2012 Tony Awards: Best Lighting Design for a Musical

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winner will be in orange.

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN FOR A MUSICAL

1. GHOST THE MUSICAL
Hugh Vanstone

2. ONCE
Natasha Katz

3.  FOLLIES
Natasha Katz

4. THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS
Christopher Akerlind 

Despite all the initial brouhaha about Ms. Parks’s Porgy and Bess, little of the this revival is actually memorable, the least of which being Christopher Akerlind’s one-toned lighting design (he also lit the equally forgettable End of the Rainbow). But hey, I guess as long as the actors can be seen, a design is award-worthy, eh?

Then again, sometimes drowning the performers in darkness can get you nominated too. Natasha Katz’s lighting for the appallingly messy revival of Follies was three-toned — dark, darker, and darkest — all but hiding the actors and Gregg Barnes’s gloriously bejeweled  (Tony-nominated) costumes. Believe it or not, there is a way to light those peskily translucent spirits without losing them in the shadows…

And once again, the British megamusical comes in for the win. One of the busiest production designs of the season, the sheer number of effects that Ghost the Musical packs into one show is a marvel. While clearly aided by all the fog and LED screens and illusions, Hugh Vanstone’s lighting complements his co-designer’s well, in a mutually beneficial relationship that cleverly pulls attention away when necessary (i.e. Hey! Where’d that body come from?!), and that grounds the living in solid tones and etherealizes the dearly departed in wispy shades and shadows.

But no one likes Ghost, so the Tony will likely go to Once for Natasha Katz’s much more subtle and evocative work that creates a an authentic and earthy atmosphere for the meet-cute.

2012 Tony Awards: Best Scenic Design for a Musical

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winner will be in orange.

BEST SCENIC DESIGN FOR A MUSICAL

Photo by: Sean Ebsworth Barnes

1. GHOST THE MUSICAL
Rob Howell and Jon Driscoll 

2.  SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK
George Tsypin

3. NEWSIES
Tobin Ost

4. ONCE
Bob Crowley

Bob Crowley — the brilliant mind behind the dazzling Tony Award-winning set for Mary Poppins — created a warm and earthy open-spaced Irish pub set for Once that is perfectly fitting of the folk musical, but it’s also the least showy by far (and we know voters are drawn to the sparkly and spectacular). First-time nominee Tobin Ost’s massive, rolling, steel scaffold set for Newsies has the opposite effect, but did the turn-of-the-twentieth century newsboy musical really need such a complex and aesthetically (and dramaturgically) dubious design? Sure, its jigsaw-like capabilities are impressive, but like me, critics were torn on its overall effectiveness.

There’s no way Tony voters are going to award The Hottest Mess to Ever Hit Broadway. Ever. with anything, but to be fair, George Tsypin’s comic-book look for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is pretty great, and could have been great fun: grey and black tones are punctuated with bursts of bright colors and 2-D sets are drawn like classic comics, complete with POWS! and KABLAMS! splashed boldly across backdrops. Unfortunately, much of it simply looks cheap (ironic considering the millions of dollars it took to stage and design) and while the technical glitches may have been smoothed out — set changes were rough and stilted when I saw version 1.0 — voters are only likely to remember only the bad when it comes to the Taymor train wreck.

Though Ghost the Musical is far from a good show — and, really, who expected it to be? — it’s surprising that critics so soured on the eye-popping design by Rob Howell and Jon Driscoll. Sure, Jon Driscoll’s wall-to-wall projections, with their running fluorescent numbers (ghostie Sam worked on Wall Street, remember?), pouring rain, and videos of the sappily in love couple — are a little too reminiscent of the far superior ones created for Enron (which, hey!, were also designed by Jon Driscoll. Imagine that.). And sure, the sheer number of effects are ostentatious and emotionally disconnecting, but hell, I had fun keeping up with the constant whir of the shifting technologies deployed, and since there’s no Tony Award for Best Illusions, I’m going to clump Paul Kieve’s delightful special effects (ghosts jumping out of bodies and hands going through doors) into this category and declare Ghost the winner in my heart. Because no one else is going to.

2012 Tony Awards: Best Score

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winner will be in orange.

