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.
“Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.”
Chapter 2, Verse 15 of the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible
Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play, ostensibly drawing characters from her own family, has been a theater staple since its first outing. In New York, the role of Regina which originated with Talullah Bankhead has been played by such as Anne Bancroft and Elizabeth Taylor while Margaret Leighton, Maureen Sullivan, and Frances Conroy have counted among those featured as Birdie. This Manhattan Theatre Club production allows its leading ladies to play Regina and Birdie in repertory. One can choose whom to see in which role.
Laura Linney, Darren Goldstein
Keeping with 1900s Southern tradition, brothers Oscar (Darren Goldstein) and Ben Hubbard (a well grounded Michael McKean) inherited their father’s cotton business to the chagrin of sister Regina (Laura Linney). The two men are pompously nouveau riche, while she has to make due with being supported in less than the style to which she aspires by manipulated husband Horace Giddens (completely credible Richard Thomas), currently in a sanatorium.
Also enmeshed is Oscar’s sweet, alcoholic wife Birdie (Cynthia Nixon), married for inheritance and ancestry, so cowed she refers to herself as a “ninny,” his lazy, doltish son Leo (Michael Benz) superfluously employed by the bank, and Regina’s overprotected daughter Alexandra (Francesca Carpanini), a daddy’s girl who the Hubbards plan to marry off to Leo.
Cynthia Nixon
A business opportunity to enlarge holdings and walk off with sizeable annuity emerges with the potential collaboration of northerner Mr. Marshall (David Alford – appealingly decorous). While Oscar and Ben have ready funds, Regina must secure her investment from the estranged husband she hasn’t even visited for five months. Feigning affection, this latter day Lucrezia Borgia immediately sends Alexandra to fetch the invalid. Horace, however, despite or perhaps because he’s learned his prognosis is fatal, is no longer the patsy she remembers. How will the Hubbard brothers keep this windfall in the family? How will Regina secure her own ambitious future? Each acts for him/her self.
Richard Thomas, Michael McKean, Darren Goldstein, Michael Benz
Laura Linney’s Regina makes southern gentility organic without losing the character’s edge. Imperiousness fits like a bespoke glove, avarice is palpable. So much emotion is internalized, however, one misses flashes – a moment of sheer hatred during blazing discourse with Horace, a moment of fear when at last Alexandra denies her.
Cynthia Nixon inhabits Birdie from the moment she enthusiastically flutters onstage. She’s vulnerable, wary, resigned, hopeful, hurt and desperate. Every warble in her voice and skittery move embodies Birdie. We can practically feel the tightness in her chest. All together splendid.
Francesca Carpanini, Richard Thomas
Director Daniel Sullivan excels at this kind of solid drama. His characters exist naturally and, for the most part, distinctively. Oscar is fidgety, Ben blustery and overconfident, Regina steely and graceful, Birdie like a trapped rabbit. Leo and Alexandra could use some individual attributes. Confrontations between Oscar and Birdie are superb as are moments of those between Regina and Horace. The stage is well and attractively used.
Unless I missed something, there’s an omission: Horace knocks over his medicine before heading for the stairs. We never see it observed, questioned, or cleaned up. There are paramount reasons for all three.
Scott Pask’s gracious turn of the century mansion is apt environs for this play. The ceiling is splendid. Jane Greenwood’s Costumes are flattering and character appropriate. Accents, it should be noted, sound authentic.
Also featuring Caroline Stefanie Clay as Addie and Charles Turner as Cal- the Giddins’ servants
Photos by Joan Marcus Opening: Laura Linney, Cynthia Nixon
Manhattan Theatre Club presents The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman Directed by Daniel Sullivan The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre 261 West 47th Street
The 1993 film Groundhog Day is something of a cult classic. When masterfully wry Bill Murray (as weatherman Phil Connors) is forced to relive the ersatz holiday (until he gets a heart and gets it right) in mawkishly chipper Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, audiences reveled in every quip and Machiavellian move.
