Archives for 2012

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review two new San Diego-area musicals, Nobody Loves You and Hands on a Hardbody. Here’s an excerpt.
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In case you’ve been worrying that the American musical is all washed up, fear not: I just got back from San Diego, where I saw two noteworthy shows that filled me with hope. Granted, they’re still in development, and one of them is considerably more finished than the other, but both of these shows are already far more interesting than any of the new musicals (“Once” excepted) that made it to Broadway last season.
“Nobody Loves You,” in which a geeky philosophy major (Adam Kantor) auditions for a “Survivor”-style reality TV show to make his ex jealous, could transfer to New York pretty much intact. The book, by Itamar Moses, is part open-hearted romcom, part dead-on satire (Mr. Moses, who has written for “Boardwalk Empire” and “Men of a Certain Age,” knows his way around a TV studio). The songs, by Mr. Moses and Gaby Alter, are instantaneously catchy pop-rock ditties with brainy lyrics: “I hate naïve idealists/And cynical nihilists/I like open-eyed realists/With an idealistic core.” Every number pushes the plot forward, resulting in a musical that seems even shorter than it is…
Truth to tell, this musical is close to bulletproof. It’s tailor-made for Off Broadway, though I can just as easily see it transferring to a compact Broadway house like Circle in the Square. Either way, it has the smell of a hit….
The producers of “Hands on a Hardbody” announced on Wednesday that the show, commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse and currently running there, will move to Broadway this coming season. That’s good news. Even though “Hardbody” still needs quite a bit of revision before making the big leap, it bears the unmistakable marks of a musical that is at once charmingly quirky and genuinely affecting…
Directed by Neil Pepe and performed by a top-of-the-line ensemble cast led by Keith Carradine and Hunter Foster, “Hands on a Hardbody” is a fictionalized version of the much-admired 1997 film documentary about a Texas endurance competition whose contestants must keep one hand on a brand-new pickup truck until they walk away in frustration or collapse from exhaustion. The last man (or woman) standing wins the truck. The book is by Doug Wright, the author of “I Am My Own Wife,” who has set “Hardbody” in the present, emphasizing the brutalizing effects of the recession on the 10 contestants…
Mr. Wright has done a lovely job of suggesting the way in which real-life Texans talk. Not only does he never condescend to his characters, but he even takes their old-time religion seriously. The score, by Amanda Green (“High Fidelity”) and Trey Anastasio, who is better known as the guitarist of Phish, is uneven in spots, but all of the ballads are beautiful…
What’s wrong? The premise of “Hardbody,” whose characters are required to stand in one place most of the time, makes it too physically static to fill the space of a Broadway stage. In addition, Mr. Wright’s book is loose-jointed to a fault….
Even in its present form, “Hardbody” is sweet, sincere, refreshingly uncynical and full of fine songs. That’s a lot to like. All that’s needed is craft to match.
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Read the whole thing here.
The Old Globe’s trailer for Nobody Loves You:

Excerpts from Hands on a Hard Body, the 1997 film documentary:

If you should happen to be at Martha’s Vineyard on July 9, the Vineyard Playhouse will be presenting a one-night-only staged reading of Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, as part of its “Monday Night Specials” series of performances. Like the full-scale productions at Shakespeare & Company and Long Wharf Theatre, the play will be performed by John Douglas Thompson and directed by Gordon Edelstein.
Alas, I’ll be ensconced at the MacDowell Colony and thus inaccessible, so if you happen to see the performance, write and tell me what you thought!
For more information, go here.

“Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life

The Wall Street Journal has given me an extra drama column this week with which to report from California on South Coast Repertory’s revival of August Wilson’s Jitney. Here’s an excerpt.
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Has there been an American playwright who was better than August Wilson at turning the everyday speech of ordinary people into poetry? Maybe Clifford Odets, but I’d be hard pressed to name another rival. Scarcely a page of “Jitney,” the first installment of Mr. Wilson’s 10-play cycle about the black experience in America, goes by without at least a line or two that sets the air to dancing. One of the glories of South Coast Repertory’s distinguished revival is that each member of the cast is fully, excitingly alive to the play’s verbal music. For all its beauties, “Jitney” is not the most soundly made of Mr. Wilson’s scripts, but in this staging, directed with unobtrusive but uncommon finesse by Ron OJ Parson, its flaws are rendered irrelevant by the sheer quality of the performance.
“Jitney” is set in 1977, five years before the play received its premiere. The scene is the rundown station of a gypsy-cab company in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Becker (Charlie Robinson), who runs the station, is a world-weary man of a certain age who has just received a pair of bitter blows. Not only has he learned that the city is about to tear down the decaying building that houses the station, but Booster (Montae Russell), his son, who went to prison 20 years ago for killing a woman, has served out his term and come back to Pittsburgh. Booster’s unwelcome presence will trigger a confrontation with his father in which the price of pride is dramatized with a force that is worthy of Shakespeare–or Sophocles.
The first act of “Jitney” is a perfect piece of theatrical carpentry that may well be the best thing Mr. Wilson ever wrote. The climactic showdown between Becker and his son has an operatic thrust and weight, and even the most casual of conversations elswehere in the play ring with the sound of life itself….
Not only is Mr. Parson’s staging as earthy and right as a 12-bar blues, but Shaun Motley’s sad, shabby set and Vincent Olivieri’s precisely calculated sound design supply the frame for a winningly fine display of ensemble acting by the entire nine-person cast, led with unimpeachable realism by Mr. Robinson….
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Read the whole thing here.

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:

• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Sept. 9, reviewed here)

• The Best Man (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 9, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• The Columnist (drama, PG-13/R, closes July 1, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Evita (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• 4000 Miles (drama, PG-13, closes July 1, reviewed here)

• Man and Superman (serious comedy, G, far too long and complex for children of any age, extended through July 1, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, off-Broadway remounting of Broadway production, closes June 24, original run reviewed here)

• Tribes (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes June 17, reviewed here)

• Venus in Fur (serious comedy, R, adult subject matter, closes June 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• The Iceman Cometh (drama, PG-13, closes June 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:

• Timon of Athens (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes June 10, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN LOS ANGELES:

• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, transfer of Kennedy Center/Broadway revival, closes June 9, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Death of a Salesman (drama, PG-13, unsuitable for children, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CHICAGO:

• Angels in America (drama, PG-13/R, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO:

• Endgame/Play (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

“All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if the nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.”
Rebecca West, The Meaning of Treason

A great American artist has left us. Oh, how he will be missed: