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.
Most of us grew up with Showplace of the Nation, Radio City Music Hall and The Rockettes. As locals, we’d be taken to the awe-inspiring Art Deco entertainment palace, generally on holidays, where bang for your buck included both a film and live stage show. (Duality ended in 1979.) My grandmother humiliated us by packing sandwiches in waxed paper, so we wouldn’t eat junk. The place seemed unfathomably big and eye-catching.
“New York, New York”- The Legacy Dancers – Photo by Milan Miskos
First memories recall its two, resonant, “Mighty Wurlitzer” organs sliding out as if from nowhere, the entire orchestra rising up and sometimes back as if magically propelled, Christmas carolers filling every balcony, and, inevitably, the show’s centerpiece number, “The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.” Originally choreographed by The Rockettes founder Russell Markett with costumes designed by Vincent Minnelli, the number remains pretty much as conceived some 84 years ago, a wide variation of formations in military precision, ending with a cannon shot knocking the dancers over like a line of dominoes.
The dance troop, inspired by the John Tiller Girls of The Ziegfeld Follies, was inaugurated in St. Louis as the Missouri Rockets. Renamed the Roxyettes, it was brought to New York City by Samuel Roxy Rothafel to perform first at his Roxy Theatre and then, beginning with the first Christmas Spectacular December 1932, at Radio City Music Hall where the company became what we now know as The Rockettes.
“Another Openin’ Another Show”- The Legacy Dancers -Photo by Milan Miskos
Each and every Rockette must be proficient in ballet, tap, modern, and jazz dance. Height requirements are 5’ 6” to 5’ 10”. (Taller dancers are placed at the center to give the illusion of like height across the line.) Some 400 women audition annually. Often a dancer ‘gets in’ but is not actually hired until someone leaves, which can occur months or years later- such was the case when today’s speakers were company members. Rehearsal and performance schedules are daunting.
Once offered only at Christmas and Easter, the troop was gradually booked for outside events, television, and national tours. Every November, America gets a glimpse of them at The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. A current production, New York Spectacular Starring The Radio City RockettesTM , brings employment almost year round.
Make no mistake, this extraordinarily hard-working collection of leggy ladies is a family. Warmth and gratitude inform every personal story. Who else but a Rockette would understand the unique demands and rewards involved in this iconic sisterhood?
“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”- The Legacy Dancers – Photo by Milan Miskos
Hosted, Produced, Directed, and Choreographed by former Rockette, Mary Six Rupert, this afternoon’s event offers firsthand histories by alumna as well as intermittent musical numbers spotlighting The Legacy Dancers inaugurated in 2013. Ranging in age from 22 through 60, the ladies don’t all still have ‘perfect’ bodies, but extensions, synchronization and infectious ebullience abound. There are no weak links. These women can tap! Choreography is terrific fun. Alan Smith’s Costumes flattering delight.
Each ingenuous background tale, clearly written by its speaker, is accompanied by projected photos. These usually start with images of a widely grinning, two or three year-old girl in a tutu and end with photos of performance as a Rockette.
Madeleine Jay, who overcame an after-college injury that might have derailed her chosen vocation, was down with the flu when telephoned for a callback. Determined, she showed up fever and all securing a place in the “big, shiny, glossy unit.” Being a Rockette “was the hardest thing I’d ever done.” Jay remembers once “kicking out” (out of sync), anticipating serious repercussions. Instead the girl at her side was kind. Jay has performed and taught since then.
Mary Six Rupert; Bruce Michael-Photos by Richard Williams
Alina Silver, with 11 seasons under her now rather extended belt (she’s pregnant), was “hooked” from her first ballet recital. When a friend suggested going to Chicago for Rockette auditions on something of a lark, neither made the cut. Years later, however, Silver risked losing at a Celebrity Cruise job by flying to LA when the ship hit a glacier (no kidding) to once again audition for The Rockettes. She got in only to discover her friend Katie had as well. “As hard as it was, I appreciated the precision and perfectionism.”
Mary Six Rupert, the founder of Legacy on the Line, started performing as “the Littlest Raindrop” at age 2 ½. During a 15 year tenure with The Rockettes, Rupert danced with the touring Great Radio City Christmas Spectacular and was promoted to dance captain. She spent years in musical theater and now teaches as well as choreographs.
Rupert and student Tomlee L. Abraham offer a jaunty “My One and Only,” a number she restaged for and taught the great Harold Nicholas for the stage show. Her Wagner College students Brittany Cattaruzza and Tommy Joscelyn execute an utterly charming version of “I Won’t Dance” followed by “Ding” with game, older students from Bridge Dance.
Brittany Cattaruzza and Tommy Jocelyn – Photo by Richard Williams
Ann Cooley “was always a bit of a jazzerina.” Having secured her first paid gig as a dancer at age 16, she moved to New York at 18, auditioned for the Rockettes, and was accepted several months later. Unfortunately, no spot opened up for 3 years. Cooley became a musical theater gypsy, then joined the first touring Christmas Spectacular. She has since acted as director/choreographer of her own projects which include a stint teaching Korean artists musical theater tapping.
