This “& Juliet” Is No Tale of Woe

You need not be closely familiar with William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” or with his personal life to enjoy “& Juliet.” References to both are deployed liberally throughout, but the Broadway show is a musical and visual delight on its own. (Among the tidbits you may never have considered, Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, is not happy with the bequest of his “second best bed.” Her name also takes a hit.)

Lorna Courtney is Juliet (no & about it) [Photos: Mathew Murphy]

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Blog, Broadway, NY Theater

Sandra’s Quest Comes Up Short

A “Shaggy Dog” story is one with a high-stakes build-up and much activity that comes to an anti-climactic conclusion, like an elongated joke with an unfunny punchline. A serious shaggy dog story might involve an intricate quest or goal or a mystery that ends abruptly with added information, uncharacteristic behavior, or an unlikely development. David Cale’s one-woman “Sandra,” running through December 11 at the Vineyard Theatre, is a shaggy dog play.

Most solo pieces are autobiographical, a la Gabriel Byrne’s and Mike Birbiglia’s current efforts. Some, though, are fictions, related in the first person for dramatic purposes. “Sandra” is one of those, in which the eponymous narrator (Marjan Neshat), spins a complex yarn about searching for her friend Ethan, who went missing on a pleasure trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Sandra (Marjan Neshat), seated. [Photos: Carol Rosegg]

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Broadway, Off Broadway

Jump In the Pool with Mike Birbiglia

My first Mike Birbiglia show was “Sleepwalk with Me” in 2008 at the Bleecker Street Theater, where some of the 199 seats were behind poles. The 80-minute self-written monologue recounted how his Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder had resulted in him crashing through a second-story window of a Walla Walla motel. You could tell by his detailed, self-effacing delivery that it was all true. And it was very funny. My next sighting was “The New One” in 2017, about becoming a first-time father. Its sold-out run at the small-capacity Cherry Lane led to a Broadway transfer, where it ran for three months at The Cort Theater (recently re-named for James Earl Jones).

Both those shows were well received (the NY Times called “Sleepwalk” “simply perfect”), but neither was as insightful, as smartly written and sharply delivered or as devastatingly funny as is “The Old Man & the Pool,” running through January 15 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, a prestigious venue Mr. Birbiglia well deserves.

Mike Birbiglia [Photos: Emilio Madrid]

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Blog, Broadway, NY Theater

Gabriel Byrne Goes “Walking With Ghosts” Alone

Most solo shows are one act affairs that run about 90 minutes or less. “Walking With Ghosts” is just Gabriel Byrne, sharing memories and spinning tales for well over two hours in two acts. It is not a moment too long.

Running through December 30, “Walking with Ghosts” is the live version of Byrne’s same-titled 2020 memoir, some of it verbatim, in which he recalls relationships and incidents with the usual suspects, beginning with childhood memories of his parents and an ill-fated sister; strict parochial-school teachers; and a priest whose first mention induces a cringe (you can just tell). There is also a boyhood friend who meets an untimely end, Byrne’s entrée into acting, and an alcohol-fueled encounter with Richard Burton.

Gabriel Byrne [Photos: Emilio Madrid]

Long established as a fine – one might say consummate – actor on screens both large (80-plus feature films) and small (HBO’s “In Treatment”) as well as award-winning stage appearances (pre-eminent interpreter of Eugene O’Neill), Byrne proves himself an exceptional raconteur, someone you would like to chat with over a martini…or, since, as he informs us, he is 24-years sober, a diet Coke.

Byrne, now 72, shifts seamlessly among tones of humor, pathos and self-deprecation.  (“People looking at me always makes me blush” is hard to believe, but, well, if you say so, Gabe.) Born and raised in outskirts of Dublin, he riffs on his Irish background with a characteristic lilt, bring to life a motley crew of supporting players, including his Da, who made wooden barrels in a Guiness factory, an occupation that fell victim to the advent of the stainless-steel keg.

Byrne’s pre-teen exposure to Catholicism, up to and excluding the Predatory Priest episode, is played for amusement. Communion wafers and an explicit replica of the Crucifixion take a hit. (Confronted years later, the priest has no memory of young Gabe. Apparently, Byrne was one among many.) Far less amusing is his deeply felt, lingering memory of the adolescent chum whose brashness led to his demise.

 

The treating of each segment as a separate theatrical unit, with its own exposition and blackout ending, either creates a choppy quality or keeps it from feeling overlong. I opt for the latter. While each episode does hold interest, there is hardly any reference to his acting career – no casting anecdotes or, barring Burton, experiences with co-performers, for example – a strange (and disappointing) omission considering the influence his popular stardom must have on attendance.

Director Lonny Price seems to have given Byrne free rein. “A willing horse carries a heavy load,” said about his father, could apply to Byrne himself, who bears the burden willingly. “Walking With Ghosts” is, after all, a one-man show.

Through December 30 at The Music Box, 235 West 45th Street NYC. For performance schedule and tickets: www.telecharge.com

A few days before “Walking With Ghosts” I had attended another solo show, “Everything’s Fine,” written and performed by renowned filmmaker (“Bullets Over Broadway” screenplay) and playwright (“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” book) Douglas McGrath, at the DR2 theater off Union Square. McGrath’s piece was about how, at 14, his 47-year-old married sixth-grade teacher became obsessed with him. Although nothing seriously untoward happened between them, the story was nonetheless engrossing, mostly funny, but also sensitive in its treatment of the forlorn Mrs. Malinkov.

Douglas McGrath, seated by Mrs. Malinkov. You see her? We all did. [Photo: Jeremy Daniel]

“Everything’s Fine,” originally scheduled to run through December, closed following the November 2 performance after Mr. McGrath, who performed his show that night, suffered a heart attack the next morning and died at age 64. In the NY Times obituary, one of the “Everything’s Fine” producers recalled McGrath saying that being on stage telling his story was his “happy place.” We were privileged to spend some time there with him.

Blog, Broadway, NY Theater

A Jug of “Wine in the Wilderness” and Thou: Perfect Together

If you want to know what a stage director does (or can do) for a play, you might want to first read Alice Childress’s “Wine in the Wilderness” and then get yourself to Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, where the play runs through November 6.

The relatively short play is an entertaining one-sitting read; the plot is linear and the characters well defined. What director Brandon J. Dirden has done with it is nothing short of transporting. Blessed with an impeccable cast and top-notch production values, the whole is much more than the sum of those estimable parts. I had never seen “Wilderness” before (it is hardly a perennial), but I cannot imagine a finer mounting. Featuring a dazzling performance by Crystal A. Dickinson, the production mines perfectly its giddy fun, emotional poignancy and timely (then and now) social commentary. Its art-centric references (the lead male is a painter) resonate with unpretentious folk-poetry; its relationships are multi-layered; and its considerable humor lands with bulls-eye consistency. The playwright could not be better served.

“Wine in the Wilderness” cast, from left: Ricardy Fabre, Brittany Bellizeare, Keith Randolph Smith, Korey Jackson, Crystal A. Dickinson. [Photos: T. Charles Erickson]

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Blog, Professional, Regional

Debating the American Dream: “Death of a Salesman” and “Baldwin & Buckley at Cambridge”

On consecutive evenings last week, I saw what are likely the longest and shortest works, in terms of running time, currently on New York stages. The long one, clocking in at well over three hours at the Hudson Theatre on West 44th Street, is the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s 1949 masterpiece “Death of Salesman,” with Willy Loman and family re-imagined as Black. The sixty-minute quicky, at The Public Theater on Lafayette Street, is “Baldwin & Buckley at Cambridge,” a verbatim re-creation of the February 18, 1965 debate between writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin and conservative commentator and editor of National Review William F. Buckley, Jr., at The Cambridge Union Debate Society (in Great Britain, not Massachusetts).

Despite their divergent venues and lengths (and budgets), the two plays are uncannily aligned. “Salesman” centers on the tragic failure of a “common man” (Miller’s term), knocked about by unrealistic ideals, to achieve the mythical American Dream. The very name Willy Loman has entered the lexicon as representative of a capitalistic beatdown; presenting him as African American, especially with white-identifying opposing forces, adds a significant subplot, perhaps even relegating the play itself to that status.

Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clarke as Willy and Linda Loman [Photos: Joan Marcus]

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Blog, Broadway, NY Theater, Off Broadway