Napoli, Brooklyn--A Family in Crisis

By Joseph Cervelli

Meghan Kennedy’s upsetting new play “Napoli, Brooklyn” at the Roundabout at Laura Pels Theater is very well intentioned, but she is tackling so many topics in this family drama that  there is a scattershot feel. She writes quite well for individual scenes but as a whole the show becomes overbaked and, at times, not quite believable. 

Taking place in 1960 which has a significance that comes at the end of the first act, it  concerns an Italian family with the patriarch Nic Muscolino (Michael Rispoli) a brutish and tyrannical father and husband who runs the family not so much sternly but with physical abuse. We discover that when  his youngest teen  daughter Francesca (Jordyn DiNatale) whom we learn is gay cuts off most of her hair he forcefully attacks sister Vita (Elise Kibler) who is protecting her. He does such forceful damage to Vita that it sends her to the hospital with a broken nose and ribs among other injuries. He has near psychotic rage that Vita eventually ends up in a convent for protection much to her dismay. There is also another sister Tina (Lilli Kay) who works in a factory and either has learning problems along with probably dyslexia since she has an inability to read. She works with Celia Jones (Shirine Babb) whom she has a good relationship with although it is unclear if Celia is doing something that could cost her her her job.
  

The matriarch of the family is Luda (Alyssa Bresnahan) who also bears the brunt of the sadistic Nic who burns her with his cigarette during lovemaking.  Kennedy indicates the subservience of women from foreign countries to be a “good” wife no matter what. No matter how vicious Nic becomes (she does not even wince when he burns her) she is there for him. 

There is a desultory feel to the writing in the first act in which we go from the home, to factory, to convent and to the butcher shop run by Albert Duffy (Erik Lochtefeld) who is secretly in love with Luda. Unbeknownst to them, his teen daughter Connie (Juliet Brett) is in love with Francesca and both decide to stow away on a ship to France. In their way of thinking lesbians are more acceptable in that country. 

All these episodic scenes come to a crashing halt when something catastrophic, which I cannot reveal,  occurs just at the end of the first act. Set designer Eugene Lee has devised something quite amazingly effective which may jolt you from your seat.

The second act does gel better than the first and the Christmas dinner scene is powerfully played out.  While Nic makes a declaration of being a better man you know that can only last a short amount of time. Yet, the problem with the second act is that a number of the scenes just don’t ring all that believable. It is hard to believe the advice Luda gives to Corrine at the last scene in the play. While admirable, it is also rather foolish considering Corrine’s young age.  A decision that Nic makes which helps the family immensely just does not appear to be something he would do. 

While Gordon Edelstein has directed the show admirably and with a pride in  standing up for yourself and the cast is quite good, most especially, Bresnahan, the playwright would have been more successful in focusing on limited scenes. While I admired her stance on the fortitude that women especially need to take to survive in a destructive household and wanting more for their children, the play is in overdrive mode which lessens its effect.

As an aside, I suggest you go into the lobby during intermission to read the information dealing with the true life event that occurs at the end of the first act. 

Tickets are available at the Roundabout Theatre Company--Laura Pels Theatre 111 46th Street or by calling 212.719.1300. As of this date the limited engagement ends September 3. 

PHOTOS: JOAN MARCUS

The Traveling Lady--A Beautifully Realized Play 

By Joseph Cervelli

Some unwind by having a cup of camomile tea or a glass of wine. While I find both to be  helpful, what has even more of a calming affect on me is being immersed in a Horton Foote play. The late wonderful playwright who gave us among others the glowing “Trip to Bountiful” and wrote the screenplay for the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” is having his 1955 play, “The Traveling Lady” revived at the Cherry Lane Theater for a limited engagement.

While not a perfect play and despite some unnecessarily fussy direction by Austin Pendleton , it is still Hoote’s words and situations that have a beautifully real feel to them. Quite fortunately, it is also blessed with a lovely cast who personify the characters he has created. 

