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May 17 Syracuse Stage: An Iliad
Syracuse Stage’s loose adaptation of the Greek tragedy spends too much time trying to engage the audience and too little time telling a story
By Malkiel Choseed
http://cnycafemomus.com/Malkiel_Choseed.html
An Iliad, a one man play (an hour and forty five minutes without intermission) opens with the figure of the Poet, lighting a candle and inviting us to listen to a story. The story is long and complicated and ultimately heartbreaking. It’s a story that many of us have heard before in many different forms, but what’s important about this story is the telling of it. The play is a poignant retelling of a classic with a modern sensibility. Playwrights Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, along with Director Penny Metropulos, actor Joseph Graves and the production staff at Syracuse Stage, have come together to present this fascinating and deeply challenging play.
One of the first challenges that the playwrights had to address was finding the balance between translating the story into the modern world and simply presenting it as they found it translated from the ancient Greek by Robert Fagles. The second major challenge has to do with how much to push and pull the audience along with the Poet on this journey. They were, for the most part, successful — but the playwrights could have trusted the audience more. We were willing to follow the Poet and didn’t need so much explicit direction as to what to think or how to feel.
The staging of the play is unique and befitting of a one-man show. Held in the smaller Storch Theatre, the audience is treated to a theatre-in-the-round experience. The stage resembles an underpass or the underside of a bridge. Litter and cast off, broken objects which the Poet interacts with throughout the play surround the graffiti-scared walls (much of it in Greek). When the play begins it is just us and Graves. Directly addressing the audience, leaning over the patrons in their seats with the lights up, he connects with the audience and invites us in.
By its very nature, a one-man play presents a different type of theater-going experience. In a traditional piece of drama the characters interact with and play off one another. The audience can relax a bit; they can become spectators watching as the actors direct their focus and energy toward each other. But when there is only one actor on stage for an hour and 45 minutes, performer and audience have to work that much harder.
The artistic staff at Syracuse Stage worked to make this connection with the audience palpable. In a production like this, the lighting (designed by Diane Ferry Williams) and the score (composed by Sterling Tinsley) are just as important as the actor and his lines. The lights are up for much of the play, and Graves is circulating around the periphery of the audience. We are meant to feel fully present for much of the play, unable to retreat into darkness. Music punctuates the most dramatic parts of the production.
At its best the audience is forced not just to pay attention, but also to participate more — to engage with the actor directly and for a long period of time. To do this well takes a special actor, one with amazing stamina as well as talent.
Graves, directed by Metropulos, has the potential to be this actor. And at moments in the play, he is. When narrating the story of Hector and Patroclus, and then of Achilles and Priam, he was mesmerizing. There are other times, however, when I found myself wishing he would simply stop using technique, stop trying to engage the audience, and simply engage us.
The Poet is reluctant to tell the story of Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector, Odysseus and all the rest. He claims not to remember all of the names, the details, but it is to Grave’s credit as an actor that it is clear, no matter how much he says otherwise, that the Poet is forever haunted by these visions. We were presented with a man who has been irrevocably damaged by war. His clothes tell us this. His surroundings tell us this. His drinking of the vodka and gin hint at this. At his best Graves takes us with him, illuminating this trauma. Graves’s character of the Poet disappears into the other characters — brash soldiers, distraught fathers and heartbroken wives. In many ways it is a tour de force performance.
There’s a lot going on in this play. It is about rage and loss and heartbreak and fear and death and great men draped in glory and unknowns sent to ignominious graves. It is about all these things all at once, but most of all it is about the horrors of war. The Poet is himself a victim of these horrors, a ship knocked loose from its moorings. And it is the Poet — our narrator, actor, historian, teacher — who guides us through these horrors.
You can see why the director and the actor took up this challenge. It is deeply relevant. 2,500-plus years have gone by since The Iliad was first chanted, yet all of us have been touched in some way, large or small, by what seems like a series of endless wars and their impact on individuals, on families, on communities, on nations. Ultimately, this is what the Poet sings about, what he’s been singing about for all this time — and what we, the audience, need to hear.
Details Box:
What: An Iliad, written by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare and directed by Penny Metropulos
Who: Syracuse Stage
Where: Storch Theater of the Syracuse Stage Complex, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
Performance reviewed: May 17, 2013
Remaining dates: Plays through June 9
Length: One hour and 45 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: Call (315) 443-3275 or http://syracusestage.org
Family guide: Adult language, disturbing themes
May 11 Symphoria Masterworks Series
Pianist Jon Kimura Parker joins the former SSO music director in a thrilling program that keeps the memories — and expectations for the future — alive
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
Those in Central New York who experienced the Fabio Mechetti years with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra know that he is a conductor accustomed to taking command. And he wastes little time doing so.
When the Brazilian-born conductor won the audition for associate conductor of the SSO in 1989, members of the orchestra described how Mechetti took immediate control at his rehearsal-audition and made it appear as if it were his orchestra right from the start. Mechetti succeeded Kazuyoshi Akiyama four years later as SSO music director largely on the strength of that authority, which he continued to exercise until leaving the post in 1999.
Mechetti, now music director of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, returned to Syracuse last weekend to an orchestra comprising familiar faces, only now carrying the name Symphoria. And he resumed command as if the metronome had never stopped ticking. He led the new orchestra Saturday at its third and final Masterworks Series concert, and his influence took hold almost immediately with a well-disciplined execution of Verdi’s overture to La forza del destino.
Watching the back of Mechetti’s head triggered memories of the days of the SSO in its full splendor, with focused playing and meticulous ensemble that largely defined the Mechetti years. As was his custom then, the maestro conducted this piece from memory, with a firm hand and an unmistakable sense of determination. The orchestra, which occasionally sounded disheveled during its previous Masterworks concert, hung on to Mechetti’s every beat as though following the proverbial Pied Piper.
The overture sounded fresh and invigorating, with the opening low brass statement bold and in-tune, and the violin section that followed tight and well synchronized. The work also featured some nice solo passagework from principal clarinetist Allan Kolsky.
Mechetti used to say that Syracuse is a “piano town.” Programming the melodically rich Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 — along with the dazzling crowd-pleaser, Pines of Rome — was no doubt part of the new Symphoria strategy designed to woo back the faithful.
The Chaik 1 is also a warhorse that Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker has tackled many time before, having recorded the piece under André Previn and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1986, and having played it many time since — including three weeks ago with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra under Gerard Schwarz (Mechetti, I believe, was on a conducting assignment in Brazil).
The Canadian-born pianist played with firm fingers and a large, assertive sound that stood up to (and several times overpowered) the orchestra playing at full strength. The broken-octave passages (and this piece is chock full of them) were solid and sure-handed, unmuddied by excessive pedaling or, for that matter, superfluous gesticulations. But Parker can also play softly and with restraint, as shown in his caressing of the melodic lines in the sensuous slow movement.
Parker saved the best for last. His gargantuan tone in the final section, culminating in a hair-raising coda showered with dazzling broken octaves, shook the hall and swept the crowd to its feet with vociferous applause and howling that made me wonder if I were at a Syracuse Crunch hockey game. The final chord had hardly sounded when Parker sprang from the piano bench and into Mechetti’s arms for a well-deserved hug. The gesture of appreciation, no doubt intended for both conductor and orchestra, was well deserved.
Following a rather tentative opening tutti horn passage, Symphoria sounded alert, prepared and at times even sublime. A good many of the musicians had been with the former SSO on its final trip to Carnegie Hall on April 5, 2003 with Van Cliburn Competition gold co-winner (2001), Stanislav Ioudenitch. Experience matters. The strings section delivered power and intensity in the louder sections of the concerto, and the shapely flute solo at the opening of the dreamy second movement sounded all the more intoxicating through the silken tone of principal flutist, Deborah Coble.
For his encore, Parker chose the Danse Russe from Stravinsky’s Petrouchka — a piece whose steely, percussive touch suits this pianist’s style especially well.
With the new onstage camera that pans the stage and projects real-time images of the orchestra and soloists onto a large screen suspended above the players, Parker’s fingers were clearly visible to all. Curiously, there was a split-second time delay between watching Parker's hands pound the keyboard and hearing the sounds he was making (particularly noticeable during the work’s familiar opening chords), resembling a badly synchronized voice-over on a foreign film dubbed into English.
Symphoria closed the program with Respighi’s aurally opulent Pines of Rome. This symphonic poem is the second (and most popular) installment of the Italian composer’s “Roman trilogy,” sandwiched between Fountains of Rome and Roman Festivals. Here, each of the four movements portrays a thought-provoking mood about various pine trees in Rome.
The dazzling orchestration of the opening Pines of the Villa Borghese, like Stravinsky’s Petroushka written about two decades earlier, reveals the unmistakable influence of Rimsky-Korsakov, with whom Respighi had studied. The expanded orchestra responded alertly to Mechetti's widely arched baton gestures, bouncing splashes of orchestral color from wall-to-wall.
The solemn chords in the low strings and Gregorian Chant-like phrases in the trombones provided an evocative background for principal trumpeter John Raschella’s evocative and poignant offstage solo in Pines Near a Catacomb.
Pines of Rome has the distinction of being the first orchestral work to incorporate pre-recorded media. Respighi in his musical score actually specified the recording to be used to generate nightingales chirping during the sinuous Pines of the Janiculum movement. Mechetti’s messaging of the lush violin passages, seasoned with the sounds of the harp and celesta, provided a peaceful backdrop for one of the most haunting and delicate clarinet solos in the orchestral repertory — which Kolsky (who had a busy night Saturday) played beautifully.
Like Ravel’s Bolero, the final Pines of the Appian Way takes the listener along a lengthy and persistent crescendo that culminates in a blaze of glory. One could almost hear the approaching footsteps of the triumphant soldiers marching along the Appian Way under Mechetti’s patient building of tension to the final climax.
Credit the oboe section’s Alina Plourde for her commanding English Horn solo early on in the movement. It’s too bad that the leader of that section consistently falls short of Symphoria’s other principal winds in providing the projection and confidence of delivery expected of first-chair players.
As was the case with the previous Masterworks Series concert under JoAnn Falletta, attendance at this performance was entirely respectable. There was however a noticeable difference with respect to the general level of playing between this performance and last: This one was better. Part of the credit has to go to the former SSO music director, whose style and direction many of the players already know from his era of leadership in the 1990s. There was no need for a “breaking in” period. (Symphoria put this program together in only three rehearsals.)
Mostly, however, I believe that the quality of musicianship in a professional symphony orchestra is proportional to its experience playing together as an ensemble, and to its level of respect and admiration for its leader.
Symphoria will continue to improve its skills as it builds an increased schedule of concert performances. But it will continue to require nourishment from demanding, no-nonsense conductors such as Fabio Mechetti to inspire — and discipline — the musicians to dig deeply into their formidable skills to continue to produce impressive efforts such as this one.
Details Box:
Who: Symphoria, conducted by Fabio Mechetti with pianist Jon Kimura Parker
What: Masterworks Series #3
Where: Crouse-Hinds Theater, 411 Montgomery St., Syracuse
When: May 11, 2013
Time of performance: One hour and 35 minutes, including intermission
Tickets and information: www.experiencesymphoria.org/
May 11 Rarely Done Productions: Bang Bang You’re Dead
The troubling drama about troubled youths showcases dynamic young actors from the locally-funded Academy Student Program
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
In the brief span of six months in the late 1990s, three school shootings shook America. The public was horrified both by the cold-blooded way in which a total of 12 youths and adults were gunned down and by the shockingly young age of the perpetrators.
In December 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal killed three students and injured five others as they were gathered for their morning prayer group in West Paducah, Kentucky. In March 1998, 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, then 11, killed four students and one teacher and injured 10 others in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Two months later, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel of Springfield, Oregon, murdered his parents and then headed to school, where he killed two students and wounded 25 others.
Youngsters being killed at prayer meetings. Eleven-year-old mass murderers. Such events seemed almost beyond comprehension and the place names Paducah, Jonesboro and Springfield entered our public consciousness, with all of us vowing that such atrocities should never happen again.
In the years since then, other horrors have overshadowed those tragedies. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Tucson. Aurora, Colorado. And, of course, Newtown, Connecticut. The shootings by troubled young people in those locations are on everyone’s minds as we continue to grapple with the NRA-stonewalled debate over gun safety. But the earlier names — Paducah, Jonesboro and Springfield — are the inspiration for, and the repeated refrain in, the electrifying production Bang Bang You’re Dead, performed locally by a group of talented and dynamic young actors.
The drama, directed by Rarely Done Productions Artistic Director Dan Tursi, uses the talents of young people involved with the Academy Student Program, a partnership between Rarely Done and Appleseed Productions. The Academy is a free experimental theater program for students aged 13 to 19 and is supported in part by funding from Onondaga County, administered by CNY Arts. If its Saturday night performance is any indication, this community program is a valuable, laudable endeavor that deserves increased public support and a wider series of stages. (A few additional performances will be at two other local venues.)
Bang Bang You’re Dead’s author, William Mastrosimone, is a screenwriter and playwright best known for his hard-hitting drama, Extremities, which starred Farrah Fawcett as a woman turning the tables on and fighting back against her rapist. The 1997-1998 school shootings prompted Mastrosimone to write this one-act play in 1999, designed to put a closer focus on school violence and spark discussion around this issue. The script is offered free and licensure rights forbid any admission charges.
The play — brief in running time but powerful in its impact — draws pieces of the stories from the Paducah, Jonesboro and Springfield cases. Like Kinkel, Josh, the young protagonist, kills his parents before heading off to school. Like Golden, Josh steals the weapon from his grandfather. Like Carneal, Josh kills a young girl whom he once liked romantically.
Josh is played by Hunter Siegel-Cook with great aplomb, moving from whining immaturity to threatening and scary violence with split-second changes of mood, depicting the chameleon-like mindset of an incipient teenage mass killer. Rarely Done Production’s program doesn’t say if Siegel-Cook plans to go to drama school after graduating from Jamesville-Dewitt High School. My bet is that he could very well have a future as a professional actor.
Hayley Bermel and Luke Tarnow play Josh’s mother and father. The play shows how the parents try to discipline Josh and grapple with his outbursts. Far too often, these awful crimes are blamed on the parents for turning a blind eye to a would-be killer. Ryan Coots does double-duty as both the percussionist and Josh’s grandfather. The play makes much of the hunting excursion Josh’s grandfather brings him on, and how proud Josh was to kill his first buck. It is true that Golden was posed in camouflage for photos as a toddler and was given a shotgun for Christmas at age six. However, it can’t be inferred that families that enjoy hunting outings necessarily breed school shooters.
Kylie Bragg played, alternately, Josh’s principal and the psychotherapist whom the school has requested he see because of his behavior problems. This also belies the conventional wisdom of if only we had been done something to help, this wouldn’t have happened. These cases are complicated and don’t offer up simplistic answers.
Other capable local students round out the cast in this production, which starts with a litany of their plaintive voices asking, “Why me?” The young people are featured in scenes that show their varied interaction with Josh. Like all school relationships, at times they seem to get along and at times they proceed to taunt him. Most moving is the final scene in which the students — like a Greek chorus — intone the futures they will never get to live.
One character says, “I’ll never play catch with my son.” Another says, “I’ll never be married in a white dress and have a huge wedding.” Yet another says, “I’ll never have an epitaph that reads ‘beloved mother, grandmother, and wife’ because I died at 17.” This is truly heart-wrenching stuff.
I do hope that local school districts embrace this production and future casts of the Academy Student Program that put on Bang Bang You’re Dead. Although it was written 14 years ago, it still has far too much resonance with the events occurring today.
Young people need to talk about these tragedies, and theater is the perfect vehicle with which to reach students’ hearts. It allows them to express feelings they might otherwise hide or repress. The Rarely Done and Appleseed partnership offers a great opportunity for local teenagers. School performances, followed up by effective talkbacks and classroom discussions, will likely help young people deal with the tremendous pressures they face today.
Who knows? Bang Bang You’re Dead might hold the key to reaching troubled youth and preventing another Paducah, Jonestown, Springfield — or Newtown.
Details Box:
What: Bang Bang You’re Dead, written by William Mastrosimone, directed by Dan Tursi
Where: Jazz Central, 441 E. Washington St., Syracuse
When: May 11, 2013
Remaining performances: May 16 at the Hamilton Street Boys and Girls Club, and May 17 and 18 at ArtRage Gallery
Length: 40 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: Free admission. Call (315) 546-3224 or http://www.rarelydone.org
Family guide: Heavy material, but intended for school audiences
May 4 Pacifica Quartet
There was more to celebrate in the Pacifica Quartet’s delivery Saturday than just good music
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
As may be expected of one who performs in a professional string quartet, Sibbi Bernhardsson has an acute sense of timing. His stork, not so much.
Bernhardsson, long-time second violinist with the acclaimed Pacifica Quartet, did not make the trip to Syracuse Saturday for the 2012-13 season-ending concert of the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music due to the anticipated birth that evening of his new daughter. The resulting change in personnel prompted a switch on the program, with a quartet by Luigi Boccherini scratched in favor of one by Joseph Haydn.
That made two good reasons to pass out the cigars.
Since its last SFCM appearance in October 2010, Pacifica has enhanced its reputation as one of the hottest commodities in the chamber music world — landing a residency at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and completing a residency at Metropolitan Museum of Art that last year included the complete Beethoven quartet cycle. And while Bernhardsson’s absence may have been disappointing to those who’ve come to know Pacifica’s distinctive sound and balance, the quality of playing Saturday suggests that three-quarters of this ensemble's regular players is enough to outshine 100-percent of a good many quartets on today’s circuit.
Add a Shostakovich quartet to the program, and the math works out even better.
Pacifica has carved its niche as one of the best interpreters of the Shostakovich quartets, and just weeks ago released the third installment of a four-volume, eight-CD set of his complete cycle of 15 quartets. Saturday’s performance of the Quartet No. 2 in A Major gave listeners a sampling of the ensemble’s depth of understanding of the enigmatic Soviet composer.
The Quartet No. 2, which along with his final quartet is the longest of Shostakovich’s works in this genre, is probably the least well known among them. Written in 1944, it was one of only two chamber works the composer wrote during World War II, each heavily injected with Jewish musical inflections.
There’s little room for civility and good manners in the opening rustic movement of Quartet No. 2. You’ve simply got to get down and dirty. The four instrumentalists rolled up their sleeves, gritted their teeth and dug firmly into the Bartok-like opening — tossing around the wild open-fifths and Lydian seasoned scales, and exaggerating the ubiquitous dotted-rhythmic figures so as to capture the raw ethnic Eastern European flavors. When the smoke cleared at the end of the movement, one could all but see the dirt underneath each player’s fingernails.
The Jewish elements in this work are most apparent during the slow and somber Recitative and Romance movement that followed. Listeners familiar with Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1, composed three years after this string quartet, will experience here the genesis of that concerto’s lengthy and profound cadenza. Ganatra’s mournful recitative, played over a slow chordal accompaniment provided by the three other players, was a perfect combination of anguish and schmaltz.
The third movement Waltz is a distorted and emotionally disturbing parody of a waltz. Pacifica found the right balances of character here, capturing the alternating moods of the morose, the macabre and the downright ugly. The fourth movement Theme with Variations grows angrier as the variations progress, and Pacifica faithfully and adroitly captured the composer’s inner frustrations, rage and fury.
The program began in much sunnier fashion with Haydn Op. 76, No. 4 (“Sunrise”) Quartet.
Pacifica’s unhurried manner of playing in the opening Allegro con spirito movement was a welcome departure from the more usual buoyancy and fluff I’ve come to expect. Theirs was a tender and rubato-driven interpretation that looks more ahead to Mendelssohn and Schumann than it does back to Viennese classicism. Tempos were relaxed and deliberate, allowing Ganatra to shape and nurtured her phrases with great warmth. I especially enjoyed the feel of Pacifica’s rustic folk style in the third movement Menuetto that almost danced off the page and into the aisles of the auditorium. The ensemble’s piú presto coda in the Finale movement was, to be sure, utterly dazzling.
Bedrich Smetaňa’s largely autobiographical Quartet No. 1 in E Minor (“From my Life”) details specific aspects of the composer’s life, particularly his struggle with deafness. At one point in the final movement the first violin sounds a high E (harmonic) that floats dramatically in the stratosphere — giving the listener a taste of the ringing in his ears Smetaňa had to bear prior to the onslaught of deafness.
I generally find unabashedly self-indulgent works such as this to be tiresome — just like Janacek’s String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”), or for that matter Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben. But I’ll admit to some engaging musical effects in the Smetaňa that, in the hands of Pacifica, came off rather well. Among these is the amiable rustic strains of the ebullient second movement Polka, a rubato flavored folk dance with a playful Trio that offers some irresistible visual effects such as the syncopated double-stops in the two violins, played in tongue-in-cheek fashion on the up-bow.
Alexander Kerr, the accomplished former concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra now a professor of violin at Indiana University, proved a competent stand-in for Bernhardsson, hitting all the right notes and weaving his lines seamlessly among those of the three other players. On the whole, however, Kerr’s modestly sized sound was not well suited to the full-timbred and richly shaped tone of Ganatra, creating an imbalance in sound that was difficult to ignore.
