Spanish is all that lasts. Perhaps Laurents feared some were seeing the show for the first time. (Has anyone never seen West Side Story?) Whatever the reason, the tamped-down Spanish and the relative greenness of the cast gave the evening a nostaglic, rather than visceral, feel. You'd swear these actors never even had a pillow fight. What doesn't feel dated is the theatricality, especially Jerome Robbins's choreography: Riff convincing the Jets to stay "Cool" before the rumble; the dance at the gym where Tony and Maria meet.

Above all, the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim score entrances. Bernstein's bent for classical-meets-Broadway hasn't been replicated in the theatre. Kyle Harris and Ali Ewoldt were fine as Tony and Maria, though both pushed to seem younger when their characters want to feel older, more mature. Harris's voice was weak on the higher notes, and Ewoldt sang most of the score in a nasally mix rather than a purer soprano sound. I worry this is how schools are training musical theater voices today. Michelle Aravena in the showy role of Anita came across the best of the ensemble (well-danced by all).

But their youth catches up with them. The Jets seemed especially callous here singing "Gee, Officer Krupke" after their leader dies. The first act felt strangely tame, almost devoid of danger until the fatal rumble, but the second act speeds to an abrupt, but pointed, ending. In this production, there is no reconcilation for the Jets and Sharks... and why should there be? Suddenly the violence feels real. Better late than never.

The 2011 Tony Awards: Now with 25% More Mormon

All in all, not a bad Tonys. Some good dancing, something about Mormons... and I have seen at least five commercials for West Side Story during the breaks. Now as NPH said, go see a mother[censored] show!


Don't worry... her shoes are Jimmy Choo.


10:58 Mark Rylance gives his second poetry reading for his second Tony award, this time for Best Actor in a Play. It's a shame when actors have to accept awards at their scruffiest, while they're doing plays about scruffy people. Norbert Leo Butz (looking not at all scruffy) bests those Mormon boys for Best Actor in a Musical. I think Trey Parker and Matt Stone look a little embarrassed to get one more award, though the acknowledgment of Joseph Smith was priceless.


10:50 Lighting Design even went to The Book of Mormon? Did the other musicals give out tickets?


10:36 Best Actress Frances McDormand... jean jacket? Excellent speech, though: "I've played all three of Chekhov's sisters." Even more fantastically odd was Best Actress in a Musical Sutton Foster's shoutout to her dresser of nine years, which basically included his full bio and address in Cape Cod.


10:22 Who did the cast of Company piss off to have Christie Brinkley introduce them? Only two revivals for Best Revival of a Musical, How to Succeed and winner Anything Goes, but I think it's good that we've had so much new work on Broadway this season.


10:05 Best Play goes to The Book of M... sorry, force of habit, the winner's actually War Horse. Wonder how Patti LuPone feels watching Sutton Foster perform the same song from Anything Goes that she did twenty years ago?


9:46 Oh, random celebrities at the Tonys. Looking at you, Marg Helgenberger. Patrick Wilson must enjoy hearing the promo for his new drama: "Patrick Wilson is A Gifted Man." I wish The Motherf**ker with the Hat would win something, just to see what they'd call it. But for now, it's The Normal Heart for Best Revival of a Play.


9:35 I am pleased to write that the book of The Book of Mormon has won. Nobody is losing their Tony poll on that one. What, oh what, is Whoopi wearing on her head? Her comment on how many of her movies have become musicals is very astute.


9:21 Best line so far: "It has been confirmed by the Rev. Harold Camping that Spider-Man: The Musical opens Tuesday night." Surprisingly heartfelt shout-out by Bono and the Edge to Broadway hard work. But WTF is Spider-Man doing performing? Vying for Most Apathetic-Looking Actors? Or Worst Lead-In Dialogue?


9:17 The Hugh-Neil dance-off: I laughed at the West Side Story and Anything Goes references, especially the line about a "pre-unwrapped cough drop." Brooke Shields at the teleprompter, part 2: And she curses and gets bleeped. Perhaps Broadway is a better place for her than primetime television? Supporting Actor John Larroquette must have conned the voters into thinking he's in The Book of Mormon.


9:06 The Book of Mormon performs... we've finally seen why this show is raking in awards and $155 tickets. And this largely one-character song worked perfectly without any context! Though knowing The Sound of Music helped. "I believe/That the Garden of Eden/Was in Jackson County, Missouri."


8:58 Angela Lansbury was recruited to make the boring American Theater Wing speech sexy. Nikki M. James pulls a Mormon upset... Laura Benanti was the Supporting Actress frontrunner before tonight. But was she in a show written by the South Park bros? No, she was not.


8:52 Maybe I'm a killjoy, but I had no idea what The Scottsboro Boys' numbers was about, either. But it was pretty effective nonetheless; the closeups worked here. It's sad when closed shows don't get a chance to perform, so I'm glad there was room for the 12-Tony nominee (though it will probably win none).