BEST SCORE

Photo by: Joan Marcus

1. ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS
Grant Olding 

2. PETER AND THE STARCATCHER
Wayne Barker

3.  NEWSIES
Alan Menken

BONNIE & CLYDE
Frank Wildhorn 

Much like the Oscars rules for Best Original Score, I do not understand the arbitrary rules of eligibility for a Tony Award nomination in this category.  When I complained back in 2007 that Mary Poppins‘s score was snubbed, I was informed by a multitude of folks that it was because the percentage of original music was not high enough. But the Tonys state no rules for this specific category — you can find the fairly vague set nomination laws here – and so it seems to me that the no-brainer standard should be that the score be an original written for the stage.

So what is Newsies doing here?

Obviously, Alan Menken’s  jubilant, toe-tapping, anthem-heavy score performs the highest level of storytelling of all the nominees, but it only includes a couple numbers that didn’t originate with the 1992 film, so what gives? (No, seriously: if anyone out there has Tony nomination eligibility insight, I really do want to know how this works.)

It doesn’t really matter since Menken’s going to win, regardless of whether or not I understand/approve the rules. The man is ubiquitous these days, and voters will want to reward him (despite his misstep with Leap of Faith), especially in a category that consists of only one other musical — and a Wildhorn musical at that. Sorry, Frank, I know I shouldn’t heckle; I (sadly) missed seeing Bonnie & Clyde, after all, and this actually sounds kind of fun (color me surprised).

Which leaves two “plays with music” as the category’s potential spoilers. Peter and the Starcatcher‘s score, chockfull of mer-diddies and pirate shanties, is delightfully charming and entirely befitting its youthful, daydreaming cast of characters, but I’m still a bit bigh off the hilarity of seeing One Man, Two Guvnors the other day, and so kudos must be given to composer Grant Olding, whose skiffle — a popular form of music in 1950s UK — is infused throughout the show, making the play a charmingly-true music hall piece. A quartet called The Crave — alternately boasting bass, guitar, washboard, drums, etc. — entertains pre- and post-show and covers scene changes with their fetching amalgamation of bluegrass, rock and folk that keeps the comic hijinks moving at a catchy clip and allows the cooky cast to show off a musical talent or two in variety-show fashion. If Newsies isn’t to be rewarded here, let’s show the Brit import some love, shall we? (But voters won’t. If Newsies doesn’t take it — that’s a HUGE if — it’ll go to Peter.)

2012 Tony Awards: Best Scenic Design for a Play

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winner will be in orange.

BEST SCENIC DESIGN FOR A PLAY

1. PETER AND THE STARCATCHER
Donyale Werle 

2. OTHER DESERT CITIES
John Lee Beatty

3.  ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS
Mark Thompson

4. CLYBOURNE PARK
Daniel Ostling

 Missing: The Mountaintop, David Gallo

Many folks were impressed by with Daniel Ostling’s set for Clybourne Park simply due to its super-quick transformation during intermission: In act one, a 1959 living room in the Chicago ‘burbs is vacated by a white family as the first black family moves into the neighborhood; act two showcases the same space, 50 years later, as a white family plans to move into what has become a largely black community. But when it comes down to it, a change in wallpaper and some graffiti do not a Tony Award winner make, no matter how many stagehands (nine) it takes to create said 15-minute quick-change.

An adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s 1743 comedy, The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, One Man, Two Guvnors boasts a set that perfectly complements the ridiculous hilarity of the action. Mark Thompson’s charming cut-out of a set depicts the  seaside resort town of Brighton in the 1960s, with color-splashed flats that roll on and off the stage nearly as quickly as the silly rolls off the tongues of the super-quick-witted cast. A producer as well as a designer, Mark is his own competition: producing credits include fellow-nominee Peter and the Starcatcher.

For the aesthetes among us, there’s John Lee Beatty’s (also represented this season with his work on The Columnist, Don’t Dress for Dinner, and Venus in Fur) 1960s-modern room set for Other Desert Cities which boasts all the “tasteful” accouterments of the Reaganite family’s Palm Springs home. The sweeping curves of sleek white furniture, stone walls and glass reflect the surface perfection that hides a deeply troubled family. This marks Beatty’s fifth nomination and with no wins yet, he’s definitely well-positioned as a spoiler here.