Former Vice President and Creative Producer of The Rockettes, (at present Executive Director of The Space at Westbury) Bruce Michael got the bug at age 7 when taken to the Music Hall to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He was “completely captured” by film, show, and venue. “All through school I kept planning production numbers.” Immediately upon leaving college, Michael moved to New York and opened a bank account directly across from Radio City where he was sure he’d work. Singlemindedly hanging out at the stage door, he was eventually, rather cinematically, invited in, later becoming a stage manager. He left to start a production company, but returned in far greater capacity in 1989. Michael’s affection for the work and The Rockettes is palpable.
Katherine Corp and Kimberly Corp -Photos by Richard Williams
Twins Katherine and Kimberly Corp dreamed of being Mouseketeers. Encouraged to academic excellence, terpsichorean training rode tandem with impressive cum laude degrees in International Economic Policy. The ladies danced, toured internationally “with a famous magician,” and held substantial corporate banking positions in Japan. They currently own Pilates on Fifth and are in obviously tiptop shape. Duet performance of “The Typewriter Song” replete with eyeglasses, neckties, and briefcases on which they tap, is effervescent.
Dottie Belle spent 25 years with The Rockettes! A convention performance with a precision dance group lead to an audition for the New York company. She ‘passed,’ but there were no places for a year. Called suddenly, she found herself on a cot at The Rehearsal Club dancing four shows a day at Radio City. Belle weathered “four corporate takeovers” dancing as a Rockette at The Royal Albert Hall and with Peter Allen. She went back to school, became a corporate specialist in Health Education and Promotion and now brings fitness into private homes.
“Favorite Son”-The Legacy Dancers -Photo by Milan Miskos
Legacy numbers include “Another Opn’in, Another Show,” Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and a finale of “New York, New York” with toppers and tails. A highlight is “Our Favorite Son” (The Will Rogers Follies) which features a vocal and is performed sitting on a long bench with Tommy Tune’s intricate, imaginative arm/hand choreography and Ann Cooley’s staging. Straw hats are cleverly affixed with bells which sound when tapped. Focus is consummate.
The smoothly run afternoon was both illuminating and entertaining.
Legacy 36,LLC is an organization founded to celebrate the art of precision dance and the women that have, and continue to, perform this dance style. The mission of this organization is furthered through fully produced productions, lecture demonstrations, precision dance workshops and camps and so much more.
Opening Photo by Giff Braun
The Ziegfeld Society of New York City and Legacy 36 LLC presents for the Fourth Year Legacy On The Line-The Road to Becoming a Rocket A Multi-Autobiographical Musical Revue Produced, Directed and Choreographed by Mary Six Rupert Will Rogers Follies and My One and Only Choreography by Tommy Tune The Legacy Dancers: Linda Bloom, Brittany Cattaruzza, Ann Cooley, Katherine Corp, Kimberly Corp, Nicole Davey, Ashlee Fife, Madeline Jaye, Cassandra Palacio, Adrienne Weidert Lang Recital Hall, Hunter College June 25, 2016
Himself and Nora has enough admirable things going for it that one leaves disappointed author Jonathan Brielle didn’t receive more constructive criticism. The piece is often entertaining and (sketchily) illuminating for those unfamiliar with the iconic author’s trajectory. A good time can be had.
James Joyce (1882-1941) is best known for strong descriptions of intrinsic Irish character, stream of consciousness writing and breaking down obscenity barriers with language which is raw and direct (as well as often poetic). A lapsed Catholic, he spent much of his adulthood in self-imposed exile with chosen mate Nora Barnacle whom he wed after 27 years.
Matt Bogart and Whitney Bashor
When Joyce (Matt Bogart) first approaches Nora (Whitney Bashor) –in 1904, Brielle exhibits a real feel for the Irishman’s syntax and provocative language. “My mind is filled with nothing but the whatness of Nora…” When later, he accuses her of infidelity, vulgar images erupt.
Nora, in truth a chambermaid, is shown to be equal to cocky, alcoholic, educated Jimmy. “Many a lad wants me. Can you want me the way I want to be wanted?” She meets him crudity for crudity, proving the one woman he “can’t push around.” With “Kiss” and “Compatriots in Lust” heat ignites recognition. These songs and “I Say Yes!,” a tease during which, attempting to cook, Nora playfully wields a carrot = his member, are infectiously well directed.
Whitney Bashor
The playwright portrays Nora with stubbornness and pragmatism, but also native intelligence, exemplifying a natural turn of words thought by many to have been mined by Joyce for his stories. He also manages to depict the author’s snobbery as integral to out-sized egotism.
Dared to accept a life of ostensible creative freedom dictated by Joyce’s need to write instead of his becoming the doctor or barrister his Da (yeoman-like Michael McCormick) desires, Nora, against everything she’s been taught in the Catholic Church, accepts love without matrimony. We see only a moment of shock before other priorities take hold. The couple leaves Ireland and the hounding admonishment of religion. Ireland, however, as encompassed in his work, never leaves Joyce.
Whitney Bashor and Matt Bogart
Nor, unfortunately does one of its priests (Zachary Prince) who is irritatingly omnipresent throughout. There’s not a moment this device works. Brielle suggests that Joyce’s entire life was a reaction to Catholicism, whereas it’s likely he simply disdained its prejudice and pressures as much as anyone instilled with that ideology can manage. It’s even stated that Leopold Bloom (of Ulysses) was conceived as Jewish to get back at public adversaries. (The less said about Prince’s accent or acting the better.)