As in other Hoote plays, we are in a small Texas town 1950. He dos not signify it being Harrison, TX, where others have taken place but no matter. We immediately find out that a neighbor has passed away. We don’t know a lot about her except she is described by the Judge (George Morfogen) who is lounging in Clara Breedlove’s (Angelina Fiordellisi) backyard as a “funny little woman.” It seems that the late woman took in the rowdy Henry Thomas (PJ Sosko) as a young man whom she disciplined  by beating him “break his spirit.”  Henry eventually moved to Tyler, TX ,marrying  the lovely Georgette (Jean Lichty) but in a drunken stupor killed another man and spent a number of  years in the penitentiary. He never saw his young daughter Margaret Rose (Korinne Tetlow) but is getting out early thanks to Georgette and plans on meeting her where the play takes place. Upon arriving, Georgette is unaware that Henry has been released a month prior and is living in Mrs. Tillman’s (Jill Tanner) house doing handyman jobs. Tillman whose husband was an alcoholic wants to reform this young man despite his still having problems. 

There are several other characters in this tenderly soul-searching play. Slim Murray (Larry Bull) who is Clara’s brother is still trying to recover from the death of his estranged wife Laura. We never learn as to why Laura left this fellow who seems to have sympathetic veins running through him. Nor are we sure why he refuses to attend the funeral of the recently deceased woman. We surmise he felt no affection for someone who might have added to Henry’s problems. Lynn Cohen almost steals the show as the very funny but dotty neighbor Mrs. Mavis who is always trying to get away from the daughter Sitter Mavis (Karen Ziemba) she lives with. I was surprised that Hallie Foote the playwright’s daughter and great interpreter of his work was not in this play for she would have fit the role of Sitter perfectly. But, thankfully, the always reliable Ziemba does  not fail to disappoint as a woman who feels that life has passed her by. Just watch the wistful gaze that Ziemba has down pat as Sitter. Sosko is excellent as the broken Henry who gets into another bad situation at the play’s end. While he is not responsible for what has occurred, as someone who always found himself in the thicket of problems and being drunk again, he offers not objections when arrested. 

There is never a tempest of greed in most of Hoote’s illuminating works with the exception of his exceptionally fine “Dividing the Estate.”  His plays as this one deals with finding the correct path to walk down and if you take the wrong detour hoping to find the right people to help you back on the way to redemption. In Hoote’s optimistic way of thinking we all have purpose even when life feels devoid of meaning. 

There is a very touching line that Sitter speaks near the end of the play to the effect that “my whole life would have been different if I’d just learned to dance.” While it takes more than that to change your life sometimes it is the small steps that help guide you. 

PHOTOS: CAROL ROSEGG

Tickets are available at the Cherry Lane Theater 38 Commerce Street or by calling 212.352.3101.As of this date the limited engagement ends July 16.

Animal--Woman on the Verge

     By Joseph Cervelli 

      No one can play a woman on the verge better than the brilliant actress Rebecca Hall whose performance of a woman convicted and executed for the murder of her husband in the recent “Machinal” was astonishing. In Clare Lizzimore’s fascinating but ultimately disappointing new play “Animal” at the Atlantic Theater Company she again proves how galvanising she someone going though the depths of emotional turmoil. 

Rachel (Hall)  dressed in gray sweats, a hoodie and a woolen cap which she only removes near the end of the play is meeting with her psychiatrist (Greg Keller. ) Her diagnosis is not revealed until the play’s too tidy and unsatisfying  conclusion ,although we find out that she was unable to work and wants the doctor to allow her to do so. He informs her she can return to employment whenever she feels like it and she seems to  have ambivalent feelings about his suggestion. She is not the ideal patient arguing with him and seeming to put up constant barriers. 

The scenes in her home become the most enigmatic which eventually get explained. She lives with her caring husband Tom (a very fine Morgan Spector) who seems to be at his wits end with her centrifugal force of behavioral changes. She can be sweet as is shown in some flashback (at least, one assumes they are) scenes with him and then become belligerent. Living with them is the Old Woman (a wonderful Kirstin Griffith) whom Tom calls his mother. She is in a wheelchair and only mumbles. While Tom is very caring to the woman and expects Rachel to be the same, when he is at work she is anything but. While not physically abusive she succumbs in an almost menacing way to the woman’s taunts by giving her cold soup and getting furious when she spills it all over herself. What are we to make of Rachel? The callousness is disturbing and at the same time she seems unable to control her behavior almost taking pleasure in being at odds with everyone. Her anger towards her husband also is unfounded although things are explained at the conclusion.  

