What Happened at BRIGHTON BEACH?

1 week after opening, producers have closed BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS and cancelled the partner production of BROADWAY BOUND which was supposed to, eventually, run in rep with BRIGHTON BEACH.  As members of the theatrical community and press, try and sort out "what happened?" I thought I'd throw my own 2 cents into the works.


1) Lest there be any doubt, it was a WONDERFUL production.  Funny, well acted, and smart.

2) The play is mercilessly wholesome about it.  As a jaded New Yorker it was a bit of a relief--like hot cider or a cookie--but I can see how many would not be intrigued by jokes about not wanting to eat liver, or wondering what boobs look like.  And before I spontaneously bought a TDF ticket, I didn't feel particularly compelled to see it.  But boy, am I glad I did.

3) The marketing seemed largely ineffectual.  I only saw banner ads on playbill and, eventually, NYTimes.com.  Whereas I see HAIR ads on every city bus.  The artwork itself is particularly unexciting to me.

It seems to get too much leverage out of the name Neil Simon, which, in and of itself, isn't that exciting.  Beyond that, you just have a couple of guys, one of whom is wearing knickers.  When has a pair of knickers ever sold tickets?

4) Stars.  There aren't any (really) in this production.  Except Laurie Metcalf.  She is very talented.  She won 3 Emmy Awards for her work on ROSEANNE.  And, aside from a brief Broadway stint in the completely forgotten NOVEMBER, she's been off the public radar since ROSEANNE went off the air.

Except for the fact that ROSEANNE hasn't been off the air.  You can pretty much ALWAYS find an episode of ROSEANNE on if you're in the mood.  There are two types of people in this world: People who refuse to watch ROSEANNE and people who realize that, at least in its early seasons, ROSEANNE was one of the best-written and acted sitcoms ever.  Which is why it's on 47 times a day.  So there is an audience out there for Laurie Metcalf.  Why wasn't SHE exploited more?  Where were the interviews in press and on television?  Why is she totally missing from the print ads?  To pave the way for knickers?  Yes, the play is about the boys (who are basically little Neil Simons), but theater audiences want hot men or powerful women.  When you lead is 15 years old, you might want to consider going for the latter.

5) As William Goldman said in his fabulous book about Broadway, THE SEASON (as well as his equally wonderful ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE): Nobody knows anything.

FELA!, Memphis. Memphis, FELA!

FELA! and MEMPHIS are both New Musicals opening on Broadway this fall, I saw both of them for free, they both feature a lot of dancing, and they both deal with issues that fit under the broad "race" umbrella.  Though they have more in common than, say, MISS SAIGON and WAITING FOR GODOT, I admit that I will ultimately be comparing an apple to an orange and remarking at the differences in color, texture and flavor. 

MEMPHIS is a work of fiction that, nonetheless, tells a story everyone knows involving segregation, the South, music, and the 1960s.  FELA!, thought not really a linear narrative of any kind, nonetheless tells a story that, thought based on fact, is most likely new to the majority of audience members about oppression in Nigeria in the late 1970s.

MEMPHIS, though about musicians, has an unremarkable and derivative score that frequently fails to evoke the very specific genres the libretto references.  FELA! is basically a jukebox musical, but it uses a jokebox many are unfamiliar with, by a man known to be an innovative musician, and explains--if in borderline tedious details--what is different about this music.  However, though the music in MEMPHIS is often bland, it is just as consistently energetic and engaging, whereas FELA!'s jam session of a score allows the audience to disengage. 

In MEMPHIS dance is used throughout, mostly to lift the numbers from the story, rather than to enhance the dramatic content of the songs.  In FELA! the dance IS the story.  If MEMPHIS's dramaturgy is chrystilline clear and FELA!'s often confusing, the power and insight FELA!'s dancing adds to the proceedings is unparalleded.  MEMPHIS's choreographer--the ubiquitous Sergrio Trullio--is Broadway dancer-turned choreographer, and his work is consistently adequate and professional, if pedestrian in its use of verical lines and grids of toothy grinned chorines.  FELA!'s Bill T Jones comes from the dance world and is adapting his career-long habit of movement as meaning, body as form and structure to a more accessible Broadway framework. 

