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10Feb

Under a spell

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Trinidad Snider, from left, as the baker’s wife, Brian Altman as the baker, and Jade McGee as Little Red Riding Hood. PHOTO | Kathy Sandham

Lakeland Civic Theatre offers tepid rendition of Sondheim’s ‘Into the Woods’

By Bob Abelman

Since the 1970s, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has been transforming all that is simple and predictable and harmonious in American musical theater into something that is more of an acquired taste.

Some theatregoers find his creativity to be outside their comfort zone and beyond the reach of their archaic expectations for musicals.

Others, like Lakeland Civic Theatre artistic director Martin Friedman, appreciate how Sondheim fills the air with a dense stream of words and images, and places a disorienting discord beneath his melodies. His stories are complex, as are the people who inhabit them.

Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” — at Lakeland Civic Theatre under Friedman’s direction — bears all these theatrical trademarks.

The show intertwines the familiar plots of several fairy tale figures, including Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (and the Beanstalk), Rapunzel and Cinderella. They are tied together via a seemingly simple story involving a baker and his wife venturing into the woods in an effort to reverse the spell that has kept them childless.

Many feel that this musical is more accessible than most of Sondheim’s creations, thanks to its population of fairy tale creations and the contributions of Tony Award-winning librettist James Lapine. But nothing is ever simple with Sondheim.

The characters’ storybook stories play out in Act I along with their relatively superficial and recognizable moral messages. But Act II reveals the consequences of each character’s earlier actions. We discover that evil witches can be right, giants can be good, getting your prince does not mean happily ever after, and having your wish granted can have a serious downside. We’re exposed to the dark underbelly of once upon a time, which is a place Sondheim seems to relish.

Friedman understands all this. And yet his production is uncharacteristically tepid and, at times, bland.

It starts with the choice to do away with the medieval peasant garb that has long been associated with fairy tale characters and replace it with modern clothing. While this certainly reinforces the universal and timeless nature of their journey, which is the point costumer Tesia Beson is making, it sure is less playful and less interesting to look at.

More importantly, the performers wearing these costumes are less playful and less interesting as well.

This is particularly apparent in the Act I musical numbers that require playfulness the most, such as the charming duet “Agony.” Here, Eric Fancher as Cinderella’s Prince and Daniel Simpson as Rapunzel’s Prince attempt to one-up each other as they sing of their own virtues and their future conquests. The song lacks energy, offers no sense of pleasure in its performance, and survives on the merits of its clever lyrics and music alone.

Talented soloists like Neely Gevaart as Cinderella and Lizz Huff as her stepmother also seem lackluster, as if concentrating harder on the complicated wording in the songs than their performance. They also seem hesitant, as if searching for music cues and not finding them.

All this may be due to inadequate musical support from the seven-piece off-stage orchestra under Jordan Cooper’s direction. It sounds thin and limited to just piano by the time it filters through the theater’s tired sound system and reaches the actors and the audience.

The ensemble as a whole fights through this and their musical numbers sound great, as if having a stage full of performers provides all the support that is needed. They nail the complex harmonies, manage the immensely difficult wordplay, and sing full-out.

So do Amiee Collier as the Witch (her “Last Midnight” is superb), Brian Altman and Trinidad Snider as the absolutely endearing Baker and his wife, and Jade McGee, who is a delightfully assertive Little Red Riding Hood.

Like Friedman, Trad A Burns appreciates how Sondheim fills the air with a dense stream of words and images, and applies this to his scenic design. Instead of trees, the forest that dominates the stage for most of the musical consists of tall, lanky letters that spell out words like “wish,” “fear,” “dark” and “scary.”

This is an intriguing and attractive bit of stagecraft, particularly when the more elongated letters cast dramatic shadows and the vowels provide ample hiding spaces for lurking characters like the big bad Wolf. Although some audience members (OK — me) will find themselves looking for a nonexistent connection between the centermost words in a scene and what is happening in that scene, the visual effect is wonderful.

When performers are not in the woods, they have been placed in front of the curtain, which is a narrow, crowded and terribly awkward space. What little choreography there is serves as traffic control rather than creative storytelling, which contributes mightily to the previously noted tepidity that defines this production.

Sondheim is better than this. So are Friedman and the many gifted performers in this cast. CV

On Stage

WHAT: “Into the Woods”

WHERE: Lakeland Civic Theatre, 7700 Clocktower Drive, Kirkland

WHEN: Through Feb.28

TICKETS & INFO: $7-$15, call 440-525-7134 or visit lakelandcc.edu/arts

 

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News on Feb. 9, 2016.

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4Feb

From stage to screen

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Paul Chahidi as Jacques in The National Theatre production of “As You Like It” in London. PHOTO | Johan Persson

National Theatre live broadcasts in movie theaters (like Cedar Lee Theatre) succeed where recent live TV presentations of musicals fail

By Bob Abelman

“All the world’s a stage.”

– From the 2006 film “As You Like It”

New York magazine called it a “tasteless bombardment” and The Hollywood Reporter referred to it as “musical diarrhea.”

Despite its box office success — $148 million domestic and $283 million worldwide — most critics of the film version of the Broadway musical “Les Misérables” wrote disparaging reviews.

They haven’t been much kinder to NBC’s recent efforts to bring live theater back to the small screen — where it was a mainstay in the 1950s — with recent broadcasts of “The Sound of Music” (“As lifeless as those alpine backdrops,” Variety), “Peter Pan” (“Fails to take flight,” NY Daily News) and “The Wiz” (“A hot mess,” The Daily Beast).

Most of the negative commentary revolved around the intrusion of the camera when going from stage to screen, which The New York Times referred to as the “inability to leave any lily ungilded, to direct a scene without tilting or hurtling or throwing the camera around.”

