As it turns out, you can stop the beat. What fundamentalist wackos and Dubya’s neocons couldn’t accomplish with intolerance, Wall Street has achieved with apocalyptic greed and Ponzi scheming. So Hairspray and its mildly subversive themes have disappeared from Broadway, along with Gypsy, Boeing Boeing and Young Frankenstein, all expiring on Jan. 4. Spring Awakening, the freshest, brashest new American musical of the new millennium, will be put to sleep on Jan. 18. Replacement musicals? Aside from The Story of My Life, a wee two-hander, nothing till March.
Now that the tourist hordes have departed, top ticket prices have been discreetly reduced in an effort to rekindle wintertime interest. Good seats on Broadway still go for $110 and up, so we made sure to include plenty of off-Broadway fare, with non-lethal ticket charges, in this year’s roundup. We saw 16 shows over a two-week period, branching out into opera, symphony and jazz for six of those events. We’ll keep a drumroll going until next week for the music action in Part 2 of our annual New York pilgrimage. This week, it’s strictly the rialto.
Broadway
The 39 Steps (***1/2 out of 4) — This Alfred Hitchcock spoof was still in previews when we last looked in on Broadway, and it will take a new lease on life when it transfers from the Cort Theatre to the Helen Hayes on Jan. 21. The reasons for its survival become quickly apparent as the cast of four begins mowing through the 150 roles that the Master of Suspense imprinted on his 1935 classic. There’s imaginative staging and broad physical comedy for the groundlings, along with allusions to Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, King Kong and Hitchcock himself for film buffs.
Sam Robards portrayed the prototypical Hitchcock hero, Richard Hannay, a common bloke who is involuntarily drawn into desperately dire international intrigue. Britain, the Empire, and the Free World depend on his doggedness. The fate of civilization passes into the hands of Sean Mahan when the show reopens. Francesca Fardany had already taken over the prime female roles — a mysterious murder victim, an ultra-friendly farm wife and an implacable pursuer — equaling the élan of her co-star.
Arnie Burton and Jeffrey Kuhn feast on the rest, completing a blizzard of costume and gender changes along the way. If they have to portray more than one person in a scene, so much the better. Improbability and sloppiness become comedy virtues in merry olde pre-war England. (Open-ended run)
Equus (***1/4) — Stripped of his dorky Harry Potter glasses, Daniel Radcliffe isn’t nearly as naked as he will become in the climactic moments of Peter Shaffer’s notorious psychodrama. What’s instantly recognizable is Radcliffe’s prodigious acting talent as he undergoes analysis, slowly revealing how the young, diffident Alan Strang developed his own perverse stable boy ideology, leading — with tragic inevitability — to the blinding of six horses.
While Shaffer’s play remains sensational, we aren’t as shocked by onstage nakedness and perversion in 2009 as we were when this brew was first detonated on Broadway in 1973. What we accept as valid psychological practice has moved past the religious faith in purgation that seemed plausible 35 years ago, and I found myself a little more dubious of the equine passivity at the heart of Strang’s atrocity.
The freshest aspect of this revival is Richard Griffiths’ portrait of Dr. Martin Dysart, the ace therapist charged with the task of exorcising Alan’s demons. Back in the ’70s, Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton brought an agonized, self-loathing dimension to Dysart that prefigured Shaffer’s greatest stage villain, the mediocre Salieri of Amadeus. Griffiths retains those self-critical vulnerabilities, but they’re largely subsumed by his portly, avuncular charm. An interesting, effective trade-off, but one that might dismay theater and moviegoers with fond memories of the originals. (Through Feb. 8)
Off-Broadway
The Cripple of Inishmaan (****) — We had a perfectly delightful production of Martin McDonough’s grotesque tragicomedy back in 2001 when Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte still called Spirit Square its home. But there’s Charlotte perfection and there’s authentic Druid Theatre Company perfection from Galway, Ireland. That’s what you’ll find at Atlantic Theatre, launching pad for such Broadway hits as Spring Awakening and McDonough’s Beauty Queen of Leenane.
The twisted physicality of Aaron Monaghan as Cripple Billy is counterbalanced by the comedy of Kerry Condon as the capricious, sadistically slutty Slippy Helen and David Pearse as the utterly despicable town tattler, JohnnyPateenMike. Seething with pent-up menace is Andrew Connolly as BabbyBobby, the grizzled boatman.
What’s clearer than ever in this production is the stultifying stupidity of everyday life in rural Ireland — and the corrupting lure, even back in 1934, of America and its most seductive export, Hollywood. (Through March 1)
Forbidden Broadway (***3/4) — An off-Broadway fixture since 1982, with numerous updates, Forbidden Broadway has outlived all its upmarket contemporaries and nearly every turkey it has irreverently lampooned along the way. But Forbidden Broadway Goes to Rehab will be the final edition, having already posted its closing notice. One last mimicry of the ailing Broadway musical scene.