This disparity of tone was especially pronounced in the opening two movements of the Haydn and again in the final movement of the Smetana, where the first violinist’s extroverted sound simply overpowered that of Kerr. In all fairness, however, one can’t expect a new player to sit in with an established chamber ensemble and blend in as if they’d been rehearsing for years.
If there was a silver lining to the substitution of the second violinist, it was that the sound of Ganatra’s instrument was that much easier to identify and scrutinize.
I have admired Ganatra’s particular brand of music making ever since I first heard her at the 2005 Skaneateles Festival. She has everything it takes for a first-chair player — an exquisite tone, firm technical command of the instrument, a secure high register, keen ensemble skills and the ability to take command and lead the ensemble.
But Ganatra’s skills go well beyond what’s expected. She draws the audience into the music with her warm sense of phrasing and passion, and gives them a sense of belonging to the listening experience. In short, she has it all.
So, too, does the audience that comes to experience the Pacifica Quartet in live performance.
Details Box:
What: The Pacifica Quartet, sponsored by Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse
When: May 4, 2013
Time: About 2 hours
Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org
Next concert: 2013-14 begins Sep. 28 (Borromeo Quartet with Richard Stoltzman)
April 26 Syracuse Stage: Good People
Living, loving and hurting in a tough place inhabited by tough people
By Malkiel Choseed
http://cnycafemomus.com/Malkiel_Choseed.html
Even though this play was nominated for a Tony Award in 2011, you can’t help but think that Good People, set in and around the various neighborhoods of Boston, is going to take on a new resonance in light of the bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15th. All of the United States, and much of the world, was (and still is) fixated on Boston and the terrible events that unfolded there on Boylston Street and in and around Cambridge and Watertown.
Of course, in any tragedy we see the potential for acts of simple kindness and even heroism amidst the horrors. As the motives of the attackers are still coming to light, the only coherent image emerging is a composite picture of the people of Boston themselves. Those of us watching the evening news may not know much about the motivation of the attackers, but we are learning about the people who call that city home.
Good People, written by David Lindsay-Abaire and directed by Laura Kepley, provides another insight into the city and its residents. The play opens with its main character, Margie (played by Kate Hodge), in the process of being fired by her boss, Stevie (played by Patrick Halley), the son of a deceased childhood friend. We are immediately introduced to the complex web of relationships being played out against the backdrop of harsh economic realities in the tightly knit working class neighborhood that is South Boston.
Everyone knows everyone — their histories, personal tragedies, and struggles. And everyone struggles. In short order, we are introduced to Dottie (played by Denny Dillon), Kate’s landlord, and Kate’s friend Jean (played by Elizabeth Rich). Jean tells Margie that Mike (played by David Andrew Macdonald) has recently returned back to town. Mike is the only one of their social set who has “gotten out” and broken away from the old neighborhood and its influences. Margie decides to seek out Mike for help in finding a job — but the audience wonders if Margie doesn’t have other motives.
Touching upon the harsh economic and racial realties of the time and place in which it is set, Good People is intimate, funny, and heart breaking all at once. Friday evening’s audience alternated between roars of laughter and heartfelt tears.
In terms of plot, the play is about a woman in difficult circumstances reconnecting with an old friend. It is, however, also about life — about what was, is, and might be — and the role that luck and chance play in it. Why is it that Margie can never catch a break? Why is it that Mike made it out? Throughout the play, Margie essentially asks herself, How did I get here? Could things have been different?” The audience watches as she forces Mike to answer (perhaps for the first time) these same questions, and maybe, just maybe, reconcile his past and present.
With its naturalistic dialogue, the play is very modern in its pacing and style. There are only six characters in the entire play, and no more than four are onstage at any one time. This allows the audience to share in the sense of intimacy with and between these characters.
Director Laura Kepley takes a light but deft hand with her actors. What really stands out is the pacing. These characters go through a lot on stage, and it would be easy for the audience to become emotionally exhausted. Kepley, though, is keenly aware of this and lets the rhythms of the play work to its advantage. Moments of extreme tension are punctuated with comic relief, allowing the audience to catch a quick breath right before they are plunged back into the taut and compelling drama unfolding on stage.
In a play with only six actors, all of them are literally in the spotlight at one moment or another. The cast does an admirable job providing comic relief when necessary and creating a space for Hodge and Macdonald to dig deeply into their characters and present a wide range of complex emotions. Zoey Martinson, as Mike’s wife, Kate, stands out as she is able to play off of both Hodge and Macdonald, more than holding her own.
The dialogue (most of it in that characteristic south Boston accent) and its delivery is meant to evoke a sense of reality and truthfulness, which for the most part it does. Towards the opening of the play, though, several of the actors (but especially Hodge and Rich) had a tendency to direct their dialogue at the audience even when, in terms of the onstage action, it ought to have been directed to another character.
While this may be understandable (after all, the audience has to hear them, see their faces, etc.) it breaks the illusion of reality that the rest of the play works so hard to create. It made the acting seem forced and overly mannered. By the third scene, however, the actors found their rhythm, and the idea that the audience was watching actors melted away as we began to sense we were engaging with real people.
This sense of honesty and truthfulness on the part of the actors is enhanced by the overall production. While the entire artistic staff did an excellent job, as one would expect form the Syracuse Stage, Scenic Designer Mimi Lien deserves to be singled out for special attention for her sliding sets.
The sets shift from the very minimalist to the elaborate. All are simple, elegant, and beautiful. It was a pleasure to watch the stagehands, dressed in traditional “Southie” garb of dark sweatshirts and knit caps, quickly and effortlessly transmute the stage from an alley behind a dollar store to a shabby basement apartment to a downtown doctor’s office. When the lights went up after intermission, revealing the Chestnut Hill home of Mike, the audience gasped and applauded at the transformation of the set (and this was before any actors had come onstage).
South Boston has a reputation. It’s a tough place filled with tough people. Lindsay-Abaire grew up there and wanted Good People to give its viewers some insight into the people who lived there. This production succeeds in doing just that. The audience comes away with a new understanding of the complexities of these characters and their lives.
The play does something else, as well. Just as the events from the week of April 15th teach us about the people of Boston, they also teach us about human nature. In the images of the bombing and its aftermath, we see both the essential human capacity for evil and good, for cruelty and compassion. Good People does something similar. In Margie and Mike, we get a glimpse into what it feels to live, love, and hurt beyond the confines of a single neighborhood or city.
Details Box:
What: Good People, written by David Lindsay-Abaire, directed by Laura Kepley
Who: Syracuse Stage (co-produced with the Cleveland Play House)
Where: Arthur Storch Theater, 820 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse
When: April 26, 2013
Remaining performances: Through May 12
Length: Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission
Tickets: Call 443-3275 or www.syracusestage.org
Family guide: Adult language and themes
April 21 Adams Foundation Series: Joseph Kalichstein
The acclaimed pianist’s all-Schubert program a masterful blend of color, touch, balance, voicing and pedaling
By Kevin Moore
http://cnycafemomus.com/Kevin_Moore.html
The Adams Foundation Piano Series presented pianist Joseph Kalichstein in recital this past Sunday afternoon at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Auburn, NY. This distinguished pianist has a career stretching back more than four decades and has been soloist with just about every famous conductor and orchestra in the world during that time. He is also a founding member of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, one of the best around. And he’s director of chamber music at The Juilliard School of Music.
I have warm memories of a recital of piano fantasies I heard him do when I was a graduate student in New York City. That was at Hunter College on March 17, 1972 and was devoted to fantasies by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Mozart and Schubert. I still have the printed program and review (Allen Hughes, NY Times) in my possession. The only thing that has changed since then is the depth and richness of thought, not to mention tone. Ironically, the only work the critic in 1972 disliked was Kalichstein’s Schubert (Wanderer Fantasy). In the program of this past Sunday, his Schubert was almost beyond criticism.
Speaking to the audience at the outset, the pianist explained the title he had given his program, Schubert: A Dance, A Song, A Miracle. He explained that Schubert’s music was rooted in dance, whether waltz, landler, minuet or German dance of any kind. The music is also rooted in song, of which Schubert wrote hundreds.
As for the miracle, he mentioned the extraordinary productivity of Schubert’s last two years, particularly his final year. Two months before his death and during one two week period, Schubert wrote his last three piano sonatas — each one a masterpiece. (One of those formed the second half of Sunday’s program.) In that same year he wrote the second of his two great song cycles, the E-flat major Piano Trio, the Quintet for Strings in C major, his last symphony, and several other imperishable masterpieces.
Kalichstein was right that such productivity counts as one of the great miracles in the history of music. In fact, he was right on all counts. What he didn’t mention, but I will now, is that the word miracle could also be applied to the quality of playing throughout Sunday’s program.
Let me talk first about the sequence of works performed. My piano teacher, Robert Goldsand, once told me that planning a one-composer program was easy if it were to feature works by Beethoven, Chopin, or Liszt because there is such natural variety found within each of these composers’ piano music. But building an entire program around Schubert had to be done especially carefully because the essence of Schubert was song. You needed a piano that would sing, and you had to choose the pieces, and the order of those pieces, with great care.
That certainly was done on Sunday. The program was musically and emotionally gripping from first note to last. There were two reasons for that. First and foremost, Kalichstein is a superlative musician. And in his opening remarks he said he wanted “to take you on a journey through the entire gamut of moods and emotions in Schubert’s music.” The marvelous sequence of pieces he put together did exactly that.
The programming revealed a wonderfully creative and perceptive musical imagination. The 11 pieces on the first half, comprising some 45 minutes of music, were wonderfully varied yet provided an engaging and emotional sequence of stories and events.
Probably less apparent to the audience was the logical key sequence they formed. The entire first half was played without any break for applause, which sustained the sense of storytelling and held the audience in its grip. First there were five of the short Valses Nobles, D. 969. Next, three of the 6 Moments Musicaux, D.780, which evidently were chosen to represent the emotional core of those six masterpieces. Next came the Scherzo in B-flat, D.593, which Kalichstein described as “like yodeling.” Then came the second of the Drei Klavierstücke, D.946, which he said was his favorite of the three. The first half of the concert ended with the well known Imprompu in E-flat major, the second of the Four Impromptus, D.899.
Too often, critics and listeners divide pianists into two categories, the pianists and the musicians — the former meaning, of course, “the virtuosos” and the second “the ones with less technique.” I’m exaggerating just a bit and it is in any case an unfair and unfortunate dichotomy. But it’s also one that has no meaning whatsoever when it comes to Joseph Kalichstein. He is a total musician and masterful pianist, meaning that he has it all. Yet so pure is the musical essence he distills in recital that the instrument becomes almost irrelevant. I suspect he could make profound music with a kazoo. And make no mistake, much of the music on this program was profound and came across with an emotional power that was unforgettable.
The Valses Nobles were played almost as one piece, leading to the second of the Musical Moments, a much more substantial and sublimely songful piece. The two shorter Musical Moments, the well known third one and powerful fifth one, each in F minor, provided a nice contrast. He characterized the B-flat Scherzo as very playful, with a singing Trio section. The second of the Drei Klavierstücke was the most substantial of the pieces on the first half. It alternated between the achingly beautiful opening tune in E-flat major and two disturbing, emotionally troubled contrasting sections. The E-flat Impromptu was characterized by swashes of color rather than individual triplets — an effect that brought Schubert’s remarkably colorful harmony into brilliant relief.
Unlike some of his younger colleagues, Kalichstein never makes a harsh sound. His tone throughout this concert was rich, dark and comforting. His sense of color, touch, balance, voicing and pedaling were magical and supported a sense of structure and flow that simply explained itself. At times he sounded like a great operatic singer, alternately soprano, mezzo, tenor, or baritone, accompanied by the color of the entire Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (as my wife described it). I didn’t want the first half to end.
The second part of the program contained only one work, the great Sonata in A major, D.959, one of those miracles of Schubert’s last few months on this earth. As such, one can’t help but wonder if Schubert was already encountering a heavenly reality that he translated for us, at least partially. This is a work that is amenable to a variety of approaches — from the restrained and classical to the unrestrained, passionate and romantic. No matter the interpretive approach, the greatest difficulty is communicating the natural structural flow. Done in too strict a tempo it doesn’t flow at all. It takes years of experience to make this piece come alive. And Kalichstein certainly did that.
This was a masterful performance. Were all the notes and little details in place? No, but that was of no significance at all. Making clear the important points in the structure and flow of this massive and complex masterpiece is a rare thing. Getting to the heart of its spiritual essence is even less common. I was glad to be there today. I have rarely been so moved by this piece, and I have heard it done by several distinguished pianists.
The first movement Allegro, which he described as “the most Beethoven-ish” of the four, was pushed and pulled in an occasionally impetuous and agitated way that made the connection with Beethoven quite clear. It nonetheless highlighted and characterized the main ideas wonderfully. The pianist had reminded us at the beginning that Beethoven, who was Schubert’s idol, had died only a few months earlier and his influence is especially clear in the opening movement. Kalichstein also omitted the exposition repeat. The emotional center, which to me comes at the gentle and comforting end, was gauged perfectly. Kalichstein never rushes tempo, letting the music take its own natural and expressive flow.
The extraordinary slow movement, marked Andantino, with its terrifying and emotional outburst in the middle part, was utterly convincing. The quietly despairing outer sections framed it perfectly and emotionally. I was reminded that, like Mozart, Schubert is eternally beautiful. The third movement Scherzo, marked Allegro vivace was just as it should be, carefree and joyous — the essence of Schubert’s happiest moments. It was simply the joy of dance, and was just right.
The finale, a rondo marked Allegretto begins with a tune that can stay in the mind and memory forever. It is eternal, and seems to sum up Schubert’s life emotionally. The return to the opening motive from the first movement completes it all. Kalichstein’s traversal of this masterpiece was moving and brought a depth of experience and musical depth for which I for one am grateful. I dislike comparisons but have to say the only time I’ve heard something comparable in this piece was from Frank Glazer, on two different occasions. And for me, that’s high praise.
The entire experience was capped by a single short encore that summed it all up: Schubert’s famous Serenade in Liszt’s wonderful transcription. Just wonderful.
Details Box:
Who: Pianist Joseph Kalichstein, Schubert: A Song, A Dance, A Miracle
What: The Adams Foundation Piano Series
Where: Westminster Presbyterian Church, Auburn, New York
Date of review: April 21, 2013
April 20 SU Drama: Violet
But turning back the clock in this story-turned-musical from 1969 to 1964 creates dramatic incongruities too difficult to ignore
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
Syracuse University Drama Department’s current production of Violet, directed by Rodney Hudson, is adapted from the short story The Ugliest Pilgrim by Doris Betts — best known for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Acclaimed Broadway composer Jeanine Tesori (2004 Tony Award winner for Caroline, or Change) saw promise in the story of a young woman, severely facially scarred since childhood, who takes a road trip by bus to pursue a dream.
At first glance, Violet (played by SU junior Carly Blane) may seem like a naïve, wounded bird. Her gullibility comes into play when she reveals she’s headed to see an evangelical TV preacher in Tulsa to cure her facial disfigurement. In Violet’s poignant song All to Pieces, Blane sings of her yearning for eyes like Gene Tierney’s and features like other celebrities. She’s confident that when she takes the return bus home to Spruce Pine North Carolina she will be perfect and beautiful.
Violet is also resilient and aware of the hardships of life. She lost her mother when she was a small girl and treasures the book of catechism left to her. Violet faced the accidental wounding by her father (Jordan Weagraff), when his axe blade flew off the handle while chopping wood. She suffered further at the hands of a country doctor whose inept treatment made the scarring worse. She’s borne the brunt of jeers from the townsfolk because of her looks.
Yet despite these woes, Violet radiates an inner strength and eagerness to continue to embrace life, which comes through strongly with SU sophomore Lila Coogan’s performance as the young Violet. Her scenes, especially the touching moments with her father, are some of the most powerful and heart-rending in the play.
The plot of the musical evokes both the 1956 Marilyn Monroe vehicle Bus Stop as well as a much more iconic “road” story: Dorothy Gale’s journey in Oz to the Emerald City.
Bus Stop featured two mismatched men — an immature younger man and another, more fatherly figure — traveling on a bus in the Southwest. At the titular bus stop they meet a lonely and endearing singer, Cherie (Marilyn Monroe), who longs for a better life. Here in Violet, the oddly matched fellow travelers are two soldiers en route to an Army base. Monty (Danny Harris Kornfeld), a white enlisted man, is a callow jokester. Flick (Malcolm Yancey), an African-American officer, is the more self-possessed and empathetic. And, of course, Monty and Flick don’t meet up with their ingénue at a sleazy bus stop; Violet is on the bus with them.
The yellow brick road in Violet is the highway to the big city, where Violet expects the television evangelist (Christian Palmer) to lay his hands on her face and, in a fit of ecstatic preaching, undo the disfigurement. (It didn’t work for the young woman through the television screen back home.) There is more than a little of “the fraud behind the curtain” allusion to the Wizard of Oz. The preacher/wizard is worse than a sham.
Palmer plays the evangelist as a mix between a Grade-D Elvis impersonator and a sleezy snake oil salesmen. He oozes such pseudo-Messianistic, creepy sex appeal that you wonder how an otherwise capable person like Violet could be convinced that he has any miraculous abilities at all.
The play itself is beset by other incongruities.
Tesori said she was first taken with the idea of making Betts’s story into a musical when she saw a student-made film adaptation. The film Violet won the Academy Award for best live action short in 1982. The original story is set in 1969. Tesori collaborated with lyricist Brian Crawley and inexplicably moved the action earlier by five years, setting it in 1964. The SU Drama press material notes that 1964 was “a time of change for marginalized racial and ethnic groups, [and] women.” I wonder if the musical would have fewer anachronistic notes without this date change.
For example, the Civil Rights Act, which officially banned segregation, was passed in July 1964. I can’t imagine that all locales in the South immediately stepped to and embraced integrated public settings with alacrity. The multicultural passengers on the bus don’t seem to reflect any palpable tension about this as they sit on the bus, converse with each other and interact as the miles move along. Racial prejudice is demonstrated in a couple of scenes, in a rooming house in Memphis and another at roadside bar, but the dramatic conflict is fleeting.
Early on in the musical, Violet, Monty and Flick start to coalesce as a love triangle, even if they are not yet aware of it themselves. It’s clear despite their awkwardness and bumbling miscommunication that both Monty and Flick have incipient romantic feelings toward the scarred, yet spirited, Violet. However, it must be noted that the Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, was not decided until 1967. Prior to that, miscegenation was a felony in a number of Southern states. Would Flick have been willing to engage in even mildly flirtatious chit-chat with a young white woman on a public bus in the South just as the Civil Rights Act was being passed and three years before the landmark case? I don’t think so.
Likewise, the change in the date is also incongruous in relation to the references to the Vietnam War. According to the to the U.S. Army Center for Military History, American military involvement was still considered “advisory” up until March 1965. Monty announces he’s being shipped out to fight in Vietnam. This, I’m sure, is to raise a sense of foreboding on the part of the audience — which knows all too well what may likely to happen if he goes to Southeast Asia. Again, this doesn’t ring true for the given time setting of the play.
What is totally on-target is the amazing scenic and lighting design by Felix E. Cochren Jr. and Sang Min Kim, respectively. Cochren is a Syracuse University professor with multiple Broadway and Off-Broadway credits; Kim is a senior design student from South Korea. Chochren’s design features the metal framework silhouette of a bus. Kim’s lighting makes it seem the bus is in motion as the action of the play moves along.
In the book Ever After: The Last Years of Broadway and Beyond, Tesori said, “We didn't set out to write a Broadway show or even an off Broadway show, we just wanted to write something that could be done in regional theaters. I still believe that if you tell a story and you tell it well, people will come.”
Tesori got her wish for this story-turned-musical. Violet has been performed twice Off-Broadway (1997 and 2007) and seems to get fairly regular productions in smaller theaters and colleges. It’s not a blockbuster, but it is a warm road trip for the heart.
Details Box:
What: Violet, lyrics and book by Brian Crawley, music by Jeanine Tesori
Who: Syracuse University Drama Department
Where: Arthur Storch Theater, 820 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse
When: April 20, 2013
Remaining performances: Through April 28
Length: Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission
Tickets: $16 to $18. Call 315-443-3275 or www.vpa.syr.edu/drama
Family guide: Some references to racial prejudice
April 6 Symphoria Masterworks Series
Buff Phil conductor JoAnn Falletta leads the newly reborn orchestra in a challenging program and draws impressive results
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
Old wine in new bottles can taste surprisingly good.
Symphoria — Central New York’s musician-run symphony orchestra that has been “fermenting” a new product from the sour grapes of a bankrupted Syracuse Symphony Orchestra — has been reborn, rebottled, rebranded and repackaged into a leaner operation that is looking to eliminate the bitter aftertaste of the SSO’s shutdown two years ago.
The results, judging from the quality of playing at Saturday evening’s concert, are encouraging: The new product is, at the very least, promising. And like a bottle of fine wine, it’s sure to improve with age.
The Masterworks Series (formerly Classics Series) program was buoyed by the presence of a pair of talented and highly visible guest artists: JoAnn Falletta and Susan Platts.
Falletta, widely credited with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s rise to prominence (including 18 recording collaborations under the Naxos label) has captured the attention of the classical music world, garnering favorable reviews from Gramophone Magazine and a pair of Grammy Awards. Platts, the British-born Canadian mezzo-soprano and protégée of acclaimed American operatic dramatic soprano Jessye Norman, has sung in some of the best venues with the most prominent orchestras under the greatest conductors in the business.
Falletta and Platts teamed up with Symphoria for what proved to be a rewarding — and at times, dazzling — musical journey through two exotic versions of Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel), along with Carl Nielsen’s often-neglected Aladdin Suite.
With its strongly defined bass lines and brazen use of the low brass, the Aladdin Suite (which opened the program) anticipated the bold writing in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet, which followed Nielsen’s suite by two decades. Still, parallels to Prokofiev aside, this work can hardly be counted among Nielsen’s best.
Ravel’s Schéhérazade gets my vote for the most captivating work on the program. This colorfully orchestrated three-movement song cycle pits the dark timbral hues of the mezzo-soprano against a richly-textured, sweeping orchestral accompaniment. And when it comes to orchestration, no one does it better than Ravel.
Schéhérazade is one of only a handful of the composer’s works that may rightly be labeled Impressionistic (Ravel tended to lean towards neo-classicism), and is every bit as sensuous as his better known efforts in this style, such as the Daphnis et Chloé ballet and Quatuor à cordes (String Quartet).
Platts’s rich and darkly textured mezzo-soprano was especially attractive in its middle and low registers, which throughout the performance resonated with deep intensity. I especially enjoyed her tender and expressive delivery of the final song, L’indefférent — a soft and gentle movement that afforded Platts the opportunity to all but whisper her phrases. While Platts’s upper register in the opening Asie may have lacked some degree of staying power against the brute strength of the sizable orchestra, her magnificent French diction remained crisp and intelligible at all times.
This was my first opportunity to experience Falletta live. At the podium, she was in a near-constant state of animation, and conducted in large and clearly defined beats — although I suspect she exercises greater subtlety when dealing with the Buffalo Philharmonic and other orchestras she works with on a regular basis.
In the Ravel, Falletta took precautions not to overpower Platts, and allowed the mezzo-soprano to stretch her phrases broadly in the middle song, La flûte enchantée — although I thought the unusually slow opening tempo afforded principal flutist Deborah Coble precious little freedom with which to add shape and shimmer to her solo.
In the Rimsky-Korsakov, Falletta refrained from conducting beats during the second movement cadenza-like solos for clarinet and bassoon — signaling confidence in these two first-chair players. She used lots of body language to communicate with the cello section in the tender phrases that open the sensuous third movement, which I though worked especially well. At other times, Falletta was decidedly less accommodating: Her tempos in the relentless final movement were uncompromisingly fast.
In a recent interview, Falletta said she chose the widely popular Rimsky-Korsakov version of Scheherezade to give listeners an opportunity to hear the orchestra’s individual players. As such, Symphoria’s performance of this work served as a microcosm of sorts for the present ensemble’s strengths — and weaknesses.
The good news, and there’s lots of it, is that a number of strong players have chosen to stay on rather than seek opportunities elsewhere. These include principal basssonist Greg Quick, a standout section leader whose exquisite solo at the opening of the second movement (The Kalendar Prince) reveals the unmistakable signs of an artist at the top of his game. Other noteworthy efforts from the wind section in this movement include first and second clarinetists John Friedrichs and Victoria Krukowski, and flute and piccolo players Deborah Coble and Linda Greene.
Standouts in the brass section include first horn Julie Bridge, who delivered her first and second movement solos confidently and with impeccable pitch, and trumpeter John Raschella, who captured the moment several times throughout the brass-heavy four-movement tone poem.
Last but not least, Peter Rovit stepped up to the first-chair (concertmaster) responsibilities and played his cadenza-like double-stop passages with panache. Rovit kept his cool during the pernicious solo in the altissimo register at the end of the final movement, maintaining pitch throughout the lengthy, sustained note perched somewhere in the stratosphere.
Among the things needing improvement in this orchestra is the trombone section (staffed entirely with substitutes), which lacked depth, volume and just plain guts in what should have been an imposing theme representing the evil Sheikh at the opening of the first movement The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. The principal oboe (also a sub) was rather timid in tone and projection throughout the program, while and the first second violin sections had some degree of difficulty staying in-sync during the louder tutti sections. (More than half the violins Saturday were substitute players.)
It may take some time for Symphoria to regain the full measure of its pre-2011 strength. After all, the new pared-down orchestra shed its management and its music director, not to mention a seven million dollar annual budget. Moreover, the orchestra has lost a sizable portion of its seasoned musicians to competing venues across the U.S and Canada.
But the challenges facing Symphoria, while formidable, are by no means insurmountable.
It all comes down to this: Does Symphoria have, or can it attract, sufficient talent and performance expertise to maintain the quality of playing we have come to expect? The quality of playing on Saturday’s handsomely programmed Masterworks Series concert suggests that it does — and that it can. But it will need the support of the local community to stem the tide of defections and attract fresh talent.
For now, at least, it’s best to think of Symphoria as a work in progress: Old wine in new bottles whose quality is positioned to improve steadily through the inexorable process of aging. There are no shortcuts.
Details Box:
Who: Symphoria, conducted by JoAnn Falletta
What: Masterworks Series #2
Where: Crouse Hinds Theater, Mulroy Civic Center, 411 Montgomery St.
When: April 6, 2013
Time of performance: One hour and 25 minutes, including intermission
Next Masterworks concert: 7:30 p.m. May 11, Fabio Mechetti, conductor, and Jon Kimura Parker, pianist.
Tickets and information: http://www.experiencesymphoria.org/
April 5 Rarely Done Productions: Falsettoland
Rarely Done Production’s latest effort serves as a fundraiser for “Friends of Dorothy House”
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
The April 8 edition of Time Magazine has, depending on the issue you get, either a cover picture of two male legal domestic partners kissing each other, or two New York State wives kissing each other. I looked at it without any start of surprise, except to pause for a moment of happy approbation at the headline: Gay Marriage Already Won: The Supreme Court hasn’t made up its mind — but America has.
The lead story in the magazine details the surging groundswell for marriage equality in the United States. In 1996, for example, when the first poll on same-sex marriage was taken, only 27 percent of Americans approved. Now, the approval rate is 53 percent — including a whopping 73 percent among those 18 to 29 years old.
Time Magazine has published seven cover stories about AIDS and HIV over the course of the past 30 years. The first cover story, in 1983, focused on cases in America and included the scary phrase “the AIDS hysteria.” The last time it was on the cover was way back in February 2001, and that was about the disease’s prevalence in Africa, not the U.S.
AIDS, it seems, has become ho-hum — hardly newsworthy at all nowadays.
Given these two trends, it might seem unusual that Rarely Done Productions has included Falsettoland among its season offerings. It’s set in 1981, when a handful people began to slowly realize that “something bad is happening,” and before the emerging virus even had a name. The play’s protagonist, Marvin, has only recently emerged from being a closeted homosexual yet heterosexually married man. Gay marriage, let alone civil unions, would have been a figment of someone’s preposterous imagination.
With AIDS a specter seemingly long gone and legal gay marriage purportedly on the horizon nationally, it might seem that this musical is merely an artifact of a zeitgeist that has passed us by. In fact, the play is as relevant today as it might have been at the height of public awareness of the AIDS epidemic. It’s message about the vicissitudes of life, the tenderness of the human heart and the unexpected pathways we take renders it as moving today as it was when was first produced.
Falsettoland, directed by Rarely Done Artistic Director Dan Tursi, is actually the third of three one-act musicals written by William Finn and James Lapine that originally appeared as off-Broadway productions. The first, In Trousers, seems to be truly rarely done. The second, March of the Falsettos, combined with this one under the name Falsettos, had a strong Broadway 1992-1993 run, garnering Tony awards for best book of a musical and best original musical score.
I didn’t see that Broadway production, nor have I said seen any of these one-acts until this current opportunity at Rarely Done. About the only thing I remembered about the play was seeing the publicity shots of a little boy swinging a baseball bat, cheered on by a group of disparate adults.
The little boy, Jason, played here by a rather adorable 11 and one-half year-old Maxwell Zirkman, is universally adored by the grown-ups in his life. His father Marvin (Peter Irwin) adores him. Marvin’s ex-but-now-reunited lover Whizzer (Dana Sovocool) is an affirming presence in his life. Trinia, Jason’s mother (Katie Lemos Brown) and Mendel (Justin Bird), her new husband and former psychiatrist, are caring and concerned for Jason’s welfare even as they battle Martin about plans for the boy’s Bar Mitzvah. (He’s 12 and one-half in the play.)
Jason is doted on as well by the “lesbians next door,” Dr. Charlotte and Cordelia (Shannon Thompkins and Sara Weiler). That Charlotte is a physician in internal medicine will soon become integral to the plot. Cordelia’s role is much lighter: She’s a niche caterer, specializing in “dietetic knishes and nouvelle Bar Mitzvah cuisine.” All of Jason’s attentive guardians take an interest in everything he does, including “watching Jewish boys who can’t play baseball play baseball.”
Although it’s a play about urban New York City professionals — “yuppie pagans modeled on the Ronald Reagans,” sports is a recurrent motif in Falsettoland. There’s the ubiquitous baseball game, with the folks and friends cheering on young Jason. There is also the set of fast-paced, competitive racquetball matches between Marvin and Whizzer, which are quite amazing to watch on the intimate confines of the Jazz Central stage, Rarely Done’s home theater. A racquetball match is where we see Whizzer begin to falter and stumble — the first harbinger of what the audience (but not the characters) knows is AIDS.
Falsettoland is told through 20 musical numbers; the play has only a couple of spoken, not sung, pieces of dialogue. The songs are in-turn sprightly (there’s a conga line number) and heartbreaking, as we watch Marvin’s beloved partner’s health deteriorate.
The production is also a fundraiser for Friends of Dorothy House, the home run by Michael DeSalvo and Nick Orth — two selfless individuals who for 21 years have provided hospice care for those suffering from AIDS. At the opening night performance, DeSalvo (a hairdresser by profession) talked about being asked to someone’s house to give a haircut and discovering that the man, so thin he kept sliding out of the chair, had no one caring for him. That man, David, become one of a series of people helped by Friends of Dorothy’s Catholic Worker ministry.
DeSalvo did point out that, increasingly, people are living — rather than dying — of HIV. However, a quick glance at Centers for Disease Control website data shows all-too-shockingly that high numbers of cases and new infections persist, despite of Time Magazine covers and news coverage in general. However, a reminder of a medical crisis is not the main reason one should go see Falsettoland. It’s a lovely, beautifully performed production that is, befitting the intent of the theater, not staged very often.
Near the end of the play, Trinia sings of the grief for a person whom she never thought would mean so much to her — or, for that matter, be part of her life. He’s shared my life, she sings lovingly, Life is never what you planned. Here is the key message of this trilogy of productions: Life is a journey and you never know whom you may unwittingly pick up along the way.
The people with whom you share your life, both anticipated and unexpected, are what matters in Falsettoland. Just as in the real-world land.
Details Box:
What: Falsettoland, music and lyrics by William Finn
Who: Rarely Done Productions
Where: Jazz Central, 441 E. Washington St., Syracuse
When: April 5, 2013
Remaining performances: 8 p.m. April 6, 12, 13, 19, 20
Length: One hour and 15 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $20. Call (315) 546-3224 or http://www.rarelydone.org
Family guide: References to gay relationships
Mar. 30 Boston Chamber Music Society
The celebrated chamber music ensemble showed that ‘March Madness’ in this town isn’t strictly limited to college basketball
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
The Syracuse Orange wasn’t the only team to score big on Saturday. Just ask the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music fans — who less than an hour after the final buzzer signaled the Orange’s trip to The Final Four left their TV sets to catch the Boston Chamber Music Society concert.
Come to think of it, the game plans for both teams were identical: tightly knit ensemble play, synchronized execution and solid teamwork.
Now in the final months of its 30th season, the Boston Chamber Music Society (BCMS) is the longest running chamber music series in New England. The group comprises a core of “member musicians,” led by violist and BCMS Artistic Director Marcus Thompson, pianist Randall Hodgkinson and newly appointed professor of violin at Syracuse University, Harumi Rhodes; as well as a consortium of guest artists that include cellist Astrid Schween and clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois. Taken individually, these are first-rate performers at the top of their games. Together, they play as a cohesive and experienced ensemble.
Saturday’s program opened with Beethoven’s String Trio in C minor, a product of the promising young composer’s early period (written in 1797) whose firm command of string writing looks ahead to the outstanding Opus 18 string quartets.
The trio consisting of Harumi Rhodes, Astrid Schween and Marcus Thompson sounded the opening four-note descending motif in perfect unison and forged a solid rhythmic feel through the strongly accented recurring weak beats that kept the movement alert throughout. The ensemble’s rhythmic prowess peaked in the third movement scherzo, with the four-note motif passing playfully and seamlessly from player-to-player. Balance of sound among the three players was excellent throughout the four-movement work.
The Beethoven Trio afforded me my first good look at Rhodes since the 2008 Skaneateles Festival, where her warm and intimate phrasing in Anton Arensky's Piano Trio in D Minor and Beethoven's Piano Trio in E-flat major impressed me with her level of musicianship and understanding of the two musical styles. I also remember how Rhodes maintained her composure during the chilly Saturday outdoors Brook Farm concert, when her stand light went out during the end of the first movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos No.5, leaving her to play the rest of the three-movement work in near-total darkness. That she missed neither note nor beat through the rest of the work spoke volumes about her level of preparation.
Rhodes bore the lion’s share of the work on Saturday’s program, playing the challenging lead part in three of the four works. She played confidently and fearlessly, and while she had an occasional tendency to lose intonation on a pitch every now and then, Rhodes delivered her parts both with technical precision and stylistic grace and élan.
Max Bruch’s Eight pieces for clarinet, viola and piano, composed in 1909 and published the following year, is an über-Romantic work that exploits the dark and expressive alto registers of the clarinet and viola, and treats the piano almost as if it were a harp. Here, violist Thompson was joined by pianist Randall Hodgkinson and clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois (misspelled in the printed program as “de Luis-Langois”) in a performance that found just the right balance between playfulness, sensitivity — and schmaltz. Honoring the composer’s wishes that the work not be done as a complete cycle, only three of the pieces (nos. 2, 6 and 7) were programmed for this performance.
When I last saw Thompson at the 2011 Cooperstown Summer Music Festival, I marveled at the violist’s rich and strongly defined tone that helped breath life into Dohnányi’s magnificent string trio, the Serenade in C Major, Op. 10, and his shimmering arpeggiated figures that captured joie de vivre of Albert Roussel’s Trio for Flute, Viola and Cello.
Thompson was every bit as adept as I had remembered, playing with a rich tone that forged a worthy complement to the timbre of the clarinet (which I dare say is every violist’s alter ego). Nevertheless, the center of attention in this piece lay with the clarinet part — for which Bruch wrote for his son. And de Guise-Langlois pretty much stole the show here.
The attractive young French Canadian clarinetist, a graduate of Montreal’s McGill University and the Yale School of Music who now makes her home in Brooklyn, has a string of competition medals to her credit and performs regularly with top-tier chamber ensembles such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The accolades are well deserved, judging from this piece and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat Suite that followed.
Guise-Langlois plays with a sound that clarinetists like to call “French,” meaning an easy-going tone whose fluid legato and extremely soft dynamic levels typically come at the expense of intensity of tone (which defines the so-called “German” sound). While I much prefer the German sound, I found myself growing increasingly drawn to de Guise-Langlois’s sinuous tone, which is pure and attractive (and at times even mesmerizing) with its focused quality — and hint, just a hint, of vibrato.
The delicacy of her playing was especially apparent in the two pieces in minor keys, No.2 in B-minor and No. 6 in G-minor — the latter of which gave her great leeway in milking the phrases to the extreme. Guise-Langlois’s intonation was incredibly accurate in all registers, even across the tricky “throat-tones,” which tend to be sharp in pitch. Pianist Hodgkinson faithfully rolled his piano chords in the manner of a harp (Bruch had originally intended to use a harp rather than piano in this work), and found the right dynamic balance to match timbres with Thompson and de Guise-Langlois.
Hodgkinson, de Guise-Langlois and Rhodes returned for Stravinsky’s own trio arrangement of his septet, L’Histoire du soldat, set here as a five-movement suite for clarinet, violin and piano. Although you’d never guess it from the pernicious writing for clarinet, the work was commissioned by a wealthy amateur clarinetist (now there’s an oxymoron: “wealthy clarinetist”) and signaled the beginning of the composer’s neo-classic period.
Ensemble was tight and alert in the opening The Soldier’s March, with crisply dotted-rhythmic figures and concise articulations in the violin and clarinet parts. Rhodes produced cleanly executed double-stops in The Soldier’s Violin movement and captured the proper “hoe-down” feel of the following A Little Concert movement. While I may have had a few issues with the tempos chosen for the tango, waltz and ragtime, execution of the dance movements was largely convincing. The closing Devil’s Dance, taken at breakneck speed, was especially impressive in its wild, abandon-all-caution delivery. The crowd rewarded the three instrumentalists with resounding voices of approval at the conclusion of the work.
The program closer, Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat, Op. 47, revealed a level of comfort in the manner of performance and precision of execution that top-notch chamber ensembles such as BCMS routinely convey to their audiences. Written concurrently with the composer’s more popular Piano Quintet (also in the key of E-flat Major), Schumann’s Piano Quartet reveals parallels between the works that are difficult to ignore, especially in the scherzo movements, which look, feel, taste and sound as if processed through the identical meat grinder.
As in the three prior works on the program, the ensemble demonstrated a firm command of pulse — never rushing the dotted-rhythmic figures that permeate much of the opening movement. Ensemble work during the rapid 16th-note fugal subject that passed from viola to piano to violin was crisp and precise, and balance between piano and the strings was incredibly well matched.
The lovely slow movement Andante cantabile, which contains one of Schumann’s most memorable melodies, shimmered at the hands of cellist Schween — whose playing in this work and the earlier Beethoven Trio was consistently outstanding. Schween, a well-seasoned performer whom some may remember as the long-time cellist of the Lark Quartet, is a delight to watch, whether giving reassuring glances to Rhodes or using her facial expressions to cue players’ entrances and phrase-endings. In both her pieces, Schween was the glue that bound the players into a cohesive and well-timed ensemble.
Details Box:
What: Boston Chamber Music Society
Who: Presented by Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse
When: March 30, 2013
Next: Pacifica Quartet, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 4
Ticket prices: Regular $25, Senior $15, Student $10 (available at door)
Information: call (315) 682-7720
Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org
Mar. 28 Redhouse Theater: Noises Off
This perfectly synchronized rendition of the delightfully absurd British farce will have you doubled over in hysterics — and reaching for a can of sardines
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
When you hear that a play is a farce, you might think it is going to be slight, shallow and silly.
Noises Off, currently playing at The Redhouse, is certainly silly and funny. You will be slapping your thighs and pounding the arms of your seats by the second act, convulsing in laughter. But to call this farce “simple” would be a gross misrepresentation. In fact, Noises Off may very well be the most complex, intricately blocked and finely paced show I have ever seen. Pardon me: I should say that Noises Off is the most intricately paced shows I have ever seen.
You see, Noises Off is a play-within-a-play. Or more accurately, a rehearsal and two performances within a play. That sequence makes for all the fun. The comedy by Michael Frayn is about a troupe of B-rate British actors putting on the world premiere of a show called Nothing On. It starts off during the final technical/dress rehearsal. Act 2 is a performance of the play after a few weeks have passed, and the last act takes place months later when Nothing On is nearing the end of its “successful” run.
All is not going well for the thespians of Nothing On, unfortunately. The cast is beset by love triangles, petty intrigues and mixed messages. They are finding it increasingly challenging to stage Nothing On, which clearly will never win the Olivier Award. As their offstage lives fall into further into disarray, their onstage and offstage antics become increasingly convoluted. As with a typical farce (think Lend Me a Tenor or The Mystery of Irma Vep) there are plenty of quick entrances and exits, slamming of doors and running up and down sets of stairs. As the cast of Nothing On continues to unravel, so do the challenges to our real Noises Off actors.
It is a testament to director Stephen Svoboda, assistant director Adam Perabo, stage manager Jess Feder and the entire cast and crew that as the play-within-the-play appears to run totally amok, Noises Off rises to its finest moments of perfect timing and right-on-the mark pratfalls and sight gags. It takes a huge amount of organization, talent and attentiveness, both on and off the stage, to make this chaos run like clockwork.
