FREE MUSIC

Wall to Wall Broadway:
A Century of Musicals
Symphony Space’s Annual
Gift to the City.
2537 B’way at 95th St.
May 16
12 Hour Free Marathon
11 a.m. – 11 p. m.  

My wife and I have been witnesses to this glorious event since it began in 1978. Nothing shows off New York at its best, than when 5,000 people wait patiently on line to fill just 800 seats, and the people in the seats unselfishly give up their squatting rights after two sublime hours of free entertainment. Previous Wall to Wall marathons we have attended were devoted to Bach, Beethoven, Richard Rodgers, the George Balanchine, Kurt Weill and Duke Ellington. Our favorite took place in 2005: Wall to Wall Stephen Sondheim, which I anticipate will be matched in enthusiasm and talent with Wall to Wall Broadway. Words to the wise: get there very early. Seeing and hearing performers doing Sondheim was, well, a religious experience. I play the original live recording constantly. Now to that religious experience – they pass the “plate” (or to be accurate, wicker baskets) which are filled and re-filled to overflowing by the congregation. Hosted and staged by Symphony Space Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer, the event will feature an array of works from Broadway—songs, overtures, dance music, even songs from kid-friendly musicals in the morning segment—performed by hundreds of well known and emerging artists. Some of the highlighted performers include Brian Stokes Mitchell, Tony Award Winner for Kiss Me, Kate, Raul Esparza, Tony Award Winner for Company, Donna Murphy, four time Tony Award nominee and winner for Passion and The King and I; James Naughton, Tony Winner for City of Angels; Liz Callaway, Tony nominee for Babyand Artistic Director Sheffer himself performing Don Jose from Far Rockaway from Wish You Were Here. Tony Award-winning musical director Paul Gemignani will conduct the orchestra for the “Broadway Classics” segment from 8 p.m.-11 p.m. This year’s event will also feature a discussion with storied producer Harold Prince, winner of 21 Tony Awards, as well as segments titled “Musicals That Inspired Me” and “Gems From Flops” hosted by noted musical theatre scholar and author Leonard Fleischer and President of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization Theodore Chapin. Additionally, Sheldon Harnick, dean of American Musical Theater Lyricists (and a fine singer himself) (Fiorello!, She Loves Me,Fiddler on the Roof) will talk with Broadway’s youngest composer-lyricist, Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights), while the current casts from shows including West Side Story, Guys and Dolls and South Pacific will stop by to perform. Throughout the event, the lobby and theater interior will be alive with large-scale reproductions of great Broadway drawings by the incomparable Al Hirschfeld .

New York Philharmonic
Annual Free Memorial Day Concert
The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street
May 25, 8 p.m.
David Robertson, conductor
IVES The Unanswered Question
BARBER Adagio for Strings
MESSIAEN L’Ascension

For the past 17 years, one of the joys of my wife’s and my Memorial Day summer weekends has been visiting St. John the Divine for a free concert by our great New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The glory and majesty of this fantastic gothic cathedral – whose vast interior underwent refurbishing, inclusive of expanded seating - have improved the sight lines but will never entirely mitigate its forbidding acoustics. That should not deter you from waiting patiently on line with other hardy New York music lovers for a memorable event.

THEATER

(L-R) Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini are the formidable foursome in God of Carnage. All four have recieved Best Actor Tony nominations Photo: Joan Marcus

Click Here for Hal Drucker’s interview with Jeff Daniels

God of Carnage
Bernard Jacobs Theater
242 W. 45th St.
212-239-6200

Hands down, this is the best new play to reach Broadway this season. Your laugh motor will be running throughout its 90 quicksilver intermission-less minutes. It will rev up from the sober, straight lines at its inception, to its penultimate Punch (& Judy) lines, with a capital “P” and I don’t mean pool. The primrose path of God of Carnage leading to the Jacobs Theater has been unorthodox to say the least, given that it was written in French by Yasmina Reza and opened in Zurich and was also mounted in Bratislava. As for London, it was enthusiastically received, winning the coveted Olivier Award for Best Comedy, with Ralph Fiennes in the pivotal role of Alan. In this production which should run for eons, Reza’s beautifully realized characters are two sets of parents in a gentrified area of Brooklyn. This shore’s Alan (Jeff Daniels), is a smooth-talking corporate lawyer with an omnipresent cell phone, for which he makes no apologies, to stay au courant on the potential FDA banning of a wonder drug of a pharmaceutical client. His wife Annette, played by Hope Davis, [who is receiving deserved accolades for her appearance on HBO’s In Treatment series] is a “wealth manager.” They visit the apartment of Michael (James Gandolfini), a merchandiser, and his wife Veronica (Marcia Gay Harden), an author who is writing a book on Darfur. The quartet have gathered in a civilized fashion to discuss antiseptically how best to deal with Alan and Annette’s son who has hit Michael and Veronica’s son with a stick. Whether unprovoked or provoked - the breaking of two of the young man’s incisors is the end result. Reza once again is well-served by Christopher Hampton’s adroit translation. Its clever staging by Matthew Warchus runs from civilized drawing room repartee to physical, baggy pants comedy abetted by rum, segueing to combative couch-wrestling, to unrelenting vomiting by Annette all over Veronica’s prized coffee-table art books. Two earlier plays by Reza, earned accolades: Art with Alan Alda and “Life x 3” with John Turturro and Helen Hunt. In this comedic caper, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden have at it, oh so subtly, building to visceral in-fighting to primordial ass-kicking. The question for the jury is how Gandolfini fares in his post-Tony Soprano persona. And the answer is very well indeed. In terms of girth and amiability, I could visualize him as Lennie in Of Mice and Men, and as Curly of the Three Stooges. As Gandolfini points out, Alan Alda was able to seamlessly make the transition from Hawkeye Pierce to a slew of other non-typecast roles.