The good news is that Andy Karl is up to the task in this, a musical version. Not since 2015’s On the Twentieth Century has Karl had the opportunity to showcase his comic chops as well as leading man vocals. Despite a knee injury that briefly sidelined the actor, he adroitly employs physical humor as well as superb timing. At one point this evening, the actor lays his thoroughly braced leg across a counter stool attempting to seduce the character’s associate producer Rita Hanson (the capable, but undistinguished Barrett Doss). Onstage virtually throughout, Karl holds the piece together with unflagging charisma.
The Company- Andy Karl, center
Also in Column A, book (and earlier screenplay) writer Danny Rubin maintains his hero’s dark disposition and wit, Rita’s resistance (somewhat updated with a mourned loss of sweetness), and the loopy friendliness of townspeople.
The look of this production under Rob Howell’s stewardship, is often inspired. “It just better be a big van,” Connors snaps when told he won’t be traveling south by limousine. We next see an irresistible, toy-sized conveyance spot-lit on the empty stage as it makes its way through night fog. A credible truck frame is literally built around Connors and two locals out on a bender. Chased by police in their own faux car-fronts replete with flashing lights, three vehicles shrink to 16” versions racing through a town of streets with seemingly floating houses.
The six-foot plus groundhog never fails to amuse. A revolving stage is used with great success as is the rotating set piece revealing Connor’s bed and breakfast bedroom. (Caveats: local women with whom the weatherman briefly frolics wear out of place, glow-in-the-dark lingerie and two townspeople wear obvious fat suits .)
Andy Karl
Video by Andrzej Goulding, impressionistic Lighting Design by Hugh Vanstone, and nifty illusions by Paul Kieve add to delight.
Now for the disappointing and unfortunately prevailing Column B. Songwriter Tim Minchin, who in my opinion did a brilliant job with Matilda, offers mostly tuneless numbers with prose that unsuccessfully fights to fit music. Though lyrics can be extremely clever, they don’t sing. Several rock n’roll numbers arrive cacophonous and as if in the wrong show. (Generic choreography by Peter Darling doesn’t help.)
Both ostensibly misjudged town hottie Nancy (Rebecca Faulenberry) and Phil’s former schoolmate Ned (John Sanders), minor characters, are given entirely superfluous numbers. The visit to a doctor in the film is blown out of proportion into a long, forced number featuring attempts by practitioners from faith healers to psychologists. A carnival ride is added without logic or context.
Barrett Doss, Andy Karl
Some of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Director Michael Warchus whose skill and imagination with Matilda plus a long list of other material, promised way better. To give him his due, Warchus deftly conveys repetition and Phil’s radically changing activity/attitude over the passing of days – though a parentheses of successive suicide attempts by company members dressed as Phil seems excessive as we’ve already seen the hero himself try and fail.
The only person with developed personality traits, however, is Connors. Brief character turns feel walked-through, eschewing opportunities for bright cameos. Ned isn’t geeky enough, the landlady lacks cliché coziness. Rita’s tough cookie persona is one dimensional. Exceptions: Gus (Andrew Call) and Ralph (Raymond J. Lee) showcase appealing quirk in a bar number with Phil and Josh Lamon flickers in and out with some brio.
Judging by audible reaction, not all audience members are familiar with the story which remains appealing, but the work is not up to its creators.
Photos by Joan Marcus Opening: Andy Karl
Groundhog Day-The Musical Book by Danny Rubin Music & Lyrics by Tim Minchin Directed by Matthew Warchus August Wilson Theatre 245 West 52 Street
The New York Pops season finale paid tribute to a swathe of songwriters from the last 60 years. After an instrumental Beatles medley, we hear pop, country/folk and r & b songs performed by tonight’s four Broadway veterans: Will Chase, Christopher Jackson, Jessie Mueller, and Adrienne Warren. Each performer has his or her moments to shine.
Chris Jackson- no surprise- has a real feel for R & B. Al Kooper’s “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” showcases a moody warble and the squeeze/push of expression best employed for the genre. His tenor slides up as if greased. Wah-wah horns and an alto sax carry the number. Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” emerges less gritty than usual, but soulful. Jackson’s movements are tight, as if jerked by the impact of certain lyrics. He exudes cool.
