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 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.

2012 Tony Awards: The Nominations

The 2012 Tony Award nominees have been announced!

Of the 30 shows rockin’ some nominations:

• 21 are still currently running on The Broadway
• Of the 9 that have closed, I saw only 3 (!)
• Of the 21 that are still going strong, I’ve seen only seen 8* (!)

This leaves 13 shows to see in 40 days before the Awards on June 10th.  After my Oscar-a-thon which boasted 61 films in 34 days, this is a total breeze. Unfortunately, it’s also approximately $450-worth of the “best” of New York theatre on offer (and that’s only because I still, rather fraudulently, claim student status). I’m not sure I can afford it this year — actually, I know I can’t — so my blogging shan’t be as comprehensive as years of yore (*Hell, I’m already cheating by saying I ‘saw’ Clybourne Park and Other Desert Cities, when in actuality one was off-Broadway and the other, a semi-different cast, but whatever — sorry, Judy, but even you are not worth paying to see the latter again). But, hey, if you feel like sponsoring me to see a show…

Back to the nominees: Just because I’ve only seen one-third of the nominated shows doesn’t mean I’ll refrain from commenting on all of them, so here goes!

• Hooray, Rob Ashford!! If Kathleen Marshall bests you again, I swear to m*th3rfuc&in…
• Nicky Silver finally makes it to the Great White Way — and he gets stiffed, royally. But that Linda Lavin! She’s already got the shiny gold statue in her back pocket, and deservedly so.
• The Hottest Mess to Ever Hit Broadway. Ever. gets two nominations! In case you thought it was a distant memory, oh, no: Taymor’s legacy LIVES ON.
• Two of the “Best Original Scores” are not from musicals, and one of the others is a Frank Wildhorn piece. WTF happened, musical theatre?
• If Christopher Oram and Neil Austin worked on a show, they should be nominated. Same for Angela Lansbury.
• The Mountaintop, Chinglish, and Seminar are super-snubbed. Which also means that Sam L. Jackson was shafted. (I know, but I couldn’t resist. Seriously though: not cool, committee. Not motherfuckin’ cool.)
• I’m not gonna lie: I’m totally stoked to have an excuse to see Ghost the Musical.
• Hugh Jackman is honored with a special Tony Award. Because he’s been in a whoppin’ 3 shows on Broadway.
• Can someone please explain to me how Newsies and Once are eligible for Best Book of a Musical and Newsies for Best Score? Does originality really not matter anymore, even for amazingly arbitrary award rules?
• Woody Allen proves that just because he puts out work, doesn’t mean it’ll get nominated. (Unless it’s for a film.)
• Sondheim proves that just because he puts out (old) work, it does mean it’ll get nominated.
• Am I the only one really excited for the (unlikely) possibility of Porgy and Bess winning over Follies? Can the camera please pan to Sondheim?
• I still, unequivocally, support Scott Rudin’s decision. No regrets, Rudy, no regrets!

I know I haven’t seen much (then again, there’s not much to see), but this season is rather snooze-y, right? Ah well, it’s what we have to work with. Here we go!

13 shows. 40 days. 
(that doesn’t sound nearly that impressive.)

2011 Tonys: Post-Awards Wrap-Up

A little post-show commentary, if you will.
(for one of the most predictably underwhelming awards shows of the year)

2011 Tony Moments:
The Good, The Bad & The Boring
in no particular order…

1. Ladies in Red

BEST/WORST: Judith Light

Like the Oscars, red was the color of choice, but unlike their movie-star counterparts, these Broadway Babies did not have the funds, nor the stylists, to make the color work. Luckily for us all, there’s Judith Light, rockin’ a 1970s-glam-crazy-grandmother-look. Love her. But someone give a girl a cheeseburger already.

2. Joel Grey who?

The Normal Heart Featured Actress winner Ellen Barkin was remorseful that she didn’t mention Joel Grey in her speech, but “my work experience was only with George.” Thus proving my theory correct that Joel Grey didn’t so much co-direct as reminisce about the days when he played Ned Weeks. Clearly he was much too busy forgetting his lines in Anything Goes.

3. Three Generations of Finch

Robert Morse! Matthew Broderick! Daniel Radcliffe!
The cast of How to Succeed offers the best production number of the evening, showcasing Rob Ashford’s super-clever and energetic choreography in “Brotherhood of Man.” Someone remind me again why Kathleen Marshall won for her tired tapping? As for D-Rad: you were robbed (of a nomination).

