The Voysey Inheritance

The Voysey Inheritance, adapted by David Mamet (Harley Granville-Barker's original), has been given a lovely revival at the Atlantic Theater, featuring one of my favorite actors Michael Stuhlbarg.

Set in England at the turn of the 20th century, the show opens on the lovely set of the Voysey Family drawing room. As the family livens up the space, we meet Edward Voysey, and quickly learn that this family is falling apart. In the first half of the story, Edward learns from his father that their family business of investing client's money to earn a larger profit has been a complete scam. Edward's father has been embezzling client's money for his own puposes and has in effect bankrupted his entire business. Shocking news - and a fabulous performance as the father from Fritz Weaver.

Mr. Voysey soon passes away and Edward is left to take over what's left of the business - as it's in shambles. Edward, being an honest person (a considerable thing with the way his family has been acting) tries his hardest, and works nonstop to turn the business around and earn back the money for their clients - the true way. Slowly and surely he suceeds in doing so but in doing so learns that his family has gotten quite accustomed to their comfortable living and find it hard to live otherwise. He also can't outrun the fact he must now Edward face the consequences of his father's actions - and that will certainly be prison. What a moral conflict for a man (or woman) to face...and one that Mamet is quite good at displaying.

To borrow a quote from nytheatre.com "The Voysey Inheritance shows us how simple it might be for Edward to stray from his righteous path: by keeping everything under wraps, he could just as easily continue his father's thievery instead of paying back the money—a sobering (and, unfortunately, relevant) thought in the age of the Enron and WorldCom financial scandals."


The show as a whole was really enjoyable. As I mentioned before, the acting is top-notch and Michael Stuhlbarg leads that effort. I doubt I'm the only one out there who really loves Mr. Stuhlbarg this much - I hold all other actors up to him for review - he truly amazes me each time I see him on stage. Just check reviews from shows in his past and you'll see he's become quite the critic's darling. He's quietly become one of the finest stage actors we have today. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Drama League Awards this past May and he's incredibly kind in person.

Well - go see the show, I read that it just extended. The Atlantic has been on a role for getting shows on Broadway (Lt. of Inishmore, Spring Awakening), so we'll see where this heads next...

Movin' On Up...

After the best reviews I've seen for a show since I've been following theatre in NYC, Spring Awakening has just announced that it's advance sales are nearing the $2 million mark.

Ahh...it's so nice to see this show doing well - what a breath of fresh air it has been to the Broadway community. Go get the soundtrack if you haven't already - it's a stunning reminder of the show!

...Another One Bites the Dust

High Fidelity, the musical dubbed by Ben Brantley as deserving a place in his "catalog of Top 5 lists on the roster of All-Time Most Forgettable Musicals" has announced that it's closing on December 17th, having played only 14 regular performances (...tear).

Poor Will Chase, the man can't cut a break...first Lennon, now this.

Company

I took a peak over at the NY Times reader's reviews on Company and wow are they polarized. Of the 16 reviews currently posted, about half of the reviewers loved the show and couldn't get enough. The other half felt disappointed and let down by this new production. I think I'm somewhere right in the middle.

The revival of Sondheim's Company is exciting news to the NYC theatre community, especially with its great reviews that just came out. It's the second production on Broadway from John Doyle, the most innovative director who brought us Sweeney Todd last year. The show is the third revival since its original staging in 1970 (Roundabout brought it back in 1996).

You may already know what Company's about but it's set in NYC and the plot revolves around Bobby (a single man unable to commit to any relationship, much less marriage), five married couples who are his best friends, and his three (yes, three) girlfriends. Unlike the typical musical which follows a book and clear plot, Company is what's referred to as a "concept musical," combining short vignettes in no particular chronological order, linked by a celebration for Bobby's 35th birthday.

John Doyle's imagining of this show, much like Sweeney Todd, leaves the actors on stage at most times during the show, playing all of their instruments. I absolutely loved this idea in Sweeney Todd, but for Company I felt it left a little of the intimacy between actors to be desired. I'll admit I've never seen the show before, and hadn't even heard the music. So, as my first exposure, I felt a little left to be desired - in terms not only of the actors but also the set, which felt entirely too stark to me. Raul does a pretty good job - but at times, I felt that the man was not acting - especially with some of his haughty poses and stares into the audience.

I was also thinking about my viewing the show for the first time - living in our society, especially NYC and having seen all of Sex and the City, I felt a bit like I had heard this all before - none of it seemed entirely new. Granted, I know Sondheim and Furth wrote this over 30 years ago, and the men were well ahead of their time.

I think I'll leave it as anyone who sees this show (as will all shows) should make up their own opinion, having been influence by all sorts of factors - but for me, I think I had expectations that were set a bit too high. I will say I can't wait to see what John Doyle does next....

Shout-out to some friends...

Two friends of ours, the wonderful Michael Cuomo and Zach McCoy are appearing in a series of short plays running in NYC at the Beyond Christopher festival until 12/16 - go check them out!

NY Magazine's Culture Awards - Year in Theater

Check out this list here...

I for one happen to love end of the year theatre re-caps! :)

A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant

In case you didn't know...Scientology is pretty whack! And I think so even more after seeing this adorable, hilarious, and really quite frightening new show at NYTW's small theater on east 4th street.

The show is performed entirely by children, ranging in age from (and I'm guessing here) 7-12. Yes, how adorable...and I had a big smile on my face the entire time. It tells the story of the life of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, through the kids dancing, singing, and running around the stage looking absolutely as cute as possible. Along the way we learn the L. Ron is completely screwed up guy, who seemingly made up this idea of scientology when he realized that no other sort of faith or idealism could explain to him how the world works.

