Perfection in Two Acts: “Into the Woods” on Broadway

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Philip Leave a comment

It is fascinating to imagine the processes that went into mounting the Broadway revival of “Into the Woods.” Not only Stephen Sondheim’s exquisite music and lyrics and James Lapine’s unifying book – those are givens. No, I mean the journey from page to stage that led to the most brilliant production in many a year. This “Into the Woods” is musical theater perfection.

The play is a joyful, uplifting fairy tale…until it’s not. Interlocking the traditional tales of Little Red Riding Hood; Jack the Giant Killer (of Beanstalk fame); Cinderella and her Prince; Rapunzel and hers; and a Wicked Witch, and adding two original characters, a Baker and his Wife (Rapunzel’s sister), into a coherent mosaic and then deconstructing the myths is, arguably, Sondheim’s crowning achievement, an assertion bolstered by this production.

The cast of “Into the Woods”

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Blog, Broadway, NY Theater

Season #70 at Stratford: “Richard III,” “Chicago” and “Hamlet”

Posted on July 5, 2022 by Philip Leave a comment

As written for MediaNews Group in Michigan:

However you define Power Couple, you will not find a more representative theatrical pair than actor Colm Feore and director-choreographer Donna Feore, who ignite the stages of Ontario’s Stratford Festival. In 2009, for example, Colm played both Macbeth and Cyrano, the latter directed by Donna, whose later “A Chorus Line” and “The Music Man” were both dazzling.

Now, in Stratford’s post-pandemic season, its 70th overall, Mr. and Ms. F. are at it again: his “Richard III,” which inaugurates the Festival’s magnificent new Tom Paterson Theatre, is a superb take on Shakespeare’s villainous monarch, and her “Chicago” is a choreographic gem.

In a sense, Shakespeare’s historical characters are reincarnated with every new production; Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino’s opening to “Richard III” takes that literally. Referencing the 2013 discovery of Richard III’s bones in an excavated Leicester, England car park, Colm Feore’s Richard emerges in full regalia from a simulated work site. It is a stunning prelude to his “…winter of our discontent” speech.

Richard III (Colm Feore) preparing for battle [Photos credit: David Hou]

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Blog, Canadian Theatre

Compelling Conversation Goes Live: “Lessons in Survival: 1971”

Posted on June 9, 2022 by Philip Leave a comment

From 1968 to 1973, “SOUL!,” America’s first Black-hosted nighttime TV talk show, celebrated Black literature, poetry, music and politics, largely in interview formats. In 1971, prolific poet, activist and prominent figure of the 1960s Black Arts Movement Nikki Giovanni interviewed author and fellow-activist James Baldwin, whose debut novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and essay collection “Notes of a Native Son” are veritable Black history text references. (Baldwin, forty-six at the time, died in 1987; Giovanni, then twenty-eight, is still with us at seventy-eight.)

Vineyard Theatre’s “Lessons in Survival: 1971,” created with theater collective The Commissary and directed by Tyler Thomas, is a re-creation of that interview, edited somewhat for length and repetition. That it is a worthy compendium of both parties’ reflections on matters of race, gender, social justice and the roles of Black women and men in an ever-evolving society, is undeniable. That the 90-minute dialogue translates well into a staged reenactment is less clear. Having watched portions of the 1971 tape (on YouTube), and read much of a transcript and this script, I come down these fifty years later, on the side of the printed word, which is certainly not a condemnation of this worthy and engrossing theater piece.

Carl Clemons-Hopkins and Crystal Dickinson [Photos: Carol Rosegg]

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Blog, NY Theater, Off Broadway

Mr. Seven Times a Week: Billy Crystal

Posted on June 2, 2022 by Philip Leave a comment

One of my favorite theater memories is of seeing Phil Silvers in “Do Re Mi” in 1960. In a scene where his character is producing a recording session, Silvers tells the six on-stage musicians how he wants the music played. One by one, he commandeered each instrument – sax, bass, drums, etc. – and played it himself. Finishing, Silvers turned to the audience: “You hang around, you learn,” he quipped.

Another is Jerry Lewis, who, as Applegate in the 1995 “Damn Yankees” revival, turned the “Two Lost Souls” duet into an extended night club routine (with a complicit Charlotte d’Amboise).

And now I have seen Billy Crystal in “Mr. Saturday Night.”

What you see is what you get: Billy Crystal [Production photos: Matthew Murphy]

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Blog, Broadway, NY Theater

Romeo and…Bernadette? Why Not; What’s In a Name?

Posted on May 16, 2022 by Philip Leave a comment

There are many reasons for taking a date to a community theater production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Maybe you are both studying English Lit or are enrolled in acting classes. Maybe a friend is playing Mercutio or has constructed the costumes. Or maybe, as Brooklyn Guy sings in “Romeo & Bernadette,” you got a date with a college girl, and you’ve heard that “culture gets them hot.”  “Romeo & Bernadette” may or may not be an aphrodisiac (to each their own), but it is one of the most delightful pocket musicals in memory.

Sub-titled “A Musical Tale of Verona & Brooklyn,” the inventive show has re-opened off-Broadway after its acclaimed January 2020 premiere and a two-year Covid pause. Freshened up a bit and with the original cast intact, this entry in the Shakespeare-riff genre is a funny, romantic blend of high Elizabethan and low Sopranos/Godfather references. It is a compact, two-hour treat from curtain to curtain.

Romeo: Nikita Burshteyn                                   [Photo credits: Russ Rowland]

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NY Theater, Off Broadway

Ontario’s Stratford Festival Emerges from The Pandemic of Its Discontent

Posted on May 3, 2022 by Philip Leave a comment

The following article appears in the May edition of the Canadian national Mensa magazine, MC2, and online and in the print editions of MediaNews Group in suburban Detroit.    

One hundred twenty-five actors in ten plays over seven months. The Stratford Festival’s usual operation, stalled during rehearsal by the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, is up and running again in 2022! Ontario’s acclaimed Shakespeare-centered repertory company is treating that rude interruption as a mere blip, re-scheduling seven of its aborted 2020 productions for this, its seventieth season.

Among the holdovers are three early-season productions with unique elements: In a bold and intriguing casting maneuver, Hamlet is being played by Amaka Umeh, the first Black woman to play the role at Stratford, and the musical “Chicago” is being re-imagined by director-choreographer Donna Feore. Also, Colm Feore (Mr. Donna) is inaugurating the Festival’s new, state-of-the-art Tom Patterson Theatre as Richard III.  “Chicago” is already up and running, while performances of “Hamlet” and “Richard III” begin in mid-May. All three will run through October. [I’ll see the three, plus a preview performance of “All’s Well That Ends Well,” in June.]

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Blog, Canadian Theatre