\u201cOn the Aisle with Larry\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on THE TESTAMENT OF MARY, MATILDA, MOTOWN, JEKYLL AND HYDE, THE NANCE, THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES, F#%KING UP EVERYTHING, THE DANCE OF DEATH, GOLDOR $ MYTHYKA, COLLAPSE, FINKS and SLEEPING ROUGH.<\/p>\n
The Testament of Mary<\/strong>, Colm Torbin\u2019s monodrama starring Fiona Shaw, posits that Jesus\u2019 mom was a bitter, frightened, angry woman, appalled that her son grew up to be a crank and a leader of other cranks. Torbin does not pay much attention to Gospel chronology. Here, Lazarus is raised from the dead in Cana (instead of Bethany, where the Bible says this happened), dug up from his grave, which displays an astounding ignorance of Jewish burial practices at the time, then Mom\u2019s son (she refuses to utter his name for some reason) maybe<\/em> changes water into wine at the wedding. Or maybe not. His Mom thinks this is highly spurious. The miracle at Cana was Christ\u2019s first miracle: Lazarus, one of his last. At Cana, Mary\u2019s son tells her he\u2019s the son of God \u2013 which is news to her. Finally, it turns out the Resurrection was a bad dream Mary had. She told it to some other people, and the rest is history. Lord, have mercy.<\/p>\n Deborah Warner\u2019s staging has Fiona Shaw staggering around the stage, overturning tables and chairs willy-nilly, taking out cigarettes which she doesn\u2019t smoke, swigging from what appears to be a bottle of vodka and \u2013 holy moly! \u2013 even stripping butt-naked at one point to splash around in a small pool. Occasionally, the back wall of the stage opens up slowly, for no discernible reason, while faint, eerie, almost inaudible music plays.<\/p>\n As a Christian, I found this appalling, one of the worst things I have ever seen. If you\u2019re an atheist or an agnostic, I expect you\u2019ll merely find it boring.<\/p>\n The reviews are in, and Matilda<\/strong>, at the Shubert Theatre, appears to be this season\u2019s Big One. The book, by Dennis Kelly, is based on a children\u2019s book by Roald Dahl about an indefatigable little girl who won\u2019t be deterred by the Parents and Schoolmistress From Hell from getting an education. Everyone great in the show \u2013 most especially, Bertie Carvel as the horrible schoolmistress.<\/p>\n My problem with the show: many of the songs are very fast in tempo. When they\u2019re sung by the kids (much of the time), in thick English working class accents, they\u2019re pretty much unintelligible. I thought it was just me \u2013 but everyone sitting around me had the same problem. They should project the lyrics above the proscenium, like the New York City Opera.<\/p>\n Matilda is an overblown kiddie show. It\u2019s OK \u2013 but I\u2019ve seen better this season, including a few which did not find favor with most critics.<\/p>\n Motown<\/strong>, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, is a jukebox musical which employs at least 50 Motown hits as it tells the story of the company\u2019s founder, Berry Gordy, Jr. Since the book is written by Gordy, it\u2019s pretty much a hagiographic portrait of the man. All the performers do terrific impersonations of the Real Thing. Charl Brown sounds exactly like Smokey Robinson, and Raymond Luke, Jr. stops the show as young Michael Jackson.<\/p>\n I grew up loving Motown songs, so for me it was a wonderful trip down memory lane, somewhat rueful, though, when I thought about the crap that passes for pop music nowadays.<\/p>\n Jekyll and Hyde<\/strong> is back, at the Marquis Theatre, and has gotten predictably terrible reviews. For some reason I can\u2019t fathom, the critics loathe Frank Wildhorn, its composer, and are determined to prevent him from stinking up Broadway. As for me, I think his score is magnificent, full of soaring melodies, and it\u2019s beautifully sung by the likes of Constantine Maroulis, in the title role, and Deborah Cox as the doomed whore, Lucy.<\/p>\n Jekyll and Hyde is not the dog you\u2019ve read about.<\/p>\n Douglas Carter Beane\u2019s The Nance<\/strong>, at the Lyceum Theatre, stars Nathan Lane as a two-bit burlesque performer named Chauncey Miles who specializes in \u201cNance\u201d characters \u2013 flamboyant homosexuals spewing out outrageous double entendres. When not performing, Chauncey hangs out in an automat in the Village, a popular gay hangout, where he meets a young man from Buffalo and takes him in. Meanwhile, Mayor LaGuardia is cracking down on lewd entertainments \u2013 but Chauncey, a staunch Republican, refuses to see the handwriting on the wall until it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n Lane is magnificent as Chauncey, but there is also wonderful work from the likes of Lewis J. Stadlen as his baggy-pants partner in comedy and from Jonny Orsini as the young drifter who makes the mistake of falling for Chauncey.<\/p>\n The Nance is one of the best plays of the season, and not to be missed.<\/p>\n I also liked Richard Greenberg\u2019s The Assembled Parties<\/strong>, at Manhattan Theatre Club\u2019s Friedman Theatre, a drama about a well-to-do woman named Julie who loses her husband, her son but not her grace and charm. Lynne Meadow has done a fine job of directing, and Judith Light steals the show as Julie\u2019s bitter sister in law, Faye. Jessica Hecht has received praise for her portrayal of Julie, but I felt she was just a little too affected, too perfect. She hardly seemed human.