Theatre
Reviews

2011
– 2012
November 2011
Other Desert Cities
Write about what you
know, that’s what they say, but be prepared for the aftermath. Not to spoil the
anguished twists of Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert
Cities, but when the affluent Wyeths of Palm
Springs come together to celebrate the holidays, the Christmas spirit is
shattered by daughter Brooke’s gift, the manuscript of her unpublished book.
Unfortunately, it is a family memoir. Suddenly the holiday cheer turns
threatening.
Earlier this year, the well-crafted production opened
off Broadway at
Former screenwriter, accomplished
matriarch Polly Wyeth (Stockard
Channing) and her husband Lyman (Stacy Keach), a retired movie actor, are conservative
Republicans, once part of the Reagan social clique. Youngest son, Trip (Thomas Sadowski), a reality TV show producer, has come down from
When I reviewed the off-Broadway production, the play
was tight, the ensemble impressive. Two upcoming cast changes seemed
problematic because the originals, Elizabeth Marvel playing fractured Brooke
and Linda Lavin as Polly’s recovering alcoholic
sister, Silda, were so deftly on target.
Luckily, their
replacements lend individual assets. Judith Light’s Silda
is slim and frail yet quick with her bright, brittle quips, a precise display
of her character’s intelligence and weakness.
Even as she is temporarily supported by her sister, Silda
takes every opportunity to push Polly’s buttons and the tension between the two
sizzles. Making her Broadway debut as
Brooke, Rachel Griffith (from Baitz’ television
series, Brothers and Sisters)
displays a polished control at first that blankets her resentment, her friction
with her mother, and a desperate need for the family’s approval of her book. It
was Brooke who was closest with her older brother, Henry, and is outraged at
her father’s Christmas toast to the family that does not mention Henry. In the
second act,
Stockard Channing remains a seamlessly confident Polly Wyeth, wearing the character like a second skin, skillful
at keeping the unmentionables at bay. As
Lyman, Keach lets Polly take the lead until the explosive
second act when he can no longer live with the deception and he ignites the
emotional firestorm. Thomas Sadowski portrays Trip
with commendably natural ease and his sibling interaction with
The opulent expanse
of John Lee Beatty's curved stone wall and beige furnishings is enhanced with
Kenneth Posner’s lighting. While David Zin’s costumes for Polly and Lyman
reflect
Jon Robin Baitz, Joe Mantello and this smart ensemble commendably keep a balance
in the battle between the family’s fierce dysfunction and their love for each
other. A coda at the end proves to drive this point home.
Elizabeth Ahlfors
November 2011
|
Booth
Theater |
|
|
|
Nov. 3, 2011 – Jan. 8, 2011 |
Also appearing in TotalTheater.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
October 2011
A Man and Boy
Frank Langella delivers a masterful performance in a difficult, albeit
timely play by Terrance Rattigan. While the story takes place in 1934, one cannot
ignore the similarities to Bernard Madoff and the current
economic crisis. Frank
Langella never fails to rule the stage as Gregor Antonescu, a manipulating
financier who lacks a conscience and abuses not only his business dealings but his
wife and especially his son, Vassily (Adam Driver). “Love is a commodity I can’t afford,” he tells
Vassily.
While the first act
should be enlightening and dramatic, it is talky and often sags. The play takes place in Vassily’s
basement flat in
Vassily leaves for work when his father’s
aide-de-camp, Sven Johnson (Michael Siberry) shows
up, followed by Gregor, darkly incognito. Gregor is facing a
financial disaster and is planning to use his son’s flat to hide from the media
and the FBI. He has one hope for
salvation, Mark Herries of American
Act II is enlivened
as Vassily and Gregor must
seriously face each other. Gregor shows little love for damaged Vassily,
and considers him soft and weak-willed. When Gregor asks the
boy to help him with a final escape, Vassily has the
strength to refuse and with the press and FBI closing in, Gregor
is left with only one option he can accept.
Michael Siberry and Zach Grenier are
convincing hard-boiled businessmen and Francesca Faridany
as Gregor’s wife, the dramatic Countess Florence, is especially
spirited. Brian Hutchinson is cast as Harries’
harried accountant and Virginia Kull is
young and energetic as Vassily’s supportive girlfriend. Adam Driver is gawky and troubled as the son
but fails to evoke pathos.
