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March 23, 2007
TT: At low ebb
I reviewed four shows in this morning’s Wall Street Journal drama column: Curtains, Jack Goes Boating, and Propeller's all-male stagings of The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. Here’s the rumpus:I’ve never seen a musical that tried so hard to be likable as “Curtains,” or an audience that tried so hard to like it. Fred Ebb, who wrote most of the lyrics, died unexpectedly in 2004, leaving John Kander and Rupert Holmes to finish the show on their own. Mr. Kander and his longtime partner were one of Broadway’s most admired songwriting teams, and everybody wanted their last musical to be great. Me, too—but it isn’t, though the production and performances are so immaculately professional that you can almost fool yourself into thinking that “Curtains” is something more than an unrisen soufflé….
Propeller, Edward Hall’s all-male Shakespeare troupe, is back in Brooklyn for the third season in a row, this time performing “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Twelfth Night” in repertory at BAM Harvey. Both productions, played on the simplest of tour-friendly sets, are fast, fresh, funny and full of surprises. “The Taming of the Shrew” is thought-provoking, while “Twelfth Night” shimmers with magic. No matter how much Shakespeare you’ve seen lately, you’ll come home buzzing about the Bard as if you’d just discovered him….
Bob Glaudini’s “Jack Goes Boating” is an embarrassingly unfunny working-class romantic comedy in which Philip Seymour Hoffman plays yet another shambling, depressed slacker type, this time a dope-smoking limo driver who’s never had a girlfriend. (No wonder.) Some seem to have found it amusing, but I couldn’t stop looking at my watch, not even when Daphne Rubin-Vega took off her clothes….
No free link. You know what to do, and if you’re smart, you’ll go here to do it. (If you’re already a subscriber to the Online Journal, my column is here.)
Posted March 23, 2007 12:00 PM