Jessie Mueller’s genuinely original arrangement of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (Elton John/Bernie Taupin) is the highlight of the evening. One of several songs tonight whose treatment by The Pops is as subdued as I’ve ever heard them, it begins with only piano and Mueller’s pure, plaintive vocal. Strings come in; phrasing is elongated emphasizing wistful lyrics. This one resonates. Mueller also inhabits “Both Sides Now” (Joni Mitchell) which arrives with palpable sensitivity. There’s a small, organic shrug on “…it’s cloud’s illusions I recall…” drawing us in. Her pristine voice wafts high or cottony. Solo cello embellishment is utterly lovely.
Will Chase delivers a robust “Ring of Fire” (June Carter/Merle Kilgore) as a hoedown with the taste of Mariachi brass. His Kentucky accent feels at home. John Lennon’s “Imagine” is uncluttered, rather thin, but sweet. I find this performer sincere, but stiff without the character direction he’s given in musicals.
Adrienne Warren, another r & b maven, unearths a sob in her voice as if it comes completely natural to her. Alicia Keys’s “If I Ain’t Got You” is straight from the hip. Warren literally leans into the lyric. “If I ain’t gotcha with me baybabahahahabeeee…” she sings. In Act II, the vocalist demonstrates range by offering an Adele song sung from her chest and one by Aretha which emerges from her throat. You can hear the interesting difference.
All the artists take vocal turns for Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” to which the audience immediately starts clapping time, a bouncy “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (Nickolas Ashford/Valerie Simpson), and Carol King’s iconic “You’ve Got a Friend,” an appropriate finale.
Songs, one gathers, were selected by vocalists without particular cohesion. The evening provided a raft of memories for some of us and a varied glimpse of the times for others.
Opening Photo: Chris Jackson, Jessie Mueller, Will Chase, Adrienne Warren
Carnegie Hall presents The New York Pops You’re Got a Friend: A Celebration of Singers and Songwriters Steven Reineke- Musical Director/Conductor April 21, 2017 NY Pops 34th Birthday Gala Tickets now on sale for May 1, 2017
In Sholem Asch’s 1907 play, The God of Vengeance (Got fun nekome), a lesbian virgin and a prostitute make love in the rain. Despite accompanying scandal, Europe applauds. In 1923, when, after several U.S. productions, a translated version reaches Broadway, its cast is arrested, then convicted on obscenity charges. The now established Asch, living and working on Staten Island, doesn’t show up to defend the company. Much happened between.
Stage Manager Lemmel (a splendidly empathetic Richard Topol) introduces his thespians and musicians – ingénues, middle aged actors, and those who play the elderly. Each stands. Ashes pour from their sleeves. (Inspired) “We have a story about a play that changed my life…”
The Company
We’re all brothers and sing happy songs/We stick together like nobody else does…the company sings in Yiddish.
It’s 1906 Warsaw. Polish/Jewish author Sholem Asch, 1880-1957 (the entirely credible Max Gordon Moore) is excited about reading his play at the writers’ salon of cultural figurehead Y.L. Peretz (Tom Nellis, also in a roster of vibrantly realized roles). Peretz spearheads a renaissance of Yiddish writing, Asch’s mother tongue. The piece is condemned by those gathered for showing Jewish people in poor light. Only a tailor named Lemmel, invited by his cousin, is enthusiastic. “A minion,” Asch comments darkly in response, “is ten Jews in a circle accusing each other of Antisemitism.”
The God of Vengeance features a hypocritically pious, Jewish brothel owner who commissions an expensive Torah scroll intending to marry his daughter off to a yeshiva student to secure respectability. When she falls in love with a prostitute, her furious father throws down the Torah and banishes the girl and her mother to earn their keep “on your backs.”
Richard Topol and Adina Verson
In search of creative freedom, Shalom and his wife Mathilde (Adina Verson) move to Berlin as initially depicted here by a Weimar Cabaret act. There the piece is produced in a German version by Max Reinhardt with Rudolph Shildkraut (Nellis) in the lead. “I assume I will be the butch and you the feminine, but how do I play a Jew?” the more experienced actress (Katrina Lenk) reflects. (The other is played by Verson.) We watch as these two discover one another. Lemmel shows up (it’s not clear how) and becomes the production’s stage manager, a position he’ll hold for the rest of his life.