4. Al Pacino joins the cast of Hair

No, seriously, Al. What’s with the headband? …And the trollop?

5. Don Cheadle introduces the cast of The Scottsboro Boys

Because there weren’t any (African American) theatre actors to introduce the number (about African Americans)…?

6. Brooke Shields = Hot Mess (x2)

Expletive-happy and unable to hold a tune or remember her lines, she’s about to replace Bebe Neuwirth in The Addams Family. Naturally.

7. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark Turns on the ZzzZzzz

I thought the point of cutting loose Julie Taymor was to make the show, um…better.

8. Bad Company

Wait a minute — that’s not Raúl Esparza! And where are all their instruments?!
This sucks.

Frances McDormand loves her job!

9. An “American Classic”

Lord love you, Frances McDormand, but surely that wasn’t your dressiest jean jacket. And I get that you LOVE your job, but you’re frightening D-Rad. Please tone down the cray-cray.

10. Most Awkward/Unfunny White Boy Rap

…goes to NPH. So much for “straightening out” these awards, buddy.

Ok, folks, that’s it for the 2011 Tony Awards!

I predicted 19 out of the 26 winners…not my best work, admittedly, but it was a good time. But not as good of a time as the 2012 Oscars will be! (Aww, yeah, get ready!)

2011 Tony Awards: Best 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 PLAY

1. War Horse/Good People
Nick Stafford / David Lindsay-Abaire

2. Motherf**ker with the Hat
Stephen Adly Guigis 

3. Jerusalem
Jez Butterworth 

This year’s crop of nominees is pretty fantastic, but the category itself is a complex and unfair one. Is this “Best Play” or is it “Best Production of a Play”? Why do the musical categories distinguish between the “Best Book” and “Best Musical,” but playwrights get the shaft?

When it comes down to it, this is recognized by most everyone as the “Best Production” category, and so we must treat it thusly. But since I’m not an actual voter, I can cheat and choose two winners. And so, “Best Production” goes to War Horse, but “Best Play” goes to to Good People.

Oh, Jerusalem. You came across the pond accompanied by such buzz. All the Britons loved, adored and worshipped at the alter of your creator, Jez Butterworth, and then New Yorkers seemingly followed suit, with ample praise for your worthy muse, Mark Rylance. Now, I hate to say this, because I don’t like this type of distinction, but: it must be an English thing. Because while your countrymen bestowed hyperbolic praise on your tale of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a roguish ne’er-do-well who faces eviction from his trailer in the woods and refuses to acquiesce to authorities, stateside critics did not. Sure, nearly every review was positive-to-a rave, but it was a rave for one Mr. Rylance, without whom, your “state-of-the-nation” play would cease to have any hold over American audiences. Shakespearean ambitions (in language, themes, length) plus irregular success with said ambitions equals a good production of a promising play with a brilliant performance. Alas, this does not a Tony Award-winner make.

Motherf**ker with the Hat is a solid, funny, thoughtful work about addiction and relationships and addiction to relationships. While Anna D. Shapiro keeps the pace quick and the humor edgy, drawing solid performances out of all of her cast except for Chris Rock, you simply can’t escape the fact that this feels, looks and sounds like just about every other Stephen Adly Guirgis play. And while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s also not enough to win the Tony.

If we sent Good People to London, would Britons react similarly to our reception of Jerusalem? (That Frances McDormand — so bloody fantastic!… but really, what’s the point here?) Set in Bostons’s Southie neighborhood David Lindsay-Abaire’s latest follows Margie Walsh who is facing eviction and scrambling to catch a break. Raising difficult questions with unsentimental observation and scrappy characters, Good People explores the struggles, shifting loyalties and unshakeable hopes that come with having next to nothing in America. Relevant to our difficult economic times without ever grasping for topicality and full of intricate relationships and richly complex characters, Good People received a suitably solid and un-flashy production from director Daniel Sullivan.

But War Horse has this award on lock, despite its sentimental and predictable story of a boy and his horse in WWI. Full of overly familiar plot lines and two-dimensional characters, Nick Stafford’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel is certainly not award-worthy — but Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris‘s production is. War Horse is, by far, the most imaginative, visionary and theatrically moving work of the season. In a category full of  über-realistic nominees, its astonishing visual storytelling rightly stands out as the worthiest for New York theatre’s top award.

