Catching Up

I've been bad at posting, and Kevin's posts just reminded me of that. Here are some of the shows I've seen over the past few months that Kevin didn't mention:

King Hedley II
- Great production, and the last of the August Wilson season for the Signature Theatre. Really shocking ending that I wasn't suspecting. Amazing performance by the lead, Russell Hornsby.

Jack Goes Boating
- The show got some good reviews, and especially the cast. I thought you really couldn't go wrong with Phylip Seymour Hoffman and one of my favorites, John Ortiz. Daphne But I tell you, this was not my favorite show. I guess the subject matter, a bunch of loser friends just trying to get through life, just didn't hold my attention.

Tall Grass
- Quite possibly one of the worst shows I've seen in a long time. If only there had been an intermission, I would have bolted out of the theatre. C'est la via... It was a spoof on bad horror theatre - using and overusing the deus ex machina technique. Never again..

All the Wrong Reasons
- A one man show from New York Theatre Workshop (my favorite). Funny, cute, uplifting at the end, but looking back at it now, I didn't take that much away. I'm still in the camp of one-person shows not being so awesome.

Essential Self Defense
- Why, Adam Rapp, why? So excited for this show, all season I was looking forward. Maybe it was a bit over my head - or Rapp was trying to be more forward-thinking than I can take. But the lead actor's accent alone was enough to drive me insane! I say to Rapp stick to the Red Light Winter style and I'll still adore your work. Any more of this nonsense, and I'm out.

The Accomplices
- A terrible account of the troubles and plight of Jews in America during the Holocaust. It could have been really intriguing, and certainly the subject matter is pertinent. But this play, written by a former report, seemed awkward at best. Direction was unbelievably poor.

Legally Blonde
- Yes, I saw Legally Blonde...and yes, I actually liked it. I'm a big fan of the movie (a woman from my university wrote the screenplay, yeah JMU) and can watch it over and over again. I saw this on a rainy Sundy (noreaster, anyone?) and it certainly brought up my mood. Christian Borle was my favorite as Elle's love interest. Orfeh and Andy Karl are adorable as the real-life couple playing the hairdresser friend and UPS man. Laura Belly Bundy - no Reese Witherspoon - but she does a fine job.

Next up, I'll be seeing Crazy Mary at Playwrights. Hope they pull this one off, it's been a weak season so far for them..

LoveMusik

So I didn't intend to see this show at all. It sounded completely unappealing to me: a musical based on love letters between Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. The student rush tickets were the most expensive student tickets I've ever bought and the seats were in the rear mezzanine. Plus, I haven't seen a good show at the Biltmore since Reckless, and usually I usher there and see shows for free. Sure it got the most Drama Desk award nominations, with 12, but I was in the mood for a fun musical like "In the Heights" or something. But it was across the street from "Moon for the Misbegotten," and I got to chatting with some of the folks in that student rush line. A solid argument was made: "It's a Hal Prince show... come on, it could be his last." Morbid, but true, right? So I figured if I wanted to pretend I was interested in theater at all, I figured I should check it out. Plus it's Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy, right? You can't really go wrong with that.

So I went in with very low expectations. Low expectations are always good, because sometimes you're just blown away but what you find. In this case, I wasn't. Yeah, I'm sorry to say, it just wasn't all that. Okay, it wasn't BAD, and I stayed awake and paid attention through the entire thing, which definitely says something, given I was sitting in theaters all day that day and had rear mezz seats. But it wasn't worth more Drama Desk nominations than Spring Awakening. I will say it's not Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy singing love letters back and forth to each other (which I was really scared it was going to be), but it's not too far off. Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya are pretty interesting characters, and after seeing the show, I guess I'd be interested in learning more about them? Maybe? Okay, I don't really care about them still. For those of you who don't know, Kurt Weill was a composer (he wrote the music to Brecht's Threepenny Opera), and Lenya was his on-again off-again wife that hit it big starring in that show.

The play basically starts off in the 20s in Berlin and follows the lives of Weill and Lenya. I feel like it's really more of her story, which is a much more interesting one anyway, I guess. But there's really nothing all that spectacular about it. The musical just seems like one of those biopic musicals, very Gypsy, maybe a little Boy from Oz and Jersey Boys (down to the ending which I thought was very cliche, but that might just be me). Except not as interesting. It got interesting at one point, when they had to deal with Nazi Germany and the war, which I always think will bring some intrigue and suspense, but then they just moved to America and the whole Nazi thing just disappeared. And there were some RANDOM scenes that were just like, what's going on? They were the two uppity numbers that pulled you away from the somber, slow-songed love story, but were so incredibly random that I can't decide whether they worked or not.

Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy, both quite good, won't deny (although Michael Cerveris with hair is like, what?). The play, let me reiterate, is a musical based on love letters between Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. Yup, it's just what it sounds like. If it sounds appealing to you, go for it. But really, don't expect it to be much more...

A Moon for the Misbegotten

I'm still impressed how Eugene O'Neill can use like three characters and just have them talk in the same setting for 3 hours and have me gripped the entire time. It's impressive, since I can't stay awake in an hour long class with like famous professors. I stood through the four hours of Long Day's Journey Into Night a few years back, and was happy to revisit Jim Tyrone for A Moon for the Misbegotten this weekend.

I haven't read the reviews for this, but I heard they weren't great. I, however, thought the play was quite good. It takes a little while to get started, but I wouldn't say it dragged at all. There are some great humorous scenes, and Colm Meaney and Kevin Spacey are both able to get some good laughs. Eve Best delivers an impressive performance that must be incredibly draining. It's very impressive. She's also much prettier in real life than her pictures, I think.

In any case, the play basically follows kind of a complicated love story between Josie Hogan (Best), a tough farm girl, and her landlord, Jim Tyrone (Spacey). Colm Meaney plays Josie's father and plays a pretty integral part in the play as well. It's an impressive plot for essentially three people talking, and it's quite gripping.

The cast is solid all around. I sat in the front row, so I got a great closeup view of the action (as well as a straight shot up Eve Best's skirt... scandalous!), and the three main actors were really quite impressive. Kevin Spacey's one of my favorite actors, and I had high expectations for the cast, and for the most part it was met.

It's a solid show, and I think it's worth seeing. Check it out!

TalkRadio

Okay! Back to real-time updating. I have the time to do this now because it's the middle of finals and I'm procrastinating. In any case, I made it up to the city this past weekend and saw a few shows, starting with Eric Bogosian's TalkRadio.

For those loyal readers, you know I'm a bit biased towards Bogosian, and this play kept me on board. It was a great show, both humorous but heavy. It takes place in a radio studio in Cleveland, Ohio, back when the first Bush was VP of the country. Barry Champlain, played by Liev Schreiber, has a controversial night talk show that is just about to be picked up for national syndication, and the setting of the play is the final "preview" night. It sounds a bit Howard Sternish, and that did cross my mind as I was watching it, but it's a bit different, and there's some backstory with Champlain, and you get some nice monologues from each character that gives some background behind the relationships between Champlain and each member in the studio.

In any case, Liev Schreiber's performance is pretty incredible. I saw him as MacBeth, and Henry V, and all, but this performance really blew me away. There's so much depth to his character, at once you think he's a huge jerk, which he is, but you can't help feeling sorry for him, and he still manages to somehow be a likable protagonist, although it doesn't seem like there's anything to like about him. He's pompous and arrogant, but manages to command respect but still have this air of vulnerability. I don't know what I'm saying. But he's great.

The entire cast is not too bad as well. Sebastian Stan is this kid I saw at Tribeca last year who was in one of the movies in my theater, "The Architect." I just thought I'd mention that. His character was pretty fun.

To fans of Bogosian or Bogosian-esque fare and fans of good acting and quality theater, I recommend.

Catching up. A LOT.

So I don't get to the city that often, and Lydia's busy traveling to California for movie shoots and studying for random tests, so apparently this poor little blog has fallen by the wayside. I know Lydia's definitely seen a bunch of shows, and I saw a few too. I'll touch on a couple I saw since the last post when I was up in NY for St. Patrick's Day, and then do posts for shows I saw this past weekend.

Prometheus Bound

This was a solid production put on at the Classic Stage Company. I wasn't really in the mood for ancient Greek drama, but it was pretty gripping and powerful nonetheless.

Some Men

This had its ups and downs. I guess I expected a bit more from Terrence McNally. It was a pretty interesting insight into gay life through the years, and I did find it very intriguing. There were some sections that were random which I thought could have been nixed. The cast was pretty solid and the production was interesting. Some of the characters definitely left an impression I think, and there were some memorable scenes. I walked out of it with an overall positive impression, but no terribly strong feelings either way.

Enemies, A Love Story

I saw this in Philadelphia last month. The audience was awful, and the play was nothing much to talk about. It had to do with love affairs and Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn. It's gone now.

Caroline, or Change

I saw this in Philadephia a couple weeks ago. It was a pretty darn good show, with some funny aspects while dealing with some heavy issues of race and class in New Orleans. I enjoyed it.