{"id":594,"date":"2021-01-14T15:43:13","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T19:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/?p=594"},"modified":"2021-01-15T04:54:13","modified_gmt":"2021-01-15T08:54:13","slug":"january-2020-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/?p=594","title":{"rendered":"January 2020 Column"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cOn the Aisle with Larry\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lawrence Harbison, the Playfixer, ordinarily brings you up to date with what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s not in New York; but since New York Theatre is closed down for the foreseeable future, in this column Larry reports on streamed plays: CONFLICT, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, RUSSIAN TROLL FARM, and the films of THE PROM <\/strong>and MA RAINEY\u2019S BLACK BOTTOM.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

What a dreadful year 2020 was! No live theatre since early March. It\u2019s possible that the theatres will reopen in May, but my guess this won\u2019t be until September, as that is Dr. Fauci\u2019s recommendation. I check Playbill.com daily to see if there is any news.<\/p>\n

So, I have been streaming interesting productions, some of them via ZOOM (which, I hope, will be a thing of the past \u2013 the sooner the better). The problem with these is they are here today, gone tomorrow, and this is tomorrow. Ah, well \u2013 better this than nothing.<\/p>\n

The invaluable Mint Theatre Co. has been streaming productions from before the pandemic hit. Their latest was Miles Malleson\u2019s Conflict<\/em><\/strong>, which was one of the best productions of the many fine productions I have seen (in this case, streamed) at the Mint over the years. Malleson was an actor and translator, best known for his translations of Moli\u00e8re, so one might assume that Conflict<\/em> would be a comedy, but it turned out to be a drama (from 1924).<\/p>\n

The play takes place in the home of a wealthy aristocrat, Lord Bellington. A young man, Sir Ronald Clive, also wealthy, is courting his daughter, Lady Dare Bellington, who is resisting marry him because she is waiting for something unknown and wonderful to happen to her. This arrives in the person of Tom Smith, an impoverished schoolmate of Sir Ronald who hopes to borrow money from him. To get him to go away, Sir Ronald gives him a considerable amount of money. Tom uses this to get back on his feet. He joins the Labour Party and stands for Parliament. His opponent? Sir Ronald. Whereas Sir Ronald is a fatuous Tory, Tom is a firebrand champion of the working class, sort of a much younger Bernie Sanders. He inspires Lady Dare, who decides to turn her back on her class and marry him. The central character, Lady Dare, is a wonderful role and Jessie Shelton was a delight in it, matched by the impassioned Jeremy Beck as Tom.<\/p>\n

The parallels between England in 1924 and our fractious time couldn\u2019t be clearer and, once again, the Mint has exhumed a play most worthy of exhumation. Jenn Thompson\u2019s direction was pitch-perfect as were the set by John McDermott and the costumes by Martha Hally.<\/p>\n

The great actor Jefferson Mays scored a triumph in a solo performance of Dickens\u2019 A Christmas Carol<\/em><\/strong>. His was one of the most brilliant performances I have ever had the joy to see. Dickens often did readings of his classic novel. Were he to see what Mays and his director Michael Arden have done to bring it to life, I am sure he would be as astonished as I was. The multimedia projections by Lucy Mackinnon were amazing, as was the lighting by Ben Stanton and the sound design by Joshua D. Reid.<\/p>\n

I hope, I pray, that this will become as annual event at Christmas.<\/p>\n

I am not a fan of Zoom Theatre, which usually is a poor replacement for Real Theatre,\u00a0but I have been zooming anyway, starved for the real thing. The best of these was Russian Troll Farm<\/em><\/strong>, by Sarah Trancher, from Theatre Works Hartford, about five Russians in an imagining of what the disinformation dept. Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg must be like, attempting to subvert the 2016 election in the U.S. After much amusing office banter of a general nature, Masha (who has just been transferred from the Fake News Department and the cynical manager, Nikolai, send out a string of tweets about a network of tunnels (bogus, of course) starting from beneath Disneyland, leading to the Mexican border, which are being used by Hillary Clinton\u2019s nefarious minions as a conduit for her pedophile ring. Gancher managed to make this amusing and horrifying at the same time.<\/p>\n