<\/p>\n Still, The Assembled Parties is a solid, well-written, well-acted play \u2013 definitely worth your time.<\/p>\n F#%King Up Every<\/strong>thing at the Elektra Theatre, is a musical by David Eric Davis and Sam Forman about young Brooklyn hipsters, a little like Avenue Q but not as good. The central characters are two buddies. One\u2019s the studly lead singer in a rock band; the other\u2019s a kiddie-show puppeteer. All the performers are very engaging, though not exactly the best of singers. But the show won me over, and I wound up having a good time.<\/p>\n I have to admit I wasn\u2019t looking forward to the Red Bull Theatre\u2019s production of Strindberg\u2019s The Dance of Death<\/strong>, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, as I usually find Strindberg rather wearisome; but director Joseph Hardy has mined every ounce of humor in the dour Scandinavian\u2019s play, finding in its two central characters, Edgar and Alice, a married couple who enjoy tormenting each other, prototypes of George and Martha in Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Daniel Davis and Laila Robins are sensational.<\/p>\n Even if your first thought is, \u201cOh God, not Strindberg,\u201d check this one out.<\/p>\n Lynn Rosen’s Goldor $ Mythyka<\/strong>, which has just closed at the New Ohio Theatre, was classic New Georges, a women\u2019s theatre company which likes to produce \u201cthe weirder the better\u201d kinds of plays. Cohen\u2019s was about a man and a woman who go on a crime spree dressed as video-game-type characters, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Shana Gold\u2019s direction was just-right, and Garret Neergaard and Jenny Seastone Stern were great as Our Two Anti-Heroes.<\/p>\n Keep an eye out for New Georges. They do fascinating, challenging work \u2013 and they do it well.<\/p>\n Allison Moore\u2019s Collapse<\/strong>, produced by the Women\u2019s Project at City Center Stage II, is a fascinating play about a woman named Susan whose marriage is collapsing due to the PTSD her husband is experiencing as a result of almost dying in the Minnesota bridge collapse. Nadia Bowers is terrific as Susan. Also wonderful are Hannah Cabell as Susan\u2019s basket-case of a sister and Elliot Vilar as a sexaholic Susan meets.<\/p>\n I loved this play!<\/p>\n Also good is Joe Gilford\u2019s Finks<\/strong>, at Ensemble Studio Theatre, which has just received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Play, a dark comedy about the dark days of the black llist which focuses on a nightclub comic named Mickey Dobbs who\u2019s essentially apolitical but who falls for an actress\/lefty named Natalie who drags him into pinko-ism. This one\u2019s a don\u2019t-miss.<\/p>\n As was Page 73\u2019s production of Kara Manning\u2019s Sleeping Ro<\/strong>ugh at the Wild Project, which has just closed, wherein the always-excellent Kellie Overbey played a woman whose son has been killed in Afghanistan. Overbey was terrific, as was Quentin Mar\u00e9 as her ex-husband and Renate Friedman as her daughter.<\/p>\n Much of Sleeping Rough is comprised of narrative monologues. Ordinarily, I am not a fan of this kind of playwriting, but Manning\u2019s writing is so touching and all the performances so engaging that I was won over.<\/p>\n THE TESTAMENT OF MARY. Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St. For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n — George F. Will<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n — Theodore Roosevelt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cOn the Aisle with Larry\u201d Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s not in New York. 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\nGiovanna Sardelli, the director, has done an astounding job of making Gilford\u2019s play work in EST\u2019s tiny black box of a space, and Aaron Serofsky and Miriam Silverman are outstanding as Mickey and Natalie.<\/p>\n
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nMATILDA. Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St.
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nMOTOWN. Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. 46th St.
\nTICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
\nJEKYLL AND HYDE Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway
\nTICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
\nTHE NANCE. Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St.
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nTHE ASSEMBLED PARTIES. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St.
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nF#%KING UP EVERYTHING. Elekta Theatre, 673 8th Ave.
\nTICKETS: www.ovationtix.com
\nTHE DANCE OF DEATH. Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St.
\nTICKETS: 212-352-3101
\nGOLDOR $ MYTHYKA. New Ohio Theatre. Alas, closed.
\nCOLLAPSE. City Center Stage II, 424 W. 55th St.
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nFINKS. Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 W. 52nd St.
\nTICKETS: www.ovationtix.com
\nSLEEPING ROUGH. Wild Project. Alas, closed.<\/p>\n