8:41 The one good Spider-Man joke of the night: "I sent Bono a congratulatory cable, and it snapped." But basically everything David Hyde-Pierce said afterward was funnier. Casey Nicholaw wins most enthusiastic acceptee (as well as Best Director of a Musical).


8:35 Catch Me If You Can... if you even want to. Norbert Leo Butz's song may be the highlight of the show, but out of context, I wasn't sure what it was about. Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin looked confused, too. Like How to Succeed, the cameras didn't really know how to capture the dancing. More intimate character numbers might work better on national TV.


8:27 Nice shot of the teleprompter, with correct pronunciation of Arian Moayed--I always wondered how they will handle my last name when I win my inevitable Tony... or Oscar... Hey, let's go with EGOT! Congrats to John Benjamin Hickey for continuing The Normal Heart's loot as Best Supporting Actor.


8:20 Best Score and Best Orchestrations have gone to The Book of Mormon, marking the start of a Salt Lake sweep. I wonder if attendees felt a little bored/unenthused when Gone with the Wind or Ben-Hur won their numerous Oscars back in the day. Random thought: Does John Leguizamo deserve the adjective "incredible"? Discuss.


8:07 Alec Baldwin's beard presents the first award, to Ellen Barkin for Best Supporting Actress. Smart of the Tonys to start things off with Ellen Barkin, Edie Falco, and Daniel Radcliffe singing. On the subject of facial hair, Robert Morse looks like the only Mad Men actor without hiatus beard.


8:00 And the 2011 Tony Awards begin! Just a bare stage, with NPH in a spotlight. How many awards shows has he opened with a novelty song? "Attention, every breeder, you're invited to the theater." Brooke Shields, however, is no longer invited to the teleprompter.

Keep refreshing; new posts will appear at the top. Enjoy my annual Tonys live blog (that is, for all two of you who will read this).

One More Kiss, and Then We Break The Spell

Review: Follies
The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.
May 29, 2011


"Look at these people, aren't they eerie? Look at this party, isn't it dreary?" That's how Sally Durant Plummer, a 49-year-old Phoenix housewife, sees her return to the theater where she performed in the Weismann Follies as a young girl.  The year is 1971, and the showgirls are reuniting thirty years later in a lavish party before the theater is demolished. Over the course of the evening, watched by the ghostly spirits of decadent showgirls still haunting the wings, Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman's Follies allows the chorines one last burst of nostalgia before their memories fade into the impending rubble. Pastiche songs liven the proceedings, as old veterans of the stage relive their moments in the spotlight.

With these memories come unfulfilled lives, unstable marriages, and the loss of their careers in show business. Sally (distracted, lost in her past) and her old friend Phyllis (cool, stately) come back with their husbands, but neither has found happiness at home. Phyllis cannot connect with her bruised diplomat husband Ben, while Sally cannot shake the vivid fantasy that he will fall back in love with her. Bernadette Peters (who could've been a showgirl once) is fragile and girlish as Sally, affecting as she veers closer toward unreality. Sondheim's score, though, doesn't always sit well in her voice. 

The strongest performances come from Danny Burstein as Sally's stage-door husband Buddy and Jan Maxwell as Phyllis, who finds the warmth and genuine care for her husband Ben beneath her icy exterior. She delivers the bracing "Could I Leave You?" like a runaway locomotive, as she finally explodes from the suffocation of living as an absent politician's plus-one. Buddy is playing around behind Sally's back, and she knows it, but Burstein makes us understand his need for attention (just like the follies girls).

Director Eric Schaeffer has assembled some fine performers for the follies veterans, notably Linda Lavin crooning "Broadway Baby" and Terri White hoofing it to "Who's That Woman?" with the rest of the ladies. Alas, despite the ghosts parading through the party, the nostaglic numbers mostly showcase fifty-sixty-something women in their prime, without the melancholy beneath. Not until the second act, with Rosalind Elias' aria from her fargone operetta days ("One More Kiss"), do we see any sadness in these Follies solos. Frank Rich once reflected that Follies represents a death of the American musical, and Sondheim's score (more than Goldman's fragmented book) both celebrates the artform and mourns its passing.

But the production blossoms as Sally, Phyllis, Ben, and Buddy are swept into Loveland, a dreamlike theatrical limbo in which they are forced to confront the follies (note the lowercase) of their youth. Burstein's "Buddy's Blues" is excellent, a vaudeville toe-tapper full of humor and anxiety. Standing eerily still, Peters shines in the femme fatale torch song "Losing My Mind," a performance that summons the desperation and disillusionment intended for the show. There may never be another perfect Follies, but isn't the point that we always regret the road we didn't take?