The show tours outside of Poland. We see excerpts with the use of actors freezing while “a blink in time” appears on the translation screen – a method to fast forward. The couple emigrates to New York. Asch pulls strings to insure Lemmel joins them. Peyos (long, hanging sidelocks) are dispensed with. “Even Jews looks like Goys in America,” they sing and dance. Many take English names and endeavor to learn the language. Asch continues to write in Yiddish.
Adina Verson and Katrina Lenk; Katrina Lenk and Adina Verson
There are two successful downtown runs. Audiences appreciate the playwright’s ability to bring Jewish themes to secular subjects. A translation that takes liberties to which Lemmel and the cast object, but Asch ignores “why should I bother with a play I wrote when I was in short pants” facilitates a debut at Broadway’s Apollo Theater. (The nature of these makes this plausible.) Arrests follow. Though notable artists volunteer to testify in defense (Eugene O’Neill is shown), the court denies them opportunity.
Angry and disillusioned, Lemmel goes back to Warsaw where he’s incarcerated in the ghetto (and eventually taken to a camp). The “company” add Jewish stars to their threadbare coats and perform one makeshift act of the play each week. This is wrenching. In the meantime, Asch and his wife…
Richard Topol, Katrina Verson, Katrina Lenk, Tom Nellis, Stephen Ratazzi, and Mimi Lieber
Paula Vogel and Rebecca Teichman’s deft, provocative production has moved, much intact, from The Vineyard Theatre to The Cort. I hope its new location brings the worthy piece extended audience. I’m Jewish, my companion tonight is not; impact seems equally experienced. Subjects like censorship, religious conservatism, cultural convention, assimilation, and bigotry – here, both Antisemitism and homophobia are universally relevant.
Though it’s passionate, Indecent is not a polemic. The eloquent book is peppered with songs and dances, both traditionally Yiddish (translations appear when necessary, on a screen) and popular English WWII numbers. These can lighten proceedings or darken them with sharp juxtaposition to events. Failings and accomplishment are depicted through specific human characters, not ideas. Indecent (an ambiguous title) is both immensely moving and entertaining.
Sholem Asch
Manke (the prostitute)… Because I don’t want to talk any more. Okay? No more talking.Talking’s never a good idea. I wanna dance.
Orthodox Man (her client) Dance?
(She goes to the Victrola, puts on a jaunty Tin Pan Alley tune.)
Manke: There, come on let’s dance. (She pulls him to his feet.)
Orthodox Man: No, no, I can’t.
Manke: What do you mean you can’t?
Orthodox Man: It’s not allowed…
Manke: “Not allowed?” You’ll pay to shtup me but you won’t dance with me?
From The God of Vengeance
The God of Vengeance was translated into multiple languages enjoying a long life abroad. Shalom Asch’s works are many and varied. He eventually wrote in English. In an attempt to show religious similarities, one trilogy examines pointedly Christian subjects. It elicited backlash from both sides.
Also featuring Mimi Lieber and Stephen Rattazzi.
The outstanding cast can act, sing, and dance. Many speak perfect Yiddish. Well integrated onstage, Co-Composers/Music Directors- Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva play multiple instruments joined by the equally skilled Matt Darriau.
Emily Rebholtz’s Costumes reflect the time/place/people like archival photos. Choreography by David Dorfman aesthetically captures tradition and context with skill.
Director Rebecca Teichman has illuminated a complicated story in accessible, affecting manner. Intermingling musical numbers with dialogue enhances rather than distracts from both aspects of the production. Use of the translation screen works well. Actors are given space to inhabit their characters.
Forewarned: This is another production of some length ( 1 3/4 hours) without an intermission! (A current fad with which I disagree past 75 minutes.)
Photos by Carol Rosegg Opening: Shalom Asch-Max Gordon Moore & Lemmel- Richard Topol
Indecent by Paula Vogel Created by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman Directed by Rebecca Taichman Projection Design- Tal Yarden Cort Theatre 138 West 48th Street
Author Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility was one of the best pieces of theater I saw last year – wildly imaginative, yet true to Jane Austen, its complications made clear. That (Bedlam) production was also Directed by Eric Tucker. I can’t imagine what happened between then and now.
Joey Parsons, Kate Hamill
Though there are both original approaches and positive similarities besides furniture on wheels, portions of this staging feature everyone speaking at once while they all tear around the stage like beheaded chickens. Result? Clamorous incomprehension. A farting segment is lowbrow to the extreme. Some of the actors play it straight, others are so over the top one winces at every appearance. How is it a group of inmates took over the asylum while others…? Direction is as uneven as acting. It’s as if the production can’t make up its mind.
Debargo Sanyal’s George is wonderfully narcissistic, but virtually everyone else he embodies is painful to watch (and hear). Brad Heberlee occupies multiple roles like an over-smoked ham. Ryan Quinn plays William Dobbin mercifully straight, but without eliciting much sympathy and otherwise joins Heberlee. Farce only works if you don’t keep telegraphing/winking at the audience.
Kate Hamill, Debargo Sanyal, Zachary Fine, Tom O’ Keefe, Ryan Quinn, Brad Heberlee
On the plus side, Joey Parsons is an appealing and credible Amelia (one wants to shake her naïve shoulders), Tom O’Keefe delivers both serious and outrageous characters with finesse (love the ventriloquist’s dummy!) and Manager (Narrator) Zachary Fine not only leads us through the fourth wall with just the right wry tenor, but becomes Matilda Crawley (in wig and skirt) without resorting to mugging or screeching. Note: I have no issue with (even bearded) men playing women, just men playing women badly.
Early on, author/actor Kate Hamill plays a two-handed scene looking at the audience instead of Amelia, annoyingly taking us out of the action. Hamill then creates a Becky Sharp with less grace, charm or seductive attributes – virtually everything that enabled the character to rise – than insistence. In contrast, down-and-out Becky, is remarkably real. I remember how consistently splendid Hamill was as Marianne in the production of her Austen adaption and can only wonder.
There’s no percentage in retelling a story with which all of you are familiar. The play is periodically entertaining, but chaotic (not freewheeling) in a style I find too often self-defeating.
Tom O’ Keefe, Brad Heberlee, Zachary Fine, Kate Hamill, Joey Parsons, Ryan Quinn, Debargo Sanyal
Alternately placing us in the period’s dark green interiors (Sandra Goldmark – Set) and a circus sideshow/Tivoli Gardens with evocative, striped rows of round lights (Seth Reiser – Design) offers creative context that works especially well with bankruptcy auctions and dark social comment. “This is Vanity Fair and it’s not a moral place,” the Manager reminds us.
Carmel Dean’s original and classic big top music adds apt atmosphere.
Costumes by Valerie Therese Bart are correct and evocative.
Photos by Russ Rowland Opening: Kate Hamill, Tom O’Keefe
Vanity Fair Adapted by Kate Hamill from the novel by William Thackery Directed by Eric Tucker The Pearl Theatre Company 555 West 42nd Street Through May 14, 2017
Magicians have long since left behind pulling rabbits from hats except at young children’s birthday parties. These days notables include a variety of artists. There are performers who execute large scale theatrical feats like David Copperfield, showmen pushing their own bodies and minds to yogic extremes like David Blaine, close-up experts who eschew the expected card tricks for more creative prestidigitation – Steve Cohen (The Millionaire Magician), and innovative teasers such as Penn and Teller whose illusions can be particularly artistic wry. I’m excluding those who inevitably know your card, duplicate your drawing, and cut open an orange to discover the borrowed ring. (Historian/magician Ricky Jay is a category in and of himself.)
A fifth eclectic group includes practitioners who push the envelope of the craft by offering effects whose skill only other magicians can fully appreciate; mentalists immersed in psychology, paradox, and susceptibility; and those who use stories- metaphor, and/or myth to captivate and subliminally illuminate. We have two of these pioneers in New York at the moment, Britain’s Derren Brown at The Atlantic Theater and Derek DelGaudio at The Daryl Roth.
