Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry reports on SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK, ALL’S WELL THE ENDS WELL, MEASURE FOR MEASURE, BY THE WAY MEET VERA STARK. ONE ARM, THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, SIDE EFFECTS and THE SHAGGS: PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD.
SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (a title which makes no sense to me), has finally opened at the Foxwoods Theatre, after months and months of previews and bad publicity, and after the producers dumped Julie Taymor and brought in a new director and playwright, all at a reported cost of $70 million. But you don’t care about the cost, nor about all the craziness – you want to know, is any good?
Well, of course, that depends on what you mean by “good.” I did not see Taymor’s version, but by all accounts it was a grandiose attempt to turn a comic book hero and story into something mythic and metaphorical. The problem was, nobody could follow the story and nobody could figure out what it all meant. So a new playwright, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, was brought in to clarify everything and return to the comic book sensibility of the source material. Aguirre-Sacasa is the guy they should have hired from the get-go. Not only is he a successful playwright – he also writes Spider-Man for Marvel Comics.
What you see onstage is spectacular. The sets and costumes are amazing. The book now makes sense, and much of the music by Bono and The Edge is just perfect for this kind of thing. As for the performers, they’re fine but not great. I took my 20-something daughter to the show and I asked her afterwards who might like this. She replied, “teenage boys who have never seen a Broadway show before.” That sounds about right to me.
If, on the other hand other hand, you are a sentient adult you might prefer Daniel Sullivan’s charming production of ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. This is an odd comedy about a young woman who loves a guy who doesn’t want her, so she tricks him into bed and winds up with him. As you would expect, Sullivan’s direction is delightfully inventive, and all the performances are strong. My faves were Annie Parisse as Helena and Reg Rogers as Bertram’s windbag fair weather friend Parolles. Tom Kitt’s music is a special pleasure, and Jane Greenwood’s costumes are lovely. How can this great designer never have won a Tony Award (she has 15 nominations)?
Even better is David Esbjornson’s fascinating production of MEASURE FOR MEASURE, running in repertory with All’s Well that Ends Well. Oddly enough, both plays revolve around a sexual ruse. In All’s Well that Ends Well, Helena tricks Bertram into marrying her by pretending to be Diana, the babe he really wants, and getting pregnant by him. In Measure for Measure, Angelo lusts after Isabella but wants no part of the woman he’s affianced to, Mariana – so the Duke concocts a ruse whereby Mariana gets into bed and poses as Mariana, thus tricking Angelo. These ruses make these plays a perfect pair.
It’s pretty hard to top Daniel Sullivan, but Esbjornson manages that feat. He has set the play in a quasi-Jacobean Vienna, rife with black devils right out of medieval morality plays. One of the problems with this play for me has always been why the Duke decides to take a sabbatical. He makes his first entrance in this production rising up through the stage in a bed full of these devils, so Esbjornson makes it clear that the Duke is beset by temptation, which is why he goes to a monastery and assumes the identify of a friar.
As for the design elements, Elizabeth Hope Clancy’s costumes are wonderfully inventive and the sin-ridden Vienna is beautifully evoked by Peter Kaczorowski’s lighting. John Gromada’s music is terrific too.
Again, all the performances are wonderful. Lorenzo Pisoni is an authoritative Duke and Michael Hayden an appropriately weaselly Angelo. Danai Gurira is astonishing as Isabella, the best in that role I have ever seen, and André Holland (who plays the callow Bertram in All’s Well that Ends Well) is terrific as Claudio, Isabella’s brother who’s condemned by Angelo to die for fornication. Reg Rogers, as Lucio, plays a variation on his Parolles character, and I also greatly enjoyed Carson Elrod, whose amusingly slimy Pompey put me in mind of the Emcee from Cabaret.
Last summer, Heather Lind scored in two small roles (Perdita in The Winter’s Tale and Jessica in The Merchant of Venice). This summer’s Heather Lind is Kristin Connolly, who really stands out as Diana in All’s Well that Ends Well and Juliet in Measure for Measure. Like Ms. Lind, she’ll be playing leading roles before too long I expect.
Lynn Nottage followed up her Pulitzer Prize-winning Ruined with BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK at Second Stage (which has, alas, closed), a comedy about
a young black woman in Hollywood in the 1930’s who gets cast as the maid in a Civil War epic which becomes something of a classic. The first act of this very entertaining play dealt with the events that led up to the filing of the movie. The second act took place 70 years later, as three pompous film critics discussed Vera’s career as they watched a tape of an appearance she made on a TV talk show in the 1970’s. Sanaa Lathan was splendid in the title role, and Stephanie J. Block was delightful as the star of the picture.
I hope you were able to see this. It was really wonderful.
The New Group has up and running a production of an unproduced screenplay by Tennessee Williams called One Arm, adapted and directed by Moisés Kaufman. Williams wrote this in the early 196os, and it’s easy to see why it wasn’t produced, as its subject matter would have been far too shocking at that time, as it’s about a navy boxer who loses an arm in a car accident and becomes a hustler in the demi-monde of New Orleans.
Kaufman’s production is brilliant, and it features a strong cast headed by Claybourne Elder as the one-armed hustler. This closes this weekend. Try and get to it if you can.
NY Theatre Workshop is offering another staged screenplay, this one Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly, adapted by Jenny Worton, oddly enough about a crazy wife (see Side Effects below) who is a problem for her husband, her father and her brother. This is a good vehicle for director David Leveaux, who specializes in chilly subject matter, and Carey Mulligan is sensational as the mentally ill young wife. For Some Strange Reason, all the actors speak in British accents, which I found odd; but still, this is a compelling evening in the theatre if you’re into Bergman.
Michael Weller’s Side Effects, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, is something of a companion piece to his 50 Words, which was about a Brooklyn couple whose marriage is falling apart due to her emotional problems and his infidelity. In Side Effects, we meet the woman with whom the husband in 50 Words is having an affair and her husband, who also have a rocky marriage. They say it takes two to tango but, interestingly, in both plays it’s the wife who’s the problem. This is not exactly politically correct, because as we all know marriages fall apart because the guy’s an insensitive dick …
Side Effects isn’t as powerful as was 50 Words, but it features wonderful performances by Cotter Smith and Joelly Richardson and is well worth seeing because of them.
THE SHAGGS: PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD, at Playwrights Horizons, is a musical true story of a terrible rock group in the late 60’s, three teenaged sisters with no talent whatsoever who were forced into performing by their desperately deluded dad, who saw them as his ticket to fortune. Some of this works; but most of it doesn’t. I found the evening a Total Bummer, often painful to watch.
SPIDER-MAN TURN OF THE DARK. Foxwoods Theatre, 213 West 42nd Street
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 212-307-4100
ALL’S WELL THE ENDS WELL and MEASURE FOR MEASURE Delacorte
Theatre, Central Park
For ticket and performance information, call 212-539-8750
BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK Second Stage. Alas, closed.
ONE ARM Acorn Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY. New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St.
TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
SIDE EFFECTS. Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St.
TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
THE SHAGGS: PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD. Playwrights Horizons,
416 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
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“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”
—– George F. Will