 

West Side Story
Palace
1564 B’way & 47 th St.
212-239-6200

The exhilarating rumble between the Jets and the Sharks in the original West Side Story in 1957, will remain in my mind and heart as the most exciting opening number in my more than 70 years of theater-going. I have seen the show several times in various incarnations as well as the stunningly choreographed 1961 movie version. My wife and kids visited the Hollywood set as Director Robert Wise was overseeing the gymnasium sequence. Oh, and I should add New York City Ballet’s West Side Story Suite, choreographed of course by Jerome Robbins. Maybe it’s the old saw about familiarity, or just too much of a good thing, but in spite of the nonagenarian Arthur Laurent’s being at the helm, this production didn’t register in the kishkes, as so many others have done. No, it had nothing to do with having a boy soprano singing the Leonard Bernstein’s haunting Somewhere, or doing I Feel Pretty as Siento Hermosa and other Lin Manuel-Miranda's translations of the Stephen Sondheim lyrics. On the plus side, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, and Josefina Scaglione as Maria, lived up to the original beguiling Star-crossed lovers, Larry Kert and Carole Lawrence. However two key players, George Akram and Cody Green were exceedingly less fiery as Bernardo and Riff. Of all the the Bernardos, none will top the cinematic George Chakiris - and this may surprise you – the dashing Dane Nicolaj Hübbe, the recently retired New York City Ballet dancer who as Riff also sang and did dialogue in West Side Story Suite. Of late I’ve had the hard luck of missing a principal at a performance. The night I saw it, Karen Olivo, who received rapturous reviews for the pivotal role of Anita, was out and replaced by standby Alena Watters, who did a commendable job. Chita Rivera was marvelous in the original, but I recall with fondness the leggy NYCB Helene Alexopoulos’ combustible performance. If you have never seen a staged production of West Side Story, or have seen it just once, don’t wait another decade to do so. And bring your Grandkids. In deference to sensitive ears, they still sing When You’re a Jet, with the euphemistic phrase ”when the spit hits the fan,” instead of you know what.

NEXT TO NORMAL – Aaron Tveit, Alice Ripley and J. Robert Spencer in the revelatory birthday scene of the musical Next to Normal. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Next to Normal
Second Stage
307 W. 43 rd St.
212-246-4422

When I saw this show a year ago last February Off-Broadway, I predicted that some day it would transfer to Broadway and that its star Alice Ripley, would earn a Tony Award in the process. I believe that prophesy will reach fruition. However Next to Normal  is not eligible for either a Drama Desk or Outer Critics Circle award since it received voter recognition by these two groups last season. It electrifies the audience with its opening number, then commences to send a haymaker to the solar plexus, when it reveals a stupefying family secret at a birthday “celebration.”  The woman of the household, Diana, so ostensibly ebullient, endearing and funny, is revealed to us as a pill-popping obsessive, who puts her husband and daughter in a crisis mode.  The one misstep in this otherwise extraordinary production, is the dropping from the original of a shopping spree at a COSTCO store, which was at once hilarious and provided an incipient clue and welcome contrast to her melancholia.  Diana is  played by Alice Ripley, who sings, acts and invades the stage like a tornado, and fulfils the promise she showed in the short-lived, but superb 1997 musical, Side Show, in which she was joined at the hip (literally) with Emily Skinner. As the Siamese twin Hilton sisters, Ripley and Skinner were co-nominees for a Tony (shades of the Billy Elliot trio). Others in the show who take your breath away with their performances are 17-year-old Jennifer Damiano as daughter Natalie and the compelling Aaron Tveit as son Gabe. J. Robert Spencer has taken over for Brian d’Arcy James as Diana’s husband Dan. Huzzahs to director Michael Grief and Sergio Trujillo for his musical staging. As for the music itself, composed by Tom Kitt with lyrics by Brian Yorkey (as well as the book) to these untutored rock-resistant ears, the vast majority of the numbers are strikingly effective.

Will Swenson is Berger in Hair.

Hair
“The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical”
Al Hirschfeld Theater
302 West 45 th St .
212-239-6200

Forty-two years ago, I saw it, when its anti-war message truly resonated within the serried ranks of the young and the restless and its frontal nudity was almost - but not quite – regarded as a scandal. My main gripe at the time was I couldn’t understand much of the dialogue or almost any of the lyrics (they weren’t miked at the time), It was not until I saw the excellent movie version with Treat Williams as the leading man Berger, that I responded to its message and exuberant music. I missed this Diane Paulus-directed production when it originated in Central Park under the auspices of the Public Theater. My sense is, it was ideally suited to the Park’s Delacorte Theater and it certainly didn’t hurt that it was free theater. As for the transformation to the Hirschfeld, it was good fun, being in an aisle seat where I virtually hobnobbed with the performers as they strutted their stuff up and down the aisles. Here is Drama Desk Colleague Bob Feinberg’s more discerning take on Hair.