DelGaudio, whose highly conceptual 2013 Nothing to Hide (with Helder Guimarães) played New York’s Pershing Square Signature Center to acclaim, briefly showcases the finesse with playing cards that defined that appearance. When he was a boy, the nonchalant artist tells us, it took him 8 years to learn all the ways to hold a deck of cards. Here, however, the video-aided discipline is a small part of the whole.
As one enters the theater there are 1000 cards hanging from hooks. Each says: “I Am” on the top portion and describes someone on the lower. Examples: Traveler, Dad, CEO, Artist, Engineer, Skeptic, Outsider, Romantic, Prostitute, Very Good Snuggler, Clean Freak, Interpreter, Observer… you get the idea. Audience members are asked to choose one. An usher then takes the lower part and leaves you: I Am. In & Of Itself is bookended by use of these cards.
“I don’t expect any of you to believe anything that happens in this room tonight or anything I have to say….We’re here because I once heard a story in a bar in Spain…” It’s a fine story, one in which DelGaudio brings to our attention the fact that he takes risks. Things run so smoothly, this is not, to some, apparent.
There are 4 recessed windows on the stage (until they disappear.) They contain: an automaton/mannequin with a gold face mask and hidden weapon, a white wolf or dog head whose mouth holds playing cards. “There’s a light that happens as the sun hits the horizon. It’s called the time between dog and wolf…”- which are you?, a bottle half filled with liquid in which a little boat folded out of its label soon unfathomably floats, and post office cubbies filled with letters, one of which turns out to be decidedly personal for a random audience member. Oh, and somehow DelGaudio knows who chose which defining card at the top of the show. Including me and mine. Which is quite the ending!
Adam Blumenthal’s Lighting Design and Mark Mothersbaugh’s Original Music give the show an eerie feel without seeming trite.
In & Of Itself is literate and intriguing. Derek DelGaudio’s onstage persona is serious. He’s not trying to fool us so much as to make us aware. The boat effect, though charming, doesn’t seem to relate to a story and, despite impressive manipulation, I could have done without the inevitable cards. Everything else follows as the night the day weaving an artful spell.
Photos by Michael Murphy
In & Of Itself Written and Performed By Derek DelGaudio Directed by Frank Oz Production Design- A. Bandit (uh huh) Daryl Roth Theatre 101 East 15th Street Through June 18, 2017
Beauregard/Beau (Harvey Fierstein) is a 62 year-old, New Orleans born saloon pianist living in a London flat that indicates he’s made money in his time. An honest, sensitive, gay man, he suffered tragic losses in the U.S. during the height of violence against homosexuals and burgeoning AIDs, fled to Paris, and finally nested where he is.
Our hero is comfortably stuck in the past. Having spent many years as accompanist for Mabel Mercer (whose recordings aptly punctuate the piece), taste runs to American Songbook and classical music. His well appointed, two-story living room is floor to ceiling books (with no apparent ladder access – the single omission of a terrific looking set by Derek McLane). Though the Internet is a foreign country, while curiously checking out a hook-up site (his nom de plume is Autumn Leaf), Beau has succumbed to being pursued by 28 year-old Rufus (Gabriel Ebert), who enters in his shorts.
Gabriel Ebert and Harvey Fierstein
Assuming Rufus is a one night stand, Beau is surprised to find a thoughtful, affectionate person besotted with the past and suspiciously enamored of him. “Look at you. You’re so young! I feel like a priest!” The stranger saw Beau perform at a local club, asked around and Googled him. Questions about Mercer (answered in palpable fits and starts) and the older man’s friendship with James Baldwin elicit increasingly open stories about Beau’s personal history – at first in passing, then formally videotaped by Rufus. “You’re turning me into Grey Gardens!”
Gabriel Ebert and Harvey Fierstein
The young man seems to romanticize history. “Those days that you so fancy, everyone was miserable and drunk…drowning in self contempt,” Beau protests underestimating his lover. A relationship ensues. Rufus moves in. Except for periods when his “lowercase bipolar” swings make things difficult, the couple is happy. Five years pass. Rufus proposes a Civil Ceremony. (There was no gay marriage.) “The British are the only people in the world who think partnerships can be civil!” Beau quips. Age difference (at the least) keeps him from trusting commitment.
