Tag Archives: music in theatre

Pal Joey Bewitches, Yet Again

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Soap operas would have me hooked, if they had all the showbiz oomph
of this musical revival of Pal Joey, a 1940 Broadway show (and a 1957 movie with Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, and Stockard Channing ). The glitzy, fun essentials are there. That’s about it, but that’s all you would need for a great night out, dreaming of old Manhattan and the days when show business was showbiz! and hoofers got by on wits and charm.

The plot is similar to one of those cheerful Italian operas, all melodramatic revelations are lustily or tragically belted out. Set in Chicago in the late 1930s, Pal Joey is the story of Joey Evans (Christian Hoff of Jersey Boys fame), a plotting song and dance man with dreams of owning his own nightclub. Joey breaks the heart of the wholesome Linda English, to seduce a rich, married older woman, Vera Simpson (Stockard Channing). It works, and Joey begins building up his own nightclub. One of the performers, Gladys Bumps (Martha Plimpton) has a grudge against Joey that she pays back in a twist even Joey can’t worm his way out of. The showbiz, song and dance routine of the entertainment industry turned inside out is fun to watch even now when it has changed, from the backstage flirtations to frou-frou burlesque costumes.

(Blurry Iphone photos of Pal Joey)

The production delivers just what it should from such a musical: pure entertainment. Honestly, I was jealous of the performers, it looks like so much fun to perform. I thought one of the numbers, “Zip”, was awkwardly introduced, so that the audience didn’t get the full joke of the song (in which a stripper recalls the intellectual musings in her head while she unzips.) Channing’s delivery of the infamous “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” can’t compete with Ella Fitzgerald, bu then who can? This tried-and-true crowd pleaser doesn’t bring anything new to stage, indeed it seems dated rather than shocking (as the conniving predator Joey was originally considered). No matter; some swinging old fashioned nostalgia ought to go down well over the holidays.



Rita Hayworth’s “Zip” gratis, so you understand what its all about.

Directed by Todd Haimes in association with Marc Platt. Musical score by Rogers and Hart. With: Stockard Channing (Vera Simpson), Christian Hoff (Joey Evans) , Martha Plimpton (Gladys Bumps) and Jenny Fellner (Linda English). At the Roundabout Theater’s Studio 54 on 254 W. 54th St. through February 15, 2009.

The Language of Trees, teetering between the homefront and the warzone

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To see, or not to see this new play? That is the question, and this reviewer is unsure. The Roundabout theater’s production of a young playwright’s off-Broadway debut has magical moments, but does it fulfill its potential in this short and intimate production?

The Language of Trees follows Loretta and her young son Eben at home while the husband Denton goes to Iraq as a translator and is captured. The focus on the mother and son shows us a prosaic world of dishes and cleaning and one pesky neighbor, who befriends and bothers them. As they deal with life after loss at home, Denton finds more than he bargained for as a translator when he is captured and held hostage.

These topical and all-too real issues are imbued with a degree of magic that is charming to watch. Here, Denton converses with Bill Clinton in his cell, providing some of the most enjoyable and also pathos-ridden moments of the play. Denton rambles about his love for his family until he realizes that Clinton is imaginary. The clever Clinton scene was matched by Eben speaking to his father through a tree and by an ending in which Loretta takes on Denton’s words, walk over to him in his cell and kisses him goodbye–and this scene held more emotional realism than all the dull cleaning scenes combined.

The Roundabout Theater keeps a small basement black box theater for the encouragement of young playwrights, such as The Language of Tree‘s Steven Levenson. A pleasure to see a new playwright, but Levenson certainly seemed naive as he focused on Loretta and Eben at home while Denton fights in Iraq. The New York Times noted the play was the first to focus on the home front rather than war zone.

As that article also noted, the plight of the father in Iraq makes the life of the mother and son seem relatively trivial. As they talk about school or pizza, the characters fail to display the depth of talking around things nor do they have breakdowns where one is transported into their agony. This could be due to Ms. Gold’s thin performance as well as the script. The structure of the play itself was flawed. It contained extraneous scenes, and dwelling on dishes seemed to retard meaningful relationships rather than illuminate them. The father, on the other hand, shown kneeling with a black hood over his head, can hardly fail to resonate with an American audience today.

The play tackles serious issues, and ones deeply felt by millions of Americans. I was one of the few theatergoers not crying at the end. However, it was more moving in that it reminds one of reality than because it explores human drama and loss in a specific context. It reminds you of anybody you know in the military, it reminds you of the news…but in the characters Loretta and Eben you only find suggestions of what such people could be like.

Skip this play, but watch for playwright Steven Levenson in the future. There was a candor and ambition in his work that could develop quite magically.

By Steven Levenson; directed by Alex Timbers. With: Maggie Burke (Kay Danley), Natalie Gold (Loretta Trumble-Pinkerstone), Michael Hayden (Denton Pinkerstone), Gio Perez (Eben Trumble-Pinkerstone) and Michael Warner (Bill Clinton). At the Roundabout’s Black Box Theater, at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theater, 111 West 46th Street, Manhattan through December 14.

A Lovely Evening

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Maybe I have a penchant for all things Tudor and Elizabethan.

I enjoy The Tudors almost as much as Shakespeare, albeit in quite different ways. So I was thrilled to get tickets for the Roundabout’s new production. Actually, I tend to love whatever the Roundabout puts on, and a historical drama or classic play just adds to the draw.

Last night I saw A Man for All Seasons, a 1960s drama by Robert Bolt about Sir Thomas Moore and his opposition to the divorce of King Henry VIII of England from his first wife, Catherine of Spain, to marry Ann Boleyn. I enjoyed the 60s movie version, and brought high expectations to this production directed by Doug Hughes and starring Frank Langella. The performence met them.
Bolt’s play is a clean vehicle for the drama of a man trying to live when his government finds his personal beliefs–inconvenient. A simple play in its characterization of Sir Thomas Moore as a saint, following his conscience to his death for refusing to publicaly support the King’s divorce, and everyone else as evil (Cromwell, immoral powerseeker, Rich, trecharous worm) or merely less willing to risk death(Moore’s simple wife). Moore’s beliefs do not allow him to serve his King any longer, at which point he simply stops, not because-as he points out in the play-he is making a gesture, but because his conscience would not allow him to do otherwise.
Moore’s remarks were often the delight of the play, lightening the tense mood even as his situation became more and more dire. Only once–at his trial after Rich betrays him–does Moore’s comments, always clear-headed and apt, seem out of place–when he grasps the chain of state office around Rich’s neck and, seeing a dragon, says “Not to give one’s soul for the whole world, but for Whales?” Moore’s fate was sealed in that moment, and his prescient comment too light.
The play had many powerful moments in addition to this, for example when his wife visits him in prison. She is angry that he won’t remove himself from his situation. He begs for her support so that he can go on, and she cries out, “No, I am afraid that when you are dead I will hate you.” When the jailer pulls her away from a prone Moore, sobbing on the prison floor, one feels the great emotional strength it takes his cahracter, to, ultimately, face death with such resolve. This is not an ascetic, but a man, who loved his family and country as well as his god.
The character requires strength of voice and manner, and some subltely in the timing of its witticisms. Langella inhabits the man and role from the pate to the toes, and his controlled and smooth voice is a pleasure to hear. The play depends on Langella for coherence and veracity, and he delivers a solid and natural performance. I barely took my eyes off him, and was as engrossed in the play as I would have been in a vivid dream, because of his performance. He made it look easy to be Sir Thomas.
Before the play, I had the lucky opportunity to be in the audience of a radio interview of Doug Hughes. Hughes was thrilled to have worked with Langella, saying that to work with an experienced actor at the hieght of his powers in such a part as Sir Thomas Moore’s was a great opportunity. After an informative half hour q and a, we were given wine and appetizers and mingled to piano music in the Penthouse Lobby of the American Airline theater–basically the perfect introduction to a powerful, and powerfully-acted, evening of theater.