Theater (Off Broadway)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Theater

      New York’s Public Theater Lays Off 19 Percent of Its Staff

      by

      The institution, a titan among nonprofit theaters, is suffering from the combined effects of falling revenue and rising costs plaguing the arts world.The Public Theater, one of the nation’s most prestigious and successful nonprofit theaters, laid off 19 percent of its staff on Thursday as a financial crisis sweeps across the field.The move, which cost about 50 people their jobs, followed a 13 percent layoff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and a 10 percent layoff at the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles.The Public, headquartered in Lower Manhattan and presenting work primarily Off Broadway, is by almost any measure a titan among nonprofit theaters — the birthplace of “A Chorus Line” and “Hamilton,” the originator and presenter of Free Shakespeare in the Park, and a creative anchor for some of the nation’s most influential dramatists.But the theater, like many others, is suffering from the combined effects of falling revenue and rising costs.“The economic headwinds that are attacking the American theater are attacking us, too,” Oskar Eustis, the theater’s artistic director, said in an interview. “Our audience is down by about 30 percent, we have expenses up anywhere from 30 to 45 percent, and we have kept our donor base, but it’s static. Put that all together, and you get budget shortfalls — big budget shortfalls.”Eustis said the Public would not shutter any programs beyond its previous decision to put its Under the Radar Festival, an annual program of experimental work, on indefinite hiatus.But Eustis said the Public would need to reduce the amount of theater it is staging in the short term — its next season, he said, will feature five shows at its Astor Place building, down from 11 in the last full season before the coronavirus pandemic. The traditional Shakespeare in the Park program will also not take place next year because its home, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, will be undergoing a long-planned renovation, but Eustis said the company is seeking a way to present some Shakespeare at an alternate location (or locations) next summer.The theater’s executive director, Patrick Willingham, said the cuts would be spread across the company’s operations. “It’s a pullback in every department at every level,” he said.The Public currently has about 246 full-time positions, Willingham said. The company had a previous round of layoffs in 2021 as it tried to rebound following the pandemic closure of theaters, and it also had staff furloughs at the height of the pandemic. Willingham said this week’s layoffs were not a surprise to the staff because the need for spending cuts had been discussed internally for some time. “We’ve been really transparent with the employees over the course of this year,” he said. “We’ve been really clear that we were going to have to make reductions.”Willingham said the Public’s annual budget during the next fiscal year will be around $50 million, down from about $60 million before the coronavirus pandemic. He added that, thanks to federal pandemic relief funds and royalties from “Hamilton,” the theater is hoping it will not have a budget deficit during its current fiscal year, which ends next month, or the following fiscal year. “We’re making decisions that are actually trying to get ahead of what we’re seeing as this nationwide trend,” Willingham said, “so that we can get to a sustainable model we can rely on year after year.”Eustis, who is among the best-compensated artistic directors in the field, said he will cut his own pay by an unspecified amount — “I will be taking a significant reduction in salary,” he said — but that “nobody else would or should” have a salary reduction.He added that the Public remains committed to its Public Works program, in which amateur performers join professionals to put on musical pageants adapted from classic works, and its mobile unit, which presents Shakespeare in a variety of locations in and around the city, including at prisons and community centers.Eustis called the cuts “absolutely necessary to secure the Public’s security and future,” but also “tremendously sad and difficult.” However, at a time when some theaters are closing as a result of financial problems, Eustis said the Public is in no such danger.“This is not an existential crisis,” he said. “We are taking moves that mean that the Public’s existence and future will not be threatened. The Public will be here, and performing its mission, long past the time you and I are here.” More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      Review: In ‘Malvolio,’ Hope (and a Title Role) for a Damaged Heart

