Podcasts

Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

John Cariani

The Band’s Visit – Not To Be Missed

11/10/2017

I reviewed The Band’s Visit when it debuted at The Atlantic Theater last year. Much of the cast remains the same. Parts of this piece come from that review, parts allude to changes and fresh observations evoked by the new presentation.

“Once not long ago a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”

What appears at first glance to be a slight ripple in history sometimes affects those present in profoundly unexpected ways. This gem of a musical, whose fine book buoys grounded lyrics, embraces what we have in common rather than becoming yet another platform for political social/division. That it does so with limpid delicacy eschewing Hollywood outcomes makes the piece as refreshing as it is sympathetic.

John Cariani, Etai Benson, Katrina Lenk, Tony Shaloub and band members

The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra has been invited to open an Arab Cultural Center in Pet Hatikva, Israel. Overseen with utmost decorum “We are here to represent our country!” by their conductor, Colonel Tewfiq Zakaria (Tony Shalhoub), the small troop appear somewhat dazed. Crisp, powder blue military uniforms stand out against sand and cracked cement as if landed from another planet. In fact, they are strangers in a strange land.

When trumpet player/ladies man Haled (Ari’el Stachel) mistakenly arranges passage to neighboring Bat Hatikva (B not P), the men find themselves in a one horse, Israeli, Negev Desert town without the horse. Locals pass by means of a stage floor turntable. They’re all “Waiting,” but is it for something special or just “Looking off out into the distance/even though you know the view is never gonna change…”

Kristen Sieh, John Cariani, Alok Tewari, Andrew Polk, George Abud

Café owner Dina (Katrina Lenk), affable Itzik (a sympathetic John Cariani), and hapless young Papi (Etai Benson- self conscious acting), sing “Welcome to Nowhere.” As the next bus doesn’t come through till tomorrow and the settlement has no hotel, Dina agrees to put up Tewfiq and Haled. Itzik takes home clarinetist Simon (Alok Tewari, whose quiet gentility warms the role) and violinist Camal (George Abud) – the former unwittingly affecting family dynamics. Others bunk in the café.

The play evolves over a single afternoon and evening with four integrated chapters. At Itzak’s we meet his wife Iris (new to the company Kristen Sieh, who makes her character’s frustration palpable) and father-in-law Avram (Andrew Polk – very fine, but the actor should remove his diamond ear stud).  Note to prop master: the baby doll looks pointedly fake. Avram’s irresistible “Beat of Your Heart” brightens proceedings. At a roller rink, Papi panics around girls. Description of his state “Papi Hears the Ocean” is priceless.

Rachel Prather, Etai Benson, Ari’el Stachel

Curious about and drawn to her guest, the attractive Dina literally lets her hair down with Tewfiq and gets the guarded conductor to open up. He sings in a capella Arabic (with immense feeling), but is it about love, she wonders, or fishing? This man is compelling.

The fourth chapter, an embodiment of hopeful perseverance, is played out with the Telephone Guy (Adam Kantor – good, low key turn) who has stood outside a phone booth every night for a month waiting for a promised call from his girl. Then it’s time for the orchestra to move on. We last see them – performing – in Pet Hatikva. It’s extremely difficult not to get up and dance.

A wonderful experience.

Katrina Lenk and Tony Shaloub

David Yazbeck’s infectious music embraces Middle Eastern influences with estimable skill, maintaining an atmosphere of “other” one rarely finds in Broadway theater. Listen for the sole number with real jazz influence. Stachel actually plays trumpet, Tewari, clarinet, Abud, violin. Other on stage musicians include: Ossama Farouk, Sam Sadigursky, Harvey Valdes, Garo Yellin.

Several cast members speak fluent Arabic while others deliver dialogue in Hebrew. There isn’t a single weak link in acting or vocals. Casting (Tara Rubin) must’ve been like scaling a glass mountain.

Ari’el Stachel imbues Haled with sincere sweetness that would appeal to the girls with whom his character continually flirts, yet masculinity is ever present. His paternal attitude toward Papi is lovely. And he sings well.

Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub are a match made in heaven. Lenk’s earthy, sensual, smart portrayal make Dina a real and formidable woman. She emanates earthiness and manifests animal grace. Rarely have the practical and passionate been so believable in tandem. The actress also has a superb voice.

Shalhoub’s performance is nuanced and poignant. Fastidiousness is as unmistakable as emotional armor. Revealing a painful past, Tewfiq maintains perspective, yet at one point, we hear his breath catch. A pivotal song communicates lost illusions. Though we don’t understand a word of the foreign language, one knows. The couple’s parting couldn’t be more moving or convincingly manifest.

Director David Cromer has both a soulful character touch and the kind of comprehensive vision that never makes a false move. A turntable is wonderfully employed. The exception, of which first time attendees may be less aware, concerns live musicians. Perhaps in an effort to fully utilize the possibilities of a multilevel set, integration of performing band members is more stagey/obvious than previously impeding on authenticity. “Musical breaks” unrelated to narrative – excepting a joyous encore, feel somewhat uncomfortable. Most importantly, in the play’s first incarnation, every note emerged from visible actor/musicians. On Broadway, additional band members play from elsewhere giving accompaniment a full, rather false sound which includes piano. This takes away from both intimacy and bona fides. More in this case does not enhance, it detracts.

As realized by Scott Pask, Set Design has naturally expanded into the space. The turntable continues inspired. Most of the new design is not overdone due to increased budget. The roller rink is possibly too decked out to be credible in the tiny, backward location, however.

Sarah Laux’s Costumes are just right down to Dina’s second rate jeans and clodhopper shoes – excepting an old lady with an oxygen tank who wanders through in the opening dressed as if from another play.

Language and Dialect Coach Mouna R’miki deserves a standing ovation.

Photos by Matthew Murphy
Opening: The Band led by Tony Shaloub

The Band’s Visit
Music & Lyrics by David Yazbek; Book by Itamar Moses
Based on the screenplay by Eran Kolirin
Music Director: Andrea Grody; Orchestrations: Jamishied Sharifi
Directed by David Cromer
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street

The Band’s Visit – Simply Wonderful!

12/13/2016

“Once not long ago a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”

What appears at first glance to be a slight ripple in history sometimes affects those present in profoundly unexpected ways. This gem of a musical, whose fine book buoys grounded lyrics, embraces what we have in common rather than becoming yet another platform for political social/division. That it does so with limpid delicacy eschewing Hollywood outcomes makes the piece as refreshing as it is sympathetic.

The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra has been invited to open an Arab Cultural Center in Pet Hatikva, Israel. Overseen with utmost decorum “We are here to represent our country!” by their conductor, Colonel Tewfiq Zakaria (Tony Shaloub), the small troop appear somewhat dazed. Crisp, powder blue military uniforms stand out against sand and cracked cement as if landed from another planet. In fact, they are strangers in a strange land.

Shalhoub, Abud, Tewari, Stachel

Tony Shaloub, Alok Tewari, Ari’el Stachel

When trumpet player/ladies man Haled (Ari’el Stachel) mistakenly arranges passage to neighboring Bat Hatikva (B not P), the men find themselves in a one horse desert town without the horse. Locals pass by means of a stage floor turntable. They’re all “Waiting”, but is it for something special or just “Looking off out into the distance/even though you know the view is never gonna change…”

Café owner Dina (Katrina Lenk), affable Itzik (John Cariani), and hapless young Papi (Daniel David Stewart) sing “Welcome to Nowhere.” As the next bus doesn’t come through till tomorrow and the settlement has no hotel, Dina agrees to put up Tewfiq and Haled. Itzik takes home clarinetist Simon (Alok Tewari) and violinist Camal (George Abud.) Others will bunk in the café.

Cariani, Lenk, Steward

John Cariani, Katrina Lenk, Daniel David Stewart

David Yazbeck’s infectious music embraces Middle Eastern influences with estimable skill, maintaining an atmosphere of “other” one rarely finds in musical theater. Orchestra members without speaking parts supplement hidden musicians creating inclusiveness. Stachel actually plays trumpet, Tewari, clarinet, Abud, violin. Several cast members speak fluent Arabic while others deliver dialogue in Hebrew. There isn’t a single weak link in acting or vocals. Casting (Tara Rubin) must’ve been like scaling a glass mountain.

The play evolves over a single afternoon and evening with four integrated chapters. In Avrum’s home (Andrew Polk as Iris’s father), we observe Itzak’s unemployment and a new baby strain his marriage to Iris (Kristin Sieh). Polk tells Avrum’s love story with palpable warmth. A pleasing “Beat of Your Heart” elicits memories: Love starts when the tune is sweet/And you lift your feet/to the beat of your heart…Simon unwittingly affects dynamics.

Sieh, Cariani, Tewari, Polk, Abud

Kristen Sieh, John Cariani, Alok Tewari, Andrew Polk, George Abud

At a well staged roller rink, Papi panics around girls. Description of his state “Papi Hears the Ocean” is priceless. Haled instills the boy with confidence in a charming scene.