The fictional Nothing On is playing at the well-known venue, the Grand Theatre at Weston Super-Mare, and stars the beloved Dotty Otley, with Belinda Blair, Garry LeJeune, Selsdon Mowbray, Brooke Ashton and Frederic Fellows. And my, what a fine cast it is: LeJeune won the covered Laetitia Daintyman Medal while still in drama school. Miss Blair has been on the stage since the age of four, when she made her debut at the Old Croydon Hippodrome. How do we know all this? Because tucked into the Redhouse program is the farcical, bogus program for the play-within-the play — complete with pretentious, overly researched dramaturgical notes. (This is always a funny addition to the printed materials. Spamalot’s Playbill, for example, featured a complete program for the famed “Finish moosical,” Dik Od Triaanenen Fol.)
Thank goodness for us Syracuse patrons, the local cast surpasses that of the world premiere British production. Karis Wiggins, recently an urbane bestselling author in the Covey Theatre’s Playing God, is Dotty, playing Mrs. Clackett, the Cockney ‘ousekeeper. The action begins with Mrs. Clackett entering the living room and trying to settle down to watch a show she has been awaiting with great anticipation. She has a newspaper and a plate of sardines and the phone is ringing. She favors the audience with ever-changing bromides, such as “Soon as you take the weight off your feet, down it all comes on your head.”
Within a few minutes, Dotty is interrupted by the play’s director, Lloyd (John Bixler), who barks out stage directions about the phone, the newspaper and the ever-present sardines. Oh, the sardines! Lloyd is full of himself and given to inflated pronouncements like “The wellspring of human actions are deep and clouded,” and “All of my studies of world drama lie at your disposal.”
Martin Glyer and Carmen Viviano-Crafts’s characters (Roger and Vicki) are a real estate agent and his chippie, trying to sneak in a fast “roll in the hay” at the country estate that they believe is unoccupied. It is quite striking that the lithe Crafts performs the entire evening in a scanty bustier, panties and garter belt. It is even more striking that Glyer has mastered his incredibly physical role with skill, having taking over the part only 10 days ago. (The original actor, Redhouse office manager Nathan Faudree, injured his knee during rehearsals.)
Roger and Vicki’s ill-fated moment of passion is interrupted by the real owners of the estate, Philip and Flavia Brent (Jordan Glaski and an absolutely stunning Rachel Torba-Grage). The Brents, British tax exiles currently living in Spain, are secretly back in their native country. Their home visit will not go undetected for long, however. A burglar (Navroz Dabu as Selsdon Mowbray) makes an entrance…. again and again. Nothing On’s front of house manager (Brunson as Tim) and backstage technical person (Grace Allyn as Poppy) also get finagled in the campy, crazed proceedings.
Each cast member more than rises to the demands of quickly changing between characters and negotiating the multiple dimensions of the elaborate set — quite extraordinary for the smallish Redhouse Theatre.
One thing I found particularly delightful is that the housekeeper starts numerous times, but never gets to finish, the explanation with which she begins the play. We know she has the paper. She has the sardines. She’s tending the house and wants to sit down and watch television to view coverage of that “thing with the Royals” — you know, the thing “when they wear the big hats.” After the umpteenth time of her going on about the thing with the Royals and their big hats, you almost want to shout out and finish the sentence for her, since she can’t quite remember what it’s called.
Poor Mrs. Clackett never does get to curl up on the sofa, flip on the telly, and nip into her idiosyncratic, briny seafood snack to watch the Ascot. But I would be willing to dive into a plate of sardines any day in order to see as hard-working a cast and as fine a production as this current Grand Theatre — I mean Redhouse — offering.
Details Box:
What: Noises Off, by Michael Frayn, presented by Redhouse.
Where: Redhouse Arts Center, 201 S. West Street, Armory Square, Syracuse
When: March 28, 2013
Next: 8 p.m. March 30, April 3, 4, 5 and 6; and 2 p.m. April 6
Length: About two hours and 45 minutes, with one long and one brief intermission
Tickets: $20 ($15 for members). Call (315) 425-0405 or http://www.theredhouse.org/
Family guide: Nothing objectionable
Mar. 25 Famous Artists Broadway: The Addams Family
Thanks to the standout performance of Jennifer Fogarty, only one foot of this production is in the grave
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
When Baby Boomers see The Addams Family, the new musical comedy playing at the Civic Center through tomorrow evening, they will be reminded of the popular black-and-white TV series that originally aired from 1964 to 1966.
When Gen-Xers see The Addams Family, directed by E. Cameron Holsinger with choreography by Jonathan Ritter, they may remember the animated TV series that ran from 1973 to 1975.
When Millennials see the musical, they’ll probably reflect on the 1991 movie The Addams Family and the 1993 sequel, Addams Family Values.
Older folks will probably point out to all of the above that The Addams Family began as a long-running series of The New Yorker cartoons, drawn by the revered illustrator Charles Addams.
The Broadway musical is assuredly a trip down memory lane for those of us who recognize the family as an American pop culture icon. Unfortunately, the Boomers, Gen-Xers and Millenials will likely have no lasting impression of this modest theatrical production. It’s a fun, but fleeting, evening of entertainment.
Now on its second national tour after a comparatively short (and Tony Award-less) Broadway run from March 2010 to December 2011, the play demonstrates that a universally popular story doesn’t necessarily make a convincing transition to the venue of musical theater.
The show could more aptly be called Wednesday and The Addams Family, since the meager plot revolves around a single strained and unimaginative scenario involving the Addams’s daughter. Wednesday is secretly engaged. She and her fiancé, Lucas Beineke, face the dilemma of when and how to tell their parents.
Wednesday (Jennifer Fogarty) and Lucas (Bryan Welnicki) met “cute” with a real Addams sadistic twist: She was shooting creatures in the park with her crossbow, which he found rather endearing. Lucas’s parents (Mark Poppleton and Blair Anderson) appear to be sticks-in-the mud, although Mrs. Beineke does have a penchant for talking in kitschy greeting-card rhymes, and wears a revoltingly bright (according to Morticia) yellow dress.
A predictable complication ensues as the two families prepare to meet: They are totally different from one-another, and might not approve of the match.
This story has been told (and is still being told) multiple times elsewhere. The parents might include an intense former CIA agent (Meet the Parents). The fiancé and parents might be African-American (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner — both the great Sidney Poitier classic and the tepid Ashton Kutcher version). The parents are gay and run a flamboyant drag night club (La Cage Aux Folles and The Birdcage). The parents have to pretend they are not actually divorced (the soon-to-be released The Big Wedding). I could go on, but the point is that a person of any demographic age bracket immediately can sense how this love story will play out.
What isn’t expected are the liberties the creators take with the daughter as a character. Wednesday, as I have come to know her from the TV series and movies, is an unnaturally morbid and taciturn child. Christina Ricci nailed this affect down so well in the films, made when she was 11 and 13, that sensational tabloids speculated that the young actress herself was suicidal. Rather than being pale and impassive, this Wednesday has the perky vibrancy of a chick-flick heroine.
Fogarty is a real spark plug in this production, belting out solos like a young Ethel Merman. Had this been a musical with a better book and a stronger musical score, with a number rising to the level of Elphaba’s Defying Gravity in Wicked or Rose’s Turn in Gypsy, Fogarty would be a showstopper. Her vocal power surpassed all the others — even the patriarch and matriarch, Gomez (Jesse Sharp) and Morticia (Keleen Snowgren).
Uncle Fester (Shaun Rice) has an unusual love fixation that brings the term “lunacy” to new heights. This provides some delightful visual effects in his musical solo in Act 2. It also offers Fester the opportunity to deliver what may be the single best line in the script, near the end of the play. Grandma (Amanda Bruton) might be using more than medical marijuana up in the attic, and Lurch, the appropriately tall and angular Dan Olson, has some key comic moments with not much more than a zombie-like grunt and spastic arm movements.
Those parents who bemoan their children’s constant fighting will get a chuckle out of Wednesday’s and Pugsley’s sibling interaction, and his squeals — of pleasure, mind you — as she literally tortures him. In Monday night’s show, Pugsley was played by Sam Primack. The role is rotated among three young male actors.
The immediate family and the potential in-laws are augmented on stage by a bevy of Addams Family ancestors, a group of corpses who seem to have been reanimated from the crypt merely as an excuse to have the requisite Broadway chorus line. The misty cemetery setting of Just Around the Corner reminded me of Tevye’s Dream from Fiddler on the Roof, which is also sung and danced by ghosts emerging from graves, only without the latter’s rollicking, cackling hilarity.
The Addams Family was brought to Broadway by members of the team that created The Jersey Boys, the musical about the Four Seasons that was a recent Famous Artists Broadway offering. We all know and love the music of that ever-popular group. Theater-goers, too, are enthralled by that monumental and moving musical.
But as the latest undertaking (pun intended) of the The Addams Family saga suggests, not all musicals adapted from pop culture icons can guarantee success.
Details Box:
What: The Addams Family, A New Musical
Who: Famous Artists Broadway
Where: The Crouse Hinds Theatre, Mulroy Civic Center, Syracuse
When: March 25, 2013
Remaining performance: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 27
Length: About two and a half hours, with one 15-minute intermission
Tickets: $32 to $59, orchestra; Call (315) 424-8210 or www.famousartistsbroadway.com/
Family guide: Nothing objectionable.
Mar. 16 Met simulcast: Francesca da Rimini
Sets and costumes are gorgeous and the singing is good, but the libretto’s slow and continuously interrupted dramatic action grows tiresome
By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html
Ricardo Zandonai’s 1914 opera Francesca da Rimini is a one-act potboiler buried in a four-act sarcophagus.
The opera tells a simple, lurid story of lust and infidelity, drawn from Dante’s Inferno and a play by the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio.
Poor Francesca is married off, for political reasons, to the lame and ugly Giovanni Malatesta, although she thinks she is going to be marrying his handsome brother, Paolo. When Paolo confesses his love for her, they cheat on Giovanni. The affair is discovered by Giovanni’s younger brother, Malatestino, a one-eyed weasel, who tips off Giovanni. The inevitable then occurs as Giovanni kills both Francesca and Paolo after catching them in the act.
Zandonai’s teacher Mascagni could have turned this tale into a terrific one-act companion piece to his Cavalleria Rusticana. But Zandonai and his librettist Tito Ricordi (Verdi’s music publisher) larded the tale with all sorts of extraneous business that slows down the dramatic arc and blunts its violence. In this case truly half would have been twice as good.
The libretto has all sorts of obvious dramatic problems. Paolo appears at the end of Act 1 but never sings, merely locking eyes and fingers with Francesca. The villains Giovanni and Malatestino don’t appear until Act 2, and then disappear in Act 3 entirely. Neither has a role that is fully fleshed out. Indeed, only the mooning Francesca seems to have captivated Ricordi and Zandonai. The action is repeatedly interrupted by unnecessary paeans to the arrival of spring or choral giggling from Francesca’s handmaidens.
Were Zandonai a more skillful composer he might have sustained a four-act treatment, but his strengths are as an orchestrator and a provider of special musical effects. He can also whip up a huge noise from the orchestra with climax after climax, which I guess is not such a bad idea given the theme of this opera. But such repeated climaxes get old quickly.
John C. G. Waterhouse, writing in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, accurately took Zandonai’s measure as a composer, noting his “judicious borrowings from Strauss and Debussy.” His strongest virtue is conveying a sense of atmosphere. Met Conductor Fabio Armiliato, interviewed during one of the three intermissions, tossed in Wagner, Cilea, Mascagni and Puccini as other influences. All can be heard flitting in and out of the score. While Zandonai is quite skillful at word setting, his music is without personality of its own.
Zandonai writes in sentences, while Puccini and Strauss write in pages and Wagner writes in whole chapters. Just as one thinks a real melody with some development is about to start, Zandonai changes direction. The duet for Paolo and Francesca in Act 3, when they finally consummate their love, cries out for a Manon Lescaut moment. It never comes. All the tension in the final scene, when Francesca and Paolo are murdered, is bled out of it with an interminable opening exchange between Francesca and her ladies in waiting. When Giovanni finally arrives to stab her, it’s all slam bang. Zandonai had Verdi’s Otello as a model for this murder, but he seems to have learned nothing from it.
With an eight-month season, the Met has many slots to fill. This production is the first revival of the original, mounted 27 years ago for Placido Domingo in the role of Paolo and Renata Scotto as Francesca. The production — by Piero Faggioni with sets by Ezio Frigerio and costumes by Franca Squarciapino — is a beauty. It almost justifies ticket prices north of $250. Francesca’s various gowns have the silhouette of a 14th century Italian woman of means, but the embroidery is pre-Raphaelite. Every stage picture could have walked off the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Every character is in a period costume of exquisite color and detail. While the ears may have been bored, the eyes never were, particularly in the close-ups of the HD telecast.
Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek and tenor Marcello Giordani were the illicit lovers. Both have large voices and had no trouble with the notes, although both are short on vocal allure. Westbroek never projected the vulnerability and fragility Francesca must embody if one is to care about her grim fate.
The villains were a lot more fun. Baritone Mark Delavan was a nasty Giovanni, with a booming bottom but slightly constricted top. Tenor Robert Brubaker (soon to be singing Mime in the Met’s spring Ring) made Malatestino a leering pervert with dead-on intonation.
Of the smaller roles, mezzo Ginger Costa-Jackson stood out as Francesca’s slave Smaragdi, a role written for contralto.
Marco Armiliato, conducting the opera for the first time, moved it along well and supported the singers generously. The Met Orchestra seemed to relish wallowing in this aural soup.
Tchaikovsky took a shot at the Francesca story in his orchestral fantasy of the same name. In just 26 minutes he manages to say all that need be said, capturing the frenzy and passion of the story in a way Zandonai never does. His surging theme for the lovers has already knocked out of my head everything Zandonai wrote for them.
Only 40 or so people attended this performance at Destiny USA’s Regal Theater in Syracuse, many fewer than usual. Perhaps the Met is offering too many of these telecasts. Perhaps the novelty is wearing off. Perhaps the audience is tired of the relentless close-ups and quick cuts. Or perhaps the audience is just too smart to waste four hours and $24 on this third-rate work.
Details Box:
What: Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, Simulcast Live in HD
When: March 16, 2013
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Time: Approximately 4 hours, with 3 intermissions
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore presentation: 6:30 p.m. EST, Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Mar. 13 Famous Artists Broadway: Dixie’s Tupperware Party
Like the cross-dressing Dixie, this party “drags” on — and on
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
Dixie Longate has the most beautiful legs of any performer I have seen on stage in recent months — really glamorous gams in elegant stilettos.
Dixie also has the most irritating delivery of any performer I have seen on stage — perhaps ever. It’s marked by intentional, but completely annoying repetitions that play like a worn-out tape recorder loop, frequent laughter that’s a cross between a hoot and a nasal snort, and extended passages that are almost completely unintelligible, perhaps by design — Dixie is a tippler!
Dixie is the star and only performer of Dixie’s Tupperware Party — that is, if you don’t count the hapless people finagled to sit on stage in overstuffed sofas and pulled forth from the audience for supremely embarrassing skits. As the title implies, it is a play based upon the conceit of a live, theatrical Tupperware party.
The play is true to its billing: Tupperware is always visible and is featured in every single vignette and anecdote. Each theatergoer gets a product catalog and can submit orders in the lobby after the show. The comedy is 100-percent Tupperware. It is also no exaggeration to say that it is 90-percent potentially offensive. It features crude sexual jokes, endlessly redundant references to various genital parts, disparaging potty humor, and profanity, including the “F bomb” — elicited from an audience member after multiple prompts, no less.
Dixie Longate is also Kris Andersson, who was struggling as an actor in Los Angeles when he attended a Tupperware party and was challenged to host his own. In 2001, he started doing the party as a show in drag, which was later presented at the New York City International Fringe Festival. It seems this has been his professional ticket ever since. The New York Times has reported that he sells up to $30,000 of Tupperware per month; the return address on the catalog is indeed directed to Dixie Longate.
The show includes bits of actual corporate history about the plastic container company, which was started in 1948 by Earl Silas Tupper. The unknown character in the story is Brownie Wise, a Kissimmee Florida housewife, who seized upon the product and marketed it like a Donna Reed demon with multiple household parties, sales incentives and motivational conventions.
Amazingly, in 1954 Wise became the very first woman to be featured on the cover of Business Week, but she and Tupper had a falling out. She was expunged from the company and ended up none the richer. Brownie Wise’s adventure in capitalism is an endearing piece of the American dream. While hearing it, the vision of an entirely different potential play flashed through my mind: kind of a combination of Always Patsy Cline and The Farnsworth Invention (the Aaron Sorkin drama about the overlooked inventor of television).
Except for a short digression into the issue of domestic violence, Dixie’s Tupperware Party does not have a plot to speak of. In fact, it is composed almost entirely of none-too-subtle allusions to sexual practices that one may not want to speak of.
For example, a middle-aged woman was called on stage to receive the raffle gift of a keychain with a small, round ball. With the idea of dangling balls firmly planted in the audience’s frame of reference, Dixie proceeded to evoke the various things the woman did with her husband’s you-know-what in the early days of their marriage. (Her husband was sitting in a front row of the theater, poor guy.)
A longer contest near the end of the performance had two pairs of women tossing balls into Tupperware collapsible bowls with lids that fit firmly on the bowls’ rims. While this was going on, Dixie encouraged the audience to join in with the Rimming Song. I won’t detail what that suggests.
Lest I be considered a pantywaist, let me note that I do have a high tolerance for creative works that challenge boundaries. I loved Goodfellas. I was not nonplussed at Django Unchained. The problem with Dixie’s Tupperware Party, though, is that this unrelenting reliance on raunchy humor quickly stops being funny.
In the “Tuppermonials” part of the show, a few hardy souls from the audience briefly describe the favorite Tupperware piece they have owned. This isn’t a word Andersson made up; entire blogs and YouTube videos are devoted to Tuppermonials. At Wednesday’s performance, one item mentioned was the turkey baster, which is no longer manufactured by the company. No problem for Dixie! You can imagine what scenarios she was able to improvise, playing on the idea of a large, long plastic tube with a squeezable top. (Similar phallic references had already been made to cucumbers.)
Another “Tuppermonial” was to the rectangular meat/marinade tray, which the ticket-holder said she has used numerous times to prepare delicious meals for barbeque dinners. The marinade container is airtight and sturdy. It apparently can be dropped without opening and spilling the juicy marinade. The container is large — holding a good quantity of ribs ready for the grill. The vocal home cook in the crowd was genuinely enthusiastic about this particular Tupperware storage/cooking product.
I have another suggestion for the useful marinade container: Find one sufficiently large and pack Dixie’s Tupperware Party inside. Put it in a durable meat locker that is, hopefully, sound proof. And, of course, don’t forget to seal the rim.
Details Box:
What: Dixie’s Tupperware Party, by Kris Andersson
Who: Famous Artists Broadway
Where: The Carrier Theatre, Mulroy Civic Center, Syracuse
When: March 13, 2013
Remaining performances: 8 p.m. 3/15; 4 p.m. & 8 p.m. 3/16; 2 p.m. 3/17
Length: About one hour and 30 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $38 to $40, orchestra; Call (315) 424-8210 or http://www.famousartistsbroadway.com/
Family guide: Numerous sexual references, jokes and crude language
Mar. 8 Rarely Done Productions: Suddenly Last Summer
Southern accents came and went throughout this production of Tennessee Williams’s New Orleans-based drama, but the acting remained strong
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
The thought of a community theater troupe mounting a Tennessee Williams play as challenging as Suddenly Last Summer somehow recalls Christopher Guest’s charming mockumentary, Waiting for Guffman. But Rarely Done Production’s appealing dramatic and visual crafting of this hard-hitting Southern gothic melodrama, which opened its three-weekend run Friday at Jazz Central, reminds us that Syracuse has a pool of talent well beyond anything Guest was able to assemble in the fictitious town of Blaine, Missouri.
Now in its seventh season, Rarely Done Productions offers opportunities for local residents eager to participate in theatrical ventures. And in keeping with its core mission, the company values the actual journey of creative exploration and discovery greater than it does the finished product. If anything, Friday’s performance suggests the journey and the end product are often one in the same.
Suddenly Last Summer, which premiered as part of a double-billing of Williams’s one-act plays that opened off-Broadway in 1958, may not be as familiar as the playwright's other masterpieces such as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Still, the drama packs a punch, and the 1959 film version featuring Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor boosted its popularity among theater audiences. In the present Rarely Done production, a solid pair of acting efforts in the two principal roles (Rosemary Palladino-Leone and Sharon Sorkin) reached deeply into this troubling psychoanalytic drama.
At the center of the play is a character whom we hear lots about, but never get to see: Sebastian Venable. From his overly protective mother, Violet Venable, we discover that this dapper southern gentleman had died the previous summer under mysterious circumstances while vacationing abroad. Unraveling the manner of Sebastian’s death forms the storyline, which is recounted to the audience largely through two lengthy monologues: A romanticized (if not and highly sanitized) version proposed by Violet, and a true — though disturbingly ugly — account proposed by Sebastian’s sultry but mentally unstable cousin, Catherine.
As the wealthy matriarch of the family, Violet is a selfish, vindictive and controlling woman whose youth and health are rapidly abandoning her. Violet uses the power of the purse to get what she wants in life — which for the moment is to shelter, at any cost, her late son’s reputation and preserve her blissful illusions about how Sebastian conducted his life. And how he met his demise.
The only person who knows for sure what happened to Sebastian is his cousin Catherine, a troubled young lady presently residing at a local insane asylum. Catherine had accompanied Sebastian on his annual summer pilgrimage abroad the prior year and witnessed firsthand the manner in which he had been killed. She begins to spread word of her cousin’s conduct that differs substantially from the angelic account fostered by Violet. From Catherine we learn that Sebastian was homosexual. And that he used his foxy cousin as “bait” to attract men to the couple’s vicinity until such time as Sebastian could, well, manage things on his own.
Enraged at Catherine’s accusations, Violet engages Dr. Cukrowicz, a surgeon specializing in the then-new procedure of lobotomy, to examine Catherine and diagnose the girl for himself. She urges the doctor to “cure” Catherine of slander through this promising new medical procedure. She also makes it abundantly clear that her planned endowment to his financially strapped hospital is contingent upon his arriving at the “proper” decision.
So then: Will he, or won’t he?
Like The Glass Menagerie and so many other Williams plays, Suddenly Last Summer is in part autobiographical, drawing as it does upon the playwright’s own life experiences. He began writing the story soon after beginning psychoanalysis, in 1957 (some say to deal with his homosexuality). And Williams never forgave himself for failing to prevent his sister Rose from undergoing a lobotomy at their mother’s insistence, after the girl accused their father of molesting her. (The truth may never be known: Rose was schizophrenic and the father was an abusive alcoholic.)
Among the play’s many dramatic challenges is how to process and project the author’s poetic imagery in work, which blurs the line between realism (for which Williams was celebrated in his earlier works) and symbolism (for which he was severely criticized in his later works). Symbolism in Suddenly Last Summer includes references to nature’s cruelties and its tendency to destroy — and specifically, devour — living things.
“It’s like a well-groomed jungle,” opines Dr. Cukrowicz of Sebastian’s exotic greenhouse garden, now maintained by Violet as a sort of shrine to her son. As she shows the doctor around, Violet pauses at the Venus flytrap plant and describes how Sebastian would feed fruit flies into its punishing grasp. Later, Violet recounts trips abroad to the beach with her son (before a stroke partially disabled her), describing in horrifying detail Sebastian’s morbid fascination watching the hatching of the baby sea turtles and their frantic scampering to the salvation of the sea, as birds of prey pick them off, one-by-one, and devour them.
Nature would prove just as unkind to Sebastian, who meets his fate in much the same way as the baby turtles: “devoured.” Only his “birds of prey” are the indigenous, poverty-stricken boys of a third-world country whose sexual favors he bought with American dollars.
The acting in this production was sufficiently strong to forge characters who we could believe are real. No easy task, since so much of the action is wrapped up in individual monologues — meaning there’s not a whole lot of interaction going on between the characters. As a result, the ones with the monologues (Violet and Catherine) must carry the weight of the drama on their shoulders.
As Catherine, Sharon Sorkin juggled the different aspects of her troubled character well, projecting the proper balance between the mentally unstable girl’s coy, argumentative, guilt-ridden and rebellious behavior. For this drama to work we have to believe that Catherine, however troubled, is also honest — if only brutally so. Sorkin managed this as well, crafting a character who, while unpredictable, is nevertheless honest and forthright. Sorkin’s Catherine appeared believable and credible even before Dr. Cukrowicz administered the truth serum (which, for reasons I cannot understand, was done using a giant syringe that looked large enough to euthanize a horse).
I expect Sorkin’s acting skills will improve once she learns not to overact at key moments in the drama. For example, the long monologue where she recounts the pain and agony of past events would have been more effective with greater sense of vulnerability and subtlety, and less muscle and volume. Sorkin’s powerful voice, which would have carried well at the Mulroy Civic Center, was simply too large (and, on occasion, shrill) for the intimate and chamber-like confines of Jazz Central.
In the other lead role, Rosemary Palladino-Leone crafted a manipulative, self-serving and unethical Violet Venable wicked enough to turn Sebastian’s cousin into a vegetative state rather than expose her darling boy’s little secret.
Violet’s dislike for Catherine goes far beyond the surface. Until her stroke, it was Violet who accompanied her son on these exotic summer excursions. Only instead of the skimpy, see-through bathing suits Catherine wore at the insistence of Sebastian, the aristocratic Violet drew her bait from upper class men of refined circles of society. And when Palladino-Leone tells Dr. Cukrowicz “both of us were young and stayed young,” she projects a woman who lost not only her son but also her youth and sense of purpose in life.
Like Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the portrait begins to change as it slowly reveals the character’s inner ugliness, Palladino-Leone’s character grows increasingly ugly, until her inner self is completely stripped of its façade. Even after she had exhausted her lines, the woman’s mere physical presence — staring perniciously at Catherine as the truth (and Violet’s nerves) slowly began to unravel — was enough to send shivers down my spine.
In his manner of dress and comportment onstage, Jimmy Curtin looked the part of Dr. Cukrowicz. Since his character has little more to do than react to what others tell him, Curtin has little “performing” to do. His wooden-heeled period shoes stepped noisily on the stage floor, and this being Jazz Central I began to wonder whether the good doctor would spontaneously break into a lively tap dance.
Among the minor characters, Kate Huddleston as Catherine’s mother, and J. Allan Orton as Catherine’s brother, provided strong supporting roles with engaging stage presence. Heather Roach, as Sister Felicity, was the only character whose accent never strayed — but that was Irish, not N’Orleans.
Michael Diederich’s set was surprisingly effective, projecting the effect of the summer hothouse yet with enough “jungle” references to click with the observations made by Dr. Cukrowicz. The costumes, which looked period 1940s, looked appropriate as well.
There was no curtain call at the end of the show, leaving me to wonder if director Dan Tursi had decided to segue directly into the second play of Williams’s original double-bill couplet, titled Garden District. Seriously, Tursi’s decision — obviously calculated and not spontaneous — is a fitting touch when one considers that Suddenly Last Summer has no real ending. Things are left in the air as to what happens next.
But whatever that may be, the audience left the theater wearing smiles.
Details Box:
What: Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer, directed by Dan Tursi
Who: Rarely Done Productions
Where: Jazz Central, 441 E. Washington St., Syracuse
When: March 8, 2013
Remaining performances: 8 p.m. March 15, 16, 22 and 23
Length: One hour and 15 minutes, with no intermission
Tickets: All seats $20. Call 315-546-3224 or http://www.rarelydone.org
Family guide: Disturbing subject matter, adult themes
Mar. 7 Redhouse Theater: The Full Monty
Hey, a guy’s got to make a living, right?
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
The musical The Full Monty proves that you don’t have to have a chiseled six-pack chest or honed, bulging biceps to be the most charismatic and entertaining man in the room.
Presented in repertory by the Redhouse Arts Center as part of the 2013 District Festival, The Full Monty tells the story of a down-and-out, unemployed steel worker who decides the best way to make a financial killing is to put on, and star in, a Chippendales-like male strip show. That Jerry Lukowski — who is out-of-shape, badly in debt and sorely in need of “some serious dental work” — knows absolutely nothing about either show business or stripping, is evident from the start.
This fish-out-of-water premise sets the stage of the hysterical incongruity of all that follows, as one-by-one Jerry convinces a group of similar non-Mr. Universe types to join him in his fool’s mission.
Brian Detlefs, who was preternaturally intense —scary, even— in Redhouse’s production of Assassins last fall, is warm and funny as the unemployed steelworker, with inflated if misguided ambitions. The fact that he is as convincing as a blue-collar Buffalo factory worker as he was FDR’s crazy, would-be killer shows the range of Detlefs’ considerable talents.
Jerry’s early partner-in-crime is his best pal, Dave Bukatinsky (John Bixler). Dave decides to help Jerry, who risks losing partial custody of his son Nathan (Gabe DiGenova).
Dave is having marital problems, but also has a long-term relationship with another close companion — his ever-present beer belly. The unemployed steel workers filling out the bill as the “Hot Metal” male striptease troupe include Noah “Horse” T. Simmons (Temar Underwood), Malcolm McGregor (Anthony Malchar), Harold Nichols (Stephfond Brunson) and Ethan Girard (Chris Baron).
Each man is equally inept at the assigned task and the group reflects a range of body types that would never turn a woman’s head, either out on the street or behind the footlights. However, each brings a particular talent or personal foible that The Full Monty score fully capitalizes on, with great songs featuring the cast members in-turn.
You Rule My World, Jerry’s hymn to his protruding stomach is hilarious, although Bixler is by no means flabby. This song also features Harold, proclaiming his love for his wife, who has absolutely no idea he has been pretending to go to the steel mill every day for the last six months. Horse is willing to play up the stereotype of the Big Black Man during his audition, while Ethan is a slightly deranged Donald O’Connor wannabe during his tryout. His pratfalls will surely make you exclaim out loud.
My personal favorite song in the show, Big Ass Rock, features Malcolm, Jerry and Dave and is the funniest song you will ever hear about assisted suicide — make that the only song you will likely every hear about assisted suicide. Malcolm is insecure and scrawny — the least likely man ever for a sexy strip show. Interestingly, Malchar steals almost every scene he is in and is the standout in the ensemble.
Accompanying their auditions and practice sessions on the piano is the blowsy, bigger-than-life character, Jeannette Burmeister (Tamaralee Shutt). She has “played for hoofers who can’t hoof and played for tone-deaf singers.” Nowhere, though, has she seen a less promising group of performers, as she tells them in Jeannette’s Showbiz Number. The men continue their singing, dancing and stripping rehearsals with some roadblocks in the way. The women in their lives, played by a group of talented, experienced local actresses, are in the dark about their plans and when they do learn about the show are not initially supportive.
The prospects look grim for the imminent performance. But as they say, “the show must go on.” The excitement rises and the stakes get higher for Jerry and his friends as The Full Monty moves closer to its ultimate number, Let It Go, where they do, in fact, let it go and do the real full monty — i.e. perform completely naked, if only for a split second. The lighting effects are supposed to be perfectly synchronized to avoid any actual X-rated moments. The timing was off by just tad in the performance I saw, giving a momentary glimpse of a few private parts. It’s all in good fun, however, and the entire premise of the show makes for a riotous, wildly entertaining evening. (The evening is longer for some, who opt in for the Chippendales pre-show, an additional ticket charge.)
The Full Monty is one of three independent British films in recent years that have been given a full-fledged mounting as a stage musical.
Kinky Boots was a hilarious 2005 film based on the true story of how a failing Northampton factory changed its product line from workman-like shoes to over-the-top sexy footwear for transvestites and drag queens. The Broadway version, with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and book by Harvey Fierstein, is currently in previews and is set for an April 4 opening night. Thus, the jury is not back yet on whether it will succeed.
The most lauded and, by far, the biggest success was Billy Elliot — a huge hit on London’s West End in 2005 and on Broadway in 2008, where is ran for more than three years and garnered numerous Tony Awards, including Best Musical. I was not as enamored of it as I had expected. Billy Elliot is about a young boy in a hard-scrapple mining town who shows an unexpected interest and talent in classical ballet. The 2000 film (with Jamie Bell) was quirky and endearing. The musical was loud, with discordantly incongruous production numbers and unneeded theatrical effects.
The Fully Monty was not as huge a blockbuster as Billy Elliot, running only two years and garnering multiple Tony Award nominations, but no wins. In my mind, nonetheless, The Full Monty is a better adaptation. It stays true to the essence of the film, adding musical numbers that enhance, not overwhelm, the story line. Like the original film, it’s a bit provocative and tender at the same time. It’s a terrific Broadway musical, with across-the-board great songs, fine choreography, and an ultimately heart-warming story.
First a film and then a Broadway contender, The Full Monty is now making another transition to community theater venues. Luckily for the Redhouse and Central New York audiences, Syracuse has talented male musical theater performers with the chutzpah to prance around in their boxer underwear.
Details Box:
What: The Full Monty, book by Terrance McNally, music and lyrics by David Yazbek
Who: Redhouse Arts Center, as part of the District Festival
Where: Empire Theater, NYS Fairgrounds, Syracuse
When: March 7, 2013
Remaining Performances: 8 p.m. March 8, 9, 17, 22; 2 p.m. March 16, 24
Length: Two hours and 45 minutes, one intermission
Tickets: $20. Call (315) 425-0405 or http://www.theredhouse.org/
Note: The Chippendales’ “Fifty Shades of Men Preshow” is optional and an additional $10.
Family guide: Brief male nudity, repeated sexual references
Mar. 8 Covey Theatre Company: Proof
The company mounts an elegant production of David Auburn's insightful play about the bonding of genius and insanity
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
Madness begets creativity and genius. And for a very particular, arcane branch of intelligence, youth and maleness beget math genius.
The intersection of these two common beliefs — that insanity and brilliance are intrinsically linked and that mathematical insight peaks early and mostly in male prodigies — is the inspiration for David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Proof, presented in this impeccable Covey Theatre production directed by Garrett Heater.
The main character, Catherine (Jodie Bova-Mele), speaks frequently of the phenomenon of mathematical insight being considered a male purview. “They think math is a young man’s game,” she tells grad student, Hal (Nick Barbato). “Really original work — it’s all young guys,” affirms Hal.
Catherine and Hal could very well have been channeling mathematician G. H. Hardy, who famously wrote, “No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man’s game.”
Throw in a touch of madness and you might get even more of a spark of genius, à la John Forbes Nash’s A Brilliant Mind fame. Nash completed his Ph.D. at the age of 22, founded the field of game theory and has suffered from lifelong schizophrenia. Kay Redfield Jamison, who has coped with manic-depression, also charted the links between that illness and artistic inspiration and virtuosity in her book Touched With Fire.
In Proof, Catherine knows both those states — creative genius and insanity — far too well. She is the daughter of a ground-breaking mathematician who made “major contributions to three fields: game theory, algebraic geometry and nonlinear operator theory” while in his early twenties. Unfortunately, he very shortly afterwards “went bughouse,” descending into decades of mental illness.
Her father, Robert (Edward Mastin), spent years reading nonsensical messages in “piles of leaves and steam coming off cups of coffee” — real get out the tinfoil hats kind of behavior. That would have been a tragedy in itself, had not his illness caused Catherine’s potential academic pursuits (and life) to go totally off the rails, as well.
Proof, which won the 2001 Tony Award for best play, is set in three different time periods. Most of the action takes place after Robert’s death. A couple of scenes take place during the one lucid period he had in the midst of his tragic decline. In the shifting chronology of the play we learn that Catherine left a promising career at Northwestern. We also learn that Robert left copious notes — the result of a severe case of ongoing graphomania — which may or may not contain an extraordinary mathematical proof with the potential to bring instant professional recognition and worldwide fame to the discoverer.
While her sister Claire (Shannon Tompkins) had escaped to New York City, immersing herself in the successful business world, Catherine continues to stay in the shabby, falling-apart house to tend to Robert. That Catherine seems certifiably mentally ill herself is no surprise. Who wouldn’t be depressed after taking over the complete care of the gifted (but lunatic) parent whom you adore? She is sometimes near-catatonic, sleeping the days away. When up and about, Catherine is alternatively combative, arguing with her sister who is home for the funeral, and accusatory with Hal, who has come to scour Robert’s papers for evidence of the man’s earlier mathematical prowess.
Bova-Mele, who being in eight of the nine scenes is almost never off-stage, is the emotional heart of the drama. Catherine may be mathematically gifted. She also may have inherited the flip side of the genius coin from her father. Catherine is intelligent and talented, but she has been isolated and is in sore need of deep, human connection and empathy. The burden Catherine has borne is palpable in Bova-Mele’s flawless performance.
Reaching out to her is Hal, whom we learn had an earlier interaction with both father and daughter earlier in his graduate student career. As Hal, Barbato (soon to begin an acting MFA at Case Western Reserve University) shows Catherine that he is much more than the stereotypical “geek, nerd, wonk, dweeb, dilbert, paste-eater” that he may first appear to be.
That clever and humorous description highlights one of the unexpected pleasures of Auburn’s play. Proof may deal with such high-brown concepts as mathematical proofs and the challenges of Ph.D. programs, but it is not without humor. A recurring joke involves the pretentiousness of foodies. Robert quips, “Pasta is a euphemism when they get sick of eating spaghetti.” Robert’s description of the taste and origin of Chicago’s beer is also priceless and hilarious.
Robert’s interactions with Catherine are painfully touching and moving. In one heartbreaking scene, we sense with dread Catherine’s growing awareness that her beloved, highly respected professor of a father is again slipping away. The passage in which Catherine reads from one of Robert’s ever-present notebooks is the deeply poignant highlight of the evening.
The only uneven cast member is Thompkins, who may have the least enviable role. She is, of necessity, the one grounded, practical person, called upon to make hard choices after Robert’s death. What to to with the old family house? What to do with the sister who seems to be potentially heading for the “bughouse” herself? What to do with the math whiz who shows up at the doorstep and may be trying to secure his own trajectory on someone else’s equations? All of those responsibilities weigh heavily on Claire, but Thompkins, unfortunately, sometimes decries these concerns in shrill, pitchy tones. For the most part, though, she is believable and sympathetic as the beleaguered older sister.
Near the end of this fascinating, wonderfully acted play, Catherine describles what an excellent mathematical proof should be like: “Not lumpy. Not stitched together. No approximations. Elegant.”
That’s exactly what this production is: Elegant. A brilliantly conceived and delivered Proof.
Details Box:
What: Proof, by Robert Auburn
Who: The Covey Theatre Company
Where: Bevard Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center, Syracuse
When: March 8, 2013
Length: Two hours and 10 minutes, one intermission
Remaining performances: 8 p.m. March 15 and 16
Tickets: $21. Call 315-420-3729 or www.thecoveytheatrecompany.com/
Family guide: Nothing objectionable; esoteric subject matter
Mar. 8 Syracuse Stage/SU Drama: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Hey — once you hear jokes with punch lines in iambic pentameter, you never go back…
By Malkiel Choseed
http://cnycafemomus.com/Malkiel_Choseed.html
The decision to put on a Shakespeare production comes with risk. If it is one of the popular plays, how do you make it new? After all, you’re competing with 400+ years’ worth of productions, not to mention movies and television adaptations. And if it’s not one of the popular plays, how do you make it understandable? Now consider that all this has to be done through the filter of Elizabethan English — something that has daunted generations of high school and college students.
The greatest risk, however, is that of alienating your audience, of separating them from the real human interaction and range of emotions through concealing layers of costumes, accents, strange words and all sorts of other effects, special or otherwise. The most recent Syracuse Stage/SU Drama Department co-production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (AMND) manages this very difficult task. It presents a wonderful staging of the play that is at once new and interesting, accessible yet challenging.
The plot of AMND is deceptively simple. Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is preparing for his wedding with Hippolyta. This provides a frame narrative through which three other stories are told. Four young people entangled in a love triangle (or is it quadrangle?), as well as the King and Queen of the fairies, intersect with the overarching storyline. Additionally, the “Mechanicals” are rehearsing a play to celebrate the Duke’s wedding. When the humans go to the forest they interact with the fairies. Confusion and comedy result.
The play begins with a bare stage, lights down. A young woman lays motionless on a simple slab suspended from the ceiling, practically floating in shadow. A man enters stage left; the play begins. As the play goes on, the set is transformed through simple additions or subtractions of props handled by the characters themselves, making transitions between acts and scenes seamless. The complex action and constantly changing locations now blend into a coherent narrative. This is indicative of the approach that Director Bill Fennelly and his creative team have taken with this complex subject matter. Their choices blend the traditional and the new, the established and the avant-garde, with great skill and effect.
Fennelly writes in the Director’s Note that he was “excited about creating a production that would resonate to a contemporary Syracuse audience.” The fact that he is successful says as much about his actors as it does his vision. They say that doing comedy is more difficult than tragedy. Now imagine what it’s like when the jokes are 400+ years old and the punch lines are in iambic pentameter. To their credit, all the actors do a wonderful job making their delivery and lines meaningful for the audience. Sure the word choices and syntax might be strange — but it feels natural, like people talking. There are a few moments when actors (both the SU drama students and the professionals) lose their natural rhythm, breaking the illusion, but these are momentary and few and far between. The skills of John Pribyl as Bottom the Weaver ought to be pointed out here for special mention. His presence and masterful delivery had the audience laughing as soon as he stepped onstage.
The actors don’t just rely on their prodigious oral skills, however. They punctuate their dialogue with acrobatic pratfalls. This is slapstick humor at its best. In this production, the physical comedy, the complex plot and the spoken humor all work together to engage the audience. Look for David L. Townsend as Puck/Philostrate and Ethan Butler as Lysander to see prime examples of this.