Struggling to get by in Trieste, the hero teaches English with a tongue-twister. “River Lifey,” filled with Irish locales. What ?! Obscenity laws prevent the publication of most anything Joyce has written. (There was, additionally, a play and poetry.) Subsidized by his brother Stanislaus, the family, (now with two children), is nonetheless poor, not the least because Joyce drinks up donated funds. (Bogart does fall-down-drunk just fine but is unconvincing embodying the state on his feet.) One of the author’s eyes is infected. (Endless operations follow.) ‘Go buy me bigger paper-and red ink,” he demands.
Lianne Marie Dobbs, Matt Bogart, Michael McCormick, Zachary Prince
A visit home (by Joyce alone) contains a pedestrian drinking song about the Irish in tandem with correspondence between Joyce and Nora, he egging her on to express sexuality, she taking some time to be provoked. “I hear you pantin’, you old mongrel in heat…” she finally writes. (Another good directorial turn.) Joyce’s father is neither here nor there in the play. An inconsequential song later appears to have been written so the production gets its money’s worth out of the actor.
Nor do I understand bringing the kids into it. (Georgio was a sometime singer, Lucia, a dancer who became schizophrenic and was institutionalized.) Reference would’ve been sufficient. Again, with one foot in and one out, “The Children of Mr. Joyce” is weak. Lianne Marie Dobbs who plays all the other women’s roles, including Lucia, is, however, appealing here as well as playing bookstore owner/publisher Sylvia Beach.
Lianne Marie Dobbs, Michael McCormick
Ezra Pound (McCormick) and patroness Miss Shaw Weaver foot the bill to get the Joyces to Paris in hopes the French will be less conservative about publishing. There are two vaudeville songs in Act II, one of which is sheer Marx Brothers. They might fit better if they sounded the least bit Irish. Or French. Direction of the latter, “For I Am the Grand Himself,” makes the protagonist effeminate.
With a little subterfuge and the enthusiasm of Beach, Ulysses is shepherded to the public. We might end the story there or with the couple’s marriage, but Brielle chooses to show how success adversely affects the drunkard, to further bring in religion, and to wind up with Joyce’s unexpected death after an operation for a perforated ulcer. We open and close on the death with an unnecessary sequence of goodbye/I love you songs – one would do, and a wake. The play could successfully be cut by 15 minutes.
Lianne Marie Dobbs, Michael McCormick, Zachary Prince, Whitney Bashor, Matt Bogart
Jonathan Brielle is on shaky ground with some of these ballads, but good with rousing songs. Orchestrations/arrangements begin with Irish flavor which alas dissipates as the show progresses. Literate lyrics as noted can be a pleasure. The book is uneven, but when good makes one long for more like it.
Whitney Bashor (Nora) is credibly earthy, determined, bawdy, and seductive. In split second musical-time, you can practically see Nora weighing options. Her eyes bore and flash. Physical acting is wholehearted. Vocals are engaging. The actress has the only consistently good Irish accent onstage.
Whitney Bashor and Matt Bogart
As James Joyce, Matt Bogart is less dependably in character. First clinches generate steam, later ones seem like going through the motions. Nora seems to salivate, he does not. I buy Joyce’s elitism but not the horrible realization that occurs when Nora walks out. The actor has a fine, resonant voice, which could have better contributed to atmosphere with a sure Irish accent. Perhaps focus was just off tonight.
Director Michael Bush creates adroit visuals with his lovers. Company numbers are lively and well imagined. He even manages to move the intrusive priest in and out of every scene with fluency. Pacing is skilled.
Kelli Barclay’s Choreography is delightful, from ebullient waltzes to Lucia’s Martha- Grahamish turn. Paul Tate dePoo III (Scenic Design) creates solidity and period.
Amy Clark’s Costumes are good except for the decision to dress Pound and Shaw as if they were performing in a music hall for the vaudeville number – wink, wink, diminishing its already nebulous point.
Photos by Matthew Murphy Opening: Whitney Bashor & Matt Bogart
Himself and Nora Book, Music & Lyrics by Jonathan Brielle Directed by Michael Bush Minetta Lane Theatre 18 Minetta Lane
Eighty-eight year-old Evelyn (Estelle Parsons), having arrived from the states for her ex-husband’s funeral, is bivouacking in the Paris loft they shared. Unexpectedly joined by 68 year-old Evvie (Judith Ivey), the woman she (kind of) blames for the dissolution of her marriage and who succeeded her, eyebrows arch, her tongue darts. Evvie is just as shocked as her unwitting flat mate. Both have been sent airline tickets and keys. They circle one another like gladiators, or would, if they weren’t so exhausted.
The women share biting wit, antagonism, and memories. Evelyn, wed in the 1950s, was #2. Evvie, who preferred married men so she’d never have to take the plunge, remained single, but became a third longtime mate through the 1960s. Both are aware that #1, known only as Snooky, committed suicide by taking a flyer out the window of the room in which they now sit. “He” (unnamed) discussed his women with their heirs. Notes are compared in proprietary fashion.
Just as they’re getting down to it, #4, Janice (Angelina Fiordellisi), likely in her fifties, enters her former home. The only one without an ‘invitation,’ she evidently kept her key. Janice read the obit in Le Monde. Unlike the others, she seems to know little about her husband’s past.