The Times had a similar problem with the more recent Fox television production of “Grease,” which “wasn’t remotely theater. Good theater is spine-tingling; ‘Grease: Live!’ was spectacle.”

And this isn’t just a problem with musicals, for the history of filmed theater in general doesn’t have a great track record in this regard. Have you seen “Spinning Into Butter” (“A movie taking a fairly interesting premise … and, through sheer incompetence, turning it into an unwatchable mess,” The Washington Times)?

The National Theatre in London attempted to bridge this chasm in storytelling modalities by taking a different approach to adapting stage productions for the big screen, called NT Live.

Inspired by the Metropolitan Opera, which pioneered the concept in 2006, the National Theatre launched a live broadcast of its 2009 production of Jean Racine’s tragedy “Phèdre” to local cinemas. It did so with the intention of capturing the integrity of the stage work and replicate, as much as possible, the experience of actually sitting in the theater watching a live performance. The NT Live broadcast was seen by over 50,000 people, which doubled in one night the audience for the play’s entire three-month run.

Since then, NT Live has broadcast live more than 20 productions being performed in front of an in-house audience at the National Theatre, and on occasion other theaters in the UK, the U.S. and elsewhere. To date, more than 4 million people have experienced its broadcasts in more than 1,100 venues around the world, including the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights.

Marketing researchers have found that, far from cannibalizing audiences of local professional theater, NT Live has on average grown audiences for local theaters in London and reported a 6.4 percent increase in local theater attendance in areas nearest an NT Live screening in the year following the broadcasts.

Five to eight high-definition cameras, including one that offers gentle tracking shots, are strategically positioned throughout the theater so as to be unobtrusive in their presence and relatively inconspicuous in their coverage. Shots from various camera positions are subtly cut live into a single feed by a camera director, giving the cinema audience access to the best seat in the house at all times.

The theater itself is transformed into something of a live TV studio, and while adjustments are made for lighting, sound and makeup, few changes are made in staging in order to preserve the integrity of the original theatrical design and transpose the stage picture to the screen as effectively as possible. At most, the camera offers heightened intimacy and accentuates the nuances of the actors’ performances and the stage director’s vision. And the actors are always reminded that they are doing a stage performance, not making a movie.

Satellites allow the productions to be filmed live and simulcast across the UK and Europe. In the U.S. and Canada, the majority of venues show it on the same day as the live filming while others in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, India, Russia, Japan, China, Sweden and South America show it on a delayed basis, within a few weeks of the original broadcast.

The National Theatre produces about 25 new productions each year that vary from Shakespeare and classics to new plays, so the goal of NT Live is to offer a microcosm of its repertoire and showcase the diversity of what they do.

“Early on, we encountered skepticism about how (the live broadcast) would work because most people, and I mean myself included, believe that theater when it’s filmed becomes very static, very deadening, and it’s so the antithesis of the art form,” executive producer David Sabel recalls on the NT Live website.

Not anymore. CV

On Screen

WHAT: NT Live broadcast of Christopher Hampton’s “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”

WHEN: 11 a.m. Feb. 28 and 7 p.m. March 2

WHAT: NT Live broadcast of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”

WHEN: 7 p.m. March 23 and 11 a.m. March 27

WHERE: Cedar Lee Theatre, 2163 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights

TICKETS & INFO: $20. Call 216-321-5411 or visit clevelandcinemas.com.

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News on Jan. 29, 2016.

Lead image: Paul Chahidi as Jacques in The National Theatre production of “As You Like It” in London. PHOTO | Johan Persson

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4Feb

Performance plateaus

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Ro Boddis as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Angel Moore as Camae. PHOTO | Roger Mastroianni

Cleveland Play House’s ‘Mountaintop’ built on hallowed but shaky ground

By Bob Abelman

As if atoning for the magnificent but mindless musical “Little Shop of Horrors” being performed on its Allen Theatre stage, the Cleveland Play House has selected Katori Hall’s self-righteous 2009 drama “Mountaintop” for its intimate Outcalt Theatre offering.

The play takes place on the evening of April 3, 1968, in Room 305 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, as the road-weary and ailing Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. returns to fine-tune his next speech. It is a speech he will never give for, on the hotel balcony at 6:01 p.m. the next day, he will be killed.

Two historic moments have been etched into the country’s collective consciousness regarding the final days of King.

One is in a recording of his famous “Mountaintop” speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis from the day before his assassination, when he offered what seemed to be an eerie — some say divine — premonition of his own death:

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.”

The other is captured in the iconic photo taken by Joseph Louw moments after the shooting, as Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy stand over the slain civil rights leader’s body and point in union in the direction of the gunshots. It is the very moment the man became a martyr and his legacy of nonviolent protest became the stuff of legend.

In her one-act play, Hall attempts to reconcile those moments by showing us what could have occurred during the hours between them when King was merely mortal.

And so we find King (a thoroughly engaging Ro Boddie) with his suit jacket off and his defenses down, talking the night away with a gorgeous young maid named Camae (an absolutely delightful and highly spirited Angel Moore).

Most of the play serves to humanize King and it begins as the great man enters the dark motel room, heads for the bathroom and urinates. He then smokes, drinks, stinks, curses, flirts, laughs, lies and bares his insecurities. Camae reacts, provides Pall Malls, playfully challenges his patriarchal views, and discusses whether and how his message is reaching the black folks of Memphis.

Once King is effectively cut down to size and the novelty of being in his presence grows thin, so too does this play. But the dialogue continues and its rather pedestrian construction becomes increasingly apparent and significantly less captivating.

Only the talented actors and the creativity of director Carl Cofield keep things interesting, but by the third shared cigarette — a lovely piece of stage business that connects the characters and gives us something to look at other than the thunderstorm brewing outside the motel window — this grows tiresome as well.