It is clear that for Fennelly, AMND is fresh. He uses the play to explore complex themes and issue that, while present in the original, remain relevant today. We are treated to humorous but thought provoking examinations of love and gender roles in society (one of which is brought to life by the excellent Celia Madeoy as Francis Flute for example). The play is still fun, though. The observant audience member can also find allusions to contemporary pop culture, like The Matrix and John Cusack’s boom box scene in Say Anything.
This production shows us that great direction and great acting are only pieces of the puzzle. Lighting and sound, which when done right blend into the background, are also vital. This production has great examples of both. They work together to create a beautiful and believable world on the stage, with just enough shadow and darkness to let the characters and their dialogue fill in the details. Costume Designer Jessica Ford may have had the toughest job, though, in dressing the fairies. Duke Theseus is a soldier, Hippolyta an Amazonian queen. The Mechanicals are tradespeople, and the young lovers are just that — young. Once a time and place are decided upon, it’s not difficult for the audience to understand the choice of costumes.
Ford’s decisions are interesting: Think Downton Abbey meets steampunk/fantasy, with color and design used to underscore physical and psychological location. But the fairies? This is another place where the baggage that AMND brings with it needs to be dealt with. Everyone knows what fairies are supposed to look like. The show has been done many times and in many ways, but I don’t think it has ever been done with slow motion, kung fu fighting, shower-pouf clad fairies before. It’s strange, even a bit off-putting at first, but it works.
Ultimately, the test for any contemporary production of a Shakespeare play is whether or not the audience is able to engage with the actors onstage. Do they cry at the sad parts? Do they feel anxious during the scary parts? Most importantly, do they laugh at the jokes? In this case, the answer is “Yes.” Overall, this production does it right.
Details Box:
What: Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Bill Fennelly
Who: Co-production of Syracuse Stage and the Syracuse University Drama Department
Where: Archbold Theater at Syracuse Stage, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
Performance reviewed: March 8, 2013
Remaining performances: Through March 31
Time: Two hours and 23 minutes, with one intermission
Tickets: $30 - $51; $30 under 40 years of age; $18 under 18 and college students; call 443-3275 or visit www.syracusestage.org
Family guide: Some adult situations/sexually themed humor
Mar. 2 Met simulcast: Parsifal
François Girard’s symbolist rendition of Wagner’s morality play offers ample room for interpretation, but little insight into the composer’s mystifying libretto
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
François Girard’s daring new Metropolitan Opera production of Parsifal, a joint venture with Ópera National de Lyon and Canadian Opera Company timed to commemorate Richard Wagner’s 200th birthday, raises more questions than it answers. And that’s a fitting birthday gift for the composer of one of the most enigmatic plots in opera repertory.
Certainly, the Met’s superlative display of orchestral and vocal splendor in the current production achieved a musical tour de force that will likely be remembered for years to come. Whether posterity will look as kindly upon Girard’s vague, symbolist staging remains to be seen.
The music to Parsifal, like so many Wagnerian music dramas, combines evocative leitmotifs, sweeping chromatic lyricism, endless spinning out of melodic material and dramatic orchestral effects such as tremolos, widely arched arpeggios and disquieting diminished-seventh chords. This musical amalgam spins out in seemingly endless fashion, as if gushing from a faucet whose shut-off valve is beyond reach. From a purely visual perspective, however, Parsifal is a static experience.
Dramatic action throughout the work is largely contemplative and ritualistic, with protracted monologues that direct the listener’s attention to a single character while those not doing the singing wander about the stage aimlessly. There are no battles to be found here, nor duels or fighting of any kind to break the inertia. The only character to die of anything other than natural causes is a swan. All in all, there’s simply not enough stage action here to balance out the opera’s potent music.
Then again, Wagner never intended Parsifal as dramatic entertainment. He labeled his final operatic effort a Bühnenweihfestspiel, or consecrational festival-play, designed for (and intended by the composer to be limited to) the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. At the center of the drama, loosely based on a poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach, are the Knights of the Holy Grail who are charged with guarding the Grail (the challis from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper), as well as the spear used to kill him at the cross. Wagner, who also wrote the libretto, then hammers out the Christian morality theme of spiritual redemption through sacrifice and compassion with evangelical fervor.
Girard, who has denied espousing Christian orthodoxy in the present production, appears to distance himself from Wagner’s rhetoric. The director sheds the story’s medieval baggage and transposes the characters to contemporary society, with modern dress that includes white shirts, slacks, coats, eyeglasses and wristwatches. Throughout the mammoth morality play he uses symbolist (and at times surreal) imagery to invite additional avenues of interpretation from those drawn from Wagner’s verbose and at times contradictory libretto.
To a large extent, Girard’s offering of competing interpretations is a refreshing change from prior productions of this opera. And, to be sure, the mere act of trying to unravel the many visual conundrums here gives the listener much to ponder. Still, five and one-half hours of indoctrination — be it in a church, an opera house or at the cinema — is not everybody’s idea of a pleasant afternoon at the theater. And in the end, it’s Wagner’s message, and not Girard’s, that comes through loud and clear.
The great advantage of Girard’s approach to Parsifal is that no one can tell for sure what he’s trying to say. He cannot be pinned down to an unpopular interpretation. This is especially apparent in Peter Flaherty’s mysterious and suggestive video projections that illuminate the set’s backdrop, which are left intentionally vague.
The projected images form the nucleus of Girard’s sets. Shapes and figures that begin as clouds soon morph into indistinct and cryptic looking objects. Are they planets? Objects in outer space? Images sent to Earth from the Mars Rover? At times the open-ended, ambiguous imagery recalls Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Opinions on the images vary from close-ups of naked bodies to moonscapes and planetary eclipses. I’m pretty sure I saw the face of Jesus on a cheese sandwich.
Elsewhere, Girard’s imagery is decidedly more surreal — such as the pervasive lake of blood (some 16,000 gallons of liquid, I am told) that covers a large part of the stage floor in Act 2 and soon begins to permeate the characters’ bodies and clothing, from the evil Klingsor’s blood-soaked hair to the bottoms of the while gowns adorned by the Flower Maidens. This might have made sense if Klingsor was cast as a vampire. I thought the obscene amounts of water and Red Dye No. 2 required to accomplish the effect was wasteful and superfluous.
Whatever audiences may have felt about the staging of this production, when it came to the singing and instrumental efforts all appeared united within a single religious ritual of expression: praise.
As the “Innocent Fool,” Parsifal, Jonas Kaufmann played his part to perfection. He looked duly bewildered and clueless when we first see him wandering into Monsalvat in Act I, blissfully unaware of the consequences of killing a swan with his bow and arrow. When Gurnemanz (René Pape) chided the newcomer over his killing of the innocent creature, Kaufmann looked like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar. By Act 2 Kaufmann’s character morphed into a warrior fighting on the side of goodness, and while the handsome and bare-chested young man enjoyed flirting with the Flower Maidens, his steadfast rejection of Kundry’s attempts to seduce him fulfilled the prophesy. Parsifal may be innocent, but he’s no fool.
The German tenor’s powerful voice, which some may recall from Robert Lepage’s 2011 Met production of Die Walküre (Sigmund), was big, strong and commanding in its delivery. His deeply expressive tenor, which resonated with deep overtones (that to my ears tests the borders betwen tenor and baritone) was a treat to behold, and his voice grew stronger throughout the lengthy role, culminating in his best efforts during Act 3.
As Amfortas, the wounded leader of the Knights of the Holy Grail, Peter Mattei delivered a singularly mesmerizing performance, both as an actor and as a singer. The Swedish baritone, until now better known perhaps to New York audiences for his Mozart roles (Don Giovanni, Figaro) than Wagner, demonstrated tremendous staying power, resolve and sheer strength in his first act lament Wehvolles Erbe, and sang with deep expression that added weight and credence to his character’s overwhelming guilt at having sinned under the spell of Kundry. Mattei’s agonizing deportment on stage, laden with an open wound that can never heal, was infectious: I winced in pain at every convoluted movement of his body.
Along with Mattei and Kaufmann, René Pape as Gurnemanz rounded out a triumvirate of first-rate singers that defines the present Parsifal as one for the ages. The role of Gurnemanz — the ranking guard of the Knights of the Grail from whose lips most of the story line unfolds — can sorely test the listener’s patience. But Pape, both as an actor and as a singer, injected a sense of urgency and purpose into the role through stylistic contrasts that ranged from anger and outrage to kindheartedness and forgiveness. (Of all the characters, Gurnemanz is the most compassionate towards Kundry.)
Pape’s penetrating bass, which early on in the first act sounded just a bit tight in the upper register, quickly settled in to cruise control and showed no signs of tiring in the final act. I dare say he appeared to be ready to sing an encore when he took his curtain call, responding gleefully to the solid voicing of approval by the huge Lincoln Center crowd.
As the only female lead, Katarina Dalayman forged a cunningly pernicious yet sympathetic sorceress-mortal, Kundry, the reluctant villainess burdened by the enormous weight of a past transgression who now longs for peace and eternal rest.
Dalayman captured her character's state of nervous agitation in Act 1 well, wringing her hands incessantly in the manner of Lady Macbeth — whose symbolic blood on the hands cannot be washed away, either. The Swedish dramatic soprano’s seduction scene in Act 2 was masterfully balanced as part mother figure and would-be coach to the young man’s sexual awakening. Although I struggled at times to decipher her German diction, Dalayman’s strong vocal presence in Ich sah das Kind an seinem Mutter Brust cut through the thickly orchestrated music, and her high register soared in tandem with her rage when Parsifal stubbornly refuses her advances. Even in Act 3, where she has little to sing, Dalayman’s presence is impossible to ignore.
Evgeny Nikitin as the evil sorcerer Klingsor sounded a bit rough in voice during Act 2 and appeared slightly hoarse in his high register. The controversial Russian bass-baritone nevertheless looked devilishly wicked as he repeatedly stroked his blood-soaked hair. Nikitin, you may remember, was slated to sing the title role in Der Fliegende Holländer at last year’s Bayreuth Festival, but was forced to withdraw when photographs of swastikas tattooed to his chest were distributed in the media. (Nikitin has since denied being a Nazi sympathizer.)
The Met Orchestra was clearly in top form throughout the long afternoon. Even with quadruple winds, pitch and intonation among the woodwinds was outstanding right down the line — from the leitmotifs of the opening prelude to the final curtain. The string sections was equally impressive, especially in the extreme high registers, while the brass section — which bore much of the weight of Wagner’s commanding tutti forte sections — played with guts and gusto. Donald Palumbo’s Met Opera Chorus was equally up to task, both on- and off-stage.
Conductor Daniele Gatti, who directed this colossal score entirely from memory, favored slow and deliberate tempos through much of the instrumental sections of this work — such as the Prelude to Act 1, whose dramatic pauses lent a suitable air of solemnity to the listening experience. My heart went out for emcee Eric Owens, who during one of the intermissions innocently asked Gatti to say a few words about Wagner’s score. The outraged conductor retorted “It’s not possible to describe this piece in a few words” (or something to that effect).
Barbara Willis Sweete’s creative camerawork during the simulcast captured a separate, if not parallel, artistic vision of the production. Gone were the unflattering mega-close-up shots of singers’ faces on the large screen, along with the obtrusive zooming in-and-out of the action better suited perhaps to the MTV crowd than operatic audiences. The camerawork forged a complementary perspective of Michael Levine’s mammoth set that enhanced the visual experience. I especially enjoyed the floor cameras that angled up from Renée Pape’s legs, body and head to the cloudy skies above — a technique often used to good effect by American film director John Ford.
Like it or not, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Met productions of late are geared more towards virtual audiences than stage audiences — at least for those operas slated for HD simulcast. This trend is likely to continue under Peter Gelb.
Whether Saturday’s artistically inspired camerawork efforts signal a new era in Met simulcasts remains to be seen. But for now, at least, it seems clear that Gelb’s vision of bringing opera to the masses is benefitting greatly from recent advances in videography production technology.
That, and years of trial and error.
Details Box:
What: Wagner’s Parsifal, Simulcast Live in HD
When: March 2, 2013
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Time: 5 hours and 40 minutes hours, including two intermissions
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore presentation: 6:30 p.m. EST, Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Feb. 15 SU Drama: Top Girls
But you’ll need to work hard to follow this SU Drama production of Caryl Churchill’s non-linear play about women and power in the workplace
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
Top Girls is top-heavy, making for a challenging evening for theatergoers.
The first act of the play by British playwright Caryl Churchill is audacious, creative and unusual. It is also dense and hard to understand, both literally and metaphorically, and seems to bear no real relationship with the play’s remaining two acts.
Syracuse University Drama’s press materials state that Top Girls “famously opens with Marlene’s fantastic dinner party… with women from myth and history.” The program notes from director Timothy Davis-Reed, a Syracuse University drama professor, also point out that Churchill “has expressed that she wrote it with the intention that the audience work to understand the story.”
And work is what the audience must do — in part because of the opaque and avante garde first act, and in part because of the Top Girls’ non-linear chronology.
In Act I, largely obscure and random women join the main character, Marlene, at a restaurant dinner party as she celebrates her promotion to general manager of a London employment agency. Some of the dinner guests are actual historical figures: Pope Joan, a woman who very likely served as Pope for several years in the 9th Century; Isabella Bird, the Victorian traveler and natural historian; and Lady Nijo, the concubine of Japanese Emperor Go-Fukakusa. Some are fictional: Dull Gret (sometimes known as Mad Meg), a character in Flemish folklore and the subject of a 16th Century painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder; and Patient Griselda, pulled from the pages of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
While the viewer is muddling through this juxtaposition of incongruent characters, the narrative arc rolls backwards in time much like Harold Pinter’s Betrayal — only without that play’s focus and intensity.
The unadorned plot line is fairly simple and accessible. It is the story of two sisters, one of whom went on to success in the big city (London) and the other who settled for a life of drab routine in rural East Anglia. Marlene (Mary Ann Pianka) is confident and colorful as the urban sister who continues to progress up the career ladder. Joyce (Alyssa Castellano, also playing Isabella Bird) is unhappy and put-upon in her working class surroundings. Joyce’s teenage daughter Angie (Jenna Fields) is hard to handle at home and aspires to be more like her cosmopolitan aunt.
Complicating the sisters’ relationship is a secret, which unfolds throughout the play as we travel back to Marlene’s roots. Top Girls does have its moments of deep emotion and poignancy — but not until the third act. The final moment, with just two of the characters onstage, is heart-rending and moving. The dynamic is starkly different from the odd, broad-ranging and disjointed first act.
In the program, Davis-Reed also lauds the young women in Top Girls for being “extraordinary young artists” and “truly exceptional young women.” His praise is well founded, for the eight young actresses for the most part tackle this challenging work with commendable ability. Most are called upon to play multiple roles and master several different accents. The first act in particular has long passages where two characters are talking over each other — hard for the audience to hear what is being said, but probably equally hard for the performers. (Kudos to dialect coach Holly Thuma.)
Jenna Fields says hardly a word as Dull Gret, but proves to be a revelation as the rebellious and yearning Angie. Likewise, Raven Gabrielle Perez has a nondescript role as a waitress in the restaurant scene, but then transforms into two other engaging characters, Kit and Shona.
Sumiko Cohen plays the Japanese courtesan and Nell. Whitney Crowder plays Griselda and Win, Emily Zinksi plays Pope Joan and Louise, and Chessie Santoro plays Jeanine and Mrs. Kidd. Most of the non-historical or non-literary women are either employees or applicants of the employment agency.
The various settings are presented with evocative costumes, creative set changes and even more impressive photographic projections. The entire design team, mostly made up of students, did an excellent job conveying the various locations — from the restaurant scene to the office and then to Joyce’s shabby home.
So why did Churchill craft two approaches to this story — the fantastic dinner party and the more prosaic family and employment agency interactions with Marlene? It’s hard to say. Griselda, Lady Nijo, Pope Joan and Griselda spend a good deal of time talking about the hardships of being at the mercy of more powerful men, including having children ripped from one's arms. Women’s choices were always limited, and in many time periods the options were brutal and tragic. Twentieth century women also face dilemmas: Should they try to “have it all” and attempt to be ambitious career women and perfect mothers? Or should they focus on one part of their lives, knowing full well they will risk failure in another aspect of being a woman?
These questions could easily have been asked, and eloquently answered, by focusing on Marlene, Joyce and Angie’s personal stories. Top Girls could be a transcendent commentary on the universality of the experience of being a woman — were it not weighted down by a largely unsatisfactory first act.
DETAILS BOX:
What: Top Girls, written by Caryl Churchill and directed by Timothy Davis-Reed
Who: Syracuse University Department of Drama
Where: Arthur Storch Theater, 820 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse
Performance reviewed: February 15, 2013
Remaining dates: 8 p.m. Feb. 20, 21, 22, 23; 2 p.m. Feb. 23, 24
Length: Two hours and 40 minutes, two intermissions
Tickets: $16 to $18. Call 315-443-3275 or http://vpa.syr.edu/drama
Family guide: Nothing objectionable
Feb. 16 Met simulcast: Rigoletto
Michael Mayer’s glitzy neon lights production, set in Rat Pack-era Sin City, proves a fitting backdrop for an opera about a curse
By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html
Director Michael Mayer has successfully filled an inside straight in moving the Metropolitan Opera’s new Rigoletto from 16th century Mantua to early ’60s Las Vegas.
Instead of a hunchback court jester, the Vegas Rigoletto is a waspish casino comic with only a bit of padding under the left shoulder of his sweater to suggest a very slight disability. That sweater is a red, orange, green and white horror in an argyle or Harlequin pattern, providing a single link to Verdi’s jester. This Rigoletto does not limp around, even when the rhythm of his music in Act Two (“La ra, la ra, la ra”) demands it.
The womanizing Duke of Mantua, now just “Duke,” is supposedly Frank Sinatra, the leader of the Rat Pack of entertainers who are more or less portrayed in this production (Dean Martin and Peter Lawford among them). He spends most of the opera in a white dinner jacket, surrounded by “courtiers” decked out in glittering dinner jackets of every hue, each in worse taste than the last.
The setting for the first two acts is a casino. Neon, whiskey bottles, dice tables and lounge chairs occupy the set. The third act moves to a house of prostitution with a private room and a pole for dancing. In a decision quite unlike Auntie Met, that pole had a lady slithering around it, naked from the waste up except for pasties hiding her nipples. (This is a non-singing part, in case you are new to this opera.)
The Met also permitted a slangy updating of the text translations used in the titling system. For the most part these titles conveyed the vernacular of the swinging sixties, although there was too much reliance on “baby” and such howlers as “you send me to the moon.”
Mayer deserves great praise for making sense of a scene that misfires in every other production of this opera I have seen: the kidnapping of Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda from her house. This is usually done with a ladder and men in masks on a dark stage. When Rigoletto blunders unwittingly into the scene, the kidnappers blindfold him, spin him around a few times and then set him to work helping in the abduction of his own daughter. This always misfires.
In Mayer’s conception, Rigoletto lives with Gilda in a high-rise apartment building at stage left that is adjacent to the casino. At stage right is a second high rise, identical in appearance. This time when Rigoletto comes upon the scene, the kidnappers send him up the elevator of the other high rise to kidnap a different woman. By the time he realizes the others are not joining him in this caper and descends, they have snatched Gilda, leaving her guardian drugged, bound, and lying on the elevator floor.
Two miscalculations by Mayer keep this production from being a royal flush. The first puzzler is that the curse against Rigoletto is delivered by an Arab sheikh (still named, inexplicably, “Monterone”). This introduces religious and political issues into the opera that are a distraction, and wholly unnecessary. Monterone could just as well have been a gangster whose daughter the Duke has seduced. An angry father is an angry father — Arab or Italian.
The second is the curse itself. While being cursed in 16th century Mantua may have had a devastating psychological effect, it is hard to imagine that this lounge comic in Vegas is going to be unhinged by one. The Duke and his pals were probably cursing everyone all the time, and much worse. Given that the curse (la maledizione) is at the center of the story and is the last word Rigoletto sings when his beloved Gilda dies, it doesn’t carry the ominous meaning suggested in the music. Perhaps if Mayer had set the opera in a religious community where curse words are a sin, it might have meant something. But he didn’t.
Still, it was fun — not that the Vegas setting shed any new light on this warhorse. Indeed, despite interviewer Renée Fleming’s leading questions during the intermissions, neither Diana Damrau (Gilda) nor Željko Lučić (Rigoletto) would be baited into admitting that the Vegas setting had made them look any differently at these roles. They should be praised for their honesty — although Mayer and Peter Gelb, the Met’s General Manager, were no doubt hoping for different responses.
Vocally there was much to admire. As Gilda, Diana Damrau offered power and impeccable intonation. Her voice is weightier, but no less agile, than those of Roberta Peters or Reri Grist, two quite different Gildas. The part seems easy for Damrau. Caro Nome was carefully phrased and made a strong impression, and she was rewarded with the largest ovation of the afternoon. She has become too matronly for the virgin Gilda, so this was not the best casting choice for HD, but as a singer she cannot be faulted.