Janice is a manic depressive who attempted suicide out a window to the right of Snooky’s choice. Imagine Eeyore in extremis. Even now, she gravitates toward the ersatz exit with seemingly little provocation, creating an ongoing sight gag which, despite chestnut status, is mostly funny. She herself has no sense of humor. (If you’re keeping score, #5, Maxine, followed Janice. Of course, none of us know the full roster.)
A succession of overlapping, increasingly younger students from his Sorbonne classes found the dead man smart, charismatic, and a great lover. Each of those assembled, wandering in and out of commandeered bedrooms unable to sleep, recalls appealingly quirky events that haunt. Jealousy and recognition ride tandem.
Wait – is anyone Jewish? There’s a sheet covering the mirror. No. They take it off. “This is weird. It’s the same mirror as when I lived here,” Evvie comments, startled. “How did my mother get in there?!” Playwright Israel Horovitz writes old school humor with veteran flair. He also “gets” women, describing our fears, illusions, and age-explicit hopes with warmth and insight, eschewing rose colored glasses.
Judith Ivey, Estelle Parsons
All four freeze when yet another key turns in the lock. Marie-Belle (Francesca Choy-Kee), the pretty, young French/Senegalese with whom he spent his last years, enters like a breath of fresh air. Though over 60 years apart, the 100 year-old man was in her arms when he died. In bed. Active. (Choy-Lee, who appears to emanate light, does not, unfortunately, look to be in her 40s.)
“They” decided to gather the women he loved, who loved him. Marie-Belle still talks to him. In fact, the two continue to physically, even sexually interact. Evelyn and Evvie think she’s nice but crackers, while Janice wants to believe. There’s a funeral, of course, some game vaudeville slapstick, and an ending you won’t anticipate.
Out of the Mouths of Babes is apparently the second in a Paris Trilogy. The first was My Old Lady, a revival of which starred Estelle Parsons in 2015. We look forward to the third.
Director Barnett Kellman has an eye for comedy that extends from realism to shtick. His cast uses the stage with variety, specificity and finesse. Timing is wonderful. My only caveat is Marie-Belle’s “zis, zat Hollywood Franglais,” which never sounds like a legitimate second language.
Francesca Choy-Kee’s actual French is excellent. Bright-eyed and infectiously optimistic without regressing into airy/fairy, the actress otherwise inhabits her character.
Angelina Fiordellisi (Janice), Producing Artistic Director of The Cherry Lane Theatre, swings from deadpan funny to sometimes just being present. She doesn’t quite make enough of things.
In the capable hands of Estelle Parsons (Evelyn) and Judith Ivey (Evvie) for whom the piece was commissioned (the first commission Horovitz accepted in a career of some 70 plus plays), every pause, look and gesture lands on target. Voices, even rhythms couldn’t be more authentic. It’s also a pleasure to see the two playing close to their own, attractive ages. Both actresses are completely natural, exuding warmth, femininity, and smarts. Cynicism falls trippingly off the tongue. Aim is true. Scenes together are like a graceful tennis match, competition with respect and appreciation.
Neil Patel (Scenic Design) has outdone himself with art on the loft’s two story walls. There’s a chart in your program. Only missing a view of the Seine, the place feels right.
Joseph G. Aulisi’s Costume Design reflects and flatters each personality it attires. Attention to detail includes a stagehand wearing a beret and between scene French pop music.
Photography by Carol Rosegg Opening: Angelina Fiordellisi, Francesca Choy-Kee, Judith Ivey, Estelle Parsons
Out of the Mouths of Babes by Israel Horovitz Directed by Barnet Kellman The Cherry Lane Theatre 38 Commerce Street through July 31, 2016
Entertainment for the 1958 Springfield High School Senior Prom (GO CHIPMUNKS!) was supposed to have been provided by the Crooning Crab Cakes from the boys glee club, but lead singer, Billy Ray Patton, was caught smoking and suspended. Stepping up at the last minute, in perfectly coordinated costumes, are “The Wonderful Marvelettes” whoops – The Marvelous Wonderettes.
The bestie girl group includes serious, mousy Missy (Christina Bianco), who has a major crush on their teacher Mr. Lee; irrepressibly ditsy, Suzy (Diana Degarmo), dating Ritchie Stephens who runs the lights; conceited Cindy Lou (Jenna Leigh Green) with aspirations towards Hollywood; and tomboy Betty Jean (Sally Schwab), furious that boyfriend Johnny is two-timing her with Cindy Lou. (Revenge sabotage is repeatedly attempted. Blowing bubbles at her rival is unfunny.)
After a buoyant opening salvo of “Sandman,” “Lollipop”: Lollipop, lollipop/Oh lolli lolli lolli…and “Sugartime”: Sugar in the mornin’/Sugar in the evenin’/Sugar at suppertime/Be my little sugar/And love me all the time… the prom’s theme, ‘Marvelous Dreams’, is announced with performances of “All I Have to Do Is Dream” and “Dream Lover.” Are you growing nostalgic? Whether you can mouth the lyrics or have always been curious, this is the show for you. Regardless of my caveats, it’s musically and visually entertaining.