But for the least realistic and most theatrical of sets, look no further than Donyale Werle’s gorgeously toned — textured greens and tie-dyed waves of deep blue flow throughout — and whimsically structured set that appears as if bursting forth from the wildly creative imaginations of its child-heroes in Peter and the Starcatcher. Nominated last year for her lushly over-the-top hipster-y design for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (she should have won), Werle is a off-beat designer with a flair for the fanciful and an expert knack for eye-popping colors and dreamy textures. Here work here has garnered enough notice to ensure a win come June 10th.

2012 Tony Awards: Best Actress in a Play

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winner will be in orange.

BEST ACTRESS IN A PLAY

1. LINDA LAVIN
The Lyons 

2. TRACIE BENNETT
End of the Rainbow 

3. NINA ARIANDA
Venus in Fur 

4. STOCKARD CHANNING
Other Desert Cities

CYNTHIA NIXON
Wit 

While I’d typically leave a big gun like “Best Actress” until later in the blogging game, it’s the only category I’ve seen (almost) in full, and we have to start somewhere, sometime, don’t we?  There are only 22 days left until the Big Awards Day, so let’s get down to it.

I missed the revival of one-hit-wonder Margaret Edson’s Wit (and no, I’m not too broken up about it), but it seems critics were split on Cynthia Nixon‘s performance. Regardless, the show closed in January, meaning it — and Nixon’s shattering (or not-so-shattering, depending on who you ask) turn as the unsentimental professor dying of ovarian cancer — is long forgotten. Sorry, Cindy, but you’ll always have Rabbithole.

Stockard Channing is supremely solid as the hard-edged Palm Springs Reaganite in Jon Robin Baitz’s ho-hum Other Desert Cities, and critics have raved, some even declaring the performance a career best for the stalwart. But while Stockard’s bracing for battle of the political and personal nightly, she’s been doing so since January 2011 (the play — and the actress — transferred to Broadway in November). Aren’t you tired, Stockard? We are, and I think Tony might be a little tired (of you), too.

Then there’s that brilliant gem of a comic-performer, Nina Arianda. The girl is magic in everything: she sparkled her way through the slight revival of Born Yesterday, utterly charming us with her infectious girlish giggle and earning a Tony Award nom for it, and this year, she’s in full command of David Ives’s battle of the sexes, Venus in Fur. She brings fire and intensity, and of course that brilliant comic flair, elevating the otherwise overhyped kinky role-reversal play. Her talent is already legendary, and if, like Stockard, she hadn’t been performing this role for nearly two years (though there was a break between the off-Broadway to Broadway transfer), she’d be a shoe-in. As it is, she’s certainly perfectly positioned for a spoiler.

But there are two fresh (stateside, at least) performances that have just come on the map, and while Tracie Bennett‘s jaw-dropping impression of Judy Garland in her last desperate, drug-addled days in End of the Rainbow is a true powerhouse of a performance, it inspires more admiration (how the hell does the 50-year-old actress do that every night — and do it every night for over two years in London and now on Broadway? It was just announced that after Broadway, she’s off to L.A. and then on to tour!) than emotion. It’s a technically pitch-perfect  performance — she sings just like Judy, too — but for all its truth, Peter Quilter’s writing is lacking an emotional vitality, and Bennett, voraciously putting her guts out on full display nightly, literally cannot do anything more to make up for the play’s inherent weaknesses.

Then there’s Linda Lavin. In The Lyons, she masters Nicky Silver’s characteristic monster-mom — in her hands, the Silverian snappingly cruel wit flutters off the tongue as nonchalance with lacerating tonal shifts and the lightest — and most shockingly dismissive — of hand gestures. Lavin, who won her only Tony Award in 1987 for Broadway Bound, has been embodying the disturbingly funny matriarch since the show’s off-Broadway run at the Vineyard this fall, and she turned down two other Broadway transfers (Follies and Other Desert Cities, the latter of which I was lucky enough to witness — love you, Judy Light, but I’m not sure you can top the Lavin) to accompany the dysfunctional Lyons family to Broadway. Let’s just say she made the right choice — Tony’s sure to agree.