Curious about and drawn to her guest, the attractive Dina literally lets her hair down and engineers private time with Tewfiq. It seems she’s familiar with Egyptian film and the music of female vocalist Umm Kulthum. “Omar Sharif” is wistful and original: From the West from the South/Honey in my ears/Spice in my mouth…Dina gets the guarded conductor to begin to open up. He sings in a capella Arabic (with immense feeling), but is it about love, she wonders, or fishing? Still, this man is compelling. They understand one another on a deeper level. It’s “Something Different.”

Shalhoub and Lenk

Tony Shaloub, Katrina Lenk

The fourth chapter, an embodiment of hopeful perseverance, is played out with the Telephone Guy (Erik Liberman, good vocal) who has stood outside a phone booth every night for a month waiting for a promised call from his girl. Then it’s time for the orchestra to move on. We last see them – performing – in Pet Hatikva. It’s extremely difficult not to get up and dance. A completely satisfying experience.

Ari’el Stachel imbues Haled with gentleness that would appeal to the girls with whom his character continually flirts, yet masculinity is ever present. His paternal attitude toward Papi is lovely. And he sings. Daniel David Stewart is pitch perfect as awkward, earnest Papi.

Katrina Lenk and Tony Shaloub are a match made in heaven. Lenk’s earthy, sensual, smart portrayal make Dina a real and formidable woman. Rarely have the practical and passionate been so believable in tandem. And she has a superb voice.

Shaloub’s performance is layered and nuanced. Fastidiousness is unmistakable. Revealing his painful past, Tewfiq maintains perspective, yet at one point, we hear his breath catch. His song communicates lost illusions – I didn’t understand a word. The couple’s parting couldn’t be more convincingly manifest.

Director David Cromer has both a soulful character touch and the kind of comprehensive staging vision that never makes a false move. The turntable is wonderfully utilized. Live musicians are meticulously integrated.

Language and Dialect Coach Mouna R’miki deserves a standing ovation. Scott Pask’s flexible set evokes the desolate environment while maintaining a sense of community with flow.

Photos by Ahron R. Foster
Opening: Ari’el Stachel, David Garo Yellin, George Abud, Tony Shalloub, Harvey Valdes, Sam Sadigursky, Alok Tewari

Atlantic Theater Company presents
The Band’s Visit
Music & Lyrics by David Yazbek; Book by Itamar Moses
Based on the screenplay by Eran Kolirin
Music Director: Andrea Grody; Orchestrations: Jamishied Sharifi
Directed by David Cromer
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20 Street
Through January 1, 2017

Something Really Rotten – Cut Songs from The Show-Wowza!

04/27/2016

Part Master Class, part jamboree and about as much fun as you can legally have at an evening of musical theater, this high test extravaganza shares, one gathers, but a smidgen of material jettisoned from what we now enjoy at the St. James Theater. Authors Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick wrote 54 songs for Something Rotten!

What was eventually chosen is arguably not only swell but best serves the piece. Cleverness of songs currently relegated to the brothers’ trunk, is, however, formidable. Though some are “site” specific, others could successfully be performed by cabaret and concert singers. Many of us in the sold-out crowd at Feinstein’s/54Below tonight, as well as those exiting the Broadway production, would be surefire customers for a CD of alternates, replete with Karey’s entertaining, explanatory, anecdotal repartee.

For those of you unfamiliar with the rollicking show (see my review), it concerns brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom “struggling in the shadows of that well known rock star Lin-Manuel Miranda – I mean Shakespeare.” (Karey) Welcome to the Renaissance/With poets, painters, and bon vivants…the original cast company sings. “I remember hearing that song and thinking it doesn’t sound much like Sondheim, but so many have told us they can’t get it out of their heads.” Right on, Karey. Part of the audience mouth the lyrics, many clap in time.

For tonight’s presentation, the gracious and very funny Karey, also on piano, acts as raconteur, while Wayne plays piano and guitar. Both writers, by the way, can sing. Also on piano is Musical Director Mat Eisenstein who manages an entirely new, complex production for this jam-packed, two-off performance.

At the beginning, “we went trolling through Shakespeare and wrote songs but didn’t have a plot.” By 2010, wondering whether the concept was viable, Karey and Wayne approached Kevin McCollum (producer of Rent). When he responded positively, the Kirkpatricks brought in John O’Farrell as third collaborator, “an incredibly funny writer who also knew a lot about Shakespeare, which meant less reading for us!”