I learned a few things that I didn't know about Scientology (as I've tried to stay as far away from it as possible) like how expensive it is to join the church and how many people have gone bankrupt because of it. It seems like a sort of brainwashing. A scene in the show that embellished upon what must happen to senior ranking members of the church once they board L. Ron's yacht is quite amusing. Another scene towards the end, set in a courtroom, shows celebrity members of Scientology. A little boy comes out in a leather jacket, acting as Tom Cruise - with two puppets in either hand - you can only guess who these must be.

All in all, the show is hilarious - it's such a novel idea to present such a sketchy subject in this manner. Some of the kids were completely professional - not breaking any of their characters even once. Another little girl was too cute - she kept scratching her nose during her scenes and yawning....But it's quite an enjoyable night at the theater - this is a show I'd see over and over!

QED

So I've been pleasantly surprised by Philadelphia theater. This is my second play at St. Stephen's Theater, and it was quite enjoyable.

QED, which does not refer to what one writes after a proof, but rather Quantum ElectroDynamics, tells the story of Richard Feynman, a Nobel prize-winning professor at Caltech who was very eclectic. It's essentially a one man play, with this guy in his office telling the audience stuff and talking on the phone, and interacting briefly with a student.

It's funny, it's interesting, and although it's another one of those kind of blatant tearjerkers, it's a bit moving as well. It's interesting to be watching a play about a Caltech professor, but it's quite entertaining. He tells all sorts of random stories and kind of has ADD. He makes decisions about life and reasons for it, and it's a pretty entertaining night at the theater. The acting was solid and the writing was good. The content was different, and I was pretty darn satisfied.

The last show I saw at this theater was "Master Harold...and the Boys," which I don't think I posted about. It also was very good. The play itself is an incredible one written by Athol Fugard dealing with race, status, power, and character in South Africa. I remember reading it and being totally moved, so I was really excited to go see it. It was definitely worth it. It's a great play, and the production was really quite good.

Floyd & Clea and some unnecessarily long bad title

We usually have faith in Playwrights Horizons, so I guess even with a title like "Floyd & Clea under the western sky" or something to that effect, we decided to usher for this one.

BAD DECISION.

A couple reasons for this: 1) As ushers, we couldn't leave at intermission. 2) As ushers, we were asked to help fill the empty front row; this means I was highly visible to the actors as my headed nodded lazily and probably audible if I was snoring.

Let me tell you about this play.
Floyd is a has-been musician alcoholic who sleeps in a car in Montana.
Clea is a girl that looks like she's 12.

Floyd and Clea become friends, but it's REALLY gross, because it seems like they're more than friends.

Clea moves to California and becomes a big shot. She even uses one of Floyd's songs. Floyd is sad and misses her.

Clea's life falls apart, and she goes to Floyd to make it better.

They sing a lot, but the songs all kind of sound the same.

Floyd has an awful southern accent and spits a lot.

It kind of reminded me of a really bad hick version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (play, not movie). Very loosely.

I will say that this play did raise some very interesting questions that definitely stimulated some thought however. These include: "Why would Playwright Horizons do this play?" "Why did a British guy decide he should play a Texan?" "This set is very extravagant. Why would they spend money on it?" "Am I supposed to clap?" "Am I disturbed because of the pedophilic undertones, or just because of the play itself?"

I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb and say this musical is not going to be the next "Grey Gardens."

The Vertical Hour

So I was in New York (this is Kevin) a couple weeks ago, and I meant to blog earlier, but I didn't. So today I'm on a little blog run. First off, The Vertical Hour.

The Vertical Hour seems like it should be awesome, huh? Starring Julianne Moore, written by David Hare (who wrote Stuff Happens). Unfortunately, it was not. I haven't read the NYTimes review yet, so this is going to be Kevin's thoughts as best as I can remember them.

So first off, the plot. So the question for this play is less, "what's the plot?" as "why did he bother with a plot?" David Hare writes basically an argument for two sides of our involvement in the Iraq war and tries to put it into a play. There really was no reason. The fact that it was an essay disguised in a play just made it annoying. The play was thin and plotless, and brought very little value to what Hare was trying to say. Julianne Moore plays this Yale professor who has very strong pro-Iraq involvement views (which was at least interesting). There are two basically pointless exposition/concluding scenes that seem like they might be interesting, but ultimately are separate from the rest of the play and are not revisited. They are apparently only there to give Julianne Moore's character some introduction. So then Julianne Moore goes to her boyfriend's dad's place. There's a big argument about the relationships and the dad (played by Bill Nighy) and his character. It's something about the boyfriend being mad because he thinks his dad is trying to seduce Julianne Moore. It's pretty lame. It's just that the Bill Nighy's character is very anti-Iraq war, and he has a debate with Julianne Moore. Yeah, that's it. So Hare, I believe, is saying some things about peace, and how it reflects lifestyles and views. But it was pretty dry for a play, and probably would have been more entertaining as a lecture.

Unfortunately, I also suffered from what I like to call the "Faith Healer syndrome." This means I stood for the first act and got an awesome seat the second act, not taking into consideration how comfortable the seat was. So yeah, I dozed. But I shouldn't have, because they were shouting on stage when I was dozing. Obviously the play was that gripping. I won't lie, I'm not a huge politico, so that might have been an issue, but if it were gripping or entertaining, I still would have enjoyed it.

So the play itself...notsogreat. As for the acting, I thought Bill Nighy was great, as was the younger male character. Julianne Moore, I guess I'll just say, was better than Julia? Barely? I don't know. I think she's a great film actress, but everything that came out of her mouth sounded kind of awkward and forced. The dialogue was so unnatural-sounding (although I'm sure the writing didn't help). She is, however, a very very nice person (I stage-doored her afterwards. I'm a tourist in NY now, I'm allowed to do that).

So all in all, I'd say skip it, even if you loved Stuff Happens or love Julianne Moore.