Maria Aitken directs the twists and talkiness
with a firm hand, but Rattigan’s 1963 melodrama is
often dense and lacks the needed emotion for this father and son drama. It is
hard to feel empathy even for Vassily, and while all
the characters add to the plot, it is Frank Langella who
dominates the stage with his chill smoothless and crisp
resonance, playing his adversaries and his aides as he would a chess game. His Gregor Antonescu is the abhorrent user you love to watch and hate.
Elizabeth Ahlfors
October 2011
|
American
Airlines Theatre |
|
|
|
Oct. 9, 2011 – Nov. 27, 2011 |
Also appearing in TotalTheater.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
October 2011
Temporal
Powers
At the Mint Theater,
Teresa Deevy’s Temporal Powers tackles the
moral and practical issues of right and wrong through the lenses of Michael and
Min Donovan’s relationship, a once passionate marriage that is now as eviscerated
of its inner vitality as its material possessions.
Money is the root of this
story of
When Michael accidentally
comes across an envelope full of money, Min is elated. This could be their salvation. Michael agrees but is uneasy about keeping the
money. It does not belong to him. Perhaps was stolen. He decides to take it to Father O'Brien, the local
priest, for safe keeping. Battling to
keep alive the last spark of hope she has for their life, Min demands they use the
money to go to
As the story craftily
bobs and weaves, it seems obvious that there is no solution to right and wrong
in this situation. Family and neighbors arrive with their own problems. As it turns out, the money was indeed stolen
by one family member, Ned (Con Horgan), a low-life
married to Michael’s long-suffering sister, Maggie (Bairbre
Downling). When Min discovers this, she conspires with
Ned to grab the money from Michael and split it.
Director Jonathan
Bank steers a difficult course, eliciting deftly chiseled performances, giving
the story strengths that carry it past the complex dialects.
It would help to read
Temporal Powers before seeing
it. Even with Deevy’s
thoughtful book, the vibrant performances, spirited characters, and dialogue
coach, Amy Stoller’s program insights, the colorful Gaelic
idioms and dialects demand concentration for three acts. The whiskey-tasting during two intermissions
may help or at least inspire debate about a play written in 1932 and quite
relevant today.
Elizabeth Ahlfors
September 2011
Mint Theater
Aug. 29-Oct. 2, 2011
Also appearing in TotalTheater.com
July 2011
Master Class
Callas was the grande diva with the requisite ego but in Master Class, her peak years are behind
her. In a classroom at the
The three opera
hopefuls are played by Alexandra Silber, Garrett
Sorenson, and Sierra Boggess who are all talented but
immature singers who pale in presence to Callas. Silber is awkward
and nervous as Sophie DePalma, prepared to sing from La Sonnambula. Sierra Boggess as
Sharon Graham enters with overblown confidence, expecting praise from Callas
for her Lady MacBeth aria. At the end, she rejects Callas for what she has become, a
self-indulgent diva who lost her voice. Sorenson, as tenor Antonio Candolino, gets the highest praise from Callas for his aria
from Tosca. His gender is an obvious
influence, since Callas harbors resentments about her female colleagues like
Joan Sutherland and Renata Scotto.
Daly illustrates the
“presence” of Callas. She rules the stage. Your eyes don’t leave her, the chin held
high, a confident power strutting across the stage, the self-awareness,
lightening flashes of attitude, and a sarcastic strain of humor. She is
tactless with her pianist, Manny (Jeremy Cohen) who idolizes her and is
dismissive with an unimpressed stagehand,
As fast as Callas
turns to her students, she loses interest in their performances, letting their
music lead her into memories of her own past performances. She weaves in her
personal experiences with Giovanni Battista Meneghini,
the husband she treated badly and Onassis, the crass
lover who finally left her for someone younger and even more prestigious than
the fading La Divina. Daly speaks Italian in two
gripping soliloquies and while her accent is not sharp, her interpretation is
impressive.
McNally’s play, while
not an authoritative biography, is riveting with
This production of Master Class
was first produced by the
Elizabeth Ahlfors
July, 2011
|
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre |
|
July 7,
2011 – May.
24, 2011 |
Also appearing in TotalTheater.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
June 2011
Side Effects
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
Elizabeth Ahlfors
June 2011
|
Lucille Lortel Theaer |
|
June 19 –
July 2, 2011 |
|
|
|
|
Also appearing in TotalTheater.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
© 2011 Elizabeth Ahlfors. All rights reserved worldwide