And just when you think that “The Mountaintop” has peaked and there is no dramaturgical Promised Land in sight, the play’s stark realism and deceptive simplicity turn metaphysical and hypertheatrical, as does Wilson Chin and Alan C. Edwards’ authentic rendering of the Lorraine Motel suite.

When it does, it becomes clear that the playwright’s intention was not to humanize the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in order to better connect a modern audience with the man and his message, but to set him up for canonization. The premonitions, we learn, are justified. The martyrdom, we are told, has been sanctified by the highest authority. And so the playwright irreverently romanticizes the very things we were led to believe were being demythified.

Mere admirers of the man will likely find the overtly theatrical bait-and-switch clumsy and manipulative. Others will find comfort in this gospel according to Katori Hall and the tent show revival the play quickly becomes, complete with call-and-response to arouse emotion and mesmerizing stage gimmickry, courtesy of Dan Scully, to change the hearts of nonbelievers.

There was no shortage of shouted “amens” on opening night, some for the beatification of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. but most in remembrance of his mission. CV

On Stage

WHAT: “The Mountaintop”

WHERE: Outcalt Theatre, 1407 Euclid Ave., Cleveland

WHEN: Through Feb. 14

TICKETS & INFO: $20-$90. Call 216-241-6000 or go to clevelandplayhouse.com

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News on Feb. 1, 2016.

Lead image: Ro Boddis as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Angel Moore as Camae.PHOTO | Roger Mastroianni

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4Feb

Speaking volumes

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From left, Chris Richards (John), Joel Hammer (Bob), Tracee Patterson (Jennifer), and Rachel Zake (Pony). PHOTO | Steve Wagner Photography

In staging the play’s regional premiere, Dobama Theatre more than keeps up with ‘The Realistic Joneses’

By Bob Abelman

In Will Eno’s “Middletown,” which Dobama Theatre staged in 2012, we were introduced to the small New England community of Grover’s Corners, where the population consisted of impulsive, stream-of-consciousness self-disclosers with no filter and no off-button.

The chatty citizens of this township shared every random observation, nagging anxiety and metaphysical thought that popped into their heads. They casually pondered the vast mysteries of existence and the morbidity that lies beneath as if discussing the weather.

If you listened closely, diligently and patiently — always a wise choice during any Dobama Theatre production — the playwright’s clever wordplay and subtle punch lines gave way to weighty and intriguing insights into the human condition and the ways of the world.

Eno’s love of language and penchant for using it is immediately evident in his newest work, “The Realistic Joneses,” which left Broadway in 2014 and is currently being performed at Dobama.

The four characters in this playful and poignant one-act tragicomedy are as likely to ramble and free-associate as those residing in “Middletown,” and their simple observations also have big-picture applications. But their use of words serves a different and higher purpose: to demonstrate their inadequacy. Words fail these people when they need them most.

The play starts with Jennifer Jones (Tracee Patterson) turning to her husband Bob (Joel Hammer), who is dying from something called Harriman Leavey Syndrome, and stating: “It just seems like we don’t talk.”

On the contrary, this middle-aged couple speaks incessantly. But words just don’t capture the extent of Bob’s pain or relay the frustration of having an irreversible and degenerative nerve disease that impacts his short-term memory and word formation. And words just can’t convey Jennifer’s pain of loving someone who is dying or express the frustration of caring for him.

The neighbors John Jones (Chris Richards) and his wife Pony (Rachel Zake), a young couple that just moved to this semirural mountain town, have problems with words as well. Pony lacks the wherewithal to find the right words to express her feelings and John tends to speak in bizarre non-sequiturs and hilarious self-contradictions. So he talks a lot but says very little.

There is no substantive plot, per se, in “The Realistic Joneses,” and little realism save for the Joneses just trying to get through the day. This can be infuriating for the smattering of staunch defenders of traditional storytelling who seem surprised by the range of Dobama Theatre’s offerings.

In their defense, the playwright’s idiosyncratic tendencies and despairing views of existence, albeit shrouded in deliciously dark humor, can certainly be difficult to digest. Eno is not easy.

But director Shannon Sindelar knows full well that there is much to salvage and savor in Eno’s brilliant wordplay and complex characters, and her actors facilitate the process with their considerable talent and astounding dexterity.

Everyone succeeds in finding warmth and distinctiveness in their respective Joneses. The raw vulnerability that Patterson and Zake bring to their characters makes it possible for us to care deeply about their struggles, relate to their inability to find the right words when they need them most, and rejoice in their few moments of calm, clarity and connection.

And there’s something so very touching about the undercurrent of fear that resides just below Hammer’s droll and very funny delivery of Bob’s lines, most of which are brutally honest expressions of his innermost thoughts. It’s not easy to still have the audience’s sympathy when you dismiss your company by blurting out, “You have to leave so I can ho to bed,” as Bob does in the opening scene.

The manner by which Richards reveals John’s malady, by subtly and methodically undermining the character’s façade of quirky self-assuredness, is most remarkable. Although it is heart-rending to watch John have a neurological episode late in the play, it is enthralling watching Richards build to that moment.

Those willing to listen closely, diligently and patiently to this regional premiere of this truly intriguing and entertaining play will find it worth their while, if not for the cleverness of the material but for the brilliance of its execution.

On Stage

WHAT: “The Realistic Joneses”

WHERE: Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights

WHEN: Through Feb. 14

TICKETS & INFO: $25-$28. Call 216-932-3396 or visit dobama.org

 

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News on Jan. 26, 2016.

