{"id":208,"date":"2010-11-26T13:36:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-26T17:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/?p=208"},"modified":"2010-11-27T20:33:02","modified_gmt":"2010-11-28T00:33:02","slug":"on-the-aisle-with-larry-26-november-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/?p=208","title":{"rendered":"“On the Aisle with Larry” 26 November 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawrence Harbison<\/em><\/strong>, The Playfixer,\u00a0 brings you up to date with what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about ELF, ANGELS IN AMERICA, COLIN QUINN: \u00a0LONG STORY SHORT, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ELLING, AFTER THE REVOLUTION, THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING, THERE ARE NO MORE BIG SECRETS, TIGERS BE STILL, SPIRIT CONTROL <\/strong><\/em>and MIDDLETOWN.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t see the movie Elf <\/em>when it first came out but I caught up with it recently on DVD on the recommendation of my son. It\u2019s a charming film, brimming with droll wit and Christmas good cheer. The musical version of Elf<\/em><\/strong>, at the Hirschfeld Theatre, keeps all of the cheer but excises most of the drollery. It\u2019s good family fun as long as you don\u2019t go expecting it to be like the movie.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The story concerns one Buddy, a human who\u2019s raised at the North Pole to think he\u2019s one of Santa\u2019s elves. When he realizes he\u2019s human, he decides to travel to New York to find his father, a man named Walter Hobbs who is an executive with a children\u2019s book publisher, whose office is in the Empire State Building and who doesn\u2019t know he exists. Dad is a workaholic sourpuss, but this does not deter our hero from trying to win his love. Nobody believes in The Meaning of Christmas in NYC (can you believe it?); but gradually, Our Hero changes all of that, and finds romance as well.<\/p>\n

The book writers, Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin, follow the plot of the film pretty much, though two favorite characters have been cut \u2013 Papa Elf, who supplies most of the exposition in the film, and the vile children\u2019s book author who it is hoped by Hobbs will save his skin by letting his company publish his new book. I missed them both. The songs (music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin) are cheerful and fun.<\/p>\n

As for the performers, Sebastian Arcelus makes a fine Buddy, and there is excellent work from Matthew Gumley, as Buddy\u2019s half brother Michael, and from Mark Jacoby as Buddy\u2019s Dad. Jacoby looks and sounds astonishingly like James Caan in the film. Beth Leavel is rather wasted in the role of Buddy\u2019s step-mom Emily. She\u2019s a wonderfully quirky actress who doesn\u2019t get much chance to break out into quirkiness. Don\u2019t get me wrong, though, she\u2019s fine in this rather generic role.<\/p>\n

Elf <\/em>is a charming, feel-good show. If you\u2019re in the mood for this kind of thing, by all means go.<\/p>\n

Signature Theatre Company is celebrating the work of Tony Kushner this season, with revivals of Angels in America<\/em><\/strong> and Kushner\u2019s translation of Corneille\u2019s The Illusion<\/em>. Angels in America <\/em>is running now, but good luck scoring a ticket as the entire limited run is sold out.<\/p>\n

Kushner\u2019s epic drama about America in the throes of the AIDS crisis still packs a punch, particularly as we suffer through the re-ascendancy of Reaganite conservativism. I was glad to have the chance to see the play again, though Michael Greif\u2019s production didn\u2019t make me forget George C. Woolf\u2019s original on Broadway.<\/p>\n

All of the actors are good, but two crucial roles seemed to me to be miscast. Bill Heck plays Joe Pitt, the conservative Mormon who\u2019s a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of the evil Roy Cohn, and Zoe Kazan plays his wife Harper. Heck is a tall handsome hunk who reads mid-30s; Kazan, a sprite who reads about 16. In this production, Harper looks more like Joe\u2019s daughter than his wife. Also, I had a hard time believing that Joe is gay, because Heck is so straight in his manner, unlike David Marshall Grant in the Broadway production. Robin Bartlett is even better than was Kathleen Chalfant in her several roles, the most important of which are Hannah (Joe\u2019s mother) and Ethel Rosenberg. The real surprise for me was Frank Wood\u2019s Roy Cohn. I\u2019ve usually seen him in mild-mannered roles; here, he\u2019s maniacally demonic. I do wish he had better diction, though. He barks out his lines like he\u2019s a machine gun, and too much of them are unintelligible. Still, he\u2019s fantastic \u2013 if you can understand what he\u2019s saying.\u00a0 Christian Borle is terrific as Prior Walter, as is Zachary Quinto as Louis. Borle looks astonishingly like Joe Mantello, who played Louis in the Broadway production. I was startled when I saw him for the first time, and assumed they had cast a Mantello lookalike as Louis, only to realize that in fact he was playing Prior.<\/p>\n

