Days to Come

By Joseph Cervelli

There is always an element of surprise going to the Mint Theater which mainly  features forgotten and/or obscure shows. Some have had short runs on Broadway decades ago and others may have never played the New York area. While most I have seen there have been quite good and some superb there have been a few that left little impression. Unfortunately, the Mint Theater Company’s revival  of  “Days to Come”  which ran on Broadway back in 1936 and had a run of seven performances not one of their finest efforts. Actually, it is  perfectly dreadful. It is hard to believe that it was written by the firebrand playwright Lillian Hellman. 

In all probability the theme of strike breakers in a small Ohio town and the injury they caused upon workers was quite a controversial topic then,  but now it has less of an effect.  The production is  misdirected by J.R. Sullivan who is not sure whether to keep this as a drama or comedy. And worse yet are the almost uniformly amateurish performances. Only Chris Henry Coffey as veteran worker, Thomas Firth, in the Brush Factory that is on strike gives a fine performance. But more on this later. 

As in just about every Mint production show the sets are gorgeously appointed and set designer Harry Feiner has not let us down. The dark wood furniture and almost impressionistic  backsplash of an autumn scene is beautiful. And then the play begins. 

The Rodman family owns the factory where the workers have gone out because of the drastic cuts in pay. The ineffectual Andrew Rodman (a gazed eyed Larry Bull) now runs the company after the death of his father and it is apparent that he has no idea how to be in charge of a board game let alone a factory. Andrew’s lugubrious sister Cora Rodman (a twitchy Mary Bacon) who is forever complaining about everything possible is impossibly annoying. It would have been more advantageous to have a character like Birdie in Hellman’s masterpiece ‘The Little Foxes” instead of this neurotic character. And Bacon so overplays the role in every gesture or facial expression. Andrew’s wife Julie (Janie Brookshire) is having an affair with his best friend and  lawyer  Henry Elliott  (Ted Deasy). The exceptionally bland Brookshire whose hairstyle is too modern looking for the play's time period has no chemistry with either Andrew nor Henry. And the latter relationship is more or less mentioned in passing. It is as if Hellman just threw this in for no apparent reason.   Deasy is generally acceptable for a while but Sullivan has him become exasperating. Roderick Hill is basically good as the labor organizer although his encounter with Julie in the ineffectual second act opening  scene  (she appears to have a love interest in him) goes nowhere. 

And worse yet is when the dangerous head of the strike breakers Sam Wilkie (Dan Daily) brings his two goons Mossie Dowel (Geoffrey Allen Murphy) and Joe Easter (Evan Zes) to cause harm to the 'scabs' who have been brought in to take over from the employees. Both actors overplay their roles and seem to think they are in a comedy.  They seem to be channeling the two characters  from “Kiss Me Kate”  and expect them to break into "Brush Up Your Shakespeare." When one of the two for some bizarre reason throws a knife at the other and several audience members start to laugh you know you are in big trouble.

Coffey is the best in the cast conveying sympathy and disgust with what has been going on with the strikers. He is the most believable and displays honest emotion when you learn what happens to his daughter.

Hellman wants to make a statement about injustice  but the play is so terribly structured with scenes that make little sense and not thought out it is hard that anyone could have made it work. But in its current presentation it falls even further into an abyss. 

Tickets are available at the Beckett Theater at Theater Row 410 West 42nd Street or by calling 212.239.6200. The limited engagement ends October 6. 

PHOTOS: TODD CERVERIS

Pretty Woman: The Musical

By Joseph Cervelli

While there is nothing particularly wrong with the new show “Pretty Woman: The Musical”at the Nederlander Theater it just never radiates as you would hope it would. A big problem is that the show seems to have no identity of its own. While there is no doubt it needs to follow the immensely popular film (book by Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton)  it is based upon, there is a mechanical feel to the show and that sadly might be due to the uninspired direction by Jerry Mitchell who also choreographed it. 

The first question that most will ask is how Samantha Barks (Vivian Ward) compares to Julia Roberts' unforgettable performance as the lovable hooker who meets her Prince Charming Edward Lewis (Andy Karl). Barks has a powerful voice and a lovely presence with a smile that could light up a city. She certainly is good and wows with one of her big numbers “This is My Life” but never brings that certain excitement to the role. Again, the problem may indeed lie with Mitchell. The one big scene where Vivian comes out with that stunning red dress should produce “ah’s” from the audience yet met with general silence. Mitchell should have built this up rather than it just be another scene in the musical. Also, the scene where she and Edward go to the opera should have been a highlight where in the film she is so moved by “La Traviata” that she starts to cry. While that is not necessary here, more emotion on her part would have helped make what amounts to a tepid moment shine. 