      by

      The Classical Theater of Harlem follows up last year’s winning “Twelfth Night” with a sequel that feels like a sweet summer frolic.Poor old Malvolio. Amid the comic romance of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” he is the imperious steward who gets cruelly pranked for sport, duped by a band of smart alecks who forge a love letter seemingly addressed to him.Believing that the missive is from the countess he adores, and thinking he is following her wishes, he dresses garishly in yellow stockings with cross-garters and behaves as if he’s come unhinged. Then he is locked away in darkness, where his tormentors continue to mess with his mind.It’s a rancid kind of meanness, but the playwright Betty Shamieh has turned it into a hero’s origin story with her clever, winking new play “Malvolio.” And the Classical Theater of Harlem, whose “Twelfth Night” last July was an effervescent delight, has fashioned this sequel into a sweet summer frolic, with the sympathetic Allen Gilmore reprising what is now the title role.Twenty years after the end of “Twelfth Night,” Malvolio is long gone from the island of Illyria. A respected military general in a stubborn war, he is the leader of the Legion of the Cross-Gartered. (Fabulous name, that; fun uniforms, too, by Celeste Jennings.) But his past mistreatment festers in him.“My humiliation made me reckless,” he says. “Reckless men make great soldiers.”The fleet-footed production, featuring a very funny John-Andrew Morrison, center, as a bored king, is now at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park.Richard TermineIn Ian Belknap and Ty Jones’s fleet-footed production at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, most of the old gang from “Twelfth Night” is still back on Illyria, living not so happily ever after. The marriage of Viola (Perri Gaffney) and Orsino (René Thornton Jr.) totters on despite his infidelity — and his preference for seeing her disguised as a boy, as she was when he fell in love with her.It’s Volina (Kineta Kunutu), their strong-minded daughter, who takes up the mantle of romance and adventure. Betrothed against her wishes to Prince Furtado (J.D. Mollison) — a misogynistic nitwit and sole heir to the uber-bored King Chadlio (John-Andrew Morrison, so funny that you will root for the king to survive various attempts on his life) — Volina slips out of Illyria and meets Malvolio by chance. She falls instantly, persuasively in love with him.Critical of war, skeptical of marriage and astute about the warping effect of defining oneself through trauma, “Malvolio” regards its characters from a distinctly female point of view. Paying close attention to the women, Shamieh has fun with callbacks to assorted Shakespeare plays; Volina’s nurse (Marjorie Johnson) was once Juliet’s.With a color palette that pops, and choreography (by Dell Howlett) that does, too, this is a visually and aurally enticing production. (The set is by Christopher and Justin Swader, lighting by Alan C. Edwards, video by Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor and music by Frederick Kennedy.) If the characters’ tangled relationships are a bit complex for the uninitiated, that’s also true in “Twelfth Night.” The big picture here is perfectly clear.Does Malvolio have enough hope in his damaged heart to risk loving Volina back? Will she even be free to choose him if he does? Well, it is a comedy — with last-minute reveals that are entirely in the spirit of Shakespeare, and utterly charming.It’s free, by the way. Treat yourself.MalvolioThrough July 29 at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan; cthnyc.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      Review: This ‘Hamlet’ Under the Stars Is No Walk in the Park

