Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on FROZEN, THE BAND’S VISIT, ROCKTOPIA, DIDO OF IDAHO and LATER LIFE.
Frozen, the stage version of the hit Disney film at the St. James Theatre, looks like it will be an even bigger hit, with a phenomenal advance sale. The question is, does it deliver the goods for those who loved the movie?
Well, it’s a spectacular visual production, with astonishing special effects by Jeremy Chernick. The charming book by Jennifer Lee, based on her screenplay, tells the now-familiar story of a princess from the Frozen North born with the ability to make it even more, well, frozen. Robert and Kristin-Anderson Lopez have added several new songs, most of which are lovely but a couple of which are pretty silly and add nothing to the story (there’s a guy who runs an inn and a sauna way up in the mountains who has a ridiculous song called “Hygge,” sort of a frozen equivalent of “Hakuna Matata,” and then people come dancing out of his sauna in nude body stockings waving branches of leaves around in a sort of fan dance, which is truly ludicrous.
Still, I enjoyed this. The two leads, Caissie Levy (Elsa) and Patti Murin (her sister Anna) are delightful, and Levy nails the show’s most famous song, “Let it Go.” Michael Grandage’s direction is inventive, and he has assembled a strong supporting cast, including Cagney’s Robert Creighton as the weasly Weselton and Greg Hildreth as Olaf, the snowman, done as a puppet a la The Lion King.
The night I was there, I saw hordes of little girls with their mommies, many of them wearing Elsa dresses, while the teeny-boppers wore outfits with snowflakes on them. Is this another Lion King? Well, only in that it will probably run as long; but, yes, it will please those of you who loved the movie.
As for me, I much preferred The Band’s Visit, a transfer from the Atlantic Theatre Co. now running at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. It’s about an Egyptian band who have come to Israel to perform at a Muslim arts center, who wind up in the wrong town where they have to spend the night, and the town’s Israeli citizens take them in. Think of this as a sort of Middle Eastern Come from Away.
Itamar Moses’ book is just beautiful, as are David Yazbek’s songs. The show ends with a performance by the band, and their music is fantastic, sort of jazz with a Middle Eastern flair. I’d say they stop the show, except the show is over by this point.
The band’s director, Tewliq, was played originally by Tony Shalhoub, but he’s left the show to be replaced as the band’s conductor by Dariush Kazani, who is very touching, as is Katrina Lenk as a café owner who finds herself attracted to Tewliq for the all-too-brief time the band has in her town before they leave for the right town the next morning.
I’d also say, don’t miss it.
Don’t go to Rocktopia, at the Broadway Theatre, expecting a Broadway musical. It’s a concert which melds rock, classical music and opera, often very inventively, and the singers are phenomenal. There’s also an onstage chorus, the New York Contemporary Choir, which adds much to the overall effect. There are several solo musicians including blonde sprite Mairead Nesbitt, a founding member of the group Celtic Woman, who wows the crowd more than once. In fact, there are several stop-the-show moments. The video design by Michael Stiller and Austin Switser is phenomenal, and adds much to the overall experience.
If you prefer a rock concert to a Broadway musical, this one’s for you; but I like a good musical and I loved it.
I did see two plays which I also enjoyed, a new one by Abby Rosebrock called Dido of Idaho, at Ensemble Studio Theatre and a revival of the late A.R. Gurney’s Later Life, at the Harold Clurman Theatre, produced by the always-excellent Keen Co.
Dido of Idaho is a comedy about a female musicologist named Nora who’s having an affair with a married man who claims he plans to leave his wife (sure…). What they have in common is a passion for Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas and a passion, for, well, sex. She’s also a drunk. She passes out in her lover’s apartment when would should arrive but the wife, Crystal. The two women bond until, that is, Crystal finds out her new friend is having an affair with her husband, at which point she beats the crap out of her. Nora is pretty dinged up and her life is a mess, so she goes home to her mother, with whom she has talked on the phone throughout the play. There is a Big Reveal, though, as we find out that all is not as it seemed.
Lydia Khosh is wonderful as Nora, and the playwright herself turns in a fine turn as Crystal. Also good is Dahlia Davi as the mysterious mom.
This is an auspicious debut by a fine young playwright and actress.
The late A.R. Gurney has long been one of my favorite playwrights, and it was quite a pleasure to see his Later Life. I saw the original production about 25 years ago, and Keen’s production is just as good. The play is about a middle-aged man named Austin and woman named Sally at a dinner party in Boston. He’s divorced, she’s separated. She met him years before in Greece, when they were both young, and much of the first half of this 90-minute play consists of him trying to guess the circumstances of their first meeting. They were both attracted to each other, but he broke it off because he was convinced that something terrible was going to happen to him. She wants to know, did it? Also in the play are two actors who play a multitude of intruders to the terrace where the play is set. Liam Craig and Jodie Markell are delightful in all their roles and the two leads, Laurence Lau and Garrick, invest their roles with a poignant charm.
Later Life is Yet Another reminder of what a wonderful playwright Gurney was.
FROZEN. St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St.
Tickets: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
THE BAND’S VISIT. Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St.
Tickets: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200
ROCKTOPIA. Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway
Tickets: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200
DIDO OF IDAHO. Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 W. 52nd St.
Tickets: ensemblestudiotheatre.org
LATER LIFE. Harold Clurman Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St.
Tickets: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200
“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
“It 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.”
— Theodore Roosevelt