Karl is a wonderful asset in all he is in but here while also quite good seems to lack a certain amount of chemistry with his co-star. Granted, Lewis is not the most exciting character and Karl brings the necessary energy to him. But in the stage adaptation I  just never believed that relationship would take off as it does. His voice is superb as usual and there is one number where it felt like he was aiming to sound like the composer Bryan Adams who co wrote with Jim Vallance the pleasant if not memorable score. 

The other cast members are terrific. Vivian’s best friend prostitute Kit De Luca is played with pizzazz by Orfeh whose dynamic singing voice matches the others. No affront to Barks,  but I would love to see what she would have done with the role of Vivian.  A standout is Eric Anderson who is the street hustler handing out maps to the local tourists in Hollywood and doubles as the hotel concierge. The always reliable Jason Danieley is good as Lewis's sleazy lawyer Philip Stuckey. It is unfortunate he does not have a solo number. 

One big disappointment is the skimpy sets by the otherwise first rate set designer David Rockwell. Lewis’s penthouse apt in the hotel should be a knockout but here there is little to wow. Unfortunately, this is the same for most of the scenes in the show. Even the big shopping scene in an exclusive store proves to be lackluster in design although Gregg Barnes' costumes are on target. 

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While the show is modestly entertaining it never charms you or entices you as you keep hoping it would.

Tickets are available at the Nederlander Theater 208 West 41st Street or by calling 212.239.6200.

Gettin' The Band Back Together--Exuberantly Entertaining

By Joseph Cervelli

Poor Mitch Papadopoulos. The stockbroker looks quite forlorn in the first scene in the exuberant, fun-filled and crowd pleasing new musical “Getting’ The Band Back Together” at the Belasco Theater. It is Mitch’s birthday and he has lost his job. So, what is this 40 year old played with dynamic energy by Mitchell Jarvis going to do except move back to Sayreville, NJ to live with his sultry looking  mother Sharon played with vivacity by Marilu Henner. He finds out that her and his friend Bart Vickers’  (gleefully played by Jay Klaitz) houses are being foreclosed by the villainous Tygen Billows (a hilariously evil Brandon Williams.) Bart is the math teacher who has little knowledge of the subject but if you start to question things in this show it will defeat its purpose which is just to tickle you silly.  It may be an original musical but there is not a lot of originality for it is a takeoff of other shows, such as, “School of Rock” as well as references to other musicals. Bart also has a not so secret desire for Sharon which he graphically sings to a mortified Mitch in the playfully distasteful “Bart’s Confession.” The buffed Tygen who  is the perfect example of brawn minus the brains, is full of malapropisms and generally walks off the stage looking at the audience with a smugness before finishing the end of what he wants to say. He is accompanied by his two equally dopy cohorts played with zestful enthusiasm by Ryan Duncan and Garth Kravitz. Kravitz  doubles as the emotionally overwrought lounge singer Nick Styler and has the show stopping “Second Chances.”

Mitch makes a deal with Tygen who will forgo the foreclosures for a chance to regain a trophy he lost to Mitch’s band when they were back in high school.  Thus there is a battle of the bands. Mitch wants to reunite the original band which includes Bart;  Sully Sullivan (Paul Whitty) who is a policeman not really interested in continuing his job; the dermatologist Robbie Patel (Manu Narayan) who does not want the arranged wedding his father has planned; sixteen year old student of the lovable Bart w Ricky Bling (a terrific Sawyer Nunes) who rocks a Jewish wedding as a rap singer. 

There needs to be a love interest and Kelli Barrett perfectly fits the bill as waitress Dani Franco.  If all of this written by Ken Davenport and The Grundleshotz  sounds terribly trite, well, it actually is. But one of the reasons why is all works besides the tremendously talented cast is that it has both a catchy score and some wonderfully funny and purposely insipid lyrics by Mark Allen. 

Derek McLane has created a set that is reminiscent of a small town with a traditional New Jersey diner which is named after one that was sadly torn down, the popular PeterPank. And his amusement park set with great lighting Ken Billington may not look like Great Flags Great Adventure but captures it enough. 

Chris Bailey’s choreography may not be all that inventive but it surely is energetic and the wonderful John Rando (“Urinetown”) is the perfect spearhead for this type of show with his lightening speed direction.

Don’t look too hard at the material and you should just have a blast which is what those involved intended. 