Theatre Review: Leap of Faith

Menken Takes Over Broadway with 1992 Nostalgia,
And: Raúl Misses the Mark

Raúl Esparza is a "Fox in the Henhouse."

That 1992… What a year! So many cinematic treasures! So many musical moments! So much Menken!

Disney super-star composer Alan Menken offered us both an über-flop and cult favorite in Newsies and a prince of a blockbuster ‘toon with Aladdin in 1992. But gosh darn it, that just wasn’t enough for one year. Menken decided 1992 was too good to stop there with the musical-movie/movie-musical madness. And so, last year, he brought everyone’s favorite singing nuns to The Broadway with his Tony Award-nominated musical adaptation of Sister Act (that oddly incorporated none of the 1992 film’s memorable musical moments). But he didn’t stop there either: This season, after transferring his beloved dancin’ newsboys to the big stage just one month ago, he  not-so-tunefully tackled the 1992 Steve Martin vehicle, Leap of Faith. 

It’s a random movie-to-musical selection, but it’s from the magial year of 1992, so we’ll just have to go with it. Leap of Faith, the film, was also a slightly odd choice for comedian-goofball Steve Martin who, playing a preacher-man fraudulently “healing” the vulnerable masses, displayed a surprising restraint despite the inherent ostentatiousness of the role. What started off as a semi-dark satire about a traveling ministry’s con-methods quickly devolved into earnest uplift, to the mixed response of critics. The musical, turning up the feel-good antics a notch (or ten) probably won’t be received any better.

But back to Maestro Menken for a moment. With his Sister Act, though Menken didn’t create the most memorable of scores, there were a couple of standouts, which one cannot say of his latest effort. Leap of Faith mixes derivative pop-gospel with edgeless musical theatre rock and is paired with banal lyrics by Glenn Slater (who wrote those for Sister Act the musical as well and — get this — Love Never Dies, the Phantom sequel so sinfully bad its Broadway transfer was officially cancelled after being announced twice). Sadly, neither writer seems to be aiming for anything above musical theatre mediocrity with this one.

And as with Menken’s Newsies, not a whole lot of note has changed during the screen-to-stage adaptation. A few of the characters and  relationships are tweaked — the sheriff, for example, played in the film by Liam Neeson, now pulls double duty as a love interest (Jessica Phillips) for the charming conman — but Warren Leight faithfully (heh) maintains Janus Cercone’s original story of redemption and personal healing.

Christopher Ashely, who directed the delightfully vapid Xanadu and the tightly formulaic crowd-pleaser Memphis, sufficiently moves through the songs with the help of the gospel-gesturing movements by Sergio Trujillo (also of Memphis). And there’s a nice little attempt to bust down that pesky fourth wall by making the theatre audience and the revival audience one in the same: a few TVs are mounted in the theatre, whilst a “cameraman” films it all — Jonas’s tricks and inevitable exposure as a fraud, audience (real and actors) reactions — in real time. But it all feels so ho-hum, especially when imagining what the show could have looked like in its Los Angeles tryout well over a year ago as directed-choreographed by current Evita choreographer and How to Succeed helmer, Rob Ashford (for one, the movement would have been more fluid, smoothly infiltrating the entire show, rather than popping in abruptly whenever a choral number sounds).

But even Ashford couldn’t have made musical theatre magic out of this uninspired adaptation. What’s more, perhaps the biggest misstep here is one of casting — and a surprising misstep at that. A tremendous talent, Raúl Esparza should be perfect as the beguiling con artist in a super-shiny suit (hats off to costumer designer William Ivey Long’s delightfully tacky togs), but he never quite nails the mesmerizing outlandishness of Nightingale’s over-the-top preacher-performances. When we should be dazzled, we’re simply entertained, because Esparaza’s modus operandi is more subtle allure and low-key humor (see his performance in Company) and darker shades (Homecoming). He’s been with the show since the out-of-town tryout, so it’s not a matter of growing into the role; it’s a matter of not fitting into the role in the first place, because it’s clear that Esparza is working hard up there to win us over.