Hair
Reviewed by Robert Feinberg.

You saw Rent. You saw Spring Awakening. You saw Passing Strange. Now it’s time to see the “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” that started it all, Hair. The counter-culture musical, with book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot, debuted off-Broadway at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater in 1967, two years before Duncan Sheik was born and when Jonathan Larson was just turning seven. The current run – also a Public Theater production – opened on March 31 at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. Over the past 40 years, the music from Hair has become part of the canon, not just of musical theater, but of all contemporary music: Aquarius; Hair; Easy to Be Hard; Good Morning Starshine; Let the Sun Shine In. In 1969, The Fifth Dimension released a medley of Aquarius and Let the Sunshine In, which won Record of the Year and topped the charts for six weeks. The Cowsills's recording of the title song climbed to #2 on the Billboard charts and Good Morning Starshine was sung on a Sesame Street sequence in 1969. In 1970, ASCAP announced that Aquarius was played more frequently on U.S. radio and television than any other song that year. In 1979, the Miloš Forman film adaptation renewed interest in Hair and its music.

This production delivers a number of strong performers among the “tribe” of players who populate the stage. Will Swenson’s Berger is charismatic and approachable, if a bit old to be thrown out of high school, as the character announces early on in the show. Caissie Levy’s Sheila proves both strong and tender, hurt when Berger rejects her token of affection – a fluorescent yellow thrift-shop shirt – but strong-willed enough to take on any member of the tribe. Gavin Creel’s Claude is a soulful romantic. The remaining 30-some members of the cast, plus a 10-member band, energize the production – whether they are on stage, dancing in the aisles, or sitting on the laps of unsuspecting theater patrons. Two events, both off-stage, impressed this reviewer with the draw and import of Hair. First, the presence of Tom Hanks and his family in the audience at our viewing. Second, the performance – by my 11-year-old as Berger in a community theater production of the show. From Hollywood to the suburbs, the original “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” lives on.

The subway car to Nirvana in Happiness. Photos: Paul Kolnik.

Phyllis Somerville and Miguel Cervantes.

Fred Applegate, Alexander Scheitinger and James Moye.

Happiness
Mitzi Newhouse
Lincoln Center Theater
150 W. 65th St.
212-239-6200

A second musical about Subways?* Yes, as much as I enjoyed the Comden-Green & Jule Styne homage to the New York underground, this subterranean parable is a keen allegory about passengers on their own River Styx with Stanley the subway motorman as Charon the Boatsman. And yes, the disparate New York riders, inured to the inevitability of stalls and breakdowns, take it in their stride that they are heading to what they hope to be Nirvana instead of Hades - with one exception, which I won’t reveal. The conceit is that if each passenger candidly recounts his or her most perfect memory to Stanley (Hunter Foster), who looks and sounds for all the world like Nobert Leo Butz, each person will spend eternity in that magic moment. With but one misstep, six of the moments are done beautifully. I especially liked Helen, played touchingly by Phyllis Somerville, who recounts her time in a USO canteen as a much younger Helen (Alessa Neeck) struts her stuff with a serviceman in a Lindy Hop number entitled: Flibberty Jibbers and Wobbly Knees. Another terrific number is: Best Seats in the Ballpark, with Fred Applegate as Kevin, looking back to the time when his Dad took his young self (Alexander Scheitinger) to a ballgame. A charming and very funny sequence takes place between hospital interns Cindy ( Pearl Sun) and her husband Neil (Robert Petkoff) who teach each other Chinese and Yiddish in a scene called Family Flash Cards. (The Mandarin I couldn’t understand, but mikvah and chutzpah were no problem for me). Others who excel are Joanna Gleason in her best role in years as Arlene (Road to Nirvana) and Ken Page (Old Deuteronomy from the original Cats) as Maurice (Perfect Memories). A bow to Susan Stroman for her impeccable staging and choreography, to set designer Thomas Lynch for his adroit simulation of a cutaway subway car, and certainly to Scott Frankel and Michael Korie for their inspired score and lyrics. I was delighted to see that the promise they showed in the first act of the musical Grey Gardens with its Cole Porteresque touches has been fully realized. *Subways are for Sleeping.

Impressionism
Schoenfeld Theater
236 West 45th St.
212-239-6200

I knew the economy was in trouble and more specifically Impressionism, (the play, not the movement) when I spotted a man in Times Square with a sandwich-board incongruously hawking the fastidiously ept Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen in this pretentious new play that is astonishingly inept.

Chasing Manet
59E59 Theaters
59 E. 59th St.
212-279-4200
Through May 2.