Tickets are available at the Belasco Theater 111 West 44th Street or by calling 212.239.6200.

PHOTOS: JOAN MARCUS

Fiddler on the Roof--The Definitive "Fiddler"

By Joseph Cervelli

That feeling of exhilaration you experience throughout the wondrous production of “Fiddler on the Roof” presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at the Museum of Jewish Heritage will not leave you as you exit the theater.  Down at the Battery where it is playing, you glance over at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and think about not only those residents of Anatevke where the show takes place who plan on leaving Russia to make a new life in America but your own ancestors.  The prophetic words in  the closing number “Anatevke” resonate with even  more realism as the plight of the migrant families comes to life. 

This might be the fifth production of a classic show that is sheer perfection and yet in its own way this, at least, for me is the definitive production. Entirely performed in Yiddish with two screens on sides of the stage projecting English supertitles, it is physically a bare-bones production in terms of sets and scenery though we do have that evocative lighting by Peter Kaczorowski.  Chairs and tables along with Tevye's cart are basically the sets. Even when Tevye (a wondrous Steven Skybell) and his lovably strong willed wife Golde (an equally winning Mary Illes) perform the delightful “The Dream” there is no bed to speak of. They are on several chairs and a quilt. And, yes, I do still say this is the best production of the show I have seen. In the delightful film  “Meeting Venus” a group of singers perform Wagner’s “Tannhauser” and when a union strike prevents any use of scenery one of the actors makes a comment to the effect that as long as they believe in the material they don’t need sets. That certainly applies in this “Fiddler.” In other productions, and all have been first rate, you felt you were watching a musical. Here I honestly felt that I was in their small town watching the actual inhabitants.  

From the first chords of the memorable “Tradition” the orchestra of twelve sound (the clarity in the theater is sublime) as if you are listening to a full orchestra. Yes, it sounds that good. 

While the show always had its share of hilarious and moving moments here it is performed with such robust dedication (learning Yiddish is enough of a chore) you feel you are watching the show for the first time. 

Normally, Jackie Hoffman as funny as she can be has a tendency to overdo all her roles but not here. She portrays  the loquacious matchmaker Yente as straightforward as it was written. No need for needless antics. 

Tevye's daughters are beautifully played by Rachel Zatcoff, Stephanie Lynne Mason, Rosie Jo Neddy, Raquel Nobile and Samantha Hahn. Daniel Kahn makes a fiery Pertshik, the radical teacher  who falls in love with Hodl. While “Far From the Home I Love” which Hodl sings to her father before leaving to join her husband, Pertshik, in Siberia has always been a pleasingly touching number here Mason imbues the song with more raw emotion than I recall.  Ben Liebert is most pleasing as the nebbish tailor Motel doing a more emotionally gratifying version of the always tuneful “Miracle of Miracles.” I don’t recall ever seeing another Motel with tears in his eyes but thought I noticed them in Liebert’s interpretation. 

Illes is excellent displaying razor sharp humor as Golde and is a perfect counterbalance to the more laidback Tevye. Skybell could not be better as the engaging milkman. He captures Tevye's puckish charm and comic moments along with the fierceness of his dedication in  his beliefs. He superbly nails every emotion that book writer Joseph Stein has created in this character.

The score by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick still reigns supreme in the musical theater world and here a number of the lyrics are more faithful to Sholem Aleichem’s stories. You may think you know them by heart but there is a difference here.

Stay Kmiec’s staging is filled with the necessary adrenaline  and brings Jerome Robbins’ original breathtaking choreography vibrantly alive. 

Much praise surely goes to Joel Grey’s accomplished direction. It is a tightly directed show which adheres to the original production. Yet, in its own way it has a fresh incandescent feel thanks to both Grey and the cast. 

Thus far, this is easily the best show of the new theater season. 

Tickets are available at the Museum of Jewish Heritage Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Place or by calling 866.811.4100. The limited engagement as of this date ends August 26. 

PHOTOS: VICTOR NECHAY

Half Time--Generally Entertaining With Grand Cast 

The pleasant and generally entertaining new musical “Half Time” which perks up during the second act just had its northeast premiere at the Paper Mill Playhouse before it is scheduled to arrive on Broadway in the near future. 

The show is based on a true story about a group of over 60 seniors who are recruited by the NBA’s management to actually be the stars of the half time show. Only here they are not performing for the Nets as was the case but a fictionalized team named The Cougars.  They are to be trained by the coach Tara (Haven Burton) as directed so by the snarly head of management Alison Prager (Tracy Jai Edwards.) The goal is for Tara to teach these “over the hill” group of  eight women and one man hip hop. However, the seniors think they will be performing standard dances when they signed on. 

