December 22nd, 2008
   
NUTCRACKER: RATED R, a dazzling full length ballet set to the music of Tchaikovsky, choreographed, directed by the brilliant Angela Harriell, who could be the next Susan Stroman.-- it’s all Broadway level work. Starting with a mime-ish gathering of a strange family, there are zany, sexy costumes (designed by Harriell), hot innuendos with scantily-clad beauties who are real dancers; there is a touch of Hip Hop, skating, more mime, a modern adagio, a scene with two losers as a mood contrast, lots of humor, lots of pazazz. Harriell has a superb troupe and a wild imagination to carry out her whims. I was amazed at the level of artistry and the professionalism of the ballet-based dancers. The blend of the music, remixed by David F. Slone, the set and lighting by Mark Marcante, and Harriell’s magic lifted this surreal masterpiece to heights of joy. 155 1st Ave thru January 3rd. 212/254-1109.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

December 18th, 2008
   
OH, THOSE BEAUTIFUL WEIMAR GIRLS written by Idiko Nemeth and Mark Altman and directed by Nemeth, with the sexiest choreography in town by Julie Atlas Mux and Peter Schmitz, terrific costumes by Javier Bone-carbone, stylish lighting by Federico Restrepo, and a lively soundscape by Jon Gilbert Leavitt, is a visit to the depravity in Berlin from 1921 to '32 centered about the super-Bohemian dancer Anita Berber who depraved herself into an early grave, but had a great time along the way. Anita liked to let her mink drop to the floor in public, and be naked, and the beautiful Sarah Lemp accomplishes this with style, standing still-- a classic historic nude statue. And she's an exciting (clothed) dancer. When Lemp is nude, she's dressed-- when she's clothed and dancing, she's naked. With the counterpoint of a fine singer, Kaylin Lee Clinton, it's an exciting evening, including a troupe of exuberant girl dancers in scanties, the seduction of a young
virgin, simulated rough sex, a bit of S & M, a dance of death, a whole culture is recreated. It's a powerfully engaging evening. 107 Suffolk "St. thru December 21st. 212/868-4444.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

SHREK, the musical based on William Steig’s book, with clever book and lyrics by the rascally David Lindsay-Adaire and lively music by Jeanine Tesori, is a brilliantly designed (inspired set and outrageous costumes by Tim Hatley) children’s fantasy extravaganza with enough anachronisms and references to the fairy tales we all know to also amuse the grown-ups in the audience. Everyone loved the ogre, played by Brian D’Arcy James, singing and dancing Sutton Foster showed once again that she is a real star with great comic timing, Christopher Sieber is a great villain, and all the rest were lively and fun in their various roles. With cartoon makeup design by Naomi Donne, wild hair and wig design by David Brian-Brown, zany choreography by Josh Prince, Hugh Vanstone’s evocative lighting, all set into non-stop action by director Jason Moore, SHEK is a lot of fun— a fairy tale entertainment with continuing startling visuals including an almost scary
dragon.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

December 10th, 2008
   
Martha Clarke’s GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS, based on a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, is a masterpiece of Performance Art. It has images, utilization of the human body, you’ve never seen before— anywhere, even in the painting. With a brilliant soundscape by Richard Peaslee, magical set and lighting by Christopher Akerlind and monotonal costumes suggesting nudity by Jane Greenwood, we have beautiful bodies in slow sensual adagios in mid-air, mythic conflict, dancing peasants, potatoes, violence, medieval religious ceremony, witches flying on broomsticks, and all lifted by the sounds--- percussion, wind, string. Clarke has created an amazing, innovative, stunning piece of Theatrical Art. Minetta Lane Theatre.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