When we looked up from our seats in the tidily tiered 59E59 Theater we saw a gaggle of wheelchairs hanging ominously from the rafters. Was this to be a sequel to Susan Stroman’s dancing walkers number from The Producers? Or was it a foretelling of a play that would remind my wife of her recent time in a rehab center after her knee operation. From one activity to another, she was part of a cordon of wheelchairs that would be lined up at every elevator entrance like the Spanish Armada. After one day there, we said to each other (and this was a superior facility) - Let’s get the hell out of here. And that’s exactly what we did at intermission, one of the few plays to blessedly have what the British call an interval. For this Tina Howe comedy(?)-drama, think Gertrude Berg meets Tallulah Bankhead. A frumpy Jewish widow Rennie, (Lynn Cohen) who converses with her dead husband and Jane Alexander (Catherine Sargent) a distant Brahman cousin to John Singer Sargent, incongruously share a room at a nursing facility in Riverdale in the Bronx in the mid-1980s, with Catherine intent on making her escape to Paris, where she will revisit her favorite painting, Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, in the Louvre. Jane Alexander, a distinguished former chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts with whom I had the pleasure of working, and an actress who excelled in The Sisters Rosensweig, has, along with another great lady, Joan Allen been victimized by two creaky vehicles about French masters, in inverse proportion to their talents.

Chad L. Coleman as Herald (left) and Roger Robinson as Bynum in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Photo: Charles Erickson.

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
Lincoln Center Theater Belasco
111 W. 44 th St.
212-239-6200

Of August Wilson’s monumental 10-play cycle covering a like number of decades devoted to the African-American experience in the 20th century, I have seen all but one, with Joe Turner’s Come and Gone ranking a close second in my estimation to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson. I first saw the play in 1988. Set in 1911, it takes place in a boardinghouse in the Pittsburgh neighborhood called the Hill, the venue for most of Wilson’s plays. It has towering performances by an ensemble of remarkable actors led by Roger Robinson as the mystical Bynum Walker houngan, or voodoo priest. Bynum performs weird rituals with pigeons, serves as faith healer and seer, but most of all, he has (or so he suggests) a disarming facility for binding people together, so that they can find each other if they are separated. Seth (Ernie Hudson) and Bertha Holly (Latanya Richardson Jackson), compassionately minister to their boardinghouse's variety of visitors, mostly blacks coming North in search of jobs and prosperity. The lives of the boarders are roiled by the arrival of Herald Loomis (Chad L. Coleman, in a magnificent Broadway debut) and his daughter Zonia (Amari Rose Leigh). This is a play that militates against any pat narrative synopsis. Its fascination lies in the music of the crafty, Wilsonian dialogue. One of the thrilling, show-stopping moments in theater, is the ‘’juba” sequence, in which everyone except Herald are seated around the dinner table. Seth taps out an African cadence, and he is joined by the others with complementary rhythms and dance movements, culminating with Bertha’s irrepressible “juba” solo. The masterly direction is by Lincoln Center’s Bartlett Sher who also staged the revival of South Pacific.

Young Billy and his adult self (Stephen Hanna, late of the New York City Ballet) dance so sublimely to Swan Lake that Terpsichore herself must be smiling down at every performance.

Billy Elliott the Musical
Imperial
249 W. 45th St.
212-239-6200

Billy Elliott is beyond “glorious.” It is a feast for the eyes, ears and soul. I’m getting the chills just thinking about perhaps the most spectacular piece of choreography since Susan Stroman’s rooftop dance in Crazy for You and Jerome Robbins’s “Rumble” in West Side Story. I speak of Solidarity, a choreographic masterpiece by Peter Darling that simultaneously integrates striking coal miners, riot police, a dance class of tutu-clad little girls and of course Billy himself. If you’re not familiar with the plot, I suggest you first rent the wonderful 2000 movie which boasts not solely Peter Darling as choreographer, but Stephen Daldry as director and Lee Hall as screenwriter, all of whom have the same responsibilities for the musical. Hall goes a step further as lyricist to Elton John’s (surprising to me) spot-on score, patently worthy of knighthood. As I’m sure you’re aware, there are three young teens rotating as Billy (owing to the stamina the role requires, not to mention child-labor considerations). Of the three, only Trent Kowalik whom we had the good fortune of seeing, has played the role before, in London's West End, where he perfected his Newcastle-upon-Tyne "Geordie" dialect that belies his Long Island roots. Kowalik is so winning, so intrinsic to the action, so extraordinarily versatile in song and dance, that I’m hard-pressed to conceive of the other two being as accomplished (which of course they surely must be). So too, must be the two performers who play Michael, Billy’s exuberantly saucy friend who loves to dress up in girls’ clothes. “Our Michael” was played by Frank Dolce, who showed his mettle by not sacrificing a step when he lost his dancing shoe during an ensemble tap number. Special praise for Haydn Gwynne, who created the role of Mrs. Wilkinson, Billy’s ballet instructor, in London, a cross between Roz Russell’s Auntie Mame and Elaine Stritch - and Gregory Jbara as Billy’s uncomprehending coal miner Dad who becomes as supportive of the boy’s efforts as we mesmerized audience members.

“And when your youth and joy invade my heart.” Li Jun Li is Liat, Matthew Morrison who was Lieutenant Cable has since been replaced by Andrew Samonsky.

“What ain’t we got? We ain’t got dames.” Danny Burstein is Luther Billis, irrepressible leader of the the SeaBees.

“Her skin is tender as DiMaggio’s glove.” Loretta Ables Sayre is Bloody Mary.

Happy Talk, Keep talkin’, Happy talk.