2011 Tony Awards: Best 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 MUSICAL

1. The Book of Mormon

2. The Scottsboro Boys

3. Sister Act

4. Catch Me If You Can

Missing: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

I almost refused to include Catch Me If You Can in the ranking. With only three other nominations  – orchestrations, actor, sound design — it has zero business being included here, especially considering it booted out the super-fun, super- sassy smarty-pants Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. One of the most dreadful musicals I’ve experienced in a long, long time, there is a reason Catch Me was not recognized for its book (Terrence McNally’s cheesy ’60s variety show framing device fails all around) or score (big, brassy, and uneven), and Jack O’Brien’s production did little to improve upon the source material. In fact, the cheesy (do we see a pattern here?) production values made it all just that much more painful to watch, with its Pepto-Bismol pallette of pastels, plastic-y costumes, loud-louder-loudest sound design and showgirl choreography (Jerry Mitchell, this is not Vegas, and you are not choreographing another Peep Show). Catch Me is as shallow and soulless as they come, and the only person involved who emerges with full dignity intact is the always stellar Norbert Leo Butz.

Sister Act is consistently good, fluffy fun, despite its slim book and just-ok Menken score, but with only five nominations, its chances are slimmer than its plot.

In The Scottsboro Boys, the beloved musical duo of Kander and Ebb doesn’t fail to provide their signature eye-poppin’ musical sequences cleverly peppered with social commentary and imaginatively staged by director-choreographer Susan Stroman. But the erratically structured and toned musical misses many cues thanks to bookwriter David Thompson, and so even with a its super-healthy 12 nominations it has no shot against the mega-Mormon musical…

With a staggering 14 nominations, most of which are sure to be winners, The Book of Mormon will take home this award. This irreverent work may not attempt to reinvent or subvert the musical wheel, nor is it South Park on hilarity-inducing crack. But Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone offer a well-made, very funny, minimally offensive, brilliantly performed, completely original Broadway musical. Already declared “God’s favorite musical,” it’s sure to be Tony’s too.

2011 Tony Awards: Best Book of 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 BOOK OF A MUSICAL

1. The Book of Mormon
Robert Lopez, Matt Stone, Trey Parker

2. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Alex Timbers 

3. Sister Act
Bill & Cheri Steinkellner, Douglas Carter Beane

4. The Scottsboro Boys
David Thompson

David Thompson’s work on The Scottsboro Boys is erratically dark and acute and earnest and sentimental — and regrettably, rather insubstantial (not unlike his work on Steel Pier and that other huge debacle,Thou Shalt Not). The musical tells the true story of nine African American boys accused of rape in 1930s Alabama, and of the boys’ innocence, there is no doubt  – neither in history nor in this musical re-telling of that history.  As Thompson portrays them, they are so innocent that little else matters — including who they are beyond Wrongfully Accused Black Men. These two-dimensional innocents would work if the creators had stuck with what is an inspired concept —  telling the story of the Scottsboro boys as a minstrel show – but the majority of the musical consists of incredibly earnest tragedy in which the boys are equal parts self-pity and indignation.

Apparently Bill and Cheri Steinkellner’s original book for Sister Act was such a mess that the producers were forced to bring in a show doctor, Douglas Carter Beane (Xanadu, The Little Dog Laughed), to assist in adapting the screenplay of the tremendously popular film. Beane’s mark is all over the place, with lots of funny quips one right after another, but the effort here is obvious — he’s pushing too hard for the jokes. And while the writers make sure to hit all the pertinent plot points of the movie, character development is nearly non-existent, leaving the performers, including the superb Patina Miller as Deloris Van Cartier, not much to build on.

Old Hickory gets all emo on us in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which represents the smartest and most ambitious book in this category, if a slightly erratic one. Creating strong parallels to present-day politics, writer-director Alex Timbers pulls references from all over the place to tell the tale of one of America’s most controversial presidents. The result is a sharp, irreverent spoof that is as shrewd as it is hilarious, but that also tackles too much and veers into preachy-earnestness at the end.

Strange how the year’s most offensive offering is also one of its most traditional. From the straight (well, you know what I mean) leading man with his second-act confidence-booster; to the comic, scene-stealing supporting man; to the wide-eyed ingenue love interest with her “I want” song (“Sal Tlay Ka Siti” — say it out loud), Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone ’s The Book of Mormon faithfully adheres to the traditional book musical structure. It’s a super-tight libretto that carefully follows a pair of mismatched, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Mormons are sent on a mission to squalid and violent Uganda. The characters are distinctive, the journey is clear and the jokes are hilarious.  This is certainly the most confident and consistent of the nominees.