A hunky young man Dan, (David Pegram) breaks into their apartment and instead of robbing her wants to kiss her and tries to coax her in his sexy manner to do more. She is taken by him and he seems to have a relaxing affect upon her in a way that she can escape the web of confusion she is in. Hall is such  an amazing actress that you never take your eyes off her as she almost begins to break through the margins that she feels surround her being. Of course, at the same time you are wondering why isn’t she calling for her husband who is in the other room. 

More of a conundrum is why when she visits the doctor another time he is played by a little girl (Fina Strazza). The dialogue between them never seems to add anything to the play and despite Gaye Taylor Unchurch’s capable direction that particular scene seems more foolish than meaningful.

The conclusion comes a bit too swiftly and tidy and for reasons I cannot get into not entirely believable. 

Still, we are blessed with seeing an actress on a nearly bare stage whose every word you will hang onto. You travel with her on this journey as she pulls you into her edgy world. 

Tickets are available at the Atlantic Theater Company/Stage 2 330 West 16th Street or by calling 866.811.4111. As of this date the limited engagement ends July 2. 

PHOTOS: AHRON FOSTER

Email: jcerv58957@aol.com

 Anastasia--The Delightful Film Comes to the Stage

       By Joseph Cervelli

If you are looking for a family musical you can do no wrong than with the overwhelmingly entertaining and exquisite to view “Anastasia” at the Broadhurst. 

Based on the hugely successful film the show opens with the revolution overthrowing and murdering the last of the Russian Czars with the exception  for the teenage Grand Duchess Anastasia (a sparkling Christy Altomare) and her grandmother the Dowager Empress (a regal Mary Beth Peil). Anastasia suffers from amnesia  and she becomes a street sweeper meeting up with two con men (Derek Klena and John Bolton) who are trying to pass off a young woman as the Tsarina to her grandmother now living in Paris for a large amount of money.  When they set their eyes on Anya who speaks French (the regal Russians we are told only spoke French) they feel they have a perfect match only to begin to think that she may indeed be the real thing. The three hitch onto a train (a truly fun filled scene)  with the anarchist Gleb (excellently played and sung by Ramin Karimloo) pursuing her unsure if he can fulfill his duty of killing off the last of the Romanov’s. You know right from the start that being family entertainment all is going to work out well for them as they arrive safely in Paris.  And  no spoiler alert that  she meets her grandmother who believes she is an imposter until she witnesses something that her granddaughter possess.

Altomare makes a radiant Anastasia and her rendition of the most familiar song from the film “Journey to the Past” is sung beautifully. 

Klena whom you know she will eventually fall in love with is dashing and Bolton (“A Christmas Story”) never fails to delight with his lovable antics. For some additional comic relief Caroline O’Connor makes for a daffy vaudevillian like performer as Countess Lily.

While Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens score may not  come close to their true masterpiece “Ragtime” it nevertheless is very pleasant and meets the criteria for the show. True that two numbers are reminiscent of “I Remember it Well” and “The Rain in Spain” but they blend in just fine. 

Linda Cho’s costumes are especially elegant and, perhaps, the biggest treat is the gorgeously stunning projections by Aaron Rhyne and equally good stets by Alexander Dodge resulting in “oohs” and “ahs” from the largely young audience. 

Again director Darko Tresnjak (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”) proves what a marvel he is at seducing the audience (both adults and children) throughout his shows with his ingenuity and Terrence McNally’s book may have some syrupy moments here and there it remains faithful enough to the film. 

If you are looking for a more serious musical based on the young woman I would you suggest to listen to the stirringly dramatic score to the short lived “Anya.” However, for a show that will enchant not only the girls in the audience but even some the boys (I overhead one young man asking his friend if he was crying) “Anastasia” is among the best musicals of the season. 

PHOTOS: MATTHEW MURPHY

Tickets for “Anastasia” are available at the Broadhurst Theater 235 West 44th Street or by calling 212.239.6200.