“One hundred and one pounds of fun, that’s my little Honey Bun.” Nellie performs in a Thanksgiving camp show.

South Pacific
Lincoln Center Theater
Vivian Beaumont
150 W. 65th St.
212-239-6200

It happened in the middle of the second act. The earth spins off its access as a tall, incredibly handsome man on the stage of the Vivian Beaumont heartbreakingly intones: Now, now I’m alone, still clinging to Paradise, still saying that Paradise once nearly was mine. The words belong to Emile de Becque, agonizing over the unanticipated leave-taking of Nurse Nellie Forbush. The Rodgers & Hammerstein aria that is This Nearly Was Mine, will henceforth belong to Brazilian bass-baritone, Paolo Szot, who happily returned to the Beaumont as the French Plantation owner, after fulfilling his operatic commitments. Szot’s rendering of this theatrical morsel ranks in this observer’s memory bank with Rex Harrison and Robert Coote’s The Rain in Spain in My Fair Lady; Arthur Rubin’ s Abbondanza in Most Happy Fella; Robert Preston’s Ya Got Trouble in The Music Man; Ray Bolger’s Once in Love with Amy in Where’s Charley; Barbara Cook’s Vanilla Ice Cream in She Loves Me, and the opening rumble between the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story. On my list of 50 top Broadway musicals, published on these pages five years ago, I selected South Pacific as # 3 after West Side Story and A Chorus Line and wrote: Mary Martin as Nellie Forbush "washing that man right out of her hair," Myron McCormick as Luther Billis rolling his tattooed belly during There is Nothing Like a Dame, Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary belting out Bali Hai, William Tabbert as Lieutenant Joe Cable singing You’ve Got to Be Taught, were unforgettable highlights of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s finest musical. Unfortunately for my parents, sister and me, Ezio Pinza, missed his first of many performances the night we saw it in May, 1949. (A year later we saw Ray Middleton take over for Pinza, opposite the incandescent Mary Martin and substantially the same cast). After viewing this magnificent Lincoln Center revival with Kelli O’Hara as Nurse Forbush (she is presently on maternity leave, with Laura Osnes assuming the role) and Szot as Emile de Becque, I am hereby elevating South Pacific to second position. O’Hara, whose chemistry opposite Harry Connick, Jr. in the revival of Pajama Game could have converted C6 H10 05 to C6 H12 06 - demonstrated a versatility for comedy, musical command and a chemical transmutation with Szot that should be packaged by Eli Lilly. Turning to the second pivotal male romantic role, that of Joe Cable, Andrew Samonsky has replaced Matthew Morrison who distanced himself superbly from all intimations of the original, in this case that of the admirable Bill Tabbert. Loretta Ables Sayre as Bloody Mary is the second coming of Juanita Hall, lusty, funny with a rafter-filling voice. Danny Burstein, has the unenviable task of filling the shoes and the grass skirt of Myron McCormack, but he comes thisclose to doing so. Credits to director Bartlett Sher for his impeccable staging on the thrust apron of the Beaumont, and to Ted Sperling for his sterling musical direction of the original Robert Russell Bennett orchestrations. He has the luxury of a 30-player orchestra, thankfully devoid of acoustical instruments. Finally, kudos to Telsey + Company, whomever they may be, for snaring the theatrical unknown, Paulo Szot as the opposite number to the almost axiomatic selection of O’Hara. All I can say, in the words of Emil de Becque’s Polynesian children, is merci beaucoup.

I got the horse right here! (L-R) Spencer Moses as Rusty Charlie, Titus Burgess as Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Steven Rosen as Benny Southstreet, sing Fugue for Tinhorns. Photos: Carol Rosegg

 “A poy-son can develop a cold,” laments Adelaide, played by Lauren Graham.

“So please forgive this helpless haze I’m in. I’ve really never been in love before,” sing Craig Bierko as Sky Masterson and  Kate Jennings Grant as Sarah Brown. 

“Or the devil will drag you under by the sharp lapel of your checkered coat,” sings Nicely–Nicely at the Salvation Army meeting hall.

Guys and Dolls

Nederlander

208 W. 41st St.

212-921-8000

Let me begin by saying that Craig Bierko is the best Sky Masterson I’ve ever seen or heard. And I have seen (in chronological order)  Robert Alda who defined the role back in 1950. Though Alda could not sing a lick he was tough as nails, yet  charismatic,  funny and tender. Alda’s rendition of My Time of Day is a haunting, triumphant anthem of the city we all love, New York, with its lyrics pure poetry,

proving once and for all,  Loesser is More.

My time of day is the dark time
A couple of deals before dawn
When the street belongs to the cop
And the janitor with the mop
And the grocery clerks are all gone.

When the smell of the rain-washed pavement
Comes up clean, and fresh, and cold

And the street lamplight turns the gutter to gold.