Tenor Piotr Beczala was having fun as Duke, or the Duke. La donna e mobile was tossed off with swagger, and he concluded it by swinging around that pole in Sparafucile’s brothel. His voice reminds me of Nicolai Gedda’s, another non-Italian who was a successful Duke. Beczala is a handsome man with an open face and great stage presence. He is made for the close-ups of these HD telecasts.
The best singing came from the Sparafucile of bass Štefan Kocán. His voice is deeply black with a sinister character that matches his snake-like characterization. (He will be singing Konchak in the Met’s new Prince Igor in the 2013-14 season.) The scene in Act One when he introduces himself to Rigoletto and offers his services as an assassin was chilling, helped along by the believable after-hours setting at the casino bar.
Oksana Volkova as Maddalena, Sparafucile’s prostitute sister, has legs that never quit and a smoldering middle-European pout, but her voice was a size too small for the part.
That is also one problem for Lučić’s Rigoletto. His baritone is on the dry side, and he sometimes sang flat. However, he is very experienced and had the measure of this part. But Cortigiani, vil razza dannata, when he damns the rat packers who kidnapped Gilda, lacked frenzy, and the farewell to his dying daughter lacked pathos. He does not act with his face, and the HD close-ups did him no favors. His facial expressions often did not match his words, and his singing could be too smooth. Rigoletto has to snarl and howl, even in Las Vegas.
The young conductor Michele Mariotti kept things moving quickly, and coordination between the stage and the pit seemed exemplary.
Christine Jones designed the casino set, and Susan Hilferty provided costumes that extended its Vegas glitz. The neon was courtesy of lighting director Kevin Adams, who used it to good effect in the storm scene in Act Three.
In sum, Mayer has dealt the Met a winning hand with this Rigoletto, one that should appeal to audiences for at least the next decade.
Details Box:
What: Verdi’s Rigoletto, Simulcast Live in HD
When: February 16, 2013
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Time: About three hours and 30 minutes, including two intermissions
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
U.S. Encore: 6:30 p.m. EST March 6, 2013
Feb. 2 Syracuse Stage: Two Trains Running
‘Two Trains Running’ leaves the station with humor, reaches destination with self-discovery
Timothy Bond’s Syracuse Stage production finds the right balance between the play’s humorous elements and its powerful message
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
They say laughter is the best medicine. Whether it can ease the pain African-Americans have suffered these past three and a half centuries is another matter.
Certainly, there’s lots to laugh about in Two Trains Running, August Wilson’s ethnocentric play set in 1969 that features an oddball assortment of African-Americans who gather each day at Memphis Lee’s diner to drink coffee, shoot the breeze, philosophize, dole out advice (usually unsolicited), interpret their dreams and play the numbers. Each of the seven characters is genuinely funny in his or her own way. Taken together, they form a tightly knit ensemble that could rival the characters in Seinfeld or Cheers.
It would be a mistake, nevertheless, to call this play a comedy. The African-American playwright uses humor not as an end in itself, but rather as a means to an end — a tool to help drive home a message. Indeed, when conversation at the diner turns from mundane bantering to matters of individual rights and freedoms, the play takes on a different guise as the audience begins to re-process the playwright’s signals.
Like its sister stories in Wilson’s 10-play 20th Century Cycle, Two Trains Running contains political overtones. Its enigmatic title comes from a blues song (“Two trains running, neither going my way”), an allusion no doubt to minorities who have had the ladder of success pulled out from beneath their feet by the ruling establishment. Nor are the “trains” going the way of the decaying Hill District of Pittsburgh, where the story is set — a microcosm of countless African-American urban communities in the late ’60s, inhabited by impoverished residents living shattered dreams and disillusioned by a Civil Rights Movement that had failed to make good on its promises.
Wilson offers no cure for the African-American society’s ills in Two Trains Running. Instead he raises the questions that need to be addressed if progress is to be made. Time and time again his characters are faced with a question that requires them to make a choice: Do you take the train society offers you knowing full well it will not take you where you want to go, or do you stand firm and hold out for what you deserve?
This question unfolds naively at first, in the guise of a running joke with Hambone (no one knows his real name), a mentally challenged former painter now down on his luck and on welfare. The man is so-named because the extent of his vocabulary has been reduced to a single phrase: “I want my ham. He gonna give me my ham.” Hambone (Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr.) had agreed to paint a fence some 10 years back for the community butcher, Lutz, in return for a chicken. Lutz had told him that if the job came out well he’d give a ham, instead. When the job was completed Lutz offered Hambone a chicken, which Hambone refused. Every morning for 9 and one-half years afterwards, Hambone chanted that same phrase obsessively, carrying it from Lutz’s grocery to the diner and back again, day after day after day.
Hambone’s rage appears silly to the others, but before long a steady crescendo builds among other regulars in the diner who one way or another find themselves similarly situated, at least metaphorically.
Memphis stands to lose his diner due to eminent domain, and although he values his property at $25,000 the city is offering only $15,000. Worse yet, Memphis — prior to relocating to Pittsburgh — had been robbed of his farm in Jackson, Mississippi through a gross miscarriage of justice. Little by little, Memphis begins obsessing over the idea of returning to Jackson to reclaim what’s rightly his.
He, too, is unwilling to settle for the chicken.
The ultimate message of the play is that in White America, African-Americans must be willing to build their own railroad to get what rightly belongs to them. The trains provided by the ruling establishment, to paraphrase Wilson, “don’t go where the black man need to go.”
The standout among a well-balanced ensemble of seven actors is G. Valmont Thomas, whose Memphis is at once believable as the proud, self-made man who perseveres in the face of never-ending personal and professional setbacks and repeated adversity. Thomas’s transformation from victim to a man empowered to “build his own railroad” was convincing.
Robert Manning, Jr. played the part of Sterling, the misguided young man recently released from prison and now looking for a job — or better yet, a winning number. Although Manning appeared overly enthusiastic at times in the quest to capture his character’s impulsive behavior, he forged a satisfactory balance of naivety and impetuosity: one prone to making snap decisions without considering the consequences.
As Holloway, the diner’s oldest, wisest and most jaded character, Abdul Salaam El Razzac captured the persona of a man who had been battling injustice for the better part of his 65 years. Razzac’s character, battered by the scars of oppression, carried the look of battle fatigue on his face as proudly as a wounded soldier showing off his Purple Heart. Holloway, who credits his longevity to a willingness to embrace the paranormal, tells the others he receives counseling from Aunt Ester — a woman of 349 years (she doesn’t look a day older than 322, we are told) who advises him on everything, with the possible exception of tomorrow’s winning numbers. Ester is never actually seen in the play, but her spiritual presence represents the collective lessons learned by African-Americans from the time they arrived in Jamestown as slaves in 1610 (which explains her advanced age). For all his good acting, Razzac nevertheless spoke far too softly through most of the production, and the ends of his sentences often tapered off to “barely audible.”
Leland Gantt, as the slick and smoothly mannered neighborhood numbers runner, Wolf, was outfitted in such a manner as to resemble Sportin’ Life from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Although Gantt flubbed his lines on two occasions, he had charisma, and his colorful presence at the diner was always a welcome sight. William Hall, Jr. was suitably unctuous and socially aloof as West — the well-to-do community undertaker who represents the successful African-American businessman who, somewhere along the way, had forgotten his roots.
As Hambone, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. exuded perhaps just a bit too much anger and rage for a man who had been wronged 10 years ago. The actor’s turbocharged performance frequently placed him on the verge of physical violence, which belied his character’s image as a harmless eccentric battling a personal injustice.
As the only female role in the play, Erika La Vonn as Risa was outstanding as the depressed and emotionally vacuous waitress who years ago had disfigured her legs with a knife so as not to attract would-be suitors. Slinking around the diner at a snail’s pace wearing an empty gaze and an expressionless face, Vonn evoked an image of the Bride of Frankenstein tethered to a coffee pot.
Risa is mistreated by Memphis (and, to a lesser extent, by the other men in the play with the exception of Sterling — who has a romantic interest in her). Shabby treatment of women appears to be a common thread in Wilson’s plays, and is disturbing to the sensibilities of today’s audiences. It must be remembered, however, that this regrettable state of affairs mirrored the reality surrounding African-American men’s treatment of women at the time of the story.
Almost everything in this production bears the mark of Director Timothy Bond, who in 2005 — and with August Wilson by his side — vowed to direct all 10 plays in the 20th Century Cycle. Bond’s commitment to the 20th Century Cycle project is at once evident in the great attention to detail in all facets of this production, including the set, props and costumes. Most impressive, perhaps, is the strong ensemble interaction Bond drew from the seven actors.
Scenic Designer William Bloodgood’s irresistible set gave Memphis’s diner the look and feel of today’s Johnny Rockets retro-themed ’60s diner. And my, what a jukebox! Several times during the play I was sorely tempted to jump onstage, seat myself at the counter and chow down a bowl of beans. Together, Bloodgood and Bond fashioned the feel and flavor of a hometown diner, and those regular customers who frequented it, that projects a faithful “slice of life” of the Black experience in urban America around 50 years ago.
If this sounds like a place you’d like to visit, I know just the train to take you there…
Details Box:
What: Two Trains Running, by August Wilson
Who: Syracuse Stage, directed by Timothy Bond
Where: Archibold Theatre at Syracuse Stage, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: February 2, 2013
Remaining performances: Plays through February 17
Time: Three hours, including one intermission
Tickets: $30 through $51, general; $18 under age 19; $30 under age 40; call 443-3275 or visit www.syracusestage.org
Family guide: Adult themes, language some may find offensive (N-word)
Jan 31 Famous Artists Broadway: Blue Man Group
Offbeat props in this whacky techno-comedy include Twinkies, toilet paper and gobs of paint. Oh, and better bring ear-plugs and sunglasses
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
You can see, hear and feel Blue Man Group performing an expansive, neon bright and percussively loud show in its three-day run in Syracuse.
The group of three oddly-colored men who speak nary a word and do not break from a single impassive expressive for close to two hours managed to fill the Landmark Theater in a big way. At its heart an offbeat, experimental theater troupe with its origin in New York street performances and off-off Broadway spaces, Blue Man Group has expanded into a cultural powerhouse, capable of packing the seats of Las Vegas venues and huge auditoriums with eager audiences and delivering with a unique, multi-sensory extravaganza.
I first saw Blue Man Group some 10 years ago at its home base: the narrow and rather low-ceilinged Astor Place Theatre in New York’s trendy NoHo neighborhood. I wondered how the quirky performance would translate in the massive and historic Landmark Theatre in Syracuse. It does so, mostly successfully, by amping up the volume and cranking up the special effects.
Founded in 1987 by longtime friends Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, and Chris Wink, Blue Man Group currently has “theatrical and digital media operations across four continents, permanent live performance installations in seven cities, an ongoing theatrical tour of the USA and Canada, as well as a highly acclaimed show on Norwegian Cruise Line's Epic,” according to a company press release. The Blue Men in Syracuse are Kalen Allmandinger, Shane Andries, James Marlowe, Patrick Newton, Russell Rinker and Chris Smith, of whom just three perform at any given show.
The Syracuse production features many of Blue Man Group’s expected set pieces, which make ingenious use of everyday items such as various lengths of PVC pipe, marshmallows, Captain Crunch cereal and — in one extended piece with a good-natured female participant from the audience — Twinkies. Catching marshmallows with your mouth might not sound all that engrossing, but it is absolutely captivating when done by the Blue Man Group. In this case, the Blue Man at the receiving end is completely across the stage and manages to hold not one or two, but what seems like a couple dozen in his mouth (later reappearing in hilarious fashion).
Watching three men drum on the stage turns into an amazing visual experience, as the drums are lit from the bottom and the Blue Men pound and splash gobs of paint in primary colors high into the air in cascades of brilliant droplets. For this reason, the people in the first few rows of the audience are provided with plastic ponchos. Innovative, catchy melodies are created by banging and tapping different configurations of the large plastic pipe, with a trombone-like effect when two pieces are extended and contracted. Like the paint-splatter drumming sequences, this makes you want to tap your feet along with the powerful rhythm.
The noise-making is augmented (and at times drowned out) by the day-glow, skeleton-wearing stage band featuring Charles Henry, Jerry Kops, Chris Reiss, Rion Smith, Clement J. Waldman III and Fayetteville native Randy Wooten. Those with sensitive ears may want to bring ear plugs. You can feel the reverberation of the beats at the bottom of your throat and into your chest — quite a tactile effect.
Those with sensitive eyes may want to occasionally don sunglasses, as some of the more techno-numbers feature massive video set pieces such as giant cell phones and flashy electric visual effects. These are bright, but also fairly involved and interesting, such as a sequence with gigantic DNA double-helixes and another explaining how the color and light-sensing rods and cones of the retina function.
For all the sensory overload, Blue Man Group is not without whimsy. They may be silent and monochromatic — but they can convey hurt, wonder and other emotions with just the slightest tip of the head or hand gesture. Some particularly droll bits occurred during the Twinkie number, as the Blue Men with a very game member of the audience consumed a snack treat, at first delicately with knife and fork and later quite grossly. I wondered: Did the company buy up a large reserve of this iconic American junk food when Hostess declared bankruptcy back in November? Another part incorporating an audience member involved the creation of a large piece of original artwork in a very unusual and physical manner.
At times I wished I were back at the Astor Place Theater, or at the very least in one of the prime seats near the front orchestra. The show slowed down to a crawl when the three performers in their distinctive black uniforms and blue hands and heads went out into the audience. Fun, if you happened to be close to them and got to experience the frisson of interaction with an actual live performer. Not so much fun if you, like 80 percent of the people in the large theater, were so far away that the only way you could experience this “personal” interaction was by seeing it projected onto the screen at the back of the stage.
The most memorable part of the original New York City show is the famed “toilet paper finale.” At the NoHo performance space, I couldn’t figure out why the Blue Men were suddenly bounding across the theatre, climbing atop the back of our seats. They reached up and pulled down the ends of numerous industrial-sized rolls of toilet paper, which you could then unspool and throw back at the Blue Men and other people in the theatre. This was intrinsically and cathartically enjoyable — doing something so silly and wasteful that mothers always yell at their children not to do.
Here in the touring production, the finale did feature long strands of paper shot out from the stage onto the first few rows. In addition, gigantic, ethereally-lit fabric balls were thrown into the audience. (I want one and can envision it being the centerpiece of a great backyard party!) Again, most of us could only Oooohh and Aaahhh and hope, to no avail, that one would be tossed back into the nether-reaches near our eagerly outstretched hands.
That small disappointment aside, I left the theater completely invigorated, upbeat, jazzed up and entranced by the originality of Blue Man Group.
DETAILS BOX:
What: Blue Man Group, written and directed by Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, and Chris Wink
Who: Famous Artists Broadway
When: January 31, 2013
Next: 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. February 2; and 1 p.m. February 3
Length: About one hour and forty minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $30 to $57. Call (315) 424-8210 or http://www.famousartistsbroadway.com/
Family guide: Intensely loud percussion and often excessively bright lights.
Jan. 19 Met simulcast: Maria Stuarda
Dramatically speaking, Donizetti’s opera is little more than a conventional love triangle topped with an execution
By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html
The Metropolitan Opera invested all its considerable resources in a new production of Gaetano Donizetti’s Tudor-Stuart drama, Maria Stuarda: Elizabethan costumes that must have cost the entire budget of a regional opera company; a production and sets faithful to the period; conductor Maurizio Benini, who can make this music sound more inventive than it is; and a leading mezzo, Joyce DiDonato, in the vehicle role of the doomed Mary Queen of Scots.
Everything, that is, except an opera worth mounting.
The libretto for Maria, according to the New Grove, is by Giuseppe Bardari. He wrote it at age 17, and it is the only libretto he ever wrote, fortunately. He went on to a career in the law and police work, including the position of Prefect of Police in Naples.
Bardari’s solution to filling an evening’s entertainment is two acts, each pointing to a single emotional peak. In the first scene of Act One, the foolish tenor Robert, Earl of Leicester, manipulates a young Queen Elizabeth into meeting with her rival Mary, imprisoned for her treasonous activities at Fotheringhay Castle. Leicester is aware he is loved by both women. His championing of the imprisoned Mary’s cause is sure to annoy Elizabeth, which it does.
This leads to the confrontation in the second scene of Act One between the two women, during which Mary refers to Elizabeth as the bastard child of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. While this meeting is historical fiction, it makes for some dramatic fireworks. Mary’s intemperate words seal her fate.
As confrontation scenes go, this one manages to raise the temperature on stage and inspires Donizetti beyond his usual note spinning, but it is a mere spat compared to some of the real confrontation scenes in opera: King Phillip and the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos, Ortrud and Elsa in Lohengrin; Renato and Amelia in A Masked Ball, for starters. That present-day music critics have made so much of this short royal catfight signals how barren this opera is of real dramatic and musical heat.
The second climax comes in the second scene of Act Two, when Mary receives news she is to be executed. She is comforted by her sympathetic jailer Talbot (the role for a bass), and then sings her way to the scaffold. While overlong and milked for every ounce of pity, the scene contains a lovely chorus of Mary’s supporters and provides DiDonato with the chance to sing her heart out before she loses her head.
The Met staged the run-up to the beheading dramatically. Mary shed her outer grey-black gown to reveal a blood-red simple shift. Under her wig was a head of grey hair. DiDonato mastered a Parkinson’s-like tremor in her right hand and face that made Mary even more pitiable. She turned and walked up a steep staircase to face an executioner the size of an NFL linebacker, holding a huge axe. Curtain.
And that’s it. The opera is little more than a conventional love triangle with a royal overlay and an execution. The tenor Leicester dithers between women and is a most unsympathetic wimp. Elizabeth is played as a lumbering, unlovely, troubled monarch with a great wardrobe. All the sympathy goes to Mary, which makes sense when one considers that Donizetti wrote the piece as a vehicle for a favorite singer, Giuseppina Ronzi De Begnis (according to the New Grove). She never got to sing it because censors objected to the plot.
That’s a problem with “vehicle” operas: they may show off an artist, as this one showcases DiDonato, but there is little else for the audience. Verdi might have made something of this story, as he did with another opera about a tenor in love with a queen: Don Carlos. He would have included some of the back-story of the contending historical forces between Tudors and Stuarts. He would have made more of the Anglican and Catholic split. Elizabeth would have been brought to life as a worthy foil to Mary. The confrontation would have been more complex, nuanced, and hair-raising, as is the face-off in Don Carlos between church and state.
But Verdi was a genius, and Donizetti was a craftsman, better at comic opera than serious, which is why this piece has justly moldered in the archives.
DiDonato was up to the challenge. Her face, presented in relentless HD close-ups, had the glow of a martyr. She floated and held some beautiful high notes in the final scene. Her voice was up to all the coloratura challenges.
As Leicester, Matthew Polenzani proved once again why the Met is giving him such prominent parts. He has a lovely head voice, which he used often in some quiet singing. He has some juice when necessary, although in an HD transmission one cannot judge carrying power in the opera house itself. He did not project the gravitas of an Earl loved by two queens, but that is probably the librettist’s fault.
The young South African Elza van den Heever made her house debut as Elizabeth, and it gives much promise for the future. She is a big woman, made even bigger by the enormous gowns she must wear designed by John Macfarlane, who also designed the period sets. Her voice is bright, accurate, a bit steely, with heft. The Met should find other roles for her. She may have a comic side.
Bass Matthew Rose was a burly and sympathetic Talbot, Mary’s jailer and confessor. Baritone Joshua Hopkins exhibited a clear and ringing tone as Lord Cecil, who convinces Elizabeth to sign Mary’s death warrant.
All praise to director David McVicar for presenting this piece straight, with no gimmicks. Much of the action was played out in two realistic settings: Whitehall for Elizabeth’s scenes, and the forest outside Fotheringhay, for Mary’s. That the opera doesn’t make much of an impression is not his fault.
Having now presented two of Donizetti’s royal operas (Anna Bolena being the first), the Met and its publicity machine will soon beat the drums for the third: Roberto Devereux. The Met has done its best to frame them as a trilogy worthy of serious critical consideration. Having now seen the first two, and with high hopes, I think I will pass on the third.