Groundhog Day--Day In And Day In Again

        By Joseph Cervelli

While the film “Groundhog Day” still remains a cult classic you can count me among those who never saw what was so enticing about it, despite an enjoyably deadpanned Bill  Murray as an arrogant weatherman. Yet, the musical at the August Wilson Theater is a complete joy thanks mostly to the incomparable Andy Karl who recently gave a superb performance in the short lived musical “Rocky.” A few days before opening night Karl tore his ACL but was determined to open the show. I attended that performance and was amazed at his dexterity, for his character Phil Connors never stops moving. Forget the Energizer Bunny for Karl makes him look like a tortoise. But there is more to the role than just movement. 

Connors is a supercilious weatherman who has to reluctantly go to Punxsutaweny, Pa, once a year to report on weather the groundhog has seen his shadow. His middle name could be conceit for he feels nothing but scorn for the chummy residents and for covering what he considers to be a continually dumb assignment. What happens is that throughout the show he is stuck in time for each morning he finds himself waking up in his hotel room and going through all the motions of meeting the townspeople and reporting on the weather.,  The townspeople are a bit of a wacky but loving group of people along with Connors’ producer (Barrett Doss) whom you know will eventually become his love interest. I wish that Rebecca Faulkenberry who plays Nancy, Connors’ one night stand, would have had more to do. She has a lovely number “Playing Nancy” which opens the second act. As time passes Connors comes to realize how much he himself as missed in life and finds solace in the peacefulness of a small town with the person he loves. 

Danny Rubin’s book and along with Tim Minchin’s lyrics are filled with sardonic wit (could have done without the song about having an enema)  although I found the music catchier  in Minchin’s score to “Matilda.”

Matthew Warchus (“Matilda”) runs the show on high octane and it will be hard to forget the  inimitable miniature car chase. 

Thanks also to the inventive (love those upside down miniature houses running atop the proscenium) set design by Rob Howell (“Matilda.”)

The show as fun filled as it is still would not work half as well without Karl who while bringing a cynicism to the role still makes Connors likable. And his ultimate transformation which takes place over a series of repeated scenes but all slightly different is believable in a surprisingly tender manner. Hey, he deserves an award for getting out of bed and changing into clothes a multitude of times wearing that heavy knee brace.

PHOTOS: JOAN MARCUS

Tickets for “Groundhog Day” are available at the August Wilson Theater 245 West 52nd Street or by calling 877.250.2929.

The Little Foxes--The Ruthless Hubbard Family Returns

By Joseph Cervelli

Lillian Hellman’s venomously delicious 1939 play “The Little Foxes” is being royally revived at the Friedman Theater with two outstanding performers (Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon) playing alternating roles as the carnivorous Regina Hubbard Giddens. They also change roles playing the sympathetic and maligned sister-in-law Birdie equally well. 

The conniving Regina and her two equally  manipulative brothers Oscar (Darren Goldstein) and Ben (Michael McKean) need to raise money to build a cotton mill in their town despite the fact it will destroy the town in various ways. Things don’t go quite well since Regina’s husband Horace (a tremendously good Richard Thomas) who is recuperating out of state returns and decides not to support this deal much to the anger and ultimate retribution of Regina. Not only is he concerned with the welfare of the townspeople but wants to undermine his deceitful and uncaring wife whom he realized long ago only  married him only for his money. 

Nixon plays the title role a bit more untraditional in that from her first scene you are really not quite sure how devious she is. She is more coquettish with a plastered on smile and appears to be meeker than Regina really is, and it works beautifully. So, when she proves her treacherous self it comes more of a surprise. However, she does play Birdie more traditionally as a fragile, almost doltish woman whose husband married her only for her family’s money and she is wonderfully touching. 

In Linney, you can almost see that double dealing quality from the onset. She plays the role more self assured and equally foxy. Yet, her Birdie is not as crushable as the way Nixon plays it. She appears to be more of an abused wife with a drinking problem. 

Both actresses are quite brilliant and not matter whom you see you will not be disappointed.

Thomas equally gives a superlative performance as the likable and quite ill Horace who is loved only by his devoted daughter Alexandra (Francesca Carpanini). The pivotal scene where he is struggling while walking up the staircase is done to perfection. 

Director Daniel Sullivan is the expert in directing family dramas and by no means has let us down with this one that calls out for his ability. 

There is not one false move or miscalculations in this revival which is one of the highlights of the season.