That’s my time of day, my time of day

And you’re the only doll I ever wanted to share it

With … me.
And the streetlamp light
Fills the gutter with gold"

After Alda, I saw such other Skys as, would you believe, Alan Jones of Donkey Serenade fame and Peter Gallagher of the 1992 revival who was damned good. As for Brando in the movie version, fuhgettabout it. Sinatra should have been Sky, not Nathan Detroit. It’s unthinkable that Sam Goldwyn and his sycophants eliminated these songs from the movie version, the self-same My Time of Day, the gorgeous love duet  I've Never Been In Love Before,   the  affectionate lullaby-like More I Cannot Wish You and the comic songs A Bushel and a Peck and  Marry the Man Today.  In 1950 or thereabouts  I watched  a TV show with my parents, on their black and white 10” RCA Victor that was devoted to soliciting very modest investments (as little as 50 cents a share) in prospective Broadway shows from the “angels” in the viewing audience. One evening we watched a group of performers on the small screen doing an eminently forgettable number from a fledgling  musical.  I look back with the kind of regret that I have for selling Volume One Number One of the Superman DC comic book for a nickel. The show of course was Guys and Dolls, which in my view is the greatest of all comedy-musicals, thanks to the genius of composer/lyricist Loesser, to writer Abe Burrows and his muse Damon Runyon, to Sam  Levene and Vivian Blaine as Nathan Detroit and Adelaide,  to Isabel Bigley and Alda as Miss Sarah and   Masterson, to Stubby Kaye as Nicely-Nicely, Tom Pedi as Harry the Horse, Johnny Silver as Benny Southstreet and the nightclub comic B.S. Pully with the gravelly voice as Big Jule who made Lenny Bruce seem like Emily Post.  And finally the Hot Box Girls, the chorus line who backed up Miss Adelaide in  A Bushel and a Peck and Take Back that Mink. The last of the Hot Box girls, is my sister’s high school friend Marcia Maier. Without researching I would venture to say, that Marcia is the last of the cast.  If anyone reading this disagrees, write me. As to the present cast, everyone nails his or her part. The two leading ladies, Kate Jennings Grant as Sarah and Lauren Graham as Adelaide are terrific, and Tituss Burgess as Nicely-Nicely Johnson brings down the house with Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat which until now only Stubby Kaye “owned.” Glenn Fleshler  is a sanitized, pasteurized Big Jule without the industrial strength coarseness of Pulley. No one could ever hope to approach the Sue Me of Sammy.  I speak of Sam  Levene as Nathan Detroit, who when he says to Adelaide:

All right already, so call a policeman,

all right already it’s true, so nu, so sue me

sue me, shoot bullets troo me, I love you.

 Sam Levene invaded the stage with his chuzpah and a voice that sounded like he gargled with chicken fat.  Oliver Pratt, technically an accomplished actor, phumphers his way through it. The only other misstep is opening the show by injecting an actor who is ostensibly Damon Runyon pecking his way on a Remington with the show’s title on a big screen. It’s followed by an innocuous dance number and then – finally – with the Morning Line in their hot little hands, Fugue for Tinhorns:

Equipoise, Epitaph, Paul Revere,

I got the horse right here! .

What a musical. See it once, see it twice, and be sure to take the grandkids.

Jane Fonda as Katherine Brandt and Zach Grenier in the background as Ludwig van Beethoven, in 33 Variations. Photo: Joan Marcus

33 Variations

Eugene O’Neill Theater

230 w. 49th St.

212-239-6200

Through May 24.

Jane Fonda returns to the Broadway stage after 46 years and she is sterling as the musicologist Dr. Katherine Brandt who tackles what I found to be a fascinating premise by the playwright/director Moisés Kaufman,to wit: that Ludwig van Beethoven (along with other composer luminaries of the time – circa 1819), were asked by their publisher Anton Diabelli, to do a variation of an admittedly mundane waltz  Diabelli had written for an anthology he was planning. A truly imaginative bit of stage ploy has Diabelli (Don Amendolia) shocked and awed by the notion that the great maestro (Zach Grenier)  through his aide-de-camp Anton Schindler (Erik Steele)  not only  agreed to do a variation, but for some unfathomable reason proceeded  to do a total of 33 variations, snatches of which are performed throughout the evening by the pianist/musical director Diane Walsh.  To solve the puzzle that propelled Beethoven to devote quality time to such a seemingly inconsequential project while becoming progressively deaf , Brandt travels to Bonn, where she is given access to Beethoven’s scores and notes by the keeper of the archives Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger, who is played smartly and drolly by  Susan Kellerman.. Underscoring the whole business is the incipient progression of ALS on Brandt, and her  tenuous relationship with her daughter, Clara, (played by Samantha Mathis). As a classical music aficionado,  I would position 33 Variations in the rarefied company of  Terrence McNally’s masterful Master Class with Zoe Caldwell and his amusing The Stendahl Syndrome with Richard Thomas.