What works best in the show is the mostly superb cast who are Broadway veterans several having  created some memorable characters through the years. 

The wonderful Andre De Shields (“The Wiz” “The Full Monty”) whom I remember vividly doing the show stopping “Big Black Man” from “Monty” still has lost none of his zest for dancing. He can still move around with the best of them. He has a charming number “The Prince of Swing” written by the late great Marvin Hamlisch who contributed a few songs to the show. De Shields portrays a lonely widower who has spent most of his time in his daughter’s basement before taking this job on. 

Lillias White who won a well deserved Tony for “The Life” is a hoot as the outspoken Bea who tries to convince her granddaughter Kendra (Nkei Obi-Melekwe) that her boyfriend is a lout. She has the lovely number “Princess” she sings to Kendra about how much she enjoyed being a part of her life  through the years. 

The always welcome Donna McKechnie portrays the not so self assured Joanne whose claim to fame was starring in some awful sounding musical and then marrying a famous urologist. In a nod to McKechnie from her Cassie role in  “A Chorus Line” the panels from the rear of the stage turn with mirrors appearing where she breaks into her famed “Music and the Mirror” from that show. She still exhibits the vitality that she had when she opened in that show decades ago. 

Georgina Engel with her whispery voice is the kindergarten teacher Dorothy who is the only senior who actually has a love for hip hop and her idol is the late Tupac. I am not sure if I completely believed this and found her one number “Dorothy /Dottie”  which should have been much better falling flat. It does not seem to matter to the audience  for the fact that is she is most definitely a crowd please was evident by the cheering she receives by just making a few hip hop moves which to me came across a bit silly. 

Nancy Ticotin brings the dynamic bounce to the show with her fiery “Como No?” dancing with her 25 year old hunky new boyfriend (Alexander Aguilar). Lenora Nemetz is  humorous as the Mary Kay salesperson and Kay Walbye is funny as the not so legally blind Bea. Lori Tan Chinn is both comical and touching as the least prolific dancer Mae whose husband is in the throes of what might be dementia. She has a beautiful number “The Waters Rise” which smartly opens the second act. 

The book by Bob Martin (“The Drowsy Chaperone”) and Chad Beguelin (“Aladdin”) is serviceable and improves in the second act.  Cuts should be made to the exceedingly overlong first act before considering a Broadway transfer. It is later in in the show when you get to know more about the performers’ personal lives and thankfully nothing is belaboured. 

Even the score by Matthew Sklar (music) and Nell Benjamin (lyrics) is much improved later in the show. The positive attitude the characters developed through their determination shines brightly in  “New Point of View” a rousing number in which they all let loose. 

Director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell is the perfect fit for this type of show keeping it moving a good speed and having several of the leads get their time in the spotlight. 

The valuable set designer David Rockwell has done a fine job of creating a colourful looking gym with excellent projections by Jason Lee Courson.  

Despite some stale jokes and that sometimes tedious first act, those veteran performers still have it and they alone are worth the price of admission. 

Tickets are available at the Paper Mill Playhouse 22 Brookside Drive, Millburn NJ or by calling 973.376.4343. Limited engagement ends July 1. 

PHOTOS: JERRY DALIA

The Great Leap--Immensely Entertaining 

By Joseph Cervelli

I must say that I am not familiar with playwright Lauren Yee’s previous works which I now regret after viewing the highly satisfying and original “The Great Leap” at the Atlantic Theater Company. 

I was slightly unsure about attending since it seemed the play deals with basketball which I know about as much of as nuclear physics. Yet, I was completely taken in from the very first scene,  since the play is about determination in setting and fulfilling your goals along with some surprises along the way. While the play’s conclusion is a bit contrived it by no means spoils the vast enjoyment throughout and is helped immensely by a superior cast of four exceptional performances. 

The play begins in 1989 with the basketball coach for the University of San Francisco, Saul (played with mastery skill by Ned Eisenberg) who has been invited to bring his team to Beijing for an exhibition game. The manic and quite funny high school senior Manford (a wonderfully convincing Tony Aidan Vo), wants to play point guard for the team. His height is a problem so the foul mouthed Saul refuses despite Manford’s constant begging him. Saul has enough problems with a not very amicable divorce and problems in seeing his daughter.  We later find out that the young man’s mother has passed away and he is living with this “cousin” Connie (an excellent Ali Ahn) who is not really related but her father is the superintendent of their building. There is little mention of what happened to Manford’s own father in the first act. In a flashback to 1979 we see Saul (at first, you might not immediately  recognize the impressive Eisenberg with a toupee and shorts looking years younger as he is supposed to ) who was invited to Beijing to help teach the Chinese team some American techniques. There he meets the humble translator Wen Chang (a superb BD Wong) who has a difficult time trying to translate Saul’s epithets and vile comments which prove to be more amusing than offensive. 