But no, Jonas Nightingale calls for a performer who devours the stage with his preaching prowess and captivates with outsized charisma. One hoped Esparza could pull it off, but from entrance one, it’s impossible not to wonder why Norbert Leo Butz hadn’t been cast instead. Even looking within the cast, one finds a stronger example of the hypnotizing magnetism that Nightingale needs: Leslie Odom, Jr. (of Smash fame) as pastor-in-the-making Isaiah utterly transfixes with his silky-smooth voice and even smoother dance moves. Whenever he’s center stage, he owns it, making one understand how revivalists could convince their vulnerable, desperate flock to give what little they have.

But enough about Leap of Faith. After all, it’s only a matter of months before Menken selects his next 1992 cinematic inspiration for the stage. Might I suggest The Crying Game?

Theatre Review: Magic/Bird

Kevin Daniels and Tug Coker as Magic and Bird, respectively. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The writing-directing team that brought us last year’s football favorite Lombardi offer  up another sports bio-drama, this time of the basketball variety. Magic/Bird may not have the satisfying heft of the meat-and-potatoes family drama that Lombardi did, but thankfully it has a director with a musicality of movement that keeps things bouncing along both on and off-court.

Following the unlikely bond between the L.A. Lakers’s gregarious Earvin “Magic” Johnson and the Boston Celtics’s aloof Larry Bird, Magic/Bird touches on the super-rivalry between the two b-ball greats in the ’80s. We look on as the Lakers and Celtics duel over the championship title, with each team winning every other year, while also tossing the MVP title back and forth between the two key players. Magic and Bird officially meet during the filming of a Nike commercial (naturally), and that was that — the two become fast friends for life.

Despite the inherent drama of athletic competition and the Odd Couple humor of the Bird and Magic pairing, Eric Simonson’s play keeps it (s)light: the vertically blessed Kevin Daniels (Magic) and Tug Coker (Bird) give likable performances, but if it wasn’t for Jeff Sugg’s dazzling videos of the real Magic and Bird that multiply and diverge, creating an irising effect of LED displays, we might forget  that, yeah, these are real men with depths of character and history that we may never be privy to. Because when things get a little heavy  in Magic/Bird — Magic becomes HIV+ when the world had no idea what that really meant — the playwright glosses over  that to quickly get back to the buddy comedy trope. We’re not really given the opportunity  to question Magic’s marriage or his promiscuity, we never get beyond the wall that the tight-lipped Bird carefully built around his personal life, and we don’t even really witness an intense rivalry. Maybe the play doesn’t dig too deep because the source material just isn’t that deep. Maybe, but I doubt it: the play could use more Magic/Bird and a little less NBA stats.

Thankfully, there’s director Thomas Kail (who also helmed Lombardi), who gives the lightly-sketched fare a nice breeziness of movement and tone that helps us forget that basketball is better filmed than staged. Making good use of David Korins’s raised basketball-court stage and aided by the impressive bouncy-slick sound design by Nevin Steinberg (Acme Sound Partners, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo), Kail moves his key players on and around the stage as though choreographing a musical number, and not a basketball play. It works admirably well (it should — he directed In the Heights), and while things keep moving at a swift and satisfying pace, he also manages some fine performances from the supporting cast: most notably, Deirdre O’Connell (Circle Mirror Transformation) as Bird’s frank and funny stat-spouting mom.

Many theatre folks may not appreciate the topic of this sports show and others may find it a bit surface-y, but the enthusiastic house proves there’s certainly an audience out there, just as there was for Lombardi before it. Magic/Bird is the show you can easily bring that culturally-adverse relative to; I’m confident your dad will love it.

Magic/Bird
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th Street
New York, NY 10036
Performances from March 21 — open-ended
Opened  April 11, 2012

Theatre Review: Ninth and Joanie

When Bad Theatre Happens to Good (?) People

Dominic Fumusa in Ninth and Joanie. Photo: Kate Edwards.

I never understood the point of reviewing truly bad theatre.

Having already suffered enough as an audience member, why put yourself  –  and quite frankly, the production — through even more by reliving it via writing?  Then again, when the company boasts such fine talent — including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bogosian, Bobby Cannavale, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Michael Shannon, Daphne Rubin-Vega and  Lynn Nottage — you’ve gotta wonder (and take to task) how something like Ninth and Joanie even happened. And no, most (un)fortunately, none of the folks just listed are involved with this train wreck produced by famed LAByrinth Theater Company.