Angela Lansbury (center) as Madame Arcati initiates  a spiritual journey with her all-too- willing participants, (clockwise) Deborah Rush as Mrs. Bradman, Rupert Everett as Charles, Jayne Atkinson as Ruth and Simon Jones as Dr. Bradman.   Photo: Robert J. Saferstein

Blithe Spirit

Schubert Theater

225 W. 44th St.

212-239-6200

Noël Coward directed his first production of Blithe Spirit at the Savoy Theatre in London during the Blitz. Among the main cast members was the great Margaret Rutherford as the ditzy medium  Madame Arcati.   I remember her most fondly as the  personification of Mrs. Malaprop which co-starred Sir Ralph Richardson in a London Production I saw in the early ‘60s of The Rivals at the Haymarket Theater.  It was clear to me she was off her game, blowing a line here and there. In short order she had to leave the show with the onset of Alzheimer’s.  Until this revival I had never seen a stage version of Blithe Spirit, but I did see an undistiguished musical version called High Spirits in 1964, notable only for  the great Bea Lillie as Madame Arcati and Tammy Grimes as Elvira in 1964. Lillie of course did her well-documented centifugal-defying,  oversized pearl necklace routine which she twirled around her neck with a bob of the head. Lillie, at age 94, also died of Alzheimer’s. Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati is more than inspired casting. It would be unthinkable for any one in theaterdom other than Lansbury to play her. With a raised eyebrow here, a drooping mouth there, you are convinced that this irrepressible, martini-swilling, Irving Berlin-adoring minx has occult powers. To insinuate that she is a mere party-game trickster as the stiff-upper-lip Cowardian novelist Charles Condomine – played impeccably by  Rupert Everett - does, goes beyond the pale. A post-prandial séance that Charles arranges as research for a murder mystery he’s developing, includes his second wife Ruth and their invited guests the Bradmans (Simon Jones and Deborah Rush).  Charles is stupefied by Arcati’s miscalculated conjuring of his dead first wife Elvira who materializes in a ghostly white ensemble. She is seen and heard only by Charles and we in the audience. Though under the guiding hand of  Tony-winning Michael Blakemore, she is played by Christine Ebersole without a scintilla of nuance, in stark contrast to the diverting performance of Jayne Atkinson as Ruth who in looks and class, conjures up intimations of of Kitty Carlisle Hart.

MOVIES

Zach (Left) and Chris.

Symbiotic Cinema
By Zach Drucker and Chris Poldoian | Bad Samaritans

Gone are the days of the burly, strapping, macho heroes like Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Now, America appreciates the goofy, awkward, out-of-shape protagonists like Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel. Okay, Segel’s not out of shape per se, but the man wore Uggs to the beach in I Love You, Man (2009). Need we say more? This recent transition from brawny to scrawny has swept the country due to the efforts of one producer/writer/director/god of the harvest: Judd Apatow. Apatow’s characters may not be weightlifters, but they have the only muscle that matters: heart. Apatow’s humble beginnings came in television, where he worked on NBC’s Freaks and Geeks. The show featured Rogen and Segel in all their pimply, teenaged glory. Unfortunately, the series was simply too smart for its own good and was cancelled after one season. Both Segel and Rogen had dropped out of high school, thinking that “Freaks” was their golden ticket to the land of milk and honey. With their floundering futures on his conscience, Apatow decided to place the boys in his movies.

This past month has seen the release of Apatow-less films starring two of his comedic prodigies, each to differing levels of success.

Jason Segel’s I Love You, Man has already garnered $58 million in four weeks and thrives off of its bromantic humor and Apatowian qualities. Apatowian-influenced films like Knocked Up (2007), 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Superbad (2007) all have raunchy exteriors with deep friendships, character-driven plots and witty dialogue. The best scenes in I Love You, Man have the instantly quotable banter between Rudd and Segel. When you watch this movie, you can easily picture yourself having the same conversation with your BFF. Rudd and Segel’s onscreen chemistry holds together the movie’s relatively flimsy plot. While you won’t find Apatow’s name in the credits, there’s no denying his influence on this comedy. Seth Rogen’s Observe and Report (2009), on the other hand, focuses on one character: an unlikable mall cop. There are no chummy, buddy-buddy scenes. Instead, we get date rape, beatdowns and tasers. The movie is so dark and transgressive that one often wonders how it even got a mainstream release. We don’t mind the pitch-black humor and mean-spiritedness of Rogen’s new film. In all honesty, we enjoyed seeing Travis Bickle shine through Rogen’s portrayal of the bipolar Ronnie Barnhardt, but judging by its $11 million opening weekend performance, it looks like “Report” will be as fiscally flaccid as Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008). Apatow may have paved the way for young actors like Rogen and Segel, but he also holds the key to their success. As soon as they stray from the Apatovian formula, these actors lose their appeal. We know that actors should always strive to be multifaceted and flexible. But take a look at Dennis Quaid. He has been playing the “wise, middle-aged dad who is just reaching the end of his prime, but still sort of has sex appeal if you are into the whole male cougar thing” role for his entire life. And our boy is still making bank. Anyway, we have words of advice for Apatow’s disciples: stay within your element. Currently, Apatovian comedies are some of the most financially successful and critically acclaimed films out there, so why ruin a good thing? If Seth Rogen wants to continue voicing CG characters named Hogsqueal and B.O.B., that’s fine by us. Otherwise, maybe Apatow and Rogen’s upcoming 2009 collaboration Funny People will help Rogen hop back on the Apatovian bandwagon for good.

Zach Drucker and Chris Poldoian are freshmen who have not yet declared majors. They can be reached at Zachary.Drucker@tufts.edu and Christopher.Poldoian@tufts.edu

Perestroika
This is a lofty, yet puzzlingly convoluted movie, featuring three generally competent actors, Sam Robards, F. Murray Abraham and Ally Sheedy. Written and directed by Slava Tsukerman. It takes place in Moscow in 1992 with Robards as Sasha Greenberg, returning as a hero after 17 years of exile, having been reviled as a traitor. Abraham, given the right kind of direction, can be a truly illuminating stage actor, as he was most recently in Mauritius and Almost an Evening. Here as Greenberg’s mentor Gross, he gives an over the top performance that Tsukerman should have reined in.