Most of Greif\u2019s staging is wonderful; but he botches the climax of the first part, Millenium Approaches. <\/em>The Angel is rolled in looking like the dry cleaning, and this climactic scene is played stage left, when it certainly should be center stage. I don\u2019t usually tell an artist what he should have done; but this was just terrible.<\/p>\n

If this extends, maybe you\u2019ll be able to score a ticket. With all its flaws, this is overall a fine production of one of the greatest American plays.<\/p>\n

Colin Quinn: \u00a0Long Story Short <\/em><\/strong>started out last summer Off Broadway, where it was a sold-out hit, and has transferred to Broadway\u2019s Helen Hayes Theatre. It\u2019s basically about 80 minutes of stand-up comedy in which Quinn comments caustically on the history of ideas. I was unfamiliar with Quinn, so I had no preconceptions. He\u2019s essentially a working class bloke, the sort of guy you might meet at a bar. He\u2019s pretty funny; but, like Frank Wood he has terrible diction and speaks in machine gun bursts, so all too much of his act is unintelligible. And he\u2019s miked!<\/p>\n

My main problem with this show was that I just don\u2019t think it belongs in a Broadway theatre, even one as small as the Helen Hayes, at Broadway prices. But if you\u2019re a Quinn fan, by all means go. If you\u2019re not, you could skip this one.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t, however, miss Daniel Sullivan\u2019s wonderful production of Shakespeare\u2019s The Merchant of Venice<\/em><\/strong>, starring Al Pacino as Shylock. This is one of the greatest Shakespearean productions I\u2019ve ever seen, and Pacino is, truly, the Jew which Shakespeare drew. He\u2019s unforgettable, as is Lily Rabe as Portia.<\/p>\n

Elling<\/strong><\/em>, <\/span><\/em>at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, is an import from London, where it won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. Brendan Fraser and Denis O\u2019Hare star as two lunatics who first share a bedroom in an asylum, and later a flat in the outside world.<\/p>\n

Fraser and O\u2019Hare are hilarious, as is Jennifer Coolidge is various roles; but it\u2019s not enough to save this loopy, terribly thin play, which is basically just a plotless series of episodes.<\/p>\n

You could give this one a miss, unless you just can\u2019t bear to miss Fraser and O\u2019Hare.<\/p>\n

This seems to be Open Season on lefties, for some reason. Amy Herzog\u2019s\u00a0 After the Revolution<\/em><\/strong>, at Playwrights Horizons, is a terrific drama about the adult children and grandchildren of a man who was blacklisted in the 1950s. His granddaughter, Emma, has established a foundation is his name to fight government oppression. She\u2019s the last to know, though, that Grandpa actually was a spy for the Soviets, which means everything she has been brought up to believe is a lie.<\/p>\n

Carolyn Cantor\u2019s production is excellent overall, but the set just doesn\u2019t work. It\u2019s basically a living room which is supposed to represent different living rooms. No good. The actors, however, are great. My faves were Katherine Powell as Emma and Peter Friedman as her father, Ben. Friedman is one of our greatest stage actors, and is here seen in one of his finest roles.<\/p>\n

My only quibble with the play is the anticlimactic last scene, wherein Emma tells her step-grandmother what she has decided to do about her foundation. The climax of the play is her confrontation with her father in the preceding scene, and it is here that her decision should have been revealed.<\/p>\n

Aside from these quibbles, After the Revolution<\/em> is a don\u2019t-miss.<\/p>\n

Richard Nelson\u2019s That Hopey Changey Thing<\/em><\/strong>, which has just closed at the Public Theater, took a hard look at knee-jerk liberalism. It was about a family of liberal ideologues. The brother, played with his usual flair by Jay O. Sanders, is starting to veer to the right, and when he takes on his sisters\u2019 liberal views, the sparks begin to fly.<\/p>\n

Essentially, this was more extended debate than real play; but the debate was engaging and all the actors were terrific. I hope you saw it; but if you didn\u2019t, you missed a humdinger.<\/p>\n

Heidi Schreck\u2019s There Are No More Big Secrets<\/em><\/strong>, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, is a gripping drama about a Russian journalist and her American husband who come to visit old friends. She\u2019s on the lam from mysterious forces which want to kill her. He\u2019s the ex-lover of his host\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n