2011 Tony Awards: Best Original 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 ORIGINAL SCORE

1. The Scottsboro Boys
John Kander

2. The Book of Mormon
Robert Lopez 

3. Sister Act
Alan Menken

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
David Yazbek

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is terrific fun, and I enjoyed The Full Monty, so I was looking forward to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, but unfortunately, I didn’t catch it before its January closing. Even more unfortunate, many critics likened David Yazbek’s score to Latin Muzak. Ouch.

In the 1990s, Alan Menken could do no wrong. Man was on a hot streak — The Little Mermaid (ok, that was ’89), Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hunchback, Hercules. But those were all scores for Disney films, and Menken’s only had one solid theatre hit: Little Shop of Horrors. But like Little Shop, Sister Act‘s score really isn’t as magical as Menken’s ‘toon work. It’s full of flavors — soul, funk, disco — but none of them are truly satisfying, except for the proclamatory “Take Me to Heaven!” And I hate to say it, but I couldn’t possibly have been the only one missing the songs from the film (“My Guy (My God),” “I Will Follow Him”).

So the question here, of course, is: do you honor a legend or the runaway hit of the year? Tony voters will barely recollect a score they haven’t heard since at least December, though they probably won’t remember in much more detail the one they heard last week, either.

The Book of Mormon‘s plucky score — with African anthems and overly earnest ballads — by Robert Lopez (Avenue Q) lives to serve the comedy, as it should. Though it’s lively and fun, it’s not particularly memorable, so let’s hope John Kander’s work from his final collaboration with Fred Ebb (who passed away in 2004) is honored with a golden guy come Sunday night. The music of The Scottsboro Boys references jazz and gospel and, of course, cakewalks, with Kander’s signature razzle dazzle ominously highlighting the wrongness of it all as the grinning Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo softshoe the tragedy as dark comedy. A fine and melodic score, it’s certainly the worthiest here.

2011 Tony Awards: Best Revival of 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 REVIVAL OF A PLAY

1. The Normal Heart

2. The Merchant of Venice

3. The Importance of Being Earnest

4. Arcadia

If Arcadia is Tom Stoppard’s mastework, I suppose I’m just not a Stoppard fan. But the current revival does very little to support the playwright’s strengths in lyrical language and densely-packed ideas — in this case, about mathematics, Byron and romance across the centuries. David Leveaux’s direction is entirely misguided: the performances are uneven — partially due to miscasting (Lia Williams) and partially because the actors talk at each other (Billy Crudup, nominated, and Bel Powley — why is she screeching?), as though given no motivation to connect not only what they’re saying — but to each other. The major exceptions are Raúl Esparza (not nominated) as Valentine, who appears to feel, deeply, each line he speaks, and Tom Riley (not nominated), who is quick-witted and charming as Septimus Hodge. Even the set design, with its huge openness, is bafflingly vague and unsupportive (and a dead ringer for the design of the recent The Seagull – oh wait, it’s the same designer. Right.). This Arcadia is simply a misfire all around.

You can’t go wrong with Oscar Wilde, but you can easily fail to take risks because the material is so damn witty that it’s nearly fool-proof. That’s exactly the case with Brian Bedford’s very solid, ho-hum production of The Importance of Being Earnest which originated in Stratford, Ontario two years ago.  The cast is great, the costumes are perfectly fine, and Bedford received rave reviews across the board for his hilariously dour dowager (yes, Lady Bracknell is played by — yawn — a gentleman in Victorian drag). But what it comes down to is this: whoever the marketing genius was that came up with the “Jersey Shore Gone Wilde” videos (see example below) is the one who should have directed this production. That is just the kind of winking attitude that would’ve utterly delighted the devilishly-witted Wilde.

As previously stated, director Daniel Sullivan takes the so-called comedy The Merchant of Venice and smartly draws out its most tragic undertones, starting with the dimly-hued lighting and skeletal metal set to the devastating performances, including Lily Rabe‘s wise and witty Portia and Al Pacino‘s harrowing and humanized Shylock. Sullivan’s production is sensitive, complex testament to how the problem play can work wonderfully given the right director and vision.

Equal parts hostility and heart, George C. Wolfe and Joel Grey‘s searing, minimalist production of The Normal Heart does exactly what it should do by focusing on content over context with a spare, direct design that draws out the most staggering ensemble work on Broadway, including a vigorous standout performance by Joe Mantello. It’s an astonishing example of how truly worthy plays — even less than perfect ones like the preachy-passionate Heart — can endure over time, no matter how specific to a date and place they appear to be. The Normal Heart is visceral and gripping theatre, and Broadway hasn’t been this exhilarating in a long, long time.