Getting this going again

Well, seems like we dropped off the face of the planet for a while. Kev has now moved to London and is preparing to launch a blog about his theater escapades over there. In the meantime, he's making us all jealous with two other blogs, about food and his adventures in the UK - stuffiseeinlondon.blogspot.com & stuffieatinlondon.blogspot.com.

As for me, I'm still living it up here in NYC. Not seeing as much theater as I used to (or at least as much that caused me to need a blog) but I have seen a few great things lately that I wanted to write about so I won't forget them. Stay tuned for those to come...

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.

A Very Common Procedure

A Very Common Procedure is a new play that opens tomorrow from MCC, running at the Lucille Lortel theatre. I have to admit, I didn't have terribly high expectations walking in to the theatre - but I walked away thinking this was a really solid play, which made me think about a lot of things I haven't really considered before.

Essentially the show is desribed as "a husband, his wife, and her doctor take a crash course in the workings of the human heart. Carolyn Goldenhersch begins an extra-marital affair with Dr. Anil Patel that takes them from Indian restaurants in Queens to Jewish delis on the Lower East Side."

Well, reading that it doesn't sound terribly interesting - but add in the fact that Carolyn and Anil met in a hospital after he had just performed unsuccessful heart surgery on their infant, it throws the show into a whole new direction. The climax of the story (as the three characters all finally come together and confront each other) is really powerful, and I felt quite anxious as I was watching it - a feeling I hadn't gotten in a while. Despite being incredibly sad at moments the show is also quite funny - laugh out loud funny. The men, Amir Arison as Dr. Anil Patel, and Stephen Kunken as Mr. Goldenhersch, are fantastic and both very comfortable with their characters. Lynn Collins as Carolyn is a bit less comfortable - partly due to her terrible wardrobe (really, whose idea was it to put this woman in a low-cut black dress, black stockings, and ugg-like boots?...see photo). As the show progresses, she grew on me - but I still preferred the two guys.

All in all though, a good solid play - something that doesn't happen all that often in theatre. I'll be anxious to see what the reviews say.

(photo - Sara Krulwich, NYT)

A Few Shows...

Wow, have I been a bad blogger. I'm not sure what happened, but I've seen several shows since I last wrote - so here's a brief re-cap of each of them.

Anon
Anon is a new show at the Atlantic Second Stage - and it's actually the first production on this new stage. What a great space it is - let me tell you, fantastic! The playwright, Kate Robbin, was a writer on Six Feet Under, a theme you'll see repeated in one of the shows below (All That I Will Ever Be) - although this show is much better than the other. The show focuses around sexually-addicted men and the women that are in relationships with them. Two couples are the main focus - Trip and Alison, and Trip's mother and father - and each relationship is a disaster. Trip meets Alison when she comes over as a pet psychologist to try and help his ailing cat. The two share an instant chemistry that day and begin their relationship. Things start to go really wrong when Alison learns of Trips addiction to Porn, and his open admission of no longer being attracted to her. Cut to Trip's parents - his Dad's been constantly cheating on his Mom for years, and she's yet to leave him. Really healthy, huh? Between these two stories, monologues from ten actresses are interwoven, giving us a glimpse into all kinds of terrible relationships with sexually-addicted men. I really enjoyed the play - right up until the ending. I'm a big believer in a good ending - to anything really, be it a book, play, movie, etc. This show just didn't have any big punch at the end - and I needed a bit more resolution. I think it's got a lot of potential so hopefully it can have that played out in another production.

All That I Will Ever Be
I've written in the past about how much I really love New York Theatre Workshop. I really do love mostly everything about it. It's too bad that this time around, I loved everything about my experience there - except the play that I saw. With Alan Ball, the esteemed writer of Six Feet Under and American Beauty, I thought to myself - really, how can this go wrong? But it did, and it's too bad - because it's not too often that a well-hyped new play comes about from an American writer. The play follows the story of a shape-shifting man playing the roles of a cellphone salesman and male hustler. This man, who we know mostly as Omar, changes his name and nationality several times as the story unfolds. We see Omar actually let his guard down to begin a relationship with the down-and-out LA slacker, living on his Dad's money. Blah blah blah ... problems ensue and Omar starts to give away more and more of his identity - only not to Dwight, but to his other Clients. After two and a half hours - of dialogue that can mostly be cut - we get not real resolution and all of this talk amounts to not much at all. I walked away feeling like I'd seen this before - in all the shows of the past two years, Little Dog Laughed, The Scene, etc etc...this play didn't bring anything new for me to think about. So - I guess NYTW can't get them all right - that'd be just asking for too much.

No Great Society

The second show I saw at NYTW (at their smaller East Fourth Street theatre) was an extension of a piece that played earlier at PS 122. The hour-long show splits into two parts, both showcasing and reinventing Jack Kerouac's television appearances. The first is The Firing Line show, in which Buckley (Ben Williams) hosts Kerouac (Susie Sokol) on a panel with Lewis Yablonsky (Vin Knight), a sociologist who wrote a book about hippie culture, and Ed Sanders (Scott Shepherd), a musician, poet and radical. What a combination. What's great about this panel (which is to define Hippies) is that it never really gets anything accomplished. None of the guests really define hippies and Kerouac spends the show in a drunken (and hilarious!) stupor.

The second part of the show, Steven Allen's radio talk show - Kerouac reads selections from two of his works and lots of craziness ensues. I got a bit lost in this segment - and honestly could have just stood to see more of the first part. I was laughing hysterically, especially when Kerouac falls out of his chair and begins stroking his co-panelist's shoe (the uptight sociologist no less). Susie Sokol is brilliant in her interpretation of Jack Kerouac. I read in her bio that she's a second grade teacher - what a fun class that must be! As for this type of experimental theatre - I can take it or leave - but I think I'll take this one.