Lead image: From left, Chris Richards (John), Joel Hammer (Bob), Tracee Patterson (Jennifer), and Rachel Zake (Pony). PHOTO | Steve Wagner Photography

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27Jan

Time on its side

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Natalie Sander Kern as Doris and Keith Stevens as George. PHOTO | Bruce Ford

‘Same Time, Next Year’ tickles funny bone despite dated, sitcom-like format

By Bob Abelman

While clearly not Actors’ Summit’s intention, it is impossible to sit through Bernard Slade’s “Same Time, Next Year” and not feel as if you’ve just binge-watched vintage sitcoms on Nick at Nite.

The play’s comedy and simple, predictable storyline spring from the friction created when lovable opposites attract, which was a popular ploy in Golden Age sitcoms like “Bridget Loves Bernie” (1972-73), about Catholic and Jewish newlyweds, and “Bewitched” (1964-72), about a mortal man and his witch wife.

In “Same Time, Next Year,” George and Doris sleep together and fall in love after a chance meeting at a country inn in Northern California. The two characters have fundamental differences in nearly every facet of their lives, including their education, their religion and the level of guilt they feel while cheating on their spouses. And yet the two agree to return to the exact same location — another sitcom convention — for one weekend each year to pick up where they left off.

The play also shares the episodic structure of shows like “The Flying Nun” (1967-70) and “The Partridge Family” (1970-74), where unique installments of storytelling involving the same characters unfold but do not really change the characters or the lives they lead.

“Same Time, Next Year” unfolds in six vignettes of the annual meetings between George and Doris, which span the years 1951 to 1975. And while the two characters broadly and comically reflect the specific decades of their meetings, each vignette ends in true sitcom fashion: where they began, with George and Doris very much in love and racked with guilt.

There’s also the same fast pace and excessive number of laughs-per-minute found in standard sitcoms like “The Girl with Something Extra” (1973-74) and “Love on a Rooftop” (1966-67).

And in the bedrooms of those shows, as in George and Doris’ bedroom in this play, sex may be discussed but it is never seen or heard.

These many parallels should come as no surprise considering that the playwright spent 17 years as a writer for network television. He wrote each of the sitcoms cited above before penning this play, his first, in 1975.

Shortly after its success on Broadway, “Same Time, Next Year” became a film starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. But the play’s content and cultural context quickly grew outdated and productions have been largely limited to dinner theaters and cruise line cabarets. What was once a hip and risqué contemplation on ‘70s morality and mores has become a period piece targeted at those who lived through the Eisenhower administration.

And yet Actors’ Summit’s production is extremely funny. In fact, it received from the opening night audience the one thing that is standard issue in vintage TV sitcoms but was not provided by the playwright: a laugh track.

The audience laughed loud, long and often, and deservingly so.

One reason is the direction provided by Paula Kline Messner, who earned four Emmy Awards for her work as a writer/producer/actor in television. She has a great ear for the kind of comedic cadence this play requires, which is nicely executed by actors Keith Stevens and Natalie Sander Kern. Their timing is superb.

But while Stevens and Kern embrace the sitcom tendencies of the material, they also work hard to add a layer of authenticity and spontaneity to the broadly drawn caricatures they’ve been handed. Clever one-liners flow from their lips as if they were normal discourse and punchlines are never punched so hard as to leave a mark.

The show’s design team of Perry Catalano, Fred Sellers, MaryJo Alexander and Kevin Rutan create an attractive and era-appropriate world for this play. But while the actors’ costumes and wigs change with the times and for comedic effect, the bedroom’s furnishings and artwork do not. This lack of attention to detail, whether by design or oversight, calls unnecessary attention to the archaic blackout sketch quality of the material and its time on the dinner theater circuit.

While the situation in this romantic comedy no longer strikes a nerve, the play still manages to hit the funny bone.

On stage

WHAT: “Same Time, Next Year”

WHERE: Actors’ Summit, 103 S. High Street, Akron

WHEN: Through Feb. 7

TICKETS & INFO: $10 – $33, call 330-374-7568 or visit actorssummit.org.

 

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News on January 24, 2016.

Lead image: Natalie Sander Kern as Doris and Keith Stevens as George. PHOTO | Bruce Ford

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22Jan

Feast on this

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Ari Butler, from left, as Seymour, Lauren Molina as Audrey and Larry Cahn as Mr. Mushnik in “Little Shop of Horrors.” | PHOTO / Roger Mastroianni

‘Little Shop of Horrors’ delightful at Cleveland Play House

By Bob Abelman

The Cleveland Play House doesn’t often stage musicals and, when it does, most serve to tell the life story of legendary singers like Mahalia Jackson, Woody Guthrie and five guys named Moe.

It is the exception when the CPH braintrust chooses a mainstream musical. It is rarer still when they boldly color outside the lines and stage something as outrageously campy and hilariously quirky as Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s “Little Shop of Horrors.”

The show is sown from the seeds of Roger Corman and Charles Griffith’s low-budget, nonmusical 1960 movie about a meek skid row flower shop clerk named Seymour who discovers a mysterious man-eating plant that magically transforms his life in exchange for the lives of his acquaintances.

The musical comedy played Off-Broadway for five years in the 1980s, was made into a star-studded feature film in 1986, and had a short-lived Broadway stint in 2003.

The thing is, the CPH doesn’t resort to “campy” and it doesn’t settle for “quirky,” not with a Tony Award on its mantel and the words “stimulate as well as entertain” in its mission statement.

And so Amanda Dehnert was invited back to Cleveland to direct, choreograph and musical direct “Little Shop of Horrors.”

In 2007, Dehnert spearheaded an astonishing, streamlined CPH production of “My Fair Lady,” as well as a remarkably smart, intimate and dark staging of “Man of La Mancha.” Her recipe for success in “Little Shop of Horrors” — and this is a very successful production — is the same as for those more straight-laced shows: gather exceptional New York talent, stir vigorously and serve while hot.