December 09th, 2008
   
DUST by Billy Goda, now at The Westside Theatre, an exciting adventure play, has a Broadway level cast with Richard Masur and Hunter Foster as a sympathetic anti-hero with a past and an older, rich egotist flaunting his power. With a terrific soundscape by Sharath Patel and lighting by Charles Foster, on a fine flexible set by Caleb Wertenbaker, as directed by Scott Zigler, the play is a thriller-- with jeopardy, romance (with the lovely, thin Laura E. Campbell), menace (from the scary Curtis McClaren) and succor and temptation (from John Schiappa in two contrasting roles). The conflict between the ex-con, Foster, and a Trump-like Masur escalates, holding our rapt attention, spirals out of control to the weak point in the play-- the unsatisfactory ending. I won’t tell you what it is, but there were many alternatives that might have included some irony, some invention, something more complex and satisfying. Go see, and you’ll see what I mean.
Let me know what you think. Yes, yes-- do go see it: it's a good show.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

December 05th, 2008
   
I rarely see, anywhere, the high level of ensemble work now playing in NACL’s THE UNCANNY APPEARANCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES at HERE Arts Center in SoHo. You can only achieve what they do by working together daily for years-- and that is what North American Cultural Laboratory does in their upstate theatre center. In this show, a very stylized production which includes rock music, a narrative detective-investigating-murder plot, and lots of intricate choreography of physical action and gymnastics with perfect synchronization, has the actors in presentation mode—like marionettes who are human. Like Gordon Craig’s concept of the “Ubermarionette,” where the actors are moved in voice and gesture by the puppetmaster/director. In NACL’s work, the company itself is the puppetmaster under the direction of, and using the story by, Brad Krumholz.

The performers, who are also the lively band in a mixture of classic Rock, a bit of Weimar, a touch of Rocky Horror and a smidgen of French Bistro, all play many roles, and three of them are accomplished mime/gymnasts with great agility and flexibility: Brett Keyser as a strong rock-singing human Slinky Sherlock, and Liz Eckert and Sarah Dey Hirshan show their range, strength and elasticity in several roles each. Co-artistic director Tannis Kowalchuk is a surprising Dr. Watson, and Glenn Hall is fine as several characters.

Great (uncredited) costumes suggesting the 1890’s, the efficient set by David Evans Morris and lights and shadows by Juliet Chia complete this exceptional piece of Theatre. Go with it and it’s style, and it’s an exotic treat. Krumholz is a big talent, and his troupe is super. Long may they wave!

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

December 04th, 2008
   
WHITE CHRISTMAS, with songs by Irving Berlin and book by David Ives and Paul Blake and a sharp Broadway cast, is an entertainment full of holiday cheer, familiar songs well performed. Everything is bubbly clean: the dancers, the costumes by Carrie Robbins, the imaginative flexible sets by Anna Louizos. It’s a time warp with a classic 1940’s plot (boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, and let’s put on a show ). If you’d like to spend some time with a good-natured gang of really fine singers singing the lovely songs of America’s best song writer, you’ll have a great time. The show gets stronger as the terrific dancers in the cast tap like mad in Randy Skinner’s dynamic choreography in a couple of pieces, including a Fosse-esque number- hats and all. These hoofers are the best. Both romantic couples and all the performers, are excellent, and there is one real star in this show: Susan Mansur who lights up the stage and really
captures the audience with everything she does. Walter Bobbie’s snappy direction, with lighting by Ken Billington, keeps the show popping, and a holiday good time was had by all.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 22nd , 2008
   
BILLY ELLIOT!, a very moving film about a coal miner’s son who wants to be a ballet dancer, written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daltry, came out in 2000. The same team wrote and directed the musical now on Broadway, with music by Elton John, and it’s a deeply layered piece of work with cinematic power that only many years of work, including a long run in London, can produce. The dynamic set by Ian MacNeil, with Rick Fisher’s brilliant lighting (and shadowing), and Nicky Gillibrand’s vast range of costumes, the spectacular, thrilling choreography by Peter Darling, and a wonderful cast, all add up to a powerful Broadway musical. The story is elemental: the boy’s struggle, in a working class community, to be a dancer is set against a miner’s strike in the mid ‘80’s. I have some disagreements with parts of Act 1, but they dissolve as the show progresses: I didn’t feel the boy drawn to dance by the beauty of movement that would
enchant him with its look and feel-- I felt that they were mocking ballet as the little ballet girls behaved clownishly; smelly smoke fills the theatre when Carol Shelley as a lively grandma reminisces; the father, an excellent Gregory Jbara, looks about fifteen years too old for the character who describes himself as becoming a widower at thirty-seven, and would now be in his early forties-- a few things bothered me. But when the dancing takes place, from the time Haydn Gwynne, the wonderful, frustrated teacher stuck in the backwaters, begins to teach Billy, it starts to cook. The coal miners’ struggle found resonance with my early red days, and the show steps up into brilliance as a chorus line of cops and the strikers confront each other with the young ballet dancers in the middle-- a great juxtaposition. They drop in a dance number by giant women’s dresses which could be left out-- I guess they didn’t trust the play itself and had to
throw in something extraneous— a divertissement for the tourists? The dancing is what will fill the theatre. They have three boys alternating as Billy, and the one I saw, Trent Kowalik, is a phenom, a young Gene Kelly, who enchants at his audition sequence, and leaves the audience gasping in a number where he dances with his future self (a marvelous Stephen Hanna) in a breathtaking Swan Lake duo, and we soar with him as he dances until he flies. There’s also a terrific dance by the rather fat Thommie Retter that lit up the audience. Elton John’s music, including an inspiring anthem and some lovely ballads, lifts the entire production. The show ends, and for the curtain call we have a giant production number, with the entire cast, coal miners and all, in tutu’s, in a Swan Lake meets Chorus Line finale. What a show!

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 18th , 2008
   
When I first saw David Mamet’s AMERICAN BUFFALO in 1976, it was just a short time after the United States Supreme Court opened the way to free verbal expression on the stage, and the use of vulgar expletives was new, groundbreaking, shocking. Now, “fuck,” the word that got Lenny Bruce arrested, is so common in everyday speech, it is used as an adjective, and most comedians overuse it in their routines. So all shock value in Mamet’s naturalistic dialogue is absent, and the story of three losers planning to steal a coin collection, despite some funny phraseology, is reduced to rambling banter with emotional outbursts. John Leguizamo is exciting— a dynamo let loose, Cedric the Entertainer is an adequate junkstore owner, and Haley Joel Osment, an actor who is vivid on screen or television, playing the apprentice thief, is invisible— no impact, therefore it’s a bit difficult to feel for him even when he is brutalized-- we don’t know his
internal makeup well enough to empathize. The physical staging by director Robert Falls keeps the play active and dynamic, the junk-filled set by Santo Loquasto is spectacular-- I loved the costume he put on Leguizamo, and Brian McDevitt’s lighting enhances everything. Although much of the show is entertaining, what was most missing for me at the end was the lost feeling of desolation-- the deep devastating feeling of abandonment, of hopelessness the three men should be experiencing as they are left in a vast, empty, barren desert. What we have here is a modern clown show, including (beautifully staged) mayhem.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 14th , 2008
   
Notes on the play SATURN RETURNS by Noah Haidle-- three times in a man’s life, played by three actors-- age 28, age 58, age 88-- as he relates to and then remembers his dead wife and daughter. It starts with the old man (wonderfully played throughout by John McMartin) and his caretaker, and that works as a bit about his past is revealed. Scene two, with the man at 58, played by an overwrought James Rebhorn in a scene with his daughter, is somehow not engaging. Then, in Scene three, he is 28, nicely played by Robert Eli, and there is romantic fol-de-rol between the man and his smothering, demanding wife, uninteresting moofky-foofky, mother-in-law babble and pedestrian writing. Director Nicholas Martin didn’t opt for simplicity-- the play is full of broad actions, gestures and vocal posturings. 58- a boring scene where he is going to go out on a date. 28- an ordinary, uninteresting, loving domestic scene in a party dress. 58- when his wife
died, he became totally obsessed with his daughter, who is his “whole life” – the only woman in his life, so when she dies, his life, in a way, ends, so that at 88 he has only memories of his double loss. With a fine set by Ralph Funicello, costumes by Robert Morgan and lighting by Peter Kaczorowski, the technical aspects of the show are first rate. Now let’s talk about the remarkable Rosie Benton who plays the three women: She is totally different in each of the three roles, with different personas, physicalities, ages and tones. You’d swear you saw three different women on the stage. This young actress is extraordinary in SATURN RETURNS, which, despite the clever three era view of the protagonist, is a rather mundane play.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 13th , 2008
   