      by

      The Public Theater’s alfresco production has plenty to offer audiences who know the play already. But it may not be so easy for newcomers.For those who remember the 2019 Shakespeare in the Park production of “Much Ado About Nothing” — as I do, fondly — the sight that awaits them at this summer’s “Hamlet” in the same location is disturbing.Entering the Delacorte Theater, you are immediately faced with what looks like a copy of the earlier show’s set, which depicted the handsome grounds of a grand home in a Black suburb of Atlanta. But now it is utterly ruined. The facade is atilt, the S.U.V. tipped nose-first in a puddle, the Stacey Abrams for President banner torn down and in tatters. The flagpole bearing the Stars and Stripes sticks out of the ground at a precipitous angle, like a javelin that made a bad landing.For the director Kenny Leon and the scenic designer Beowulf Boritt, both returning for this “Hamlet” — the Public Theater’s fifth in the park since 1964 and 13th overall — it’s a coup de théâtre, if an odd one. However smartly the setting provokes a shiver of dread in those who recognize it, and dread is certainly apt for a play in which nine of the main characters die, it can only produce a shrug from anyone else. An approach that had been designed to welcome audiences to a new way of looking at Shakespeare in 2019 now seems destined to exclude them.I’m afraid the same holds for the production overall: It is full of insight and echoes for those already in the know, and features lovely songs (by Jason Michael Webb) and a few fine performances that anyone can enjoy. (Ato Blankson-Wood brings a vivid anger to the title role.) But this “Hamlet” has been placed in a frame that doesn’t match what the production actually delivers, leaving me glad to have seen it but wishing for something more congruent.Part of the problem is that the frame — both Black and military as in Leon’s “Much Ado” — is so prominent at the start and irrelevant thereafter. Instead of beginning the play as written, with the ghost of Hamlet’s father, Leon stages his funeral as a prologue, with Marine Corps pallbearers, a praise team singing settings of Bible verses and Ophelia (Solea Pfeiffer) channeling Beyoncé.Only after this welcoming opening do we get the awful scenes in which the dead king, appearing to Hamlet, urges revenge on the brother who murdered him and then married his wife. As his giant funeral portrait comes to life through psychedelic special effects, Hamlet confusingly lip-syncs his beyond-the-grave voice, provided by Samuel L. Jackson in Darth Vader mode.But don’t be misled by that martial tone, any more than by the set, the Marines and the military cut of Jessica Jahn’s costumes for the men. (For the women they are colorful and gorgeous.) The war story they seem to promise is not in fact told in this production, as almost all the material concerning Denmark’s beef with Norway, and the consequent need to assure the royal succession, has been cut.Well, something had to be. Uncut, “Hamlet,” the longest of Shakespeare’s plays, would likely run more than four hours without an intermission; here it’s two hours and 45 minutes with one. How different directors make the trims is, in effect, their interpretation. Is the play a dysfunctional family melodrama? A moral inquiry into suicide and murder? A satire of royal courts and courtiers? All are in there.Leon focuses on the interior drama of Hamlet himself, inevitable when you cherry-pick the famous soliloquies. Blankson-Wood delivers them well, if not yet with the easeful expression that turns them into free-flowing thoughts-as-actions instead of words, words, words to be worked on.Still, because the soliloquies follow each other so closely, giving the staging the herky-jerky feeling of a musical without enough book, we get a clear sense of his Hamlet as someone whose interiority and sullenness precede the excuse of his father’s murder. You are not surprised when he turns Bad Boyfriend on Ophelia after (accidentally) killing her father. Ophelia herself is hoist with the same petard. Her descent into insanity, never clearly delineated in the text, is even more sudden with the cuts taken.Something similar happens to many of the other characters, like the interchangeably bro-y Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who make a first impression then all but disappear. The Players are similarly reduced, their version of “The Mousetrap,” with which Hamlet intends to “catch the conscience of the king” now a mime show. And Horatio barely seems to show up in the first place, even though he’s the character Shakespeare leaves standing at the end: enjoined, as Hamlet says dying, to “tell my story.”The show recreates the set from the 2019 Shakespeare in the Park production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” which depicted the grounds of a home in a Black suburb of Atlanta, but now utterly ruined.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIf that story is a bit foggy in this production, others are absolutely clear. As Claudius, John Douglas Thompson brings his usual grave authority to bear but also a fascinating note of insecurity that helps explain the character’s ruthlessness. Daniel Pearce makes of Polonius a hilariously pedantic desk jockey and bad idea bear. (The downside: You don’t mind when he gets knifed.) In Nick Rehberger’s rendering of Laertes, the character’s grief, fury and forgiveness all ring true, even though, as cut, they are nearly simultaneous.And Lorraine Toussaint is an exceptionally subtle, emotionally intelligent Gertrude, grieving her husband’s death but alert to the necessity of loving his killer. For me, she is the center of this production’s tragedy, giving fullest expression to Claudius’s observation that “When sorrows come, they come not single spies,/But in battalions.”That’s an unusual path to cut through the play, but having seen it so many times, I’m happy to go for a ride on its less-traveled roads. Throughout this production I heard arresting poetry I’d somehow missed before (“a pair of reechy kisses”) and saw old ideas revivified by bright new details. (When Polonius sends Laertes off with his tired advice, he also slips him an N95 mask, as other fathers might slip their child condoms.)Yet I worried that those less familiar with “Hamlet,” let alone those more invested in a traditional rendition, would be left unanchored on its heaving sea of meaning. Though performed, and often well, under the open sky of Central Park, its thoughts (as Claudius says) “never to heaven go.” They’re atilt like the house, and, like that javelin, too strangely angled.HamletThrough Aug. 6 at the Delacorte Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      Review: In ‘The Gospel According to Heather,’ the Messiah Has Homeroom

      by

      A lonely high school student discovers she may be a divine messenger in Paul Gordon’s half-baked new Off Broadway musical.“Do you like Kierkegaard?” As flirtatious chit-chat goes, this one sets 17-year-old Heather (Brittany Nicole Williams) apart. You can also see why the jock she’s asking (Carlos Alcala) just walks away. Sadly, this is par for the course for Heather, a pescatarian brainiac who is ostracized by classmates at her Ohio high school for being a “freak,” and quietly stifled at home by a loving but clueless widowed mother (Lauren Elder).How our heroine suddenly gains popularity is at the heart of “The Gospel According to Heather,” a musical by Paul Gordon (“Jane Eyre,” the Off Broadway success “Daddy Long Legs”) that recently opened at Theater 555 in an Amas Musical Theater production directed and choreographed by Rachel Klein (“Red Roses, Green Gold”).The title gives an inkling as to what suddenly improves Heather’s standing: She is revealed as a Messenger, with the disciples and the powers that go with the role. As it turns out, understanding 19th-century Danish philosophers is not the only miracle Heather is capable of. She can also heal the severely injured and bring the occasional hamster back to life. The presence in the cast of Katey Sagal (“The Conners,” “Sons of Anarchy”), the veteran TV actress, almost qualifies as another of those unaccountable surprises.Sagal plays Agatha, a sarcastic woman who uses a wheelchair and whom Heather likes to visit at a senior center. Sagal makes the most of a handful of lines, and then becomes the center of a major 11th-hour twist.Heather’s elevated status leads to new headaches, and she can’t decide if she wants to be an anonymous normie or if the change might have rewarding aspects — the show uneasily tries to navigate satire (of conservative fearmongers), whimsy (those crazy teens!) and spirituality (there is more to the show than a Messenger).What is certain is that Heather is attracting attention from friends and foes alike. The populist podcast host Booker (Jeremy Kushnier) definitely belongs to the foes camp, but it’s unclear at first where the strapping Zach (Carson Stewart) lands.It was probably not a great idea for Gordon to name his main character in a way that triggers memories of the cult movie “Heathers” and its extremely fun musical adaptation from 2014 — especially since like this show, they center on a bright, alienated Ohio girl who falls for a mysterious boy who tends to enter her bedroom through the window. This is not a comparison this show should encourage.The book lacks coherence, but Gordon’s score is frustrating for a different reason: It actually has potential. The production kicks off brightly with “My Name Is Heather Krebs,” a jaunty tune with a couple of solid melodic hooks that suggests there might be more nuggets to come; alas, too many of the numbers sound tacked on or unfinished. If only a teenage Midwestern messiah could come to the rescue.The Gospel According to HeatherThrough July 16 at Theater 555, Manhattan; amasmusical.org. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Frederic Forrest, 86, Dies; Actor Known for ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Rose’