MUSEUMS

Skiffs on The Yerres.

The Floor Scrapers.

Brooklyn Museum
Gustave Caillebotte
Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn , NY 11238-6052
718-638-5000
Through July 5
By Slice of NY Arts Correspondent Nancy Treiger.

For the past 30 years there has not been a major showing of the works of Gustave Caillebotte, the French Impressionist artist. It is fitting that the Brooklyn Museum is again the venue of this charming and interesting exhibit. This Museum introduced Caillebote to the American public in 1977. Caillebote was born into a wealthy, privileged family. He was trained as a lawyer and engineer. After his service in the military he studied academic painting, but found himself more attracted to the innovative style of the Impressionists. He became an important collector and supporter of the works of Renoir, Monet, Degas, Pisarro and Sisley. His works reflect his fascination with the working man, painting them in the act of building bridges, scrapping floors, painting exteriors. The show also explores his interest in the effects of light and water. Caillebote was a champion yachstman, and actually designed and  constructed  sailing vessels. His boating paintings capture the pleasurable experience of being on the water.  Caillebotte's ability to capture the beauty of trees, water and light, shines forth in the painting titledSkiffs on The Yerres. One feels as if you are moving languidly in your own skiff.  

Literary Life in France during Occupation.
Exhibition Hall (First Floor)
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
The New York Public Library
Fifth Ave and 42nd St,
11:00AM to 6:00PM
917-ASK-NYPL
Through July 25
By Slice of NY Arts Correspondent Maury Leon.

The New York Public Library offers a wealth of exhibits, lectures and concerts. ‘Between Collaboration and Resistance,’ an exhibit at the Main Branch at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue portrays literary – and everyday - life in France under Nazi occupation. Extensive documentation walks the viewer though the black period between June 1940 and the end of occupation four years later. It was sorrow and pity and misery for those few who opposed the occupation: opportunity for those who ‘collaborated’ with the Nazi rulers. The exhibit is arranged into eight sections: ‘Everyday Life in France:’ ‘Living with Vichy:’ ‘Seduction and Collaboration:’ ‘Resistance:’ ‘Complex Itineraries:’ ‘Dire Fate – Prisons, Deportation and Labor’: ‘International Solidarity’ and ‘Aftermath.’ Arranged chronologically, each section contains letters, diaries and documents with descriptive annotations that move the viewer through this terrible period with a focus on writers and publishers. A film of clips from ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’ shows us what it was like then and there. The exhibit embodies the palpable tragedy borne of the loss of freedom and with it, the subjugation of the spirit and body. Authors writing during that period describe what life was like at that time. Irene Némirovsky writing in ‘Suite française,’ takes us through the prelude to and German occupation of Paris and the exodus of refugees from Paris to the south. The literary organ ’la lettres francaises’ defied the occupiers and an ‘underground’ broadside published in Paris called ’‘Resistance’ was the work of a few ‘intellectuals’ from a small museum. Those who worked on the newsletters understood the severe consequence of their actions, should they get caught – and often they were.

TALK

David Gregory in Conversation
With Jeff Greenfield
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Ave.
(212) 415-5500
May 26 - 8pm.

CBS Analyst Jeff Greenfield turns the tables on NBC’s Meet the Press moderator David Gregory, and the audience is in for a provocative, humorous evening, given Greenfield’s droll ability to bring the best out of a guest. In addition to his Meet the Press responsibilities, Gregory is a regular contributor for Today and serves as a back-up anchor to Matt Lauer for the broadcast. He is also an analyst on MSNBC and lends his voice and reporting to all NBC News broadcasts, including coverage of special events. Gregory first joined NBC News in 1995, serving as White House Correspondent during the presidency of George W. Bush, reporting extensively on the 9-11 attacks as well as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gregory has also covered three presidential campaigns in 2000, 2004 and 2008.

CABARET

Barbara Cook
Here’s To Life
Feinstein’s at the Regency
540 Park Avenue
212-339-4095.
April 28, 29, 30 8:30 p.m.
May 1, 8 p.m.
May 2, 8 p.m.& 10:30 p.m

Together with Karen Akers, 82-Year-old Barbara Cook has demonstrated her pitch-perfect versatility on the Broadway stage (The Music Man, Candide and She Loves Me) and for more than 25 years, the world of cabaret. Speaking of Broadway, I would have given 10 shares of Ford to hear Barbara sing her glorious showstopper Ice Cream from Sheldon Harnick’s and Jerry Bock’s She Loves Me.

Best of her selections were two Harold Arlen classics: You’re a Builder Upper and from the movie Casbah, the beautiful, but relatively unknown, It Was Written in the Stars. And please Barbara, give Sondheim’s Send in the Clown a rest. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, does it. On the plus side, Cook whom I interviewed more than 20 years ago ,at the now defunct Michael’s Pub, has an extraordinary backup team: Lee Musiker – Music Director / Piano;  James Saporito – Percussion; Peter Donovan – Bass ; Lawrence Feldman – Woodwinds