PHOTO: JOAN MARCUS

Tickets for “The Little Foxes” are available at The Samuel J. Friedman Theater 261 West 47th Street or calling 212.239.6200. The limited engagement ends June 4.

Amélie

By  Joseph Cervelli

If the creators of the hopeless new musical “Amélie” at the Walter Kerr Theater did not want to purposely strip the French film of the same title all of its enchantment they could not have done a better job. 

The fanciful movie with an utterly fetching Audrey Tautou in the title role has been turned into a charmlessly crass show with a tuneless score by Daniel Messé and both pedestrian and sometimes absurd lyrics by Messé and Nathan Tysen. What makes the musical even more of a failure is the undefinable book by the usually reliable Craig Lucas (“The Light in the Piazza.) Unless you are familiar with the film, and if not I strongly urge you to see it, you will most probably be completely lost here. 

The musical, as the play takes place in and around Paris, although this show is about as French as being in Brooklyn. We first meet the young Amélie (an inert Savvy Crawford) whose flights of fancy have her imagining her goldfish has become six feet tall personified by  one of the show’s character’s wearing a goldfish head.  Perhaps, an entire fish costume would have been more authentic. And her seeing a nun wearing an alligator head is more foolish than sweetly funny.  Her mean and  unpleasant parents (Manoel Feliciano and Alison Cimmet) believe she has a heart problem and homeschool her. Her heart is enlarged because of her caring and generosity for others. It’s not too long before her mother is killed by a suicide jumper who makes his plunge off Notre Dame. The grown Amélie (Philippa Soo) gets a job at a local cafe with a bunch of eccentric characters. While Soo was a delight in both “The Great Comet” and “Hamilton” she misses the mark here. Expressiveness is what marks the young waif like character so appealing. Amélie is anything but bland but there is a kind of sullen almost fixed look of bewilderment in the face of Soo which does not work and we never see the inner workings of Amélie.

Lucas is so very interested in incorporating everything from the film into the musical that instead of any lingering development we have fleeting episodic moments.  It does not help that these off beat characters who inhabit the cafe narrate a lot of the dialogue which lessens the overall affect.

So much feels rushed in Lucas’s mishmash of a book which has lost every bit of the sparkle of the film. There is a short lovely scene in which Amélie  who greatly admired Princess Diana sees herself as the late woman helping out children suffering from AIDS in Africa. Then with a sudden charge out of the door appears one of the ensemble impersonating  an obese Elton John singing to her in a blasting and grating voice. Amélie’s first good deed as a woman is trying to find the now grown man who left some childhood memorabilia in the apartment she now  lives in. It is done so haphazardly that it makes little sense. She spends time with an elderly painter (a very good Tony Sheldon) but there is little connection between them thanks to the rather hectic direction of the usually very fine director Pam MacKinnon. She like Lucas just want things to keep moving with no semblance of continuity of events. 

Adam Chanler-Berat is adequate as the offbeat Nino who collects discarded photos from a booth when he is not working in a sex shop.  To understand why Nino is obsessed with this odd desire you need to understand the reasoning of the“mysterious” man who is always taking the same photo. Of course, that is barely delved into.  And worse yet is the trick Amélie plays in the film on the dastardly green grocer which is never developed on stage. Is there any justification for him to insult the handicapped young employee when it goes no further. The fact that it seems to be played for laughs is worse is quite astounding. And don’t get me started on the now singing and  dancing gnome which is more ridiculous than funny. 

Most of David Zinn’s costumes are rather unappealing as is his set design although Peter Nigrini’s projections work quite well.

Making a musical out of a film which takes place all over Paris is not an easy achievement and all the various deeds that Amelie does is a monumental job for any creative team. But having a far better book, and  a score that is not only melodic but French sounding would help greatly. Nor is it an asset when lyrics, such as, “I met a plumber on the Metro with a toolbox. He was kinda bad but good in bed and fixed my leaky radiator.” Or how about, “Love is just another diagnosis like herpes, hepatitis, syphilis.”  What more is there to say other than this floundering  musical has all the effervescence of flat champagne. 

Tickets are available at the Walter Kerr Theater 219 West 48th Street or by calling 212.239.6200.

PHOTO CREDIT: JOAN MARCUS