      by

      He appeared in a string of films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and his performance as Bette Midler’s love interest earned him an Oscar nomination.Frederic Forrest, who appeared in more than 80 movies and television shows in a career that began in the 1960s, and who turned in perhaps his two most memorable performances in the same year, 1979, in two very different films — the romantic drama “The Rose” and the Vietnam War odyssey “Apocalypse Now” — died on Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 86.His sister and only immediate survivor, Ginger Jackson, confirmed his death. She said he had been dealing with congestive heart failure.Mr. Forrest began turning up on the stages of La MaMa and other Off and Off Off Broadway theaters in New York in the 1960s. In 1966, he was in “Viet Rock,” an antiwar rock musical by Megan Terry that was staged in Manhattan and in New Haven, Conn., and is often cited as a precursor to “Hair.”In 1970, he moved to Los Angeles and, while working in a pizza restaurant, appeared in a showcase production at the Actors Studio West. The director Stuart Millar saw him there and cast him in his first big film role, as a Ute Indian (though Mr. Forrest had only a little Native American blood) in “When the Legends Die,” starring opposite the veteran actor Richard Widmark. That film, released in 1972, put Mr. Forrest on the map.“Forrest, a husky, strong-featured actor of great sensitivity who probably won’t escape comparisons with the early Brando, holds his own with Widmark,” Kevin Thomas wrote in a review in The Los Angeles Times.From left, Gene Hackman, Cindy Williams and Mr. Forrest in “The Conversation” (1974), the first of several movies directed by Francis Ford Coppola in which Mr. Forrest appeared.via Everett CollectionAmong those impressed with Mr. Forrest’s performance was Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him in “The Conversation” (1974), his study of a surveillance expert played by Gene Hackman. Five years later, Mr. Forrest was on a boat going up a river in search of the mysterious Kurtz in Mr. Coppola’s harrowing “Apocalypse Now.”Critics were divided on the movie as a whole, but Mr. Forrest’s portrayal of a character known as Chef (who ultimately loses his head, literally) was widely praised. The film was shot in the Philippines, an experience Mr. Forrest found grueling.“Because we were creating a surreal, dreamlike war, nightmare personal things began happening. Sometimes we would think we were losing our minds,” he told The New York Times in 1979. “I became almost catatonic in the Philippines. I could think of no reason to do anything.”Less taxing was “The Rose,” in which Ms. Midler played a Janis Joplin-like singer who self-destructs. Mr. Forrest portrayed a limousine driver and AWOL soldier who became her romantic partner.Mr. Forrest, Janet Maslin wrote in a review in The New York Times, “would be the surprise hit of the movie if Miss Midler didn’t herself have dibs on that position.” The role earned him his only Oscar nomination, for best supporting actor. (Melvyn Douglas won that year, for “Being There.”)Mr. Forrest might have seemed poised at that point to become an A-list star. Yet even though he worked steadily throughout the 1980s and ’90s, he landed only a few leading roles, and those movies didn’t do well. His next project with Mr. Coppola was “One From the Heart” (1981), a romance in which he and Teri Garr play a couple who split up and try other partners. Critics savaged the film.Mr. Forrest and Bette Midler in “The Rose” (1979). His performance in that film earned him his first and only Academy Award nomination.Everett CollectionHe next played the title role in Wim Wenders’s “Hammett” (1982), a fictional story about the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, but that movie had only a limited theatrical run. His later films included “Tucker: The Man and His Dreams” (1988, another Coppola project), “Cat Chaser” (1989) and “The Two Jakes” (1990), the ill-fated sequel to “Chinatown,” directed by Jack Nicholson. He was also in numerous television movies, as well as the 1989 mini-series “Lonesome Dove.” His most recent film credit was a small part in the 2006 Sean Penn movie “All the King’s Men.”“This is a fickle town, no rhyme or reason to it,” he said of Hollywood in 1979. ”By the time you go down the driveway to pick up your mail, you’re forgotten.”Frederic Fenimore Forrest Jr. was born on Dec. 23, 1936, in Waxahachie, Texas, to Frederic and Virginia Allee (McSpadden) Forrest. His father ran a large wholesale greenhouse operation. Young Frederic played four sports at Waxahachie High School and was named the most handsome boy in the senior class.He graduated from Texas Christian University, with a degree in television and radio and a minor in theater, in 1960, the same year he married his college sweetheart, Nancy Ann Whittaker, though that marriage lasted only three years. He moved to New York shortly after graduating and worked odd jobs while studying acting with Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner and other noted teachers.Mr. Forrest in 2007. Although he worked steadily throughout the 1980s and ’90s, he landed only a few leading roles, and those movies didn’t do well. Stephen Shugerman/Getty ImagesHis early stage roles in New York included a hunky guy in Ted Harris’s “Silhouettes,” which was staged at the Actors Playhouse in Manhattan in 1969. He reprised the role in Los Angeles the next year, after his move to the West Coast.“Frederic Forrest is perfect as the lazy stud in what may be one of the sleepiest roles ever written — he never gets out of bed,” Margaret Harford wrote in The Los Angeles Times.A second marriage, to the actress Marilu Henner in 1980, stemmed from a screen test that year for “Hammett” that included a kissing scene.“Someone almost had to throw cold water on us,” Ms. Henner told The Toronto Star in 1993. “The tape is pretty wild.”They married six months later, but that marriage, like his earlier one, lasted only three years. A third marriage also ended in divorce, Mr. Forrest’s sister, Ms. Jackson, said.Barry Primus, an actor who worked with Mr. Forrest on “The Rose,” recalled his skill both onscreen and as a raconteur.“Working with him was a treat and, for me, a learning experience,” he said in a statement. “It was absolutely enchanting to spend an evening hearing him tell stories. So much fun, and in its own way, a kind of performance art. There was a love in them that made you feel how crazy and wonderful it was to be alive.”In a phone interview, Ms. Jackson said her brother was particularly pleased to have been able to bring their mother to the Academy Awards ceremony in 1980, when he was nominated for “The Rose.”“It was so wonderful for her to be able to see that,” she said. More