“Words You Never Heard,” which calls out some of the many Shakespeare introduced into the English language, was one of those songs initially pitched. Broadway’s current Bard, Christian Borle, who won both Drama Desk and Tony Awards for his inspired performance, takes the stage with character swagger. After all, “he put the I am in iambic pentameter.” When he doesn’t have a word, the Bard makes it up. Some of those originated are: pander, pageantry, obsequious, stealthily, bedazzled…Borle delivers a full-out, cocky turn, punctuated by provocative fanny wag. There’s not a flicker of unfamiliarity with new material.

Next, Karey tells us about the origin of the now blockbuster production number “A Musical.” The unheard-of genre is foretold to Nick Bottom by Nostradamus (Brad Oscar) so that the underdog can compete with Shakespeare. We hear an initial rendition, then the more up-tempo version requested by Director Casey Nicholaw.

Nostradamus (Spoken):It appears to be a play where the dialogue stops/And the plot is conveyed through song. Nick (Spoken): Through song? Nostradamus: Yes. Nick: Wait, so an actor is saying his lines and out of nowhere he just starts singing? Nostradamus: Yes. Nick: Well that is the (Singing) Stupidest thing that I have ever heard/You’re doing a play, got something to say/So you sing it?… The dizzying number is a mash-up of familiar musical tunes with lyrics tailored to the moment. At the St. James, it has all the glitz and glamour one could wish for. Our grinning audience bounces in their seats.

John Cariani (Nigel Bottom) offers the deep-sixed “Nigel’s Lament,” dear to the authors’ hearts because it’s about a writer who thinks he’s no good: It all comes down to this, I suck, I suck/I hold my quill, but it still runs amuck…The company provides a choral arrangement including sucky, sucky, suck, man, you suck (in grave-faced harmony). Cariani’s (Nigel’s) eyebrows are knit to a point in utter humiliation.

A rejected celebration of romantic poetry that features Nigel (Cariani) and love interest, Portia (Kate Reinders), arrives as a 1970s Elton-Johnish number: love, love, love, love, magical, mythical love…the pair sing with tangy period flavor and infectious pseudo-gravitas. The two voices are terrific together, expressions priceless.

David Hibbard (Standby for Brian D’Arcy James’s Nick Bottom and three other roles) performs “On the Top” (which became “Bottom’s Gonna Be On Top”)…’om not gonna stop/until the Bottoms are on the top…An excellent vocalist, he also, as Nick, palpably vibrates with frustrated ambition.

Company member Marisha Wallace, with Cariani and Hibbard, sings a discarded “Right Hand Man,” as Nick’s wife Bea. Originally written as if ditsy support filled with obtuse insults, the number evolved into a demand for recognition of equal strength/ability. Wallace has a clarion voice we’re sure to hear in future outings and conveys the feckless woman exactly as the Kirkpatricks first envisioned her. The men are deadpan funny.

Heidi Blickenstaff (Bea) joins Cariani, Reinders and Hibbard for the very pretty “Lovely Love” in which we see all four actors occupy their roles. Blickenstaff closes her eyes and sighs into it, Cariani looks like a hopeful puppy, Reinders clasps hands at her breast overcome with pleasure, Hibbard expands with the possibility.

Karey and Wayne play the argumentative Nick and Nigel in an abandoned “The Trouble With You” whose consummate wordsmithing, like volleys of verse across a net, is an admired hoot. Nor, on the Broadway stage, did we see Nick and Nigel in the stocks among other prisoners, tap dancing (from the waist down) to “Desperate Times,” a metaphoric and currently politically apt complaint by those undeserved of such punishment.

We close with “Omlette” (the musical) and visions of dancing eggs. The Kirkpatricks wrote ten iterations of this! Sections from several range from rock n’ roll to the Andrews Sisters for inspiration. Alas, poor yolk, I know thee well…You make wine from sour grapes/ You got a flat pancake, hey, call it a crepe/When life gives you eggs, make an omelette…Om-om-om/Om-om-om/Om-om-om/Omelette…Who needs sugarplums?!

A chorus of company members throw themselves into this evening with gleeful abandon (as well as professionalism), enjoying it almost as much as the audience, dropping not a single new stitch. These include: Matt Allen, Elizabeth Early, Linda Griffin, Courtney Ivantosch, Aaron Kaburick, Tari Kelly, Beth Nicely,  Aleks Pevec, Angie Schworer

The subversively instructive shenanigans were joyous and brimming with talent.

April 25, 2016
Feinstein’s/54Below
254 West 54th Street