News
& Reviews from New York |
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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.-- its 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 Harriells
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.
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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 Steigs 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) childrens 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 DArcy
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 Vanstones 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.
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December
10th, 2008
Martha Clarkes 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, youve 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.
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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 wont 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 youll
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.
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December
05th, 2008
I rarely see, anywhere, the high level of ensemble work now playing in
NACLs 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 modelike
marionettes who are human. Like Gordon Craigs concept of the Ubermarionette,
where the actors are moved in voice and gesture by the puppetmaster/director.
In NACLs 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 1890s, the efficient set by David Evans
Morris and lights and shadows by Juliet Chia complete this exceptional
piece of Theatre. Go with it and its style, and its 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.
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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. Its a time warp with a classic 1940s plot
(boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, and lets put on a
show ). If youd like to spend some time with a good-natured gang
of really fine singers singing the lovely songs of Americas best
song writer, youll have a great time. The show gets stronger as
the terrific dancers in the cast tap like mad in Randy Skinners
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 Bobbies 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.
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November
22nd , 2008
BILLY ELLIOT!, a very moving film about a coal miners 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 its 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 Fishers brilliant lighting (and shadowing), and Nicky Gillibrands
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 boys struggle, in a working class community,
to be a dancer is set against a miners strike in the mid 80s.
I have some disagreements with parts of Act 1, but they dissolve as the
show progresses: I didnt 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 womens dresses which could be left out-- I guess they didnt
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. Theres also a terrific dance by the rather
fat Thommie Retter that lit up the audience. Elton Johns 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 tutus, in
a Swan Lake meets Chorus Line finale. What a show!
Richmond Shepard-- Performing Arts INSIDER and
lively-arts.com.
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November
18th , 2008
When I first saw David Mamets 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
Mamets 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 its a bit difficult to feel for him even when he is brutalized--
we dont 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 McDevitts 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.
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November
14th , 2008
Notes on the play SATURN RETURNS by Noah Haidle-- three times in a mans
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 didnt 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 lets 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. Youd 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.
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November
13th , 2008
WHATS 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 singers 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. Its 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.
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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.
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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.
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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. Its 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, Its 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.
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November
03rd , 2008
The Living Theatres production of EUREKA is an extraordinary theatrical
experience in action, movement, projections, text based on Edgar Allan
Poes 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.
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