Numbers are vocally well arranged (Music Direction-Benjamin Rauhala) and delightfully choreographed (Choreography – Alex Ringler.) Costumes including uber-petticoated dresses and disco attire (Bobby Pearce) –successful except for Missy’s 1958 glasses in 1968, and hyper-exaggerated wigs (Jennifer Mooney Bullock) -not so much, illuminate epochs.
Christina Bianco, Jenna Leigh Green, Sally Schwab, Diana Degarmo
Songs are almost seamlessly inserted to express the girl’s relationships i.e. Missy sings “Born Too Late,” Suzy dedicates “Stupid Cupid” to her boyfriend, and Betty Jean accuses Johnny with “Lipstick on Your Collar” to which Cindy Lou responds with “Lucky Lips.”
The girls also challenge one another for the title of Prom Queen with a brief, simultaneous talent competition. Though baton twirling and singing are plausible, silk scarf juggling and walking with a book on one’s head fall flat. These are trained theater professionals. Surely one could have tapped, and another attempted an instrument, with each being given a separate, frustrated minute before the buzzer goes off.
Upon entering the theater, we’re given pencils with which to mark Prom Queen ballots inserted in the program. The gimmick alas, is thrown away. When collected, our ballots are dropped and swept off stage by Suzy. These might’ve been tallied during successive numbers allowing the real winner to get a solo and the crown. Either way, without at least the pretense of counting, the audience feels gypped.
Act II, with a change in styling, music, and lives, opens on the class’s ten-year reunion. Eschewing Rock in favor of Pop and Motown is something of a lost opportunity. Though choices are both apt to the storyline and fun, many sound way too much like their predecessors.
Only Suzy, now suffering through an enormous pregnancy (in her mini dress), and Betty Jean, have stayed in touch. Both are married, Suzy to Ritchie with whom she’s going through a rough patch and Betty Jean to the still philandering Johnny. Missy is having a clandestine relationship later revealed, while Betty Lou, having returned to town tail between her legs, has loved and lost.
Diana Degarmo
All this plays out with the young women reforming bonds, expressing themselves: “It’s In His Kiss” (the Shoop Shoop song), “Wedding Bell Blues,” “It’s My Party, I’ll Cry If I Want To” and supporting one another: “Respect” (R-E-S-P-E-C-T), one of the best numbers in the show, with whining Suzy coming into her own before our eyes. We close with “Thank You and Goodnight” and the promise to reconvene in 1978.
William Davis’s Scenic Design gives us a cheerful, raised stage platform hung with metallic streamers and a banner, mobile microphone stands, and an appropriately loaded buffet table.
My chief objection to this production is its over-the-top, camp interpretation by Directors Tommy D’Angora and Michael D’Angora. This is a sweet, funny piece with great music and movement. Here, in Act I, the often irritating girls act like eleven year-olds throwing tantrums instead of high school seniors. Remember, this is the same period as the musical Grease. Any comedy must be played straight to be funny. The D’Angoras have sacrificed implicit emotions for clumsy, metaphoric pratfalls. They apparently have no confidence in the writing. Act II is less objectionable.
Three of the four actress/vocalists hold their own with Sally Schwab the weak link. Ms. Schwab is neither amusing nor believable. This is partially, one assumes, due to direction. Though she provides able bass line in harmonies, solos are weak.
Christina Bianco (Missy) well known denizen of the cabaret circuit, offers both quirky characterization and pithy singing. Dana Degarmo (Suzy) should be tamped down in Act I, but is poignant and funny in Act II. Vocals are appealing. Jenna Leigh Green is interestingly allowed to act throughout, making Cindy Lou the most authentic of the group. Her vocals are also solid.
Originally written in 1999, The Marvelous Wonderettes reached Off Broadway in 2008. This is only the most recent local revival of a quiet juggernaut. According to the program, the show has had over 300 worldwide productions and has two sequels with a fourth on the way.
Photos by Michael D’Angora Opening: “Lollipop”: Sally Schwab, Jenna Leigh Green, Diana Degarmo, Christina Bianco
The Marvelous Wonderettes Written and Created by Roger Bean Directed by Tommy D’Angora and Michael D’Angora The Kirk Theatre 410 West 42nd Street
New York Cabaret’s Greatest Hits series continued with its 10th presentation at New York’s Metropolitan Room Monday night, a revival of Barbara Porteus 2013 show, Up On the Roof. Spanning 40 years of pop, it also includes one country and a couple of jazz-tinted interpretations.
Like the original version, Porteus is here accompanied by three guitars – no piano: Musical Director/Arranger/Lead Guitar-Jack Cavari, Larry Saltzman, and Zev Katz. Though the musicians are first rate, only a few numbers successfully lend themselves to this choice.
Barbara Porteus
Were one to select the most defining quality of Porteus’s performance, it might be the artist’s ability to put her whole self into a song without ever straining a vocal, unnecessarily raising volume, or becoming fussy. Nor does delivery wobble. Phrasing is smooth, often honeyed. Octave changes are fluid and subtle.
While the show’s title song (by Carole King) is pretty, to my mind, except for a romantic bossa nova rendition of Melody Gardot’s “If the Stars Were Mine,” the show doesn’t kick in until after a lengthy Beatles medley comprised of song snippets, most of which sound thin.
“Unwell” (Matchbox Twenty/Rob Thomas), “Twisted” (Wardell Gray/Annie Ross), and “Help Me” (Joni Mitchell) create a kind of contemporary, crazy suite. Though less overt expression would serve, (rolling eyes and draping oneself leads to diminishing returns), jazz undulations are skillfully handled. Vocally difficult material arrives sensitive and pristine.