    • 63 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      ‘Invisible’ Review: Brown and British

      by

      As part of the Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters, Nikhil Parmar’s solo play is a drama-tinged satire that morphs into a grisly revenge parable.In the world of Nikhil Parmar’s funny, fantastical solo play “Invisible,” the mind-set of Britain has undergone a significant shift. One of the West’s favorite boogeymen — the Islamic fundamentalist — has vanished from the public imagination. Chinese terrorists are the designated bad guys now.For brown British actors like Zayan Prakash (Parmar), that is both good news and bad. On the one hand, strangers no longer look at him and assume that he’s a threat. On the other, that means the Muslim terrorist roles that were once so prolific have disappeared. So what’s left for him to play? Just “doctors, cabdrivers and corner shop owners.” He’s lucky if those characters get names.“Invisible,” at 59E59 Theaters as part of the Brits Off Broadway festival, is a drama-tinged satire that morphs into a grisly revenge parable, before shape-shifting into something close to reality. But first this play, directed by Georgia Green for London’s Bush Theater, is a sharp and lively comedy in which the charismatic Zayan recalls answering his door to find his ex-girlfriend, Ella, the mother of his toddler daughter, standing there.“Hello. Why do you look weird?” Ella asks, and Zayan — who’s looking weird because he’s just heard on the news about the demise of “brown terrorism” — pivots to the audience with a cliché-killing aside that won my heart: “I was going to do her bit in a really high-pitched voice but, (a), it sounded pretty offensive and, (b), she actually has a properly deep voice, so.”Ella has come to tell Zayan that she has a live-in boyfriend, Terrence, an old classmate of theirs from drama school whose career is flourishing; he’s Korean and playing a terrorist in a prestige drama, now that “East Asian fundamentalism” is supposedly a menace. Zayan can’t stand Terrence, but their ensuing rivalry makes for laughs, even as it drives home a point about jostling for position inside a white-supremacist system.The magnetic Parmar slips in and out of Zayan and the crowd of characters around him, each distinct. Though the play’s narrative becomes somewhat tangled and unruly, there is method in its muchness.What torments Zayan is a creeping sense of his own invisibility: Now that he isn’t perceived as a terrorist, he fails to register at all. Yet over the show’s 60-minute running time, we see Zayan for the multitude that he is: underemployed actor, reluctant cater waiter, incompetent weed dealer, doting father, inattentive son. He is also a grieving brother haunted by the ghost of his dead little sister, the person who looked at him and saw someone central to her story.It is disorienting, and infuriating, to be hampered by a culture’s — and an industry’s — blinkered perception of what a whole group of people is capable of. “Invisible” is a thoughtfully provocative, witheringly knowing response to that noxiousness.InvisibleThrough July 2 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 1 hour. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in Theater