While many musicals rely on talented singers who also act, the cast of “Little Shop of Horrors” consists of talented actors who also sing. Fine acting adds dimension to already interesting characters, more meaning to the musical numbers, and a rich layer of intricacy to a show most often produced without one.

Ari Butler’s Seymour is a lovable nebbish whose driving traits are effectively communicated through insecurity and social ineptitude rather than the creation of easily identifiable but highly stereotypical shortcuts. This Seymour comes across as authentic and accessible, which allows the self-assuredness he slowly acquires by way of Audrey’s admiration and the extraterrestrial plant’s mind-melding abilities to seem authentic as well.

As Audrey, Seymour’s blond bombshell colleague and love interest, Lauren Molina does not allow the character’s cleavage or thigh-high skirts to define her. Instead, the actress attaches piercing vulnerability to her character’s low self-esteem and compassion to the comedy, which repeatedly breaks your heart. And she wins your heart during the beautiful solo “Somewhere That’s Green,” where Audrey dreams of a life far away from Skid Row, and in an astounding rendition of “Suddenly, Seymour,” when she realizes that her dream is incomplete without a good man.

Joey Taranto is flat out hilarious as Audrey’s sadistic dentist-boyfriend and eventual plant fodder. While Orin is meant to be played over-the-top, as are the wonderful walk-on roles that Taranto takes on in disguise and to perfection, the actor never loses sight of the director’s more lofty creative vision for this production and keeps it all in check.

And while Seymour’s boss, Mr. Mushnik, can be too easily underplayed and get lost amid Orin’s antics, Audrey’s adorability and the man-eating plant’s tongue-in-cheek (or is it stamen-in-pistil?) asides, Larry Cahn — a wonderful veteran actor with superb comic timing — never lets that happen.

In addition to casting fine actors who sing, Dehnert found musicians who act so that the onstage band doubles as Skid Row street urchins. Kate Ferber on keyboard I, Alanna Saunders on keyboard II, Hallie Bulleit on bass, Brittany Campbell on guitar, and Injoy Fountain on drums provide musical accompaniment and narrate the show’s storyline by way of soulful R&B harmonies and a splash of choreography. They are delightful.

They are also a cause for distraction, for their being in the world of the play as well part of its creative construction makes it as hard to get completely lost in this performance. The same goes for allowing Eddie Cooper to be clearly visible while providing his magnificent bass-baritone voice of the man-eating plant (which is masterfully manipulated by hidden puppeteer Kev Abrams) and having a headset-toting crew member running on stage each time the two-story exterior of Mushnik’s flower shop needs to swing open to reveal what’s inside.

Such disregard for concealing elements of artifice doesn’t contribute to the storytelling, although the dynamic Cooper is awfully fun to watch. And it seems inconsistent with scenic designer Philip Witcomb’s admirable efforts to create a believable Skid Row, albeit one infused with a playful palette and Brian Gale’s melodramatic lighting that nicely parodies sci-fi horror sensibilities.

But these things are easily outweighed by all that this production does right, leaving you hoping as the house lights come on that the CPH dares to color outside the lines a little more often and a little bit wider. CV

On stage

WHAT: “Little Shop of Horrors”

WHERE: Allen Theatre, 1407 Euclid Ave., Cleveland

WHEN: Through Feb. 7

TICKETS & INFO: $20-$100, call 216-241-6000 or go to

clevelandplayhouse.com

 

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News in January 17, 2016.

Lead image: Ari Butler, from left, as Seymour, Lauren Molina as Audrey and Larry Cahn as Mr. Mushnik in “Little Shop of Horrors.” | PHOTO / Roger Mastroianni

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15Jan

Broadway revives ‘Fiddler’

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‘Tradition’ continues, but this ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ falls flat

By Bob Abelman

Danny Burstein as Tevye PHOTO| Joan Marcus

Danny Burstein as Tevye PHOTO | Joan Marcus

NEW YORK — A new revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Sounds crazy, no?

On the one hand, the original Broadway production — which ran for a then-unprecedented 3,242 performances and earned nine Tony Awards — premiered 50 years ago.

Today, nations still turn their backs on their own people and set entire villages adrift. So this beloved musical about the dairyman Tevye, his family and the other Jews who populate and are then exiled from the underfed and overworked Russian shtetl of Anatevka still resonates.

On the other hand, this is the fifth Broadway revival of “Fiddler.” Does the world need another?

Just prior to taking on “Fiddler,” Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher, an up-and-coming freelancer in 1998 when he directed “Richard III” at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Theater Festival, spearheaded the Broadway revival of “The King and I,” which had been revived three other times since its 1951 premiere. In 2009, he directed the Broadway revival of “South Pacific,” which debuted in 1949.

The guy certainly knows how to make new productions of classic musicals distinctive.

But distinctive does not necessarily mean better, unfortunately the case in the revival of “Fiddler” that opened Dec. 20 at the Broadway Theatre.

The musical is based on stories written in Yiddish, in 1894, by Sholem Aleichem and is so brilliantly constructed that its core elements seem impervious to artistic tinkering by others. Joseph Stein’s clever script captures the essence of Aleichem’s tales and the show boasts a magnificent score by Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics).

The joyous freylach rhythms of “To Life” and the melancholic violin solo that is “Fiddler’s” recurring theme are the show’s unyielding creative and cultural cornerstones.

But Sher sacrifices some of the implicit Jewishness in the work in an effort to universalize its story about oppressed families forced from their homelands. He does this by doing away with old-world Eastern European accents, stylistically simplifying production values, and offering a more generic Tevye. It begins the moment the audience enters the theater and encounters its bare stage.

When the show opens, five-time Tony nominee Danny Burstein enters dressed in a contemporary red parka jacket, reading the play’s opening lines from a book of Aleichem’s stories. When he removes the jacket to reveal traditional, autumn-hued shtetlwear and puts on his iconic cap, Burstein becomes Tevye and is joined by the rest of Anatevka’s residents for a rousing performance of “Tradition.”

