Archives for March 2016

“I’m going to see a play of mine day after tomorrow which opened about a month ago, and it will be full of things which will be different. And some of it will be slightly out of focus, and some of it will be in slightly better focus than before, and I guess that’s the reason why I’m mainly a playwright, because I find that an exciting way to work, an exciting medium to work in.”

Tom Stoppard (quoted in Malcolm Jones, “Tom Stoppard: I Want to Be Like Verdi,” Daily Beast, January 10, 2016)

Fred Astaire performs “One for My Baby,” by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, in The Sky’s The Limit, directed by Edward H. Griffith. This is the film in which the song was introduced. Robert Benchley is seen at the beginning of the scene. The dance was choreographed by Astaire:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)

“You cannot write tragedy without a sense of humor; the lack of it produces something turgid and dull. Wit must be the underpainting of all dark writing.”

Gene Lees, Portrait of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer (courtesy of Patrick Kurp)

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review four New York shows, Familiar, Eclipsed, Blackbird, and Disaster! Here’s an excerpt.

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Danai Gurira is the zombie-whacking star of “The Walking Dead” and the author of “Eclipsed,” a dead-serious drama about the Second Liberian Civil War that transferred to Broadway this week after a deservedly successful 2015 run at the Public Theater. Now she’s written a new play in which nobody gets killed—onstage, anyway.

“Familiar” is a comedy of assimilation that centers on Donald and Marvelous (Harold Surratt and Tamara Tunie), an upper-middle-class Zimbabwean couple who have escaped the poverty and violence of their native land by emigrating to suburban Minneapolis and wholeheartedly embracing the American way of life (lasagna for dinner, football on Sunday afternoon). Tendi (Roslyn Ruff), their oldest daughter, has followed in their footsteps by shedding her African accent, converting to Christianity, becoming a lawyer and getting engaged to a nice white boy…

Given the potential of its subject matter, it saddens me to report that “Familiar” is so familiar. Think “Abie’s Irish Rose” or “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and you’ll get the idea: Ms. Gurira has rehashed all the clichés of its well-worn genre as if they hadn’t long since been done to death…

As for the Broadway transfer of “Eclipsed,” which features Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”) and the four other members of the original off-Broadway ensemble cast, Liesl Tommy’s production has lost nothing by being moved to a larger house. The play remains a staggeringly potent, perfectly performed snapshot of five African women who are fighting for their lives amid the roiling chaos of an unimaginably bloody war of all against all….

David Harrower’s “Blackbird,” a pruriently manipulative tale of pedophilia that made a lot of noise off Broadway in 2007, has finally made it to Broadway in a big-stage revival similar to the smaller-scaled production that I reviewed in this space nine years ago: Jeff Daniels is the star, Joe Mantello the director, with Michelle Williams, lately of “Cabaret,” replacing Alison Pill as the vengeful victim of the piece. It’s a have-it-both-ways shocker that seeks to make us sympathize (but not really!) with a 40-year-old man (Mr. Daniels) who molested a 12-year-old girl (Ms. Williams)…

If you’ve been waiting impatiently for the Broadway transfer of a cheesy, campy off-Broadway jukebox musical that spoofs the disaster flicks of the ’70s, “Disaster!” will be your huckleberry. Somehow, though, I doubt the world is full of sixtysomething fans of “The Poseidon Adventure” who long to see what can best be described as an only-the-jokes-have-been-changed knockoff of “Airplane!”…

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To read my reviews of Familiar and Eclipsed, go here.

To read my review of Blackbird, go here.

To read my review of Disaster!, go here.

The James Brown Revue performs a medley of “I Can’t Stand It,” “If I Ruled the World,” “Cold Sweat,” “Try Me,” “I Feel Good,” and “There Was a Time” on The Hollywood Palace. They are introduced by Phil Silvers. This episode was originally telecast by ABC on February 3, 1968:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)

“I have got to where I should like for my work to be humane, and I do not much care if it even becomes sentimental.”

Fred Chappell, afterword to The Fred Chappell Reader

My “Sightings” column for today’s Wall Street Journal is occasioned by Forest Whitaker’s unsuccessful Broadway debut. Here’s an excerpt.

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Forest Whitaker’s much-ballyhooed Broadway debut in Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie” proved to be a resounding flop. The producers announced last week that the show will close early, on Mar. 27, after just 55 money-losing performances. I’m not surprised. Not only is “Hughie” a gloomy, hour-long two-man play, all of which made it a tough sell to the tourist trade, but Mr. Whitaker, justly admired though he is, doesn’t have the kind of name that moves tickets nowadays….

Alas, Mr. Whitaker also failed in a different way: He wasn’t very good in “Hughie.” That didn’t surprise me, either. I’m not saying he isn’t a first-class film actor. The problem was that he made his stage debut—on Broadway, no less—without any significant stage experience.

It isn’t that movie stars can’t act onstage. Quite a few top-tier golden-age screen actors, including Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, moonlighted regularly on Broadway and in summer stock. But they’d started out as stage performers, putting in plenty of time in front of live audiences before moving to Hollywood. Many of today’s TV and movie stars, by contrast, think they can go straight to Broadway without first studying the craft of stage acting…

The problem is that stage acting, unlike screen acting, is a presentational art, one in which performers are painstakingly taught to speak and move in a larger-than-life manner so that they can be seen and heard throughout a large theater without benefit of close-ups or microphones. That’s the opposite of what a film actor does. He plays not to an audience but to the camera, which is usually only a few feet away, meaning that he can act in an unexaggerated, seemingly natural way. Try that onstage and no one in the audience will be able to hear you beyond the fifth row of the orchestra. This explains why screen actors so often give dull performances whenever they venture onto the Broadway stage….

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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:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Sense & Sensibility (serious romantic comedy, G, remounting of 2014 off-Broadway production, extended through April 17, original production reviewed here)

IN SARASOTA, FLA.:
• Ah, Wilderness! (comedy, PG-13, closing April 10, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Prodigal Son (drama, PG-13, closes March 27, reviewed here)