      ‘The Light in the Piazza’ Review: When It Comes to Love, They’re Outsiders

      by

      A meet-cute on an Italian excursion sends a mother and daughter on parallel journeys of self-discovery in an Encores! staging of the 2005 musical.Encountering a great piece of art can lead to a moment of transcendence. That’s the idea behind the mother-daughter tour of Florence in “The Light in the Piazza,” the 2005 musical romance composed by Adam Guettel and written by Craig Lucas. And for audiences at New York City Center, where an exquisite Encores! revival directed by Chay Yew opened on Wednesday, a sensational performance by Ruthie Ann Miles delivers a feeling close to the sublime.Miles, who was nominated for a Tony Award this year for her role as the beggar woman in the Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd,” embodies a vivid and elegant portrait of maternal empathy and restraint as Margaret, a veteran’s wife from the South. She honeymooned in Italy; now it’s the summer of 1953, and her marital flame is dimming just as her daughter, Clara (Anna Zavelson), first discovers desire. It’s a bittersweet reflection that Miles imbues with grace, fortitude and the circumspect wit of middle age.That Margaret and Clara are Asian American adds a further layer of shading to their outsiderness abroad. (“I’m as different here as different can be,” Clara sings.) But Clara’s sense of otherness is rooted in a less visible aspect of her identity. As Margaret tells the audience in a brief aside, Clara is “very young for her age,” her cognitive and emotional abilities stunted by an incident in her childhood.But it’s not Italian art that broadens Clara’s consciousness on their trip; soon after a local dreamboat named Fabrizio (James D. Gish) retrieves Clara’s hat from the wind, Margaret assumes the unenviable task of trying to steer her daughter away from love at first sight.Miles’s rich and precise vocals illuminate Guettel’s lush, poetic score, which is nimbly and gorgeously orchestrated ‌by Guettel, Ted Sperling‌‌ and Bruce Coughlin. (Listen for the lone clarinet that accompanies Margaret’s most intimate moments of introspection.) Miles also radiates wry intelligence, as an ‌astute mother hoping to rein in her daughter’s increasingly unbridled impulses, another aspect of the story heightened by casting the characters as Asian American.The young lovers flirt over fumbling to understand one another (Fabrizio speaks little English, though Gish’s Italian is also unconvincing). And while the actors’ connection lacks animal magnetism, their characters are united in their reveries about how love is supposed to feel. Clara has the more compelling awakening in this regard, and Zavelson, making her professional New York debut, lends an effervescent innocence to her portrayal of self-discovery. Both actors sing with appealing earnestness, but Gish’s Fabrizio is painted in broader strokes, as though smitten Florentine hunks had been loitering around every corner for Clara to find.Fabrizio’s family tends to be broader as well, though knowingly. His brother, Giuseppe (Rodd Cyrus), is a slick womanizer whose wife, Franca (Shereen Ahmed), seethes with jealousy and warns Clara about the fickleness of infatuation. His mother, Signora Naccarelli (Andréa Burns), pauses the family’s rowdy display of collective passion during the Italian-language number “Aiutami” to assure the audience that she’s aware the Naccarellis are drama queens. It’s a self-conscious nod, from Guettel and Lucas, to their uncommon fusion of operatic melodrama with the psychological realism of contemporary musical theater. (The duo’s “Days of Wine and Roses,” now running at the Linda Gross Theater, builds on that formula.)The set designed by Clint Ramos and Miguel emphasizes depth of field, with the 16-member orchestra elevated on a colonnade platform as its centerpiece.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn Yew’s concert staging, which runs through Sunday, those elements cohere seamlessly. (Though Miles and the ensemble carry leather-bound scripts that resemble guidebooks, the production is fully and beautifully staged.) The 16-member orchestra is the magnificent centerpiece, elevated on a colonnade platform that runs the length of the stage. The set design by Clint Ramos and Miguel Urbino emphasizes depth of field, its white framework a receptive canvas for Linda Cho’s refined midcentury costumes and the warm ambers of David Weiner’s lighting.That sense of dimension and perspective also comes through in Margaret, as well as in Fabrizio’s father, Signor Naccarelli (Ivan Hernandez), who eventually grow simpatico as their children are drawn to each other. Margaret may be ambivalent about love herself, recognizing its inevitable fallibility (her husband, played by Michael Hayden, appears in strained long-distance phone calls), but she invests in its possibilities for Clara, a generosity of spirit that gives “The Light in the Piazza” its shimmer.Margaret’s instinct to protect her daughter, and her ultimate reconciliation of sorrow with hope, are the musical’s emotional center. And there will be yet a deeper level of resonance for audiences familiar with Miles’s own personal history, of losing her 5-year-old daughter, Abigail, when they were struck by a car in 2018, and, two months later, the baby Miles was pregnant with at the time.Miles reflected in a recent interview that the conclusion of Margaret’s story might allow her to “finally take a breath.” Whether that turns out to be the case, Miles’s performance is certain, at least, to leave audiences breathless.The Light in the PiazzaThrough June 25 at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      ‘Rock & Roll Man’ Review: An Alan Freed Biography

      by

      A bio-show about the radio D.J. Alan Freed, one of rock music’s early popularizers, dutifully plays the hits.The musical “Rock & Roll Man” starts with an attention-grabbing gambit: It is 1965, and J. Edgar Hoover is prosecuting the D.J. and promoter Alan Freed, then at death’s door. Hoover has accused Freed of destroying “the American way of life by inventing the genre of music which you named rock and roll.”A good clue that the scene takes place not in reality but in the mind of the ailing Freed (Constantine Maroulis, from “Rock of Ages” and “Jekyll & Hyde”) is that he is defended by Little Richard (Rodrick Covington) — who is quick to point out that his client did not actually invent rock.What Freed did do was play R&B singles on the radio shows he hosted in Cleveland and then New York, introducing so-called race records to white audiences. He then marketed the music as “rock and roll.”The bulk of this bio-show, which opened on Wednesday at New World Stages, consists of a flashback that unfurls infinitely more conventionally than the prologue.In the early 1950s, Freed discovers new sounds at a record store run by Leo Mintz (Joe Pantoliano), and he immediately falls in love with the raucous music bringing white and Black teenagers together. His growing success as a D.J. takes him to New York, where he starts associating with Morris Levy (Pantoliano again), the shady record label and nightclub owner.Gary Kupper, Larry Marshak and Rose Caiola’s book dutifully strings together a parade of hits by the likes of LaVern Baker (Valisia LeKae), Jerry Lee Lewis (Dominique Scott), Chuck Berry and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (both played by Matthew S. Morgan). But Randal Myler’s production never generates early rock’s chaotic, often suggestive energy. Freed may have imagined the trial, but it reflects a time when rock was seen as an attack on the sexual and racial order; the show, however, make it hard to understand why Freed and the artists he championed were seen as a threat to American values.Freed was an interesting fellow, and his life was plenty rock ’n’ roll. Unfortunately, the show mostly skims over the fact that in addition to hobnobbing with Levy — they both eventually went down for payola — Freed overindulged in booze and women. The storytelling is especially haphazard when dealing with his family life.Even worse is that since Freed himself did not sing, Maroulis — a former “American Idol” contestant who is the rare musical-theater performer able to convincingly rock — doesn’t get to do any of the hits and is instead stuck performing perfunctory originals written by Kupper. He gets to let loose a little on the title number, at the very end of the show, but by then it’s too little and way too late.Rock & Roll ManAt New World Stages, Manhattan; newworldstages.com. Running time: 2 hours. More