WHAT’S THAT SMELL: The Music of Jacob Sterling, book and lyrics by David Pittu, music by Randy Redd, co-directed by Pittu (who stars in it) and Neil Pepe, is a great satirical romp with music: the interview of a gay composer/singer (Pittu) by an old queen of an interviewer (the terrific Peter Bartlett) and the singer’s life and songs. They are two very amusing caricatures. Numbers include The Private Benjamin Musical, an International Foods Song, Sounds of Human Loving, a song based on “La Femme Nikita,” and a Boob Job song. It’s a totally engaging musical review by a charming singer who is also an impeccable actor with impeccable timing in his writing and performing. He brings in three excellent auxiliary singer-dancers towards the end, and they do add something to the proceedings, but Pittu could do the show alone or with a piano player in any good cabaret room in the country. It's first rate entertainment.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 13th , 2008
   
MOUTH TO MOUTH by Kevin Elyot, is about the interactions of an English family and their homosexual close friend, and although it held my interest, it seems to me to be a themeless soap opera, with all the revelations, secrets, disease, misfortune, and occasional comic tangents of that genre. David Cale as the lead catalyst is very strong, and Lisa Emery gives a powerful, moving performance. The actors are all first rate, each deep into his or her character (or caricature), and the play is clearly directed by Mark Brokaw on simple settings by Riccardo Hernandez. The fault, dear Brutus, lies in the play itself, and I wondered why is was on the stage in New York at all.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 13th , 2008
   
Tap dancing with a story and strong characters: TIME STEP, a delightful three man trip through time, directed with great precision and timing by Mark Lonergan, featuring three master tappers as young men and then as oldsters with nothing but memory so that they have to tap their rhythms with the objects around them instead of their feet, and then again as rejuvenated, born again tap contestants, is a real show, not just an exhibition of techniques. It has a story, differentiated characters, played and choreographed by Ryan Kasprzak, Brent McBeth and Derek Roland, with terrific costumes by Juliet Jeske, fine lighting by Eric J. Kwak, imaginative set and projection design by Anna Kiraly and sound design by Duane McKee. These are real top notch tapmeisters with great synch work, comic antics when old, and their show, basically performed in Silent Film style, about the life struggles of these dancers, is a joy from start to finish.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 04th , 2008
   
The GAZILLION BUBBLE SHOW, a solo extravaganza creating bubble magic at New World Stages has a Las Vegas flavor as it starts with a commercial for itself. Ana Yang, a charming bubblemeister creates wonderful, imaginative images, fascinating shapes and mixes of color with bubbles, including bubbles in bubbles and smoke in bubbles. It’s a rare display of technique, creativity and artistry. But the variations are subtle, and after an hour I was bubbled out. My twelve year old nephew said, “It’s a bit repetitive.” But then came the spectacular finale: a lazer light show with gazillions of bubbles falling all over us- Wow!-- fun (if a bit damp). In its totality, a little less of this unusual show would end up being more.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.

November 03rd , 2008
   
The Living Theatre’s production of EUREKA is an extraordinary theatrical experience in action, movement, projections, text based on Edgar Allan Poe’s prose poem, and music by Patrick Grant. They create the universe, from the periodic table to infinity and back again, and you are part of it. With a good looking cast of actor/dancers who can really move, director/co-writer (with Hanon Reznikov) Judith Malina gives us a Performance Art experience that is rare and wonderful. Thru November 9th at 21 Clinton St. (F train to Delancey) Reservations: 212/352-3103.

Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.