Edward Scissorhands - The Musical

So I saw this show in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Apparently it's a transport from London and played at the big Broadway style theater in Philadelphia. The show is obviously based on the movie, but it's entirely a dance musical with no dialogue or songs, choreographed and directed by Matthew Bourne who did "Play Without Words." I thought this was pretty obvious from the play description, but apparently not to the bulk of Philadelphia audiences who would say things like "I sure hope they talk soon" about every 10 minutes.

Even though I hadn't seen the movie in a long time, the musical was very easy to follow and worked surprisingly well without any dialogue. In fact, it's hard to imagine seeing it with dialogue. It was definitely a play that built on the images and colors that are so prominent in the film (which I'm watching right now), so it was definitely a spectacle with regards to sets and dancing. It was a little underwhelming though, as I expected the dancing to be significantly more wow and the sets to be a bit more whoa. But it was still pretty nice.

So it was a nice night at the theater, although nothing to really write home about. I think the scenes from the website are a bit more exciting than they are live, but it was still quite pretty and fun. It did make me want to re-see the movie, which thanks to Encore and my last week of discounted cable, I'm able to do right now.

The Fever

Oh how I dread posting about this show, and I usually like posting about shows that are awful. Unfortunately, I have a) absolutely NO recollection of what the play was about, b) absolutely NO recollection of what happened in the play and c) absolutely NO desire to relive the time spent at the play.

Let me give you a little background. Wallace Shawn wrote and starred in this one man play. He then talks for about two hours. I don't know about what. I just recall there being maybe ... nope I can't remember anything about it. I do remember that the house lights would turn on every now and then because he would change characters or settings or something, and that would annoy me, because I was sitting very much in his line of view, and the lights made it quite obvious to him that I was sleeping. Often I would wake up with pretty good timing, but since the lights were on, it was pretty darn obvious that I was asleep anyway. So obnoxious.

But the show wasn't all bad. I will say that it was pretty cool, because they served free champagne to the audience (which prompted the question, "will I enjoy it more if I had a few drinks?" to which the answer is a resounding "YES." And by enjoy it more I mean, it will help you fall asleep). The audience was also able to walk around the set and touch stuff and sit in Wallace Shawn's chair (which I did for a good 15 minutes before the audience showed up) and talk to the Sicilian himself. Also, we added another house manager to the list of house managers we really like to usher for.

So ultimately, were these things worth sitting through the show? Um. No.

PS - this is Lydia - why oh why were the reviews so good? This is definitely on my worst shows of all time list!!!

The Scene

So we saw 'The Scene' at Second Stage about a month ago, and I guess it was my responsibility to blog on it and I never did. So I'm going to now. Or at least try, since it was a while ago.

'The Scene' was really quite good. It was very funny, but also rather emotionally charged as well. I thought Anthony Shalhoub (or as Anotonio the cab driver from "Wings," as I like to remember him) was incredible, and Patricia Heaton was great for the most part. Anna Camp played a very blonde girl from Ohio, and while you kind of wanted to kick her every time she opened her mouth, I think that's what they were going for.

It was definitely one of the better shows I've seen recently, and Second Stage continues to whip out solid productions. The set is very New York, and it's basically worth seeing. The ending was a bit disappointing, but it definitely did not ruin the play. The reviews for this one have been pretty stellar, so the critics agree that it's pretty darn good.

Coast of Utopia - Shipwreck

"Act first, the ideas will follow" - Michael Bakunin

After seeing Coast of Utopia Part One, Voyage, I was so excited to have two more parts to go. Part Two, Shipwreck, did not disappoint in the least. The rest of the theatre community doesn't think so either and the show has already extended through May 13th, with rumors it might run through June. Several of the actors are being mentioned for the Tony's (Brian F. O'Byrne, Billy Crudup, Ethan Hawke, etc.) so it will be exciting to see what awards the show takes in.


Shipwreck is the glorious evolution of the characters that were introduced in Voyage, and it focuses on the Herzen family during rebellious and revolutionary times. We no longer see the characters as hot-blooded students name-dropping and otherwise ignoring the "souls" (or serfs) or Russia. Shipwreck takes us into the life of Alexander Herzen (Brian O'Byrne) and his wife, Natalie (Jennifer Ehle). As the show opens, we glimpse into their estate outside of Moscow where Herzen learns he has finally been granted the right to travel outside of Russia - to treat his deaf son, Kolya. Through their journeys we get drawn into the happenings of the French revolution in 1848.

Some of the previous characters drop in to share their sentiments. We see a much older Belinsky (Billy Crudup) and a still rebellious Michael Bakunin (Ethan Hawke, seen waiving the flag in the picture to the left) as well as several others. The focus also shifts to the women, whereas in the Voyage they had too little of a part to play. Jennifer Ehle shines as Natalie Herzen who is exploring the idea utopian love through her marriage and an affair with a German poet, George Herwegh. Amy Irving also shows a different side as Maria, the estranged wife to Nicholas Ogarev (Josh Hamilton).

As for the execution of the show, I found myself loving it more and more. After seeing Voyage, I became quite enamored with Jack O'Brien's direction and the stunning sets from Bob Crowley and Scott Pask as well as the powerful and moving music that accompanies the production.

Really looking forward to Voyage and I say go see any of these shows, even if you can't seem them all. You won't be disappointed!

Photos - Newsday