Barbara Porteus, Larry Saltzman
“Someone Like You” (Adele/Dan Wilson), a song where a woman tells her ex she can’t let go, is theatrically adept. Here, we empathize with the singer. Whether this has personal meaning or no, the artist makes it seem as if it does.
One of the best musical arrangements emerges with John Mayer/Pino Palladfino’s “Stop This Train.” Buoyed by sweetly percussive country rhythm, Porteus’s gravitas is filled with yearning. One can close one’s eyes, reflect, and ride. Stop this train/I want to get off and go home again/I can’t take the speed it’s moving in/I know I can’t/But, honestly, won’t someone stop this train?…
We finish with a quotation from the film Monkey Business, “You’re only old when you forget to be young.” Though the show’s “recollection of her youth through adulthood,” drops its subject early on, the aphorism aptly bookends. “The Secret of Life” (James Taylor) is simply lovely.
Photos by Stephen Hanks Opening left to right: Barbara Porteus, Larry Saltzman, Jack Cavari, Zev Katz
Next Up for New York Cabaret’s Greatest Hits: Maureen Taylor: Taylor Made-Bob Merrill- July 13 7:00 The Metropolitan Room 34 West 22nd Street Metropolitan Room Calendar
What with Hilary Clinton hopefully on her way to The White House and a resurgence of women’s groups focused on everything from reproductive rights to career opportunities, The Public Theater apparently thinks mounting an all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew is timely quid pro quo. (All productions in Shakespeare’s time were acted exclusively by men.) Even the show’s director, Phyllida Lloyd, hails from the distaff side.
Lloyd, alas, is the biggest part of the problem here. Seemingly in an effort to emulate Alex Timber’s immensely more successful free-for-all musical take on Love’s Labour’s Lost, we have a concept gone off the rails with no cohesive point of view. Irreverence can be fun, but this…!?
Donna Lynn Champlin, Latanya Richardson Jackson, Crush Jumbo
In brief, Petruchio (Janet McTeer) arrives from Verona “to wive it wealthily in Padua.” When told the likeliest candidate is a shrew named Katherina/Kate (Cush Jumbo), he resolves to acquire the lady by denying her faults. Kate’s younger sister Bianca (Gayle Rankin) has a slew of suitors. Predominant among these are locals Gemio (Judy Gold) and Hortensio (Stacey Sargeant), and the newly arrived Lucentio (Rosa Gilmore).
The girls’ father, Baptista (Latanya Richardson Jackson), will not allow Bianca’s marriage before Kate is suitably paired off. He will, however, permit tutors access to his daughters. Lucentio switches places with his servant Tranio (Adrienne C. Moore) and is presented to papa as a teacher of literature. In a really funny scene, he declares his identity and love between passages of Gone With the Wind. Bianca responds “I know you not. I trust you not. (reading) I’ll never be hungry again!” She’s conveniently if irrationally dressed like Scarlett O’Hara.
Not to be outdone, Hortensio masquerades as a music instructor. Lucentio wins. Tranio secures her hand for his master (still disguised as him) by promising a large dowry. After a mix-up involving Lucentio’s faux and actual father, servant and master switch back.
Janet McTeer and Crush Jumbo
Drunk (there’s a bottle in his paper bag) and under dressed in this version, Petruchio weds Kate and drags her off in his hysterical, full sized RV, painted with pin-ups. (Kudos to Mark Thompson.) He deprives his bride of food and sleep at a trailer camp – killing her with ersatz kindness – until starving and exhausted, she gives in to his every whim. Upon returning home for Bianca’s wedding, he bets on and proves the shrew’s change. Kate’s iconic speech about wifely duties/subservience is a surprise to everyone.
A pithy role long relished by formidable actresses, Kate must be an equal to Petruchio for the play to work. She must match him in quickness of wit, intelligence, and stubborn pride – in other words, a prize. The best performances show slow recognition that this strong, attractive man is, in fact, worth having; that it’s her decision to submit, that rather than diminish Kate, it will eventually give her leverage. Petruchio meanwhile grows to admire what he now ostensibly owns and will, it’s implied, relinquish his outrageous test demands. The “doormat” speech is delivered with an arched eyebrow by a woman who has found her water level .
Crush Jumbo, Janet McTeer
Beginning and ending with a beauty pageant, the British Lloyd acknowledges that women were judged by beauty and financial gain. That she paints both female protagonists as unworthy of further examination is as anti-feminist as it gets.
In this production, the heroine is a tantrum-throwing, childish brat (andnot believable as that, either). As conceived one presumes by Lloyd and played by an ill-suited Cush Jumbo, her only merit is a dowry. The relationship is meaningless. Kate is a Stepford Wife. Lest we leave with that impression, she has an aria da capo fit of screaming rebellion at the end and is dispensed in a manner that makes no sense. What ?!
Bianca’s air-headed, blonde beauty queen persona is embodied rather well by Gayle Rankin with comedic flair, despite directed shouting. It would work better had she a significant Kate to play her opposite.