The show ends with Burstein wearing the same parka as he joins the progression of Tevye’s family, neighbors and friends, who have been forced out of Anatevka. His red jacket is the only splash of color and stands out like a beacon in the show’s final, frozen tableau.

This device is an attempt to dramatically connect our world and time with Tevye’s. But the meaning in a message as overtly theatrical and spoon-fed as this one is less poignant and affecting than one discovered on our own. And it is much harder to care about a symbolic, representative Tevye than, simply, the man.

Fortunately, Burstein is brilliant in all that he does as Tevye — particularly his endearing performance of “If I Were a Rich Man” — even though much of what he does is less interesting than it was in previous incarnations.

But Burstein serves up a Tevye who is human-sized, not the larger-than-life personality Zero Mostel established in the original production or Herschel Bernardi embraced in the 1981 revival. Other Tevyes of greater scope were Israeli actor Topol in the 1990 revival and the only non-Jewish Tevye, Alfred Molina, in the 2004 update. (The New York Times called the last one “Goyim on the Roof.”)

Instead of presenting a blend of shtetl nostalgia and old-world patriarchy, Burstein’s Tevye is an understated Everyman, not the outspoken voice of his village and, more importantly, his people.

Rather than passionately railing against the tidal wave of social and political change, Burstein’s Tevye rarely raises his voice at his disobedient children (the delightful Alexandra Silber as Tzeitel, Samantha Massell as Hodel, and Melanie Moore as Chava), their love interests (the very talented Adam Kantor as Motel, Ben Rappaport as Perchik, and Nick Rehberger as Fyedka), a confounding God, or this production’s even more intimidating force of nature: Tevye’s wife, Golda (Jessica Hecht).

So tepid is this Tevye that Golda’s condescension, which was playful and humorous in previous productions, becomes the real thing in this one. If not for their beguiling duet, “Do You Love Me,” the answer would be a resounding no.

Oddly, only Hecht’s Golda speaks with an accent, although she does so with an inexplicably Germanic inflection. The lack of old-world accents takes much of the stuffing out of the derma that is this production, which may well have been the intention.

But it tends to flatten such richly drawn and distinctively Jewish character roles as the matchmaker Yente (Alix Korey), the Rabbi (Jeffrey Schecter), Nachum the Beggar (Mitch Greenberg, who recently appeared in the Cleveland Play House production of “Yentl”) and Mordcha the Innkeeper (Michael C. Bernardi, who is the son of Herschel Bernardi and wears his dad’s Tevye boots in this production).

Tevye is further minimized during the gorgeous “Far From the Home I Love,” when Hodel sings to her father as they await the train that will take her away forever. Halfway through the heart-wrenching and beautifully delivered song, the actress leaves the bench she shares with Tevye and delivers the song at the edge of the stage, shifting the focus from Tevye’s reactions and, with it, the vicarious flood of emotion the audience would have otherwise experienced.

Michael Yeargan’s scenic design, too, scales down. Rather than immersing us in the world of Anatevka, we are offered representative pieces and parts, some layered and levitated as if in a Marc Chagall painting — which also inspired the original production design of “Fiddler.” The pieces are intriguing and effectively lit by Donald Holder but it is hard to care about a symbol. When the floating houses shrink as the show progresses, suggesting a distancing of Anatevkans from their homes, that also distances the audience from this production.

London-based, Israeli-born Hofesh Shechter’s choreography has the opposite effect. Though grounded in the original work of Jerome Robbins, particularly the Judaic foot stomping and arm swaying during “To Life” and the traditional wedding bottle dance, wildly fluid movement replaces much of Robbins’ more classic and formal dance steps. The innovative choreography, coupled with the glorious sound generated by a full orchestra under Ted Sperling’s direction, is absolutely riveting and the true star of this revival.

No creative work by or about Jews has won the hearts of Americans as thoroughly as “Fiddler.” But, as noted in Alisa Solomon’s recent book “Wonder of Wonders,” backers of the original musical worried it would be “too Jewish” for tourists. In response, the depiction of Eastern European Jews took on reassuring stereotypes that, according to the author, “preserved our heritage not so much in amber as in schmaltz.”

In this revival, Sher has eliminated some of the schmaltz. In doing so, he has removed some of the show’s heart as well.  CV

On Stage

WHAT: “Fiddler on the Roof”

WHERE: The Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway, New York City

WHEN: Open-ended run

TICKETS & INFO: $89-$227. Call 800-276-2392 or visit boxoffice.broadway.com

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News in January 2016.

Lead photo: The villagers of Anatevka. PHOTO | Joan Marcus

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15Jan

It’s hard to be the Bard

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Broadway’s delightful ‘Something Rotten’ spoofs all things Shakespeare

By Bob Abelman

NEW YORK CITY — To mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is allowing priceless copies of the Bard’s precious First Folio to go on national tour.

In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare died, actors John Heminges and Henry Condell gathered his works and published the 900-page folio, which consists of 36 plays, 18 of which — including “Twelfth Night,” “Julius Caesar,” and “Macbeth” — had never before been printed. Fewer than 750 copies were produced and only 233 survive.

Announcement of the tour has already reignited the long-standing debate about whether Shakespeare’s plays were actually penned, at least in part, by playwright Christopher Marlowe, essayist Francis Bacon, dramatist George Peele, adventurer Walter Raleigh or William Stanley, the 6th earl of Derby. The film “Anonymous,” a 2011 political thriller set in the Elizabethan court, made a convincing argument that a cultured aristocrat named Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford, did most of the writing.