Things turn more serious in the even better second act when Saul agrees to bring Manford to Beijing in which complications develop. Wen Chang has become the basketball coach and suddenly the new Chinese players are now about seven feet tall. Not exactly what Saul nor Manford anticipated.

What Lee has done under the decisive direction by Taibi Magar is not only to build the suspense of what will happen during the basketball game (staged thrillingly in almost a stationary position) but Manford getting caught up at the time the students were marching and being killed in Tiananmen Square. David Bengali’s projection designs are extremely effective.

What is admirable is that Yee could have easily have had Wen Chang become a  condescending voice on the behavior of the  Americans but that is  not the case. There is some worthwhile and faithful philosophising but no preaching which is an easy pitfall. 

Hagar and the tremendous cast has pulled the audience into this show that slowly blossoms into a social conscience  that informs and entertains along the way.

        Tickets are available at the Atlantic Theater Company/Stage 2 330 West 16th Street or by calling 866.811.4111.


PHOTO CREDIT: Ahron R. Foster

Peace For Mary Frances

By Joseph Cervelli

First time playwright Lily Thorne’s “Peace for Mary Frances” presented by The New Group at The Pershing Square Signature Centre is thoroughly exasperating. This play which lacks structure and has characters walking from room to room like robots is directed by the usually very reliable Lila Neugebauer . But she can add nothing to this with thoroughly disagreeable characters in a lumbering  slice of life drama. 

While it is always wonderful to have the memorable Lois Smith in any play, even she can do little to save this for her own character is not all that likeable. She portrays the title character who is  the matriarch of an Armenian family, and decides that at  age 90 and suffering from water on her lungs it is time for her to die. She seems vital enough except for this issue, and it is more than strange that no family member (and what a bunch they are!) even tries to convince her that if this medical condition was cleared up it would make her life easier. But they themselves are such a miserable bunch they care for no one but their own lives. Her one daughter the messed up Fanny (Johanna Day) is an ex-heroin addict now on methadone and is estranged from her daughter which her family enjoys taunting her about. She seems to be taking care of her mother but her sister Alice (J. Smith-Cameron) who took off from her job spends most of the time complaining about having to now take care of her mother because according to her Fanny has no idea what she is doing. Alice is also an astrologer and spends most of the time complaining she has no money and is thankful that her blouse cost her about $8.00.    

There is  divorced brother Eddie (Paul Lazar) a lawyer having the personality of a wet dishrag and spending most of the time sitting by his mother’s bed eating lunch.

There are two other family members both of whom are Alice’s daughters. Rosie (Natalie Gold) spends time at her grandmother’s house with her baby and her sister Helen (Heather Burns) is an actress on a television series and seems depressed. Since neither characters add nil to the play it makes little sense for their being there.  What also makes even far little sense is why the family decides for no apparent reason to speak about the Armenian Genocide. Thorne just inserts dialogue that has no bearing on the proceedings. 

Bonnie (Mia Katigbak) is the hospice nurse who seems a bit forgetful leaving the morphine in the car and Brian Miskell (Michael)  is the hospice psychologist while Melle Powers is Clara the home healthcare aide.  

Besides dealing with the cacophony of the family which is unceasing there are scenes that are just not believable.  When Mary Frances asks Bonnie how long she has to live the nurse answers, “About two days.” It is hard to believe any health care provider would make such a ludicrous statement. Michael walks into the bedroom where Mary Frances spends just about the entire play, introduces himself and leaves. Why would a psychologist not  speak to ascertain her frame of mind. In one scene Mary Frances hears something from outside her window and literally sprints out of bed astonishing her daughter Alice. Has a miracle occurred or is this just to give the play some bounce? Well, neither is the case here. 

Despite some committed performances, it is a completely dismal play with characters that are either objectionable or just plain bores complete with dialogue that sinks into the mundane.

Mary Frances does find peace at the conclusion and happily so does the audience when they are about to exit. 

Tickets are available at the New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Centre 480 West 42nd Street or by calling 212.279.4200. 

PHOTOS CREDIT: MONIQUE CARBONI