The result of the differences between the craft in MEMPHIS and FELA! is perhaps most clear in each musical's respective moment of Extreme Abuse against the protagonists. In MEMPHIS the moment feels essentially inevitable, leaving the audience with a Morales-esque feeling of nothingness. In FELA!--perhaps because it is legitimately shocking and new, it stuns.  I don't know which of these productions will be more commercially successful, though FELA! will probably walk away with stronger reviews (especially if those impressed by its off-Broadway incarnation are similarly entertained).  But, if MEMPHIS may perhaps embody the type of likable dance-and-belt-a-thon that many want right now, FELA!'s innovative dance (and stunningly imaginative lighting) are what Broadway needs.

One Week From Today...

...we open

1158: Moses Maimonides flees Spain, dies in Cairo 1204.
1492: Ferdinand and Isabella expel all Jews from Spain.
1992: Maimonides returns.

Polybe + Seats
presents

GRANADA
written by Avi Glickstein
directed by Jessica Brater
produced by Catherine Wallach and Polybe + Seats

Ensemble:
Elaine O’Brien
Sarah Sakaan
Indika Senanayake*
Lindsay Torrey*
Jill Usdan
Ari Vigoda

Set, Costume, and Puppet Design: Peiyi Wong assisted by Bevan Dunbar
Lighting Design: Natalie Robin assisted by Marika Kent
Sound Design: John D. Ivy
Dramaturgy: Miriam Felton-Dansky
Stage Manager/Associate Producer: Donald Butchko assisted by Dinah Finkelstein
Selected music performed by Anna Levenstein

*indicates member of Actors' Equity. Granada is an Equity-approved showcase.

Runs November 5-22, 2009

Thursdays-Saturdays @ 8pm
Saturdays @ 3pm
Sundays @ 7pm

Granada begins in 1992 as the King of Spain prepares to symbolically welcome Jews back to Spain after 500 years of banishment. A young Egyptian Jewish woman has been invited to stand in for all of those exiled-but following the ceremony, she reveals to Spain's prince that she believes herself to be the resurrection of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), philosopher, royal physician, and Jewish cultural icon. Quite suddenly, the prince's world is not what it was before her revelation: he is pursued by a bear, seduced by a princess hatched from a grapefruit, and nearly betrayed by his trusty aide-de-camp. Is this the beginning of the Messianic age?

Bringing together characters and stories from Sephardic Jewish folklore and culture, Granada draws on a centuries-old tradition to create a tender, bizarre, and funny look at a people separated by continents but united by a state of exile.

Tickets available at
http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=GRA21

The Access Theater Gallery has limited accessibility. For accessibility information, please contact info@polybeandseats.org.

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Just watch it

David Carroll in the original Broadway production of GRAND HOTEL. He passed away earlyish into the run (and, in fact, was not even preserved on the Cast Recording), being replaced by go-to-Billy Finn Brett Barrett. But they don't make'm like this anymore.

What Do You Do With a B.S. in Theater?

I was a Jr. in college when AVENUE Q first hit Broadway.  I had an instantaneous affinity for the witty and tuneful OCR, which, among other things, bailed me out of at least 2 potentially awkard car trips.  It's odd to think that I related to the material since, at the time, I had only been to NYC once, and often did, in fact, sit on a quad.

This Sunday I finally saw the little-show-that could in its new home Off-Broadway and was pleasantly and consistently surprised throughout.  I was surprised at how many jokes, characters, and story lines I was not aware of, despite knowing the score backwards and forward.  I was surprised by the extent to which the imaginative staging and choreography lifted the numbers I knew so well.  I was surprised by the extent to which the show hit home with me, now that I actually am broke, living in Brooklyn, and unsure of my "purpose", and surprised at its abilities to, if only mometarily, qualm my varied anxieties. 