The man behind this drab, overly dark mafia melodrama is LAB member Brett C. Leonard, a playwright who, it appears, hasn’t done terribly much outside the nurturing bubble of the Lab’s cozy compound (a couple of his plays — The Long Red Road and Guinea Pig Solo – earned some acclaim in Chicago, and he’s written for the HBO series Hung). His first play for LAByrinth since the 2008 premiere of Unconditional (directed by Mr. Hoffman), Ninth and Joanie takes us back to 1986 South Philadelphia, where an Italian American family is mourning the loss of its matriarch. Turns out mom’s death is the least of this highly dysfunctional, emotionally-stunted family’s problems: we’ll hear about another death and see yet another one before the torturous two hours are up (SPOILER: the onstage death is the only giddy jolt Mr. Leonard’s lethargic writing offers us — and really, it’s mostly owed to Jeremy Chernick’s (The Mountaintop, The Hallway Trilogy) spectacular special effects work).

The production’s problems may begin with Leonard’s inert, cliche-riddled writing — a silently grim dad who swills Scotch and smokes incessantly whilst inexplicably wearing goggles; an obsequious, troubled son who’s gone soft and puts all his faith in the Ouija board — but they end, with a dull thud, with Mark Wing-Davey’s increasingly mind-numbing direction. The first fifteen minutes consists of… nothing. Nothing happens. Dad (a one-note meanie as played by Bob Glaudini) comes in and takes off his clothes (five. full. minutes.). Son #1 (a painfully pitiful Kevin Corrigan) follows and does the same, while sporadically sputtering out nonsense to dear ol’ da’: “Can I turn on the fan?… Are you hungry? I’m hungry… I’mma make a sandwich….” (ten. more. painfully. slow. minutes.) Later: Son #2 (a furious Dominic Fumusa) enters and maniacally dances for ten minutes. This torpid indulgence sets the (non-existent) pace  for the entire show which can’t possibly consist of more than fifteen pages of dialogue; there are just so many periods of epic, maddening silence. Instead of correcting this problem, Wing-Davey exacerbates it: just when you think the silent scene can’t go on for any longer, it does. And then it keeps going for longer still.

Only set and lighting designers David Meyer and Bradley King, who together create a depressingly drab lower-middle class home lit in the murky despair of kitchen sink Drama, exit this mess of a production with integrity intact. Leonard’s unpleasant play, worsened by Wing Davy’s leaden direction, truly makes one wonder at the LAB’s astounding ability to attract both the best and the worst of talents.

Ninth and Joanie
Presented by LAByrinth Theater Company at
Bank Street Theater
155 Bank Street
New York, NY 10014
Performances from April 6-May 6, 2012
Opened  April 18, 2012

Theatre Review: Newsies

Jeremy Jordan and the cast of Newsies. Photo by Deen van Meer.

The Disney musical strikes a winning chord

If you possess a soft spot for a pre-Method, pre-crazypants Christian Bale with precarious vocals and an even shakier New York accent… If you vividly recollect experiencing the Mouse House musical in a theatre full of enthusiastic kids during Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club-lovin’ heyday… If your brother sang “Santa Fe” ad nauseam for ten years following said viewing… If in high school you performed “Seize the Day,” Glee-style, in front of Cinderella’s Castle at Disney World… (ok, maybe those last two are just me)… well, this is for you.

While the majority of critics enjoyed Newsies, there’s a definite sense that most of them have never seen the 1992 film, and if they have, they certainly don’t get its cult appeal. Sure, Newsies was a total box office flop, but it’s beloved by a generation, and so, as a hardcore Newsies fan, I offer you a breakdown of the much-anticipated Broadway adaptation.