Director Elizabeth Williamson, helped by her co-director Jared Mezzocci, who did the multi-media design, managed to create the illusion that all five characters were in the same room better than any Zoomed play I have seen, and all the actors were first-rate.<\/p>\n

Ordinarily, I don\u2019t write about films but I am making an exception for two you can stream on Netflix, versions of two Broadway shows \u2013 The Prom<\/em><\/strong> and Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I loved The Prom<\/em> when I saw it on Broadway but the film is just as good, maybe better. It\u2019s about a narcissistic crew of Broadway actors who bomb in a musical about Eleanor Roosevelt. They decide to look for a cause in order to rehabilitate their shattered reputations. They find one when they hear about a teenage girl in a small town in Indiana who has been denied permission to bring her girlfriend to her senior prom. They mission out to Indiana to lead a charge against the small-minded locals; but it is girl herself who manages to win the day (well, the night).<\/p>\n

The cast includes Meryl Streep as a self-obsessed diva named Didi, James Corden as tr\u00e9s gay Barry, her co-star on the awful Eleanor: the Musical<\/em> and Andrew Rannells as an out of work actor who\u2019s been making ends meet as a bartender. Nicole Kidman shines as a chorine who has been trapped in the chorus of Chicago<\/em> for 20 years. Kerry Washington is their nemesis, Mrs. Greene, the head of the local P.T.A. whose daughter, unbeknownst to her, is the mystery girlfriend. Asks Mrs. Greene, \u201cWho are you people?\u201d To which Rannells replies, \u201cWe\u2019re liberals from Broadway!\u201d Jo Ann Pellman is wonderful as the teenager who just wants to bring her girlfriend to the prom. Casey Nicholaw, who directed and choreographed the Broadway production, has here done just the dances \u2013 and they are fabulous, much better than what I saw on Broadway.<\/p>\n

The Prom<\/em> is wildly funny, but it also packs a powerful emotional punch. If you subscribe to Netflix, don\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n

Also a don\u2019t-miss: George C. Wolfe\u2019s brilliant film of August Wilson\u2019s Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom<\/em><\/strong>, which features stellar performances by Viola Davis as Ma Rainey and the late Chadwick Bozeman as the horn player in her backup group. Both are certain Oscar contenders.<\/p>\n

By the way. I recently signed up for Broadway HD, where I can stream Real Theatre. Their offerings are phenomenal \u2013 plays, musicals, classics up the yin-yang. I started out with A Moon for the Misbegotten<\/em>, which I saw during my visit to NYC as a tourist at Christmas-New Year\u2019s 1973-4. This acclaimed production, directed by Jos\u00e9 Quintero, starring Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst and Ed Flanders, restored O\u2019Neill\u2019s great play to our national dramatic repertory. I managed to score a pair of tickets on the day of performance, which turned out to be Opening Night. This was the Olden Days, so the curtain was at 6:30. All the critics were there, but the only ones I recognized were the TV people, such as Pia Lindstrom and Ed Sullivan. Sullivan had two seats, one for himself and one for his coat. He had orange hair. I have since seen the play 4 times \u2013 but my first time is still the best, and one of the best \u201crevivals\u201d I have seen in a lifetime at the theatre.<\/p>\n

Then, I moved on to An American in Pari<\/em>s, which I loved when I saw it on Broadway, starring Leanne Cope, a British ballet star, and Robert Fairchild, at the time a Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet. I expected their dancing to be great; but it turned out they both are fine actors and terrific singers. The entire production is sublime.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/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><\/p>\n

 <\/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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 — George F. Will<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/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<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 — Theodore Roosevelt<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cOn the Aisle with Larry\u201d Lawrence Harbison, the Playfixer, ordinarily brings you up to date with what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s not in New York; but since New York Theatre is closed down for the foreseeable future, in this column Larry reports on streamed plays: CONFLICT, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, RUSSIAN TROLL FARM, and the films of […]<\/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\/594"}],"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=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":596,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playfixer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}