Q's new home at New World Stages seems to me to serve as a combatant for the inherent, if subtle, earnestness and sincerity of the show.  From the industrial common areas of the complex--with decor that seems more suited for TopShop--to the house staff aggressively pushing drink specials delivered to your seats during intermission, I felt more like I was in a stadium than a theater.  Perhaps this is the way things will be everywhere from now on.  I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it, and I suppose I could get used to it.  It is to Q's credit that its cuddly puppets and likable performers (Anika Larsen makes an especially a wonderful Kate Monster, with Seth Rettberg making a fine Princeton/Rod) made themselves, and their story, heard and felt (pun intended) over the din.

OLEANNA on Broadway

In the 10 minutes or so in which I waited outside the Golden Theater for my friend, no fewer than 5 separate groups of middle aged women noted the marquee and exclaimed “Oh look, Julia Stiiiiles is in something.”  No mention was made of Bill Pullman, who costar with a longer career, or David Mamet, the Pulitzer Prize winning—and perhaps most marketable—playwright who’s OLEANNA opened last night.  No mention was made of either of these men (let alone director Dough Hughes) because, for this particular subset of the population—middle aged women walking on 45^th St at 6:45pm on a Thursday night—Julia Stiles on Broadway is the event of note.  Those women would not be disappointed.  Julia Stiles was indeed in something.  On Broadway.  Hell, (spoiler alert) she even cried.  Those of us asking for more, however, might not walk away as satiated. 

OLEANNA concerns Carol, a college student (Stiles), who meets with John, her about-to-be-tenured professor (Pullman), to discuss that fact that she is failing/”doesn’t get” his class.  This seemingly innocuous encounter—full of theory about the nature/value of higher education and identity—is cast in a darker light in later scenes as She lodges a formal complaint against Him.  She claims his behavior both in that meeting and in the classroom, is condescending and sexist.  Thus begins a discourse on gender roles, power dynamics and political correctness.  Sort of.  Because the two sides of the argument are never really presented.  She attacks Him relentlessly and tirelessly, making arguments both solid and tenuous.  He, in reaction, is increasingly befuddled and disheveled, but never particularly articulate—there is not one moment after the first scene in which He makes a point that She acknowledges.  Not that she should, as his argument consists of refrains of “Why are you doing this to me?” as opposed to specifically refuting her arguments and evidence.  Of course, her arguments and evidence are so vaguely presented that I have a hard time believing a tenure board would give them lip service.   He is equally ineffective in his communications with his wife, who calls incessantly throughout to play despite Pullman’s habitual greeting of “I can’t talk right now.”  I am almost offended that a play supposedly dedicated to the exploration of interaction between genders shows women in a singular light as ceaseless harpies who, with their combination of needs and expectations, push Him over the proverbial edge.  And it is only when He is pushed that any of Her arguments begin to seem plausible.     

The trademark “Mamet” rhythm comes off as contrived and unconvincing here (especially in the first scene), and there is little variance in tempo or energy.  The design elements are appropriate, if not particularly helpful in setting a time for this production—the world is a different place in 2009 than it was in 1992 (when the play was first produced).  The fact that this production neither confirms nor denies this fact, setting the play vaguely around now-ish, underscores the feeling that the whole evening was very “general”—generally engaging, generally entertaining, generally well acted.  Though adequately and professionally executed, I can’t help but think I would see an equally, if not more, provocative production at a college or regional theater.  But it wouldn’t have Julia Stiles.  And for some people, that may be enough.

To save over 40% on tickets, just visit BroadwayOffers.com and enter code OLMKT93. Tickets are only $59 on Tuesday-Friday or $65 on Saturday and Sunday! (Valid through 11/15)

Our New Phantom - Shirtless

This guy is going to be the Phantom in the London production of PHANTOM: LOVE NEVER DIES, set to open this March.  (Broadway will get it in Feb 2011, or something like that.)   I'm shallow enough to say I'm now excited about the production.

Of course, remember when Gerard Butler was in the movie version?  Thank God he had that mask, because no one really rememebers, and now he has a career.  Here's a gratutitous Gerard Butler Shirtless pic.