Latanya Richardson Jackson, Janet McTeer
Also good are Stacey Sargeant as Hortensio (replete with accordion and some well finessed timing) and Adrienne C. Moore as a genial Tranio. LaTanya Richardson Jackson’s Baptista lacks paternal and class authority.
A call-out should be made to Judy Gold (Gremio) who rescued a stall due to the malfunctioning RV, with ad-libbed comedy, some of which was lighthearted vaudeville, some of which was unnecessarily vulgar.
The best reason to sit through this mishmash is far and away Janet McTeer (Petruchio). This mercurial actress, soon to appear on Broadway in Les Liasons Dangereuses, imbues her swaggering, masculine role with so much visual testosterone, reality feels suspended. She moves, gestures, smokes, drinks and deeply laughs as would the cocky rogue. Petruchio manhandles Kate with confident sovereignty and no regard for the weakness of her sex. Commands are spit, aftermath watchful. McTeer, calculates, manipulates, revels, and gloats in perfect tenor. A masterful turn.
Rose Gilmore, Gayle Rankin
Mark Thompson’s evocative tent and wagon Set seems irrelevant to a piece with not a moment of circus parody or performance. His 1950’s Costumes fair better with the help of Leah J. Loukas’s unflattering (the style then) Hair and Wig Design. The production also, however, utilizes western gear, sometimes adding cowboy hats to suits from another geography. Petruchio resembles a Texas Hell’s Angel. Kate looks like a character from Dollywood (Dolly Parton’s theme park). Nor are the rich dressed any differently than their servants. At least give us that disparity within a chosen genre.
Live music between scenes consists of abrasive, electronic, bass sound with a tad of rhythm and next to no melody. (Sam Davis) Excerpted disco tunes and middle-of-the-road pop are often humorously inserted but rarely from the 1950s and never country/western. Disconnect is constant. (A company dance finale -Broadway meets disco – is sheer copycat.)
The company is hit or miss with language that should be crisp and intelligible whatever its proffered context. While I have no problem when two (black) servants speak with ghetto street inflection, general enunciation lacks the precision necessary to make a conversational approach accessible and entertaining. Most of these actresses seem untrained in Shakespeare. The further afield a production is taken, the more important its dialogue.
As always, the outdoor theater itself is a unique experience. Besides helicopters who frustratingly never seem rerouted on performance nights, we’re visited by an enormous raccoon and four perfectly arrayed geese. The weather is glorious.
“I’ve gotten to an age when people say to me you’ve had an interesting life. Had?!”
Dillie Keane and songwriting partner of 35 years, Adele Anderson (they both write lyrics, Keane writes the music) might be love children of Dorothy Fields and Noel Coward. As with Fields’ work, cleverness never obscures honesty or empathy. Like that of Coward, droll lyrics, even those with hat-and-cane music hall tunes, are basted by sophistication. Poignancy inevitably arrives with charm.
With this very personal show, Keane and Anderson tell stories of women/people of a certain vintage enmeshed in the vicissitudes of love and facsimiles thereof. “You know, my life is touring, chutney and gardening and it’s not going to make a great read really. So anybody wanting to look at my life will have to just look at the songs.” Hello Dillie! is scrappy, witty, and warm.
That the artist is also a respected theater actress is immediately apparent. Keane inhabits every song. Some are character turns, other mini one-acts. We open with “My Average Morning” in which, amid twittering birds, the singer faces another day as the butt of God’s great joke, literally falling back across the piano top with a moan.
Deeply hungover, she hears an unfamiliar snore, finds she’s not alone in bed and that the window isn’t where it ought to be. As if that weren’t sufficiently disconcerting, …Those certainly aren’t my handcuffs,/And I never wear red lace… not to mention the horse! An hysterical story recollected rather than related, with blithe melody and spot-on comic timing.
Three visits to clairvoyants are intermittently enacted, some fateful, others guff. What, after all, is one to do with time off touring in places like Canberra, Australia? The actress becomes a Hungarian tarot card reader, a Brighton seer, after whose session she thought, based on the sybil’s logic, her grandmother may have been Fats Waller, and a Blackpool psychic who described the view out her back window long before Keane found herself at the house.
“Single Again” and “Back With You” were written years apart, yet when the second was completed Keane and her collaborator felt they’d “finished the story.” The idea of being single at her age – embarrassed, awkward, remembering two toothbrushes, two robes, “frightened” the performer so much, she stayed in a bad relationship too long. While lyrics couldn’t be more genuine or distressed, piano accompaniment is jaunty; juxtaposition works wonderfully. The second number is delivered with a frustrated growl. Keane paces and rants, a self admitted fool, a slave to pheromones. I’m deranged/ To kid myself that you had really changed…Sound familiar?
Touching songs include such as “Out of Practice,” a conversation with her reticent self about risking love again, “Little Shadows” experienced from inside a long term relationship colored by … hidden grief;/Silent as a withered leaf;/… There are things, she suggests, one must never discuss, yet life goes on. And the tender, poetic “Love Late” which sounds for all the world like a traditional folk song handed down from generation to generation.
Keane packs more measured feeling into a phrase than that with which many vocalists imbue a whole song. She can be as delicate as snow in a snowglobe, broad-vaudeville funny, or incisively arch. Twice she ably replaces her excellent piano accompanist, Michael Roulston, whose light touch, intuitive timing, and theatrical flair buoy the show.