Reasons to see Newsies the Musical:

1. The sing-a-long score is still intact. Super-composer Alan Menken, fresh off of Oscar wins for Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, gave us Newsies the same year his Aladdin was released. In other words, this is one catchy, well-crafted (in the Disney-Golden-Age-vein) score, and Menken didn’t mess with it much for its Broadway transfer. None of your favorites — “Seize the Day,” “Carrying the Banner,” “King of New York — made the cutting room floor, though both of Medda’s did. Downsizing Medda’s role was smart (no offense, Ann-Margret, but no one needed to hear that much from you), but the forgettable “That’s Rich” isn’t as good as either the songs it replaced.
2. It’s officially Jack Kelly’s story. Disney mainstays, writers Bob Tzudiker and Noni White (The Lion King, Hunchback, Tarzan) were under the impression that we cared more about working class Davey and li’l cutie Les than we did about hardened, dreamy newsboy, Jack Kelly. We all love us some David Moscow (don’t we?), but they were obviously mistaken. Bookwriter Harvey Fierstein fixes this misstep for the stage by minimizing the family boys’ roles and making it orphan Jack’s story from moment one — even if the “Santa Fe” prologue is a little misguided (for such a peppy show, it’s a snoozer of a start).
3. The ensemble is stellar. This ragtag bunch of twentysomethings have energy to spare, as they belt, jump, leap and tap their way on and around Tobin Ost’s massive, rolling steel jigsaw of a set. These boys love what they’re doing, and that unfiltered joy bursts through in every high-energy musical number. They’re an utter delight to watch.
4. Christian who? If you thought you’d miss Christian Bale pre-movie stardom, you’re mistaken. Jeremy Jordan (Bonnie and Clyde) makes bad (news)boy Jack Kelly his own with a rough bravado that carefully hides a sensitive artist (Oh yes, Fierstein has given Kelly some (unnecessary) painterly ambitions). Ridiculously charismatic and exuding a kind of magnetic masculinity that is so rarely seen in a musical, you can’t tear your eyes off of him whenever he’s on stage. You might even leave the theatre with a little bit of a crush… ahem.
5. Disney supports OWS. I don’t think I need point out the parallels between the 1899 newsboy strike against corporate mammoths Pulitzer and Hearst and the current OWS movement. But the irony of a super-shiny (are those boys really orphans? Those trousers look awfully crisp and clean) Disney musical making those timely comparisons sure is giggle-inducing.

 Reasons to re-watch Newsies the film:

1. Christopher Gattelli is no Kenny Ortega (who is no Michael Kidd). Unfortunately, when the critics are right, they’re right: Gattelli’s choreography is super-acrobatic and high-energy, but it largely consists of the same few movements — leap, jump, pirouette, repeat!  There is a fun number in which the boys slide and spin around on sheets of papes, and “King of New York” is a  taptastic second-act opener, but originality is clearly wanting. Sure, Ortega took inspiration from the balletic athleticism of Michael Kidd, but his numbers were more cleverly thought-out, while Gatelli’s become a bit tiresome by show’s end.
2. Harvey Fierstein could use a dramaturg. ”It had energetic music, but it’s a pretty awful movie,” Fierstein has commented. His statement is hilarious for a number of reasons — least of which is  that the stage adaptation is not much different from the cinematic version — but mostly because he doesn’t know (or care about?) history. Newsies now showcases a more fully-realized love interest for Jack in the form of plucky go-getter Katherine Plumber, and vaudeville-owner Medda, as portrayed by Capathia Jenkins, is now African American. Never mind the near impossibilities of a female reporter and an African-American owning an establishment of that capacity, eh, Harvey? And on a side note: the book is now peppered with Fierestein signature cheesy humor (oy).
3. Pulitzer sings! Twice! It sure cuts down Pulitzer’s (John Dossett) villainy when he’s belting bouncy little ditties about “The Bottom Line.” While Menken’s original tuners are blissfully present (though why the lyrics to “Seize the Day” needed changing, one will never know), the composer got a little over-ambitious, adding a handful of rather bland numbers including a duet of the “soaring” variety between lovers Jack and Katherine (“Something to Believe In”). Then again, he also proffered a smart little gem of a tune for Katherine about writer’s block (“Watch What Happens”) with some tongue-twisting syncopations courtesy of lyricist Jack Feldman.
4. David Moscow! Bill Pullman! (An unrecognizable) Robert Duvall! That kid from Doogie Howser! Ok, so I missed them a little bit. And that rebel Brooklynite Spot Conlon — so much cooler (and more present) in the film.