Broadway’s “Something Rotten!” which opened at the St. James Theatre last April, takes place in South London in 1595. It lays to rest the debate by demonstrating that Shakespeare had nary a creative bone in his body and wrote nothing that was original. Marlowe, Bacon and the others even make a cameo appearance in the opening scene before we ever set eyes on the plagiarizing Shakespeare.

This would be a bold historical statement if the musical was meant to be anything more than a romp about the Renaissance and its theater scene.

It has no such aspirations. “Something Rotten!” is an absolutely shameless spoof of all things Shakespeare and a deceptively smart but equally outrageous parody of Broadway musicals.

This should come as no surprise since it was written by Karey Kirkpatrick, who mostly wrote scripts and songs for Disney Animation, and John O’Farrell, a comic novelist in the U.K. Wayne Kirkpatrick, Karey’s brother, contributed astoundingly hummable music and hilarious lyrics.

And the show is directed/choreographed with witty and reckless abandon by Casey Nicholaw, who won a 2011 Tony Award for his work on the perfectly irreverent and hugely successful “The Book of Mormon.”

“Something Rotten!” revolves around the two 16th-century Bottom brothers, the earnest Nick (typically played by Brian D’Arcy James, but the night I attended, brilliantly handled by Stacey Todd Holt) and the pathologically naive Nigel (a thoroughly endearing John Cariani), who hate Shakespeare as much for his thievery as for his rock-star reputation among adoring theatergoers.

The two underdog playwrights hire a bargain-basement soothsayer named Nostradamus (an absolutely hysterical Brad Oscar) to look into the future so they can claim Shakespeare’s most popular play as their own. Nostradamus picks up pieces and parts of “Hamlet” but also discovers an art form that will take the world by storm — the musical — in which singing and dancing replace dialogue and overpriced drinks can be purchased in a lobby. His vision provides random insights into showgirls, chorus lines and pieces and parts of various hit shows, all of which become part of their finished production, called “Omelette.”

While the first act of “Something Rotten!” supplies the huge setup for what should be a hilarious mashup musical from the vision, the second is dominated by its presentation, which is unintentionally disappointing. Fortunately, too much happens in this show to keep “Omelette” from being too much of a letdown.

For instance, we get to watch Christian Borle, who plays Shakespeare with Elvis’ physicality, Keith Richard’s ultracool demeanor and swollen sense of self, and an excessively padded codpiece. The origins of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, as manufactured for this show, are ingenious.

There’s also the wonderful Heidi Blickenstaff as Bea, Nick’s headstrong wife, the adorable Kate Reinders as Portia, Nigel’s love interest, and Brooks Ashmanskas as Portia’s father, also a closeted leader of a Puritan sect. An extraordinarily talented ensemble fills the stage with the kind of unbridled enthusiasm and Monty Pythonian/Mel Brooksian flair necessary to support such enchanting inanity.

Designers Scott Pask (scenic), Gregg Barnes (costume), Jeff Croiter (lighting) and Peter Hylenski (sound) create a Stratford-on-Avon that looks like a colorful, overstuffed pop-up book, built for sight gags and jaw-dropping production numbers.

Though New York City offers productions for every taste and temperament, “Something Rotten!” is the kind of musical theater experience one thinks of when “Broadway” starts the thought and “big, boisterous and brassy” completes it. “Something Rotten!” is a treat. CV

On Stage

WHAT: “Something Rotten!”

WHERE: St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St., New York City

WHEN: Open-ended run

TICKETS & INFO: $52-$252. Call 877-250-2929 or visit rottenbroadway.com

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News in January 2016.

Lead photo: The ensemble of “Something Rotten!” PHOTO | Joan Marcus

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15Jan

Timely tension

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CPT’s exceptional ‘Incendiaries’ uses drama to spark discussion on issues of race in Cleveland

By Bob Abelman

“This happened.”

These are the final words in the play “Incendiaries,” which explores the race riots that tore through Cleveland’s East Side Hough neighborhood in the late 1960s. Gunfire left four dead and dozens injured. Hundreds of fires swept through the area as looters trashed stores, causing millions of dollars in damage. More than 2,000 Ohio National Guardsmen were brought in to restore peace.

But the hope of the play’s creators is that these won’t be the last words when it comes to public discussion about the conflict that exists between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.

Conceived and directed by Pandora Robertson and receiving its world premiere at Cleveland Public Theatre, “Incendiaries” asks audiences to reflect upon the social injustice that happened in the past with the understanding that it is happening still.

In fact, during rehearsals for this production, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed across the street from the apartment of a cast member.

The play’s subject matter and timeliness most certainly inspires contemplation, discussion and debate. But what is particularly remarkable is its ability to transform historical text, actual trial transcripts, and documented citizen accounts into riveting theater.

The 60-minute production employs seven actors — Brittni Shambaugh Addison, Wesley Allen, Ashley Aquilla, Laprise Johnson, Daniel McNamara, Randi Renee, and Chris Walker — who dramatically re-enact six days of Cleveland history using nothing more than three chairs and one table. Their performance is seen through a wispy mist of smoke that creates both the haze of past-tense remembrance and the realization that the city’s on fire.

Rather than projecting archival news footage and aiming toward stark realism, “Incendiaries” dramatizes events and theatrically reimagines those involved in the Hough riots, so it steers clear of any semblance of overtly educational public service programming. And, by choosing artistry over authenticity, Robertson adds weight and intensity to the storytelling.

The play unfolds in sequential scenarios that seamlessly morph from one location in Hough — a bedroom, a storefront, a paddy wagon, a hospital bed — to the next with a clever adjustment in the placement of the table and a chair, accentuated by Benjamin Gantose’s lighting and Darryl Dickenson’s sound designs.