The well written piece has a vertebrae which serves. Stories bridge and introduce, each specific, none manufactured to fit. Keane creates the kind of genial intimacy one wants to take home to dinner. Direction by Simon Green, himself a first rate performer, is expressive and perfectly tailored.
“Pam,” about a woman confronting a husband’s mistress, communicates, in the sweetest, most polite tones, that though not ordinarily aggressive, she feels it only fair to warn the interloper her kneecaps are at present in danger. Should she continue pursuit, in fact, far worse consequences would ensue. Stop/start phrasing leaves ample time for the potential victim’s squirming. We can see Keane observe her. Most striking is that the song’s authors instill its lyrics with the wife’s experience and insight rather than merely describing revenge.
“Much More Married” is the episodic history of a burgeoning relationship whose every date reveals an aspect of circumstances not as first portrayed. The prologue is a gem. Keane got out of this one in time. “One More Campaign,” erupts as a drinking song, equating love with war. There are numbers describing literal and figurative illusions proffered by older romantics. “Everything,” as Nora Ephron famously said, “is copy.”
Except for a few more obviously concocted numbers, the show is sheer delight. An hour and a half with the multi-talented Dillie Keane will leave you feeling like uncorked bubbly. Go. Take friends. You’ll thank me.
Keane is best known to American audiences as one-third of Fascinating Aida with irreverent vocalists Adele Anderson and Liza Pullman. Her two previous solo shows, alas, never reached these shores.
Photos of Dillie Keane and Michael Roulston by Carol Rosegg.
Hello, Dillie! Dillie Keane With songs by Dillie Keane and Adele Anderson Michael Roulston at the piano Directed by Simon Green 59E59 Street Theatres 59 East 59th Street Through July 3. 2016
Dispensing with the fourth wall, Jill (Scarlett Alice Johnson) and Ollie (Sean Michael Verey) tell us/enact the curious story of their dream house:
A struggling young couple reduced to living in “the crime capital of the universe,” Red Ocean Estate, Jill and Ollie are in love, about to have their first baby, and, as the British are wont to do, getting on with it despite circumstances.
One day, an unexpected letter arrives from the local council’s D.S.R.C.D.H = The Department of Social Regeneration Through the Creation of Dream Homes, offering a new house, no obvious strings attached. Ollie is convinced it’s a “pathetic telly show,” a joke. Jill insists they check it out.
Driving to the (map enclosed) location, the two discover a new, quite uninhabited development. Finding the door unlocked, they explore the house. Jill loves it. Miss Dee (Debra Baker), ostensibly an official from the Council, appears (out of the audience). Armed with a discomfiting amount of personal information on their lives, she says the couple was chosen in order to attract other, paying inhabitants to the neighborhood by renovating the house. Ollie, it seems, is handy. Jill has taste. The few seemingly harmless stipulations include maintaining discretion and making improvements.
Ollie feels it seems to good to be true… Jill is set on bettering their lives for the baby, however, so a contract is signed. They move in. Ollie tackles wiring and plumbing. That night, they hear sounds coming from the kitchen. Was the back door locked?! Ollie goes down to investigate carrying the only “weapon” he can find, a candlestick. (He describes and mimes every tense move on the way.) The floor is covered with ransacked food. A grey-bearded, probably homeless man comes at Ollie with a knife. In the ensuing scuffle, the vagrant falls, hits his head, and dies.
When, panicked, Ollie and Jill go back down to dispense with the body, it’s disappeared! Additionally, the kitchen has morphed into the Selfridge’s model Jill longed for. Herein lies the tale. We watch as the house is “revised” room by room, as the couple’s lives increasingly resemble a glossy magazine spread; as upscale neighbors move in and property values rise.
The truth, however, as it was proffered in the sixties, is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Our protagonists are in a quandary, both moral and material. They need our help. Don’t worry, there’s no actual audience participation.
Playwright Philip Ridley’s black comedy is timely, original, and skillfully produced. Even when you realize what’s going on, small surprises and manifest reactions make taking the trip a buoyant pleasure. Ridley’s ending is priceless.
Director David Mercatali straddles stylization (exaggerated, precise, sometimes incredibly rapid movement) and naturalism. The empty stage is well utilized with cogent mime. No point in analyzing. It works.
Debra Baker gives us a splendidly sinister, while outwardly proper Miss Dee, then morphs into a second character whose existence, supported by eminently sensitive, realistic portrayal, has us catching our collective breath.
Both Scarlett Alice Johnson and Sean Michael Verey are warm and animated. Required to flip from narration to participation and back, from quick turns as other characters (especially in a party scene that will make your head spin-the only section which would benefit from slight cutting), they are adept and winning. We feel both for and with them. The casting match is perfect.
Designer William Reynold’s all white stage leaves our imaginations to run wild, concocting what’s described. Ollie’s casual clothes are fine, but Jill’s dark tights and clodhoppers distract, looking wrong throughout.
Photos by Carol Rosegg Opening: Scarlett Alice Johnson, Debra Baker, Sean Michael Verey Other photos Scarlett Alice Johnson and Sean Michael Verey
Supporting Wall, Metal Rabbit Productions, and Soho Theatre presents for Brits Off Broadway Radiant Vermin by Philip Ridley Directed by David Mercatali 59E59 Theater 59 East 59th Street Through July 3, 2016