All the more reason to hurry in and watch the current intrepid cast of four as they jubilantly skewer such bombs as Young Frankenstein and Tale of Two Cities and hurl comedic Molotov cocktails at such megahits as Wicked and The Lion King. Nothing is sacred — except, perhaps, Sondheim. The current showstoppers are Gina Kreiezmar’s deliciously cruel send-ups of Patti Lupone and Liza Minnelli. It’s been years since I laughed so hard.
Writer/creator Gerard Alessandrini is devoutly old school and unapologetically erudite. Even if you don’t get all the insider references, Forbidden will not be forgotten. (Through March 1)
Garden of Earthly Delights (***1/4) — Martha Clarke’s choreographic extravaganza, which first wowed Gotham in 1984, is based on Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch’s notorious triptych of 1503. In 64 minutes, Clark and her Two River Theatre Company take us from “Paradise” through the “Seven Deadly Sins” and onward to “Hell,” a pictorial journey that encompasses the creation, rise and fall of humankind.
The dancers cover this vast expanse in flesh-toned body stockings, briefly donning medieval peasant costumes during the central “Sins” section. Three multi-instrumentalists play the Richard Peaslee score dressed as Christian monks, occasionally mingling downstage with the dancers. Long before aerial dance took root, Clarke made extensive use of mechanical hoists to poetically fly her dancers.
She sketches a line of natural metamorphoses while the humans evolve. Branches that yield up the fatal apples in Paradise become headwear, scourges, a witch’s broom and the Devil’s pitchfork. A bass drum and a cello are transformed into instruments of torture. Beautiful, horrifying and haunting. (Through Jan. 18)
Fuerza Bruta (***1/4) — Ticketholders must stand throughout this very unique 70-minute spectacle, sometimes Cirque du Soleil-like in its imaginative exuberance, sometimes imaginatively absurdist in its youthful energy, and always awash in a hard-rock soundtrack. Action occurs around you, high up on the walls, or above you on an amazing see-through pool that descends from the ceiling until you can touch it — with splashing, frolicking, scantily clad babes at your fingertips.
As the floor-level segments of this rockin’ choreography unfold, stagehand monitors move the amazing set pieces around and shoo the audience to safety. Dress casual, bring a pocket digital camera, and be prepared to get wet. My daughter was itching to see this one. She’ll be returning with friends. (Open-ended)
Women Beware Women (***) — Misogyny runs riot in this Thomas Middleton potboiler that dates back to the 1620s, adapted and directed by Jesse Berger upstairs at the wondrously atmospheric Theatre at St. Clement’s. As licentious as Restoration comedy and as bloody as Elizabethan tragedy, the plot centers around a sexy, pure-hearted clerk who makes the mistake of wooing, winning and wedding a royal Venetian maid and bringing her back to his native Florence — insufficiently shielded from the lusty gaze of the Duke. Carnage in the spectacular final scene makes the denouement of Hamlet look like a polite tea party. (Through Jan. 18)
A Light Lunch (**3/4) — This intricate one-act, clocking in at 79 minutes, explores the dilemma of playwright A.R. Gurney, who finds it so easy to castigate the horrendous Bush 43 presidency that he winds up empathizing with the bumbler. The plot unfolds at a restaurant as Gurney’s agent, portrayed by Tom Lipinski, meets with an attorney from Texas who poses as a possible producer. But she’s really offering Gurney the big bucks on behalf of Jim Baker in an attempt to suppress the script. Portrayed by the primly hot Beth Hoyt, lawyer and agent quickly ooze a chemistry that crosses party lines. A pushy, aspiring actress is their waitress, so the biz of producing art gets a thorough airing in this Flea Theatre premiere. (Through Jan. 25)
Sleepwalk With Me (**3/4) — Nathan Lane is among the producers of this one-man show, written and performed by the adorable Mike Birbiglia. This autobiographical odyssey, delivered as a stand-up confessional, peaks dramatically when Birbiglia recounts how he let his sleepwalking affliction go untreated until he crashed through a motel window during one of his nocturnal rambles. That was before he started taking the precaution of insisting on a ground-level room. Birbiglia’s narrative needs a little more bite, but it’s wonderfully constructed, circles within circles, winding up at his lifelong differences with his dad. (Through March 22)
My First Time (**1/4) — Maligned by critics, this string of confessions, culled from the myfirsttime Web site by Ken Davenport, has been running at New World Stages since mid-July of 2007. With convenient 10 o’clock shows during the holidays, the wife and I made this a nightcap after A Light Lunch. This was lighter, downright bland and distressingly free of porn. Worse still, Davenport dumbs down the presentation by scrambling multiple narratives among his four performers and giving the audience a bogus sense of participation.
One heartening take-away: The masses who visit the myfirsttime Web site — or attend the play — can’t write a compelling stage show. It still takes talent. (Open-ended)
This article appears in Jan 13-20, 2009.