Actors climb on, around and through the furniture with the dexterity of the Pilobolus dance troupe, and become passionate witnesses or frightened victims in one scene and angry mobs or angrier police officers in another. They are wonderful in all that they do and only falter when the fever pitch of some performers’ anger occasionally overtakes the words spoken by others.

Even with some words obscured, this is a powerful production. And who knows: if one event at Seventy-Niners’ Cafe on the southeast corner of Hough and East 79th Street on the evening of July 18, 1966 can spark tensions that escalate into riots, then perhaps one play taking place at Detroit Avenue and West 65th Street can spark the kind of dialogue that will keep this from happening again. CV

On Stage

WHAT: “Incendiaries”

WHERE: Cleveland Public Theatre, 6415 Detroit Ave., Cleveland

WHEN: Through Jan. 23

TICKETS & INFO: $12-$30. Call 216-631-2727 or visit cptonline.org

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News in January 2016.

Lead photo: The cast of “Incendiaries.” PHOTO | Steve Wagner Photography

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15Jan

Good sign

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Broadway’s ‘Spring Awakening’ revival gives wind mighty voice

By Bob Abelman

NEW YORK — Theater becomes more than just amusement when it speaks for those who are denied a voice because they are perceived as different or live in a time of marginalization.

This is why it’s a big deal when current Broadway productions like “Hamilton,” “Fun Home,” “Allegiance” and “The Color Purple” respectively portray and hire members of the Hispanic, LGBTQ, Asian, and African-American communities.

And it’s a big deal when half the cast in the revival of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s wonderful musical “Spring Awakening” — which opened in September — is comprised of deaf actors playing roles originally conceived as hearing and includes the first wheelchair-bound actor to perform on Broadway.

But nontraditional casting is not what makes “Spring Awakening,” in production at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, great theater. It’s what director Michael Arden, his team of designers, choreographer Spencer Liff, American Sign Language masters Elizabeth Greene, Anthony Natale and Shoshannah Stern, and the 22-member cast do with this unique opportunity.

Based on the once-scandalous 1891 play of the same name by Frank Wedekind, the original production — which debuted on Broadway in 2006 and earned eight Tony Awards — is set in late-19th-century Germany and tells the cautionary coming-of-age tale of teenagers discovering the tumult of sexual longing. The musical depicts the explosive consequences of being denied proper knowledge by overly protective parents and traditionalist teachers. The revival does the same.

What made the original production particularly powerful was that the adolescents were played by actors in their 20s and their story was told in the hard-rocking musical vernacular of our time, complete with anarchist lyrics and contemporary expletives.

What makes this revival additionally effective is that the characters are not disenfranchised just because they are adolescents, but because many of them are deaf. Adding to their alienation is the banning of sign language in schools in the late 19th century and the perception that the inability or unwillingness to lip-read and mimic speech was a sign of inferiority and failure.

Sign language is interwoven into the show’s storytelling, which offers a marvelous and miraculous ballet of vocal and visual expression that not only makes the musical accessible to a deaf audience but also heightens the emotional resonance of a play already brimming with it.

All the cast members, including former Beachwood resident Alex Wyse, sign throughout the production whether they are deaf or hearing, reinforcing their characters’ collective marginalization in the eyes of the adults (brilliantly portrayed by Russell Harvard, Marlee Matlin, Patrick Page, and Camryn Manheim). But the deaf actors also are shadowed by designated hearing actors, including Clevelander Sean Grandillo, who give voice to their signed dialogue and lyrics in distinctive, character-defining ways.

The magnificent Sandra Mae Frank, who plays the featured role of Wendla, hands a guitar to her vocal counterpart, Katie Boeck, who accompanies her on the opening song, “Mama, Who Bore Me,” and subsequent numbers. In fact, most of the orchestra consists of these instrument-playing vocal counterparts, who remain on the open stage as it changes location by way of subtle introduction of a piece of furniture and dramatic lighting, designed by Dane Laffrey and Ben Stanton.

Daniel Durant, a powerhouse as the socially awkward, rebellious student Moritz, hands his vocal counterpart and confident alter ego, Alex Boniello, a microphone before singing/signing the angry “The Bitch of Living.” When Moritz contemplates suicide later in the play, Durant takes the microphone away from Boniello, creating one of many poignant moments not possible in the original version.

Signing choreography takes other creative forms as well.

When the relationship between Wendla and Melchior — played with intelligence and remarkable charm by hearing actor Austin P. McKenzie — turns romantic and they embrace, his left hand and her right engage in synchronized signing during the song “The Word of Your Body,” which makes it all the more intimate.

And when Wendla’s mother (the superb Manheim), who is hearing, employs broken and inept signs, it adds even more weight to their miscommunication and chasm in understanding.

Kathryn Gallagher is Treshelle Edmond’s voice performer, and the two always stay at a distance to represent how their character, Martha, feels removed from her classmates because of her sexually abusive father.

Over time, once the vocal and visual expression blends and is no longer obtrusive, the most powerful moments in the show come in silence, when the dialogue is performed entirely in ASL so the hearing audience gets to experience the isolating world of these deaf characters.

And when Wendla finds out she is pregnant and asks her mother, “Why didn’t you tell me everything” about sex, she does so in her own voice rather than ASL, which makes the moment even more heartbreaking.

The revival of “Spring Awakening” is most certainly an important piece of storytelling because of its bold casting choices. But it’s the brilliant script and score, innovative staging, and the virtuosity of each and every performer that make it absolutely spellbinding. CV

On Stage

WHAT: “Spring Awakening”

WHERE: Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 246 W. 47th St., New York City

WHEN: Through Jan. 24; soon on national tour

TICKETS & INFO: $59-$249, call 800-276-2392 or visit boxoffice.broadway.com

Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3.

Originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News in January 2016.

Lead photo: The cast of “Spring Awakening” PHOTO | Joan Marcus

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