Things necessarily shift. A tattooed performance artist named Harry (Christopher Sears) enters the picture. (Wait till you see what he later does with a Mercer classic.) With minimum fireworks, love morphs and endures in ways both warm and practical. No, it’s not a sexual triangle. You’ll end up liking all three men.
Gabriel Ebert and Christopher Sears
Playwright Martin Sherman has beautifully written the – necessarily compressed – evolution of a relationship over the course of 13 years. Detailed personal histories sound as utterly authentic as documented politics, so-called social norms, and Harvey Fierstein’s “Southern mixed with Brooklyn” accent. The smart piece will elicit laughter and a few possible tears. If anyone’s a romantic here, it’s Sherman. What a pleasure and relief it is! (A final scene feels like the epilogue. I don’t know why this bothers me, but it does.)
Director Sean Mathias is immensely deft. Painful, intimate recollections and reflex sarcasm are given their due. Timing is pitch-perfect. Emotional weather changes are not telegraphed. The use of in-one curtain speeches (storytelling) works well. Fierstein’s brief moment at the piano contributes. Well chosen Mercer tunes color to best advantage. (Superb sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen)
Harvey Fierstein
The multifaceted Harvey Fierstein has never been better. It’s as if Beau was conceived to showcase the cynicism, wit and vulnerable heart with which we associate the actor’s past roles while painting a rich character around touchstones. This one’s no wilting lily. From the expression on his face when asked how he stays fit to wrenching, steeled description of tragedy to visceral, if fearful gratitude, he’s simply marvelous.
Gabriel Ebert makes Rufus sympathetic and touchy-feely affectionate, yet doesn’t appear cloying. The way the actor casually drapes his long body on furniture keeps sex in the air without discussion. His character’s breakdown is disturbing, but not overplayed.
Christopher Sears (Harry) offers a brazen performance within the performance and is otherwise comfortably naturalistic.
Peter Kaczorowski’s Lighting Design adds particular nuance to mood changes and focus.
Photos by Joan Marcus Opening: Gabriel Ebert and Harvey Fierstein
Gently Down the Stream by Martin Sherman Directed by Sean Mathias The Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street Through May 21, 2017
Gary McNair’s granddad was, depending to whom one spoke, a dad, a mate, a liar, a cheat, an addict, a hero, a storyteller. “He was the kind of guy to chase a thrill.” Every week starting at age seven, McNair was secretly taken to a betting parlor by the colorful relative whose reputation included winning “a fortune” when England was victorious in the 1966 World Cup (Soccer). As a Scotsman, this meant he had to collect in disguise. “Only the Scotts could feel we suffered the greatest ever defeat when we weren’t even playing.”
How much did he actually win back then the boy wonders and, living in “poor surroundings,” what did he do with it? Granddad regaled the boy with “Big Fish” tales. In one, he falls into a river and comes up with a salmon in his mouth. In another, Sir David Attenborough walks into the pub just as a wildlife argument needed to be settled.
The pair had a wonderful relationship. Bets increased exponentially. Loses were shrugged off. “Life is gambling.” Rush of expectation was thought to be more important (and beneficial) than any outcome. This seems possible. Less successful classroom arguments about destiny bring up chance, risk, and will. When Grandad gets cancer, he bets his life savings on surviving past prognosis into the new millennium. His behavior during this time takes us through the rest of the show.
This is the kind of small, bittersweet story that O. Henry might’ve written with more economy and effect. As a play lasting over an hour, it needs to be more lively. Details of the bookies, fellow betters, and other tall tales might’ve helped. McNair plays all the roles with only a squeaky voice to differentiate. Not that it matters. He’s focused and sympathetic, but the piece is extremely slight.
Director Gareth Nicholls manages to move his sole actor with variety and casual purpose. Pacing is fine.
I have mixed feelings about the constant music and sound effects upon which the piece is performed. Some of it carries mood and cushions, some distracts. Sound Designer & Composer – Michael John McCarthy
Photos by Benjamin Cowie
A Gambler’s Guide to Dying Written and Performed by Gary McNair Directed by Gareth Nicholls 59E59 Theaters 59 East 59th Street Through April 23, 2017