When you get right down to it, there’s nothing really wrong with this loving and largely faithful stage adaptation. You either like a good ol’ fashioned Disney stage musical or you don’t, and this is the Mouse House’s glorious return to its play-by-the-numbers family-friendly form. If you’ve a soft spot in your heart for the less-than-perfect musical movie that charmed a generation, all the better. Get ready to fall in love all over again with those dancin’ newsboys — especially that Jeremy Jordan (can we say Tony?).

Newsies
Nederlander Theatre
208 West 41st Street
New York, NY 10036
Performances from March 19 – August 19, 2012
Opened  March 29, 2012

Theatre Review: Seminar

Theresa Rebeck’s latest Broadway comedy, or It’s So Hard to Be an Artist

Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe get flirty in Seminar. Photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

There’s not much point in reviewing a show that opened months ago to the general acclaim of critics and audiences alike. But considering its obvious Tony Award-magneticism, attention must be paid (we’ll get to that alluded star-studded revival later, promise).

In her latest comedy-parody, the author of Mauritius and Spike Heels presents four aspiring writers who meet weekly in a swanky, rent-controlled UWS apartment to take writing classes — a seminar, if you will — from Leonard, an international literary figure. They’re your expected lot: the dirt-poor, overly insecure artist-genius (Hamish Linklater); the sassy sexpot (Hettienne Park); the patrician cooly coasting on nepotism (Jerry O’Connell) and the prickly feminist emotional-eater (Lily Rabe). And, of course, there’s the contemptuous, self-aggrandizing  teacher (Alan Rickman) whose so-called mentorship consists of weary disdain marked by lacerating whips of ego-shredding criticism.

The one (un)interesting aspect of seeing a show well into its run is what the actors do — or don’t, as the case may be. Do they get a little lazy? Bored? Are they coasting along on their already glowing, filed-away reviews? Or are they actively engaged with the material, maintaining that fiery, opening-night spark?

In Seminar, it’s a little of both. Under Sam Gold’s rapid-fire direction, Jerry O’Connell effectively plays the stuffy detachedness of his entitled Douglas, but Hettienne Park’s student-slut lacks any kind of real scrappiness (and seems rather miscast). It’s the super-energized Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater that shine the brightest, cleverly crafting layers of emotional complexity in what could have been otherwise the cartoonish clichés of their familiar characters. The much-anticipated Rickman is a slow-burn: his Snape-ian scorn is nicely mined in some of the juicier snarky moments and he slyly proffers glimmers of meager praise for his feedback-starved students, but the bit worse-for-the-ware sixty-six year-old Brit  is so cooly disdainful as to seem uninterested in not only their writing, but in the play itself. Perhaps it’s for the best at this point that in just a couple weeks, the cast (excepting Park and O’Connell) will be replaced with some fresh blood, including the likes of Jeff Goldblum as Leonard.

Though Rebeck’s work is produced consistently, she isn’t one of our most original voices. Her dialogue boasts occasional moments of cutting, insightful wit, but much of the time, so much droll cleverness feels a bit forced. In Seminar, the script is marked with implausibilities — apparently you can judge a writer’s work based on half of a sentence before a semi-colon — and clichés (see list of characters). There’s also the eye-rolling self-indulgence of the subject itself: Rebeck, a writer, pens a story about the vitalness of writers and the written word. Her pretentious characters wax poetic about language and the craft of writing, and then cry and complain about how hard it is to be a writer, aka an artist. The one accomplished writer of the lot, Rickman’s Leonard, has an entire monologue about writing being forced to set aside ideals and supplement  income — not to mention ego — by teaching, writing for television, etc. The play begins as parody but then shifts to a bafflingly earnest tone about  3/4 of the way through. Considering her current credit as head-writer on the NBC musical drama, SMASH, it’s never entirely clear if Rebeck is poking fun at too-serious writers or if she’s actually taking herself — and her vocation — too seriously.

Seminar
John Golden Theatre
252 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036
Performances from October 27, 2011
Opening  November 20, 2011
Open-Ended Run