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 JUST JIM DALE, THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN, OF MICE AND MEN, CABARET, HERE LIES LOVE, THE AYCKBOURN ENSEMBLE, THE CITY OF CONVERSATION, TOO MUCH SUN and WHEN JANUARY FEELS LIKE SUMMER.<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t find a more entertaining show off Broadway right now than Jim Dale\u2019s solo memoir turn, appropriately entitled Just Jim Dale<\/em><\/strong>, at Roundabout\u2019s Laura Pels Theatre, wherein the endlessly energetic 78 year-old actor recounts his rise from his start in the English music halls, to his years as a rock star (during which he wrote the lyrics to \u201cGeorgie Girl\u201d), eventually becoming one of the world\u2019s greatest actors, equally adept in comedy, drama, and musicals. Some of this is his life story, some a collection of his Greatest Hits from such shows as Scapino, Barnum and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, and there are particularly amusing segments wherein he explains how much of the English language derives from Shakespeare, and when he recounts his experience recording the Harry Potter audio books.<\/p>\n You won\u2019t want to miss this one, folks.<\/p>\n I am finally getting around to The Cripple of Inishmaan<\/em><\/strong>, at the Cort Theatre, which I saw quite a while ago. Indeed, a lot of this column is me playing catch-up ball. I got swamped with Playfixer projects and hurt both shoulders, requiring surgery and making it difficult for me to type.<\/p>\n Anyway, this is still running and is not to be missed. It\u2019s a revival of a play by Martin McDonagh, perhaps the greatest contemporary Irish dramatist, about a crippled orphan boy named Billy whose parents drowned under mysterious circumstances and who is being carried for by two old ladies he calls his \u201caunties.\u201d There\u2019s not much excitement in Billy\u2019s life — or, indeed in the lives of any of the residents of Inishmaan \u2013 until, that is, a Hollywood film crew arrives to shoot a \u201cfillum.\u201d Billy manages to get to the film set, where he is \u201cdiscovered\u201d and sent off to Hollywood.<\/p>\n Speaking of Harry Potter, the play stars Daniel Radcliffe in an absolutely heart-wrenching performance in the title role; and he is supported by a wonderful cast of Irish actors, under the beautiful direction of Michael Grandage. The Best Leading Actor category at the Tony\u2019s was very competitive this year, and Radcliffe didn\u2019t get nominated \u2013 but he sure deserved to be.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t want to miss this one either.<\/p>\n John Steinbeck\u2019s Of Mice and Men<\/em><\/strong>, at the Longacre Theatre, is another wonderful don\u2019t-miss revival, superbly directed by Anna D. Shapiro and starring James Franco and George and Chris O\u2019Dowd as Lenny. Franco is not the stiff you heard he is. He\u2019s terrific as George, though overshadowed (as George always is in productions of the play) by Lenny, the showier part. O\u2019Dowd is terrific too, as are all the supporting actors. My faves were Jim Norton as Candy, the elderly ranch hand with the stinky dog, Jim Parrick as Slim and Ron Cephas Jones as the black ranch hand, Crooks.<\/p>\n Roundabout\u2019s production of Cabaret<\/em><\/strong>, directed by Sam Mendes, first seen here 14 years ago, is back at Studio 54, again starring the astonishing Alan Cumming as the Emcee, and featuring Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles. You expect Cumming to be great \u2013 but how is Michelle Williams? Well, great too. She\u2019s perfect in the role. Also good are Danny Burstyn as Herr Schultz, Linda Emond as Frau Schneider and Bill Heck as Cliff. Even if you saw this production of Cabaret the first time around, it\u2019s worth seeing again. It\u2019s a great production of a classic musical.<\/p>\n The Public Theater\u2019s acclaimed production of Here Lies Love<\/em><\/strong>, directed by Alex Timbers and with a beautiful score by David Byrne and Fat Boy Slim, has reopened for a commercial run at the Public, the first time this has happened in the institution\u2019s esteemed history. This is the story of Imelda Marcos, done as an audience-immersive disco. It\u2019s brilliantly conceived and staged, and features a wonderful performance by Ruthie Ann Miles as Imelda Marcos, with strong support from Jose Llana as Ferdinand Marcos and Conrad Ricamora as Aquino.<\/p>\n This one, too, is a don\u2019t-miss.<\/p>\n Uptown at 59 E 59, the annual Brits Off Broadway Festival is going full bore. British Playwright Alan Ayckbourn has brought over his company from the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough to perform, in repertory, three Ayckbourn plays in repertory \u2013 Arrivals and Departures, Farcicals<\/em> <\/strong>and Time of My Life<\/em><\/strong>. While I would describe none as top-drawer Ayckbourn, even second-tier Ayckbourn is head and shoulders above most everything else. Ayckbourn has directed all three and his direction of this wonderful ensemble is superb.<\/p>\n Arrivals and Departures<\/em> is a comic drama about a bumbling, extremely garrulous meter man named Barry who is the only one who can identify a terrorist expected to get off the next train, and the female soldier named Ez assigned to guard him. It flips back and forth in time as we learn how Barry and Ez came to this point in their lives. Elizabeth Boag is very compelling as Ez, and Kim Wall\u2019s Barry is a comic gem of a performance.<\/p>\n Farcicals<\/em> consists of two related one-acts about marital infidelity, featuring the same two couples. It\u2019s less substantial than the other two plays but by far the funniest of all three. Ms. Boag turns in a wonderful performance as one half of one of the couples. In the first part, she reassures her friend that her husband is not having an affair. In the second part, it turns out he is \u2013 with her. Boag is so good I didn\u2019t even realize it was the same actress from Arrivals and Departures until I looked in my program when I got home, and Sarah Stanley is hilarious as the mousy wife trying to win back her husband\u2019s attentions.<\/p>\n The most complex of the three is Time of My Life<\/em>. It begins with a dinner party at some sort of vaguely mysterious ethnic restaurant and lurches back and forth in time as couples meet and break up. Its ending is very touching.<\/p>\n Three new plays by one of the British theatre\u2019s greatest living dramatists. Not to be missed.<\/p>\n Nor is Anthony Giardina\u2019s The City of Conversation<\/em><\/strong>, at Lincoln Center\u2019s Mitzi Newhouse Theatre. Set in Georgetown in the Age of Reagan, it\u2019s about a socialite and something of a political mover and shaker named Hester, a champion of liberal causes determined to fight Reaganism at every turn, even if it costs her her relationship with her son and, eventually, her grandson. The play is witty, thoughtful and thoroughly engaging, and features a terrific star performance by the always-wonderful Jan Maxwell.<\/p>\n The City of Conversation<\/em> is Pulitzer Prize-quality and deserves to move to a commercial run, as did Jon Robin Baitz\u2019 Other Desert Cities, which started in the same theatre, moved to Broadway, and should have won the Pulitzer two years ago.<\/p>\n Nicky Silver\u2019s Too Much Sun<\/em><\/strong>, at the Vineyard Theatre, also features a star performance (by Linda Lavin) as a very successful stage actress named Audrey who has a meltdown while rehearsing Medea and decides to move in indefinitely with her daughter and her husband, who are not exactly happy about this. Daughter Kitty has always had a rocky relationship with her mother, a difficult, self-absorbed woman — plus there seem to be problems in her marriage. We find out the cause of these problems late in the play, when her husband begins a torrid love affair with a teenaged neighbor boy. Although I enjoyed this, it doesn\u2019t have the heft of Silver\u2019s last Vineyard outing, The Lyons<\/em>, but this is a fine production and one never wants to miss a chance to see the great Linda Lavin.<\/p>\n Finally, at Ensemble Studio Theatre there\u2019s a wonderful production of a comedy by Cori Thomas, When January Feels Like Summer<\/em><\/strong>, which focuses on a bodega owner named Nirmala and her brother, Ishan, who is in the process of undergoing a sex change, calling himself Indira. Ishan is forced to run the store by herself because her husband is in a coma after being shot during a robbery, brain dead but on life support. She can\u2019t bring herself to pull the plug on him, even though it turns out she has never had sex with him, as he was more into pornography. Also in the mix are two black teenaged boys who become convinced that recycling is ruining the planet. The more clueless of the two also thinks he\u2019s discovered a sexual predator, so the boys put up signs all over the neighborhood warning people \u2013 and it turns out they were right.<\/p>\n I know none of this sounds funny but it really is, and the play turns quite poignant at the end when one of the boys falls for \u201cIndira\u201d and Nirmala goes on a date with a love-smitten sanitation worker named Joe.<\/p>\n When January Feels Like Summer<\/em> is a delight from start to finish.<\/p>\n JUST JIM DALE. Laura Pels Theatre, 111W. 46th 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 \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<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 — Theodore Roosevelt<\/span><\/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.”<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0— George F. Will<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 JUST JIM DALE, THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN, OF MICE AND MEN, CABARET, HERE LIES LOVE, THE AYCKBOURN ENSEMBLE, THE CITY OF CONVERSATION, TOO MUCH SUN and WHEN JANUARY FEELS LIKE SUMMER. 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\nMendes\u2019 direction is delightfully raunchy and Kander and Ebb\u2019s score is one great song after another.<\/p>\n
\nTICKETS: 212-719-1300
\nTHE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN. Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48th St.
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nOF MICE AND MEN. Longacre Theatre, 220 W. 48th St.
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nCABARET. Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St.
\nTICKETS: www.roundabouttheatre.org or 212-719-1300
\nHERE LIES LOVE. Public Theatre, 425 Lafayette St.
\nTICKETS: 21-96-7555
\nTHE AYCKBOURN ENSEMBLE. 59 E 59, 59 E. 59th St.
\nTICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com of 212-279-4200
\nTHE CITY OF CONVERSATION. Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, Lincoln Center
\nTICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
\nTOO MUCH SUN. Vineyard Theatre, 108 E. 15th St.
\nTICKETS: 212-353-0303
\nWHEN JANUARY FEELS LIKE SUMMER. Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 W. 52nd St.
\nTICKETS: www.ovationtix.com or 866-811-4111.<\/p>\n