Like That Hopey Changey Thing, <\/em>this play is long on talk; but there\u2019s enough action to keep you engaged, and the performers are terrific. There\u2019s even a possibly supernatural mystery thrown into the mix, which I found fascinating.<\/p>\n

Definitely check this one out.<\/p>\n

Kim Rosenstock\u2019s Tigers Be Still<\/em><\/strong>, which has just closed at the Roundabout Underground, was a compelling comic drama about a young woman who\u2019s a tutor for a surly teenaged boy. She lives with her sister, who\u2019s dreadfully depressed about her breakup with her boyfriend, and who spends all day sitting on the sofa drinking Jack Daniels and watching Top Gun<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rosenstock\u2019s writing was fresh and witty, and Sam Gold\u2019s production captured her quirky style perfectly. All the actors were wonderful. I hope you had the chance to see this. Rosenstock is a real comer.<\/p>\n

Spirit Control<\/em><\/strong>, at Manhattan Theatre Club, is strangely compelling play by Beau Willimon about an air traffic controller named Adam who tries but fails to help a distraught women land a plane whose pilot has died of a heart attack. This is so traumatic for him that he winds up losing his family after having an affair with a woman he meets in a bar. Or does he? This is one of those plays which seems like its central character is in the funhouse, gazing at endless reflections of himself. What\u2019s real, and what\u2019s fantasy? As it gets cleverer and cleverer, it gets weirder and weirder.<\/p>\n

What sustains the evening is the brilliant performance by Jeremy Sisto as Adam. Mia Barron, as the mysterious Woman in the Bar, is also great. This one is definitely worth seeing.<\/p>\n

Middletown<\/em><\/strong>, at the Vineyard Theatre, is a full length play by Will Eno, whose one-man play Thom Paine<\/em> (About Nothing<\/em> \u2013 as it certainly was) pretty much annoyed everyone to death excerpt The Times\u2019 Charles Isherwood, who has raved about this new Eno play. I have to admit, it\u2019s not nearly as annoying as Thom Paine<\/em>, but that\u2019s about the best I can say for it.<\/p>\n

Eno sets his play in Middletown, sort of a generic small town in Middle America, and makes it a kind of contemporary Grovers Corners. His writing, a snarky imitation of Thornton Wilder with none of Wilder\u2019s compassion and empathy for his characters, posits that the denizens of this \u201ctypical American town\u201d are all either loopy or suffering from alienation and despair. Imagine Grovers Corners peopled with nothing but Simon Stimsons.<\/p>\n

You could skip Middletown<\/em>.<\/p>\n

ELF. <\/em><\/strong>Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com<\/a> or 212-239-6200<\/p>\n

ANGELS IN AMERICA<\/em><\/strong>. Signature Theatre Co., 555 W. 42nd<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: 212-244-7529 (good luck \u2026)<\/p>\n

COLIN QUINN: \u00a0LONG STORY SHORT<\/em><\/strong>. Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 W.44th<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com<\/a> or 212-239-6200<\/p>\n

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE<\/em><\/strong>, Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com<\/a> or 212-239-6200<\/p>\n

ELLING<\/em><\/strong>. Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com<\/a> or 212-239-6200<\/p>\n

AFTER THE REVOLUTION<\/em><\/strong>. <\/em>Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com<\/a> or 212-279-4200<\/p>\n

THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING<\/em><\/strong>. Public Theater. Alas, closed<\/p>\n

THERE ARE NO MORE BIG SECRETS. <\/em><\/strong>Rattlestick Theatre, 224 Waverly Pl.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: www.smarttix.xom<\/a> or 212-868-4444<\/p>\n

TIGERS BE STILL<\/em><\/strong>. Roundabout Underground. Alas, closed<\/p>\n

SPIRIT CONTROL. <\/em><\/strong>Manhattan Theatre Club. City Center, 131 W. 55th<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: 212-581-1212<\/p>\n

MIDDLETOWN<\/em><\/strong>. Vineyard Theatre, 109 E. 15th<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n

TICKETS: 212-353-0303<\/p>\n

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with\u00a0a crabbed spirit\u00a0and a\u00a0cynical 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.”<\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

—– George F. Will<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer,\u00a0 brings you up to date with what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about ELF, ANGELS IN AMERICA, COLIN QUINN: \u00a0LONG STORY SHORT, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ELLING, AFTER THE REVOLUTION, THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING, THERE ARE NO MORE BIG SECRETS, TIGERS BE STILL, SPIRIT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}