Details Box:
What: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda Simulcast Live in HD
When: January 19, 2013
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Time: Three hours and 15 minutes, including intermission
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
U.S. Encore: 6:30 p.m. EST February 6
Dec. 8 Met simulcast: Un Ballo in Maschera
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html Somewhere in the heated imagination of director David Alden there may be a convincing production of Verdi’s Januslike masterpiece, Un Ballo in Maschera, part Italian barn-burner and part French operetta. In this new production, Alden’s considerable talents did not come to the fore until Act Three, Scene One. This is where Renato, counselor to King Gustavo III of Sweden, confronts his wife Amelia. She has been unfaithful to him by loving the King from afar. The King loves her in return, but the two have never managed to consummate the relationship, this being an opera. Betrayed by both his King and his wife, Renato, heretofore a loyal lieutenant, is in a murderous mood. For this grim scene Alden and set designer Paul Steinberg reduced the playing space on the enormous Met stage to a small box that is all angles with a stark black and white color scheme. The ceiling slopes down at a vertiginous angle. The walls close in on the emotionally tortured couple as Renato says he will kill her; he then swears vengeance on the King. Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Renato and soprano Sondra Radvanovsky as Amelia are both fine actors, so Alden had much to work with in this scene. He introduced an element of sexual tension between the couple — a hint that Renato would take her in violent sex one last time before killing her. Hvorostovsky handled her roughly, lending a particular urgency to their singing. When the two conspirators (the Counts Ribbing and Horn) assisting Renato in the assassination plot suddenly appeared through a back wall of the boxy set, the effect was chilling. Had the entire production been at this level, the Met would finally have a hit Ballo. But it was not. Alden told the opera website Parterre Box that he sees King Gustavo as “a dreamer and a fantasist.” This is the inspiration for his conception. To demonstrate how out-of-control the King is, Alden compares him to Icarus, the mythological boy who disregards the advice of his father and flies too close to the sun. An enormous mural showing Icarus falling into the sea is a constant presence in the production. This choice is banal. Indeed, Alden bristled when Met General Manager Peter Gelb used the word “obvious” for the Icarus image in an intermission interview. Gelb backpedaled furiously from this honest assessment as soon as he realized Alden’s displeasure. But it is obvious, and boring, and it adds nothing to our understanding of Verdi’s conception. Alden has directed this dreamy fantasist of a king as a goofball from a Marx Brothers film. He laughs a lot (some of which is in the music). He yearns, he swoons, and he waves his arms. But he is never credible as a strong king beloved by some of his people and hated by others. The tragedy of his doomed love for Amelia never registers. Alden has imposed no other vision than this on the opera. Is it at heart a political drama about the assassination of a tyrant, or the assassination of a good man by his enemies? If so, why are the conspirators Ribbing and Horn almost invisible in this production until Act Three? Or does Alden see Ballo as simply a tragic love triangle with a political backdrop? Alden’s stage pictures (with the exception of Act Three, Scene One) are designed to heighten the fantasy. They are by turns risible or puzzling: dancing waiters; an Oscar (the loyal page to the King) who flaps her own Icarus mini-wings (talk about obvious) and smokes cigarettes; courtiers in brown trench coats; and the King slumming in a fisherman’s sweater topped with a royal ermine cape seemingly cadged from a Salvation Army store. So it was left to the singers to make some sense of this hodgepodge. They did so with mixed success. Hvorostovsky, one of the world’s leading Verdi baritones and a matinee idol with his shock of perfectly groomed white hair, brought a gravitas to the proceedings that was sorely lacking. It was hard to imagine that such a serious man could be counselor to this frivolous king. Hvorostovsky delivered both of his major arias with power, particularly “Eri Tu” in Act Three in which he hurls invective at a portrait of the king. He and Radvanovsky were believable as a couple in serious need of marriage counseling. Radvanovsky spent the entire opera looking anguished. She is most effective when singing quietly. She floated some beautiful notes at the end of her Act Two aria as she searches for some magic herbs to rid her of her feelings for the King. When she sings at a mezzo forte or forte, and at the top of her range, she is somewhat raw. But she is an honest artist, and she did her best to make sense of the enigmatic Amelia. Her duet with the King in Act Two when they acknowledge their forbidden love was electrifying, and it received a huge ovation. As the King, tenor Marcelo Alvarez was badly in need of better direction from Alden. He is not a natural actor. Playing an unstable character trying to fly away from his royal duties is not easy to do. Alvarez could not pull it off. The intrusive close-ups of the HD telecast didn’t help convince the audience that there was much of anything on his mind. The middle and top of Alvarez’s voice remain solid and exciting, but he is losing the low notes, and he clipped some of his phrases. Powerful as it is, his voice is a bit characterless. It’s hard to keep his basic sound in mind. This was not a performance to put alongside Tucker or Peerce or Bergonzi, not to mention Pavarotti. Kathleen Kim has given impressive performances at the Met as Olympia (in Hoffman) and Zerbinetta (in Ariadne auf Naxos). She has lost some of the agile, silvery quality to her voice, however. Perhaps her stint as Chiang Ch’ing in Nixon in China changed her instrument. Oscar, a character drawn from French operetta tradition, must be sung lightly, with humor and great agility. Alden worked against the happy sound of Kim’s arias by making this Oscar menacing. She wore a mustache and goatee, smoked, and flapped her wings. Alden also suggested that Oscar was not even faithful to the King; she was a witness to the assassination plot and clearly knew the King was a marked man. Yet she did nothing to stop it. All this undermined Kim’s performance. The stentorian mezzo Stephanie Blythe delivered her usual blast-furnace performance as the fortune-teller Ulrica. No production concept can undermine this artist. As Fabio Luisi conducts more Met performances, his strengths and weaknesses are starting to come into view. The Met Orchestra played with precision. His tempos were fleet. Everything was tidy, and spot-on. But, although he is Italian, this performance lacked an Italianate throb. He didn’t give his singers much room to just run with it. As a result, the performance was highly professional but cold. Listen to the CD of a live Ballo at the Met conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos (available from Sony and the Met). It’s a bit reckless, but the Greek Mitropoulos is more Italian than Luisi, and his performance crackles with electricity. Luisi’s merely hums with efficiency. Director Elijah Moshinsky’s 1980 Met production of Ballo seemed to be set in a sauna. Now this. Is Ballo really that hard to pull off? Details Box:
What: Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, simulcast live in HD
When: December 8, 2012
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: About three hours and 55 minutes, including two intermissions
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: 6:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Dec. 1 Met simulcast: La Clemenza di Tito
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html The Roman Emperor Titus was by all accounts a forgiving man. At least when compared to the likes of Caligula, Nero and Commodus. But even Titus (or Tito, as he’s known in this opera) would have been hard-pressed to find anything in need of a pardon at the Met’s handsomely sung and visually appealing production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. A splendid cast of singers, led by the brilliant Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanĉa, included strong supporting efforts by Kate Lindsey and Lucy Crowe — as well as some outstanding efforts from the orchestra pit. Put it all together, and the Met’s revival of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s 1984 production, set in ancient Rome, is worthy of, well, lending an ear. Mozart began working on his final opera soon after beginning Die Zauberflöte, and completed it in 18 days — an astounding feat, even making all allowances for his subcontracting out of the continuo-accompanied recitatives. La Clemenza di Tito was commissioned in 1791 to commemorate the coronation of Austrian Emperor Leopold II as King of Bavaria. Mozart obliged by reaching back in time to the crusty old Italian opera seria style championed by Pietro Metastasio — the early 18th century librettist whose plots extolled the magnanimity of enlightened kings and emperors. Mozart settled on a revision of the Metastasio’s libretto by Venetian poet Caterino Mazzola that afforded him greater flexibility in structuring the arias. The plot focuses principally on first-century Roman Emperor Titus (Giuseppe Filianoti) and Vitellia (Barbara Frittoli), the self-centered and manipulative daughter of the former emperor usurped by Titus. Jealous of the emperor’s affections toward other women, Vitellia convinces her love-struck suitor Sesto (Elīna Garanĉa) to assassinate him, and Sesto obliges by settings the royal palace on fire in an unsuccessful attempt on the emperor’s life. Unaware of the conspiracy, Titus agrees to marry Vitellia — who realizes her good fortune will come at the expense of Sesto, now imprisoned for treason and prepared to face execution rather than implicate her. In the magnificent aria Non più di fiori, Vitellia wrestles with her conscience and ultimately admits complicity in the plot, hoping to save Sesto. Titus, displaying royal compassion endemic to all Metastasio protagonists, decides to forgive all. Long live the emperor. Long live Leopold II. (Applause.) Garanĉa, whom Met audiences no doubt remember as the title character in both Carmen and La Cenerentola, was in outstanding form in the “trousers role” of Emperor Titus’s confidante (and would-be assassin), Sesto. Here, she crafted a dramatically three-dimensional character torn between his genuine friendship for the emperor and his dysfunctional infatuation with the vengeful Vitellia. Her signature aria Parto, parto revealed an agile vocal quality sufficiently nimble to weave up and down the scale in rapid triplets figures that were handsomely in-sync with the accomplished clarinet obbligato provided by Anthony McGill. It was nevertheless Garanĉa’s lengthy second-act aria, Deh per questo istante, which proved the showstopper. This emotionally charged aria ranks among Mozart’s very best, and its relaxed and leisurely tempo left ample room for Garanĉa to lay bare her character’s soul, which she did to powerful effect. When I last saw Barbara Frittoli as Micaëla in the Met’s 2010-2011 season production of Carmen I praised the Italian soprano’s formidable vocal skills, but added that her acting abilities left much to be desired. Judging from Saturday’s performance, little has changed. Void of any appreciable degree of meaningful facial expressions (and one cannot hide from the close-up camera work), Frittoli remained emotionally aloof from the complex character she portrayed. Vitellia must undergo a complete about-face in this story — from a raging femme fatale to a contrite, conscious-stricken human being prepared to sacrifice everything in order to spare the love-struck but well-intentioned sucker she had duped into murder. It didn’t happen. Frittoli’s Non più di fiori, the lengthy aria where this transformation must take place, was well sung but dramatically and emotionally vacuous. In the pants role of the young patrician, Annio, mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey sang beautifully and her acting throughout the production was beyond reproach. The lustrous quality of Lindsey’s voice was evident in her every solo and ensemble number, but it was the degree of expression and nuance that left an indelible mark on the listener’s psyche. I especially enjoyed the profound intensity of Lindsey’s second act aria Tu fosti tradito, sung as her character mounts a stirring appeal to the emperor for mercy. It appears that Lindsey has carved a niche in “trouser roles” at the Met. In addition to Annio she has played Nicklausse (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) and Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro). But with or without pants, it’s clear that Lindsey is a first-rate singer-actress, with an ability to climb into any costume and fill every limb with body and substance. In her Met production debut as Sesto’s sister, Servilia, English lyric soprano Lucy Crowe delivered S’altro che lagrime with such warmth and purity of tone I felt cheated that Mozart only allowed her character this single aria. The delicate quality to Crowe’s voice seems especially well suited to lieder, although it was clear from her delivery that she is capable of packing considerable power when needed. I eagerly await Crowe’s next role at the Met. As the benevolent Emperor Tito, an impeccably attired Giuseppe Filianoti looked and acted well enough to qualify as the noblest Roman of them all. His pleasant sounding voice nevertheless appeared weak and shaky throughout much of the first act, beginning with the aria Del più sublime soglio — where the Italian lyric tenor’s middle register sounded raspy and his legato uneven.
Details Box:
What: Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Simulcast Live in HD
When: December 1, 2012
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: About three hours and 13 minutes, including intermission
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: 6:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, December 19
Dec. 5 Syracuse Stage/SU Drama: White Christmas
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html If you like tap dancing and sentimental, insipid musicals, you’re likely to enjoy Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, currently playing at Syracuse Stage. I mention the tap dancing first because the dance numbers — mostly tap, but several ballroom numbers as well — are the most outstanding parts of the show. David Wanstreet’s splendid choreography fully utilizes the youthful energy and boundless talents of the 21 Syracuse University musical theater students and the four lead Equity actors in this SU Drama/Syracuse Stage co-production. The ensemble tap dances will surely put a smile on your face, and the exquisite ballroom dance sequences may lead you to reflect, “Aaah — that’s why we love those Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies.” I say sentimental and insipid because the plot is fairly thin, not straying far from the formulaic 1954 music upon which it is based: The Paramount Studios film starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and the lesser-known Vera-Ellen. Syracuse Stage’s excellent program notes state that beginning in 1942 the song White Christmas became an anthem of sorts by American GIs serving overseas in World War II. The premise of the story (set in 1954) is “let’s put on a show to make things all right!” This was a successful stock formula for the old Busby Berkeley, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movie musicals, and countless others. In White Christmas, former military compatriots and now song-and-dance men Phil Davis (Craig Waletzko) and Bob Wallace (Denis Lambert) take their act on the road to “Pine Haven, Vermont” to help out their old commanding officer, General Henry Waverly (James Van Treuren). Along the way, they enlist a female singing act, the Haynes Sisters: Betty (Zakiya Young) and Judy (Mary Michael Patterson). The General’s skiing inn is on shaky ground financially, in part because Vermont is suffering from premature global warming (79-degree temperatures) during the coming Christmas season. As skiers leave in droves, Phil and Bob call in a bevy of Broadway gypsies (all currently unemployed, it seems), who manage to learn numerous complicated song and dance routines — all in five days. Luckily for them, the inn has a ready-made performance space that, like every barn in Vermont, has a piano and a stage ready to load massive painted backdrops. Like other musicals, such as 42nd Street (both the Ruby Keeler film and Broadway hit musical), the entire story is about putting on a show. Each song or dance routine for the show seems to be a fully-realized production number that has no connection to anything that comes either before or after it. Granted, this premise accounts for much of the charm of these classic showbiz musicals. The current production calls for another kind of “suspension of disbelief” that may prove even more problematic. Betty, the more proper and reserved of the two sisters, was played in the film by Rosemary Clooney. The Betty in this production, played by Young, is a stunningly lovely and statuesque African-American. Patterson, the more ebullient, assertive sister (played by brown-haired Vera-Ellen in the movie) is an adorable blonde Caucasian. Perhaps this casting wouldn’t have seen so discordant if the entire cast was diverse. Yet the only other African-American actress in the show is SU student Joanne Wilkins, as a ditzy chorine. Having only one featured African-American actor in the cast seems a bit odd, especially since the others characters identify the Haynes sisters by their appearances (“Did you get a load of the brunette? Look at the blonde one!”). This kind of comment in the script certainly draws attention to the fact that, from the characters’ perspectives, these “sisters” look different. Yet the difference that leaps out to the audience is seemingly invisible to everyone else onstage, who are quick to note their hair color and remind themselves that Betty and Judy’s brother is “freckle-Faced Haynes, the dog-faced boy.” This isn’t to say that colorblind or innovative casting can’t work. About 10 years or so ago I saw a production of The Sound of Music at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca that had Capt. Von Trapp, the Austrian naval hero, played by an African-American man, and several of the Von Trapp kids played by multi-ethnic children. The “audacity” of that casting worked rather well, dramatically. Past Syracuse Stage productions have had truly diverse casting in multiple roles, including some Shakespeare productions and A Christmas Carol. This can highlight the inherent universality of man and the oneness of people, no matter what their color, race or ethnicity. Several character actors in the production deserve mention. Mary Jo Mecca is hilariously entertaining as Martha Watson, the inn’s resident housekeeper and front desk manager. In another bit of the show business/movie musical conceit, it turns out that Martha is a former singer and entertainer from New York City who somehow has ended up in the backwoods of Vermont. I really wanted to see her come out in the second act in a fabulous costume for a show-stopping number, à la Ethel Merman. Instead, local child actress Jacqueline Baum, as the General’s granddaughter, had a key song in the second act. Interestingly, the quietest actor steals the scene every time he’s on stage. John Shuman, first as “the snoring man” and then as a farmhand named Ezekiel, utters monosyllabic sounds and barely seems to move. He pushes a broom across the stage at about the speed of a sloth hanging from a tree branch. Shuman also has the best line in the play, which comes as he offers someone a gift of a massive jug of maple syrup. I’m not sure if Syracuse Stage will be drawing in huge crowds for White Christmas. It seems to be part of a spate of seasonal Christmas musicals that have cropped up on Broadway in recent years, including Elf: The Musical and How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical and A Christmas Story. White Christmas ran for 53 performances during the 2008 holiday season and 51 performances the following year. New York Times drama critic Charles Isherwood panned this show, writing “You’d have to be in a desperately, even pathologically nostalgic mood — trawling the Internet in the wee hours for VHS copies of Lawrence Welk holiday specials, say — to derive much joy from the stage retread of White Christmas, a synthetically cozy trip down memory lane.” And I am not so sure that its prior fame as the Bing Crosby movie musical still resonances with today’s audiences. White Christmas doesn’t have the power of Scrooge’s redemptive epiphany when he realizes that sharing and giving is better than money, or George Bailey’s affirming moment of realization that being a decent, hard-working individual makes one’s life meaningful and “wonderful.” Nor does it have the poignant yearnings of a little girl whose mother works at Macy’s on 34th Street and who believes that the endearing old man truly is Santa Claus.
DETAILS BOX:
What: Irving Berlin’s White Christmas
Who: Syracuse Stage and SU Drama Department
Where: Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Through December 30
Length: Two hours and 30 minutes, one intermission
Ticket: $20 to $54. Call 315-443-3275 or http://www.syracusestage.org
Family guide: Family friendly
Nov. 29 Famous Artists Broadway: Wicked
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html The exhilarating, moving and technically splendid show currently at the Landmark Theater is part of the entertainment juggernaut that is Wicked. The statistics speak for itself. Wicked, which opened in 2003 and won three Tony Awards, has been the highest-grossing show on Broadway for eight years in a row — making more than $1.8 million per week. More than 17.7 million people have seen Wicked in New York City or on tour in the United States. The total haul for the main production and the national tours exceeds $2 billion.
If Thursday’s performance is any indication, the numbers won’t be flagging in Central New York, either. Despite playing here a few years ago, the house was packed and the show ended with a cheering crowd and a standing ovation.
This was the third time I’ve seen Wicked, a re-envisioning of the Wizard of Oz story, having caught the national tour when it came through in January 2010. I saw the original Broadway cast production with Tony Award winner Idina Menzel, Kristen Chenoweth, Joel Gray, two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz and the great character actress Carole Shelley. I thought the most recent viewing here in Syracuse, starring Christine Dwyer and Jeanna DeWaal, was the most enjoyable of the three performances.
Nine years ago I had just finished reading the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (upon which the Broadway musical is based), and I was anticipating a darker, more tragic tale. Maguire’s best-selling novel tells the back-story of Elphaba, the “Wicked Witch of the West.” It conjures up big questions about religion and government, and his heroine is decidedly off-putting. She’s described as a “hatchet-faced girl with putrescent green skin and long, foreign-looking black hair.” Elsewhere, Maguire notes her “chin in profile could slice a salami.” In many places, Wicked the book is decidedly creepy. Elphaba’s sister Nessarose, aka the “Wicked Witch of the East,” is born without arms and becomes a severe, bitter woman of rigid piety.
My first reaction was that Wicked the musical, directed by Joe Mantello with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and musical staging by Wayne Cilento, had robbed some of the deeper meaning and darker subtexts of Maguire’s work. For example, in the present version Nessarose is in a wheelchair, not armless — hard for a musical theatre actress to pull off, to be sure. The musical was given a more hopeful, friendly ending so that families walking out onto Times Square after the show would leave singing rather than shaking their heads in puzzlement, pondering the philosophy.
In the ensuing decade I’ve come to see how the show, including some changes from Maguire’s text, cleverly brings in so many of the details we have come to love from that original family favorite, the 1939 classic film musical The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland. How did the Tin Woodsman lose his heart? How did the Wicked Witch get her atrocious black hat and her signature cackle? How did the flying monkeys get their wings? How did the slippers get enchanted? How did the Scarecrow end up hanging off-kilter in a field? All of these plot elements from the movie classic — and the original books by Chittenango native L. Frank Baum — are neatly tied together by the end of the Broadway musical.
And what a musical it is. Unlike other recent shows that have few memorable melodies (for instance, last season’s Famous Artists offering The Young Frankenstein), nearly every song in Wicked is a showstopper.
DeWaal (as Glinda) and Dwyer (as Elphaba) have a number of incredible songs, both separately and together, telling the story of their unlikely friendship — including the hilarious Popular and the deeply poignant For Good. Of course, mention must be made of Elphaba’s adrenaline-charged song, Defying Gravity, which has been given an even wider audience in recent years by the Chris Colfer and Lea Michele rendition on TV’s Glee.
Of note were Jay Russell as Doctor Dillamond, Elphaba’s beloved professor; Paul Kreppel as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz; Michael Wartella as Boq, a Munchkin with an unrequited love; Zarah Mahler as Elphaba’s ill-fated sister; and Gina Ferrall as Madame Morrible, who sets much of the misfortune into motion with her self-promoting machinations.
This Wicked is also love triangle, with the initially cavalier heartthrob Fiyero (played by Billy Harrigan Tighe) at the center. The most romantic song of the play, As Long as You’re Mine, lost some of its gripping intensity due to an emergency in the audience. A man attempting to walk up the center aisle either tripped or collapsed. He was apparently incapacitated, calling weakly for help, as members of the audience (using their cell phones for light) carried him up the aisle to safety. Throughout the ordeal Harrigan Tighe and Dwyer continued to sing. (What are the policies for stopping a show for a medical emergency, I wonder?)
The Landmark is another reason why this current production is so special. Wicked’s Broadway house is a massive and newer theater designed to hold a large audience, while the Crouse-Hinds Theater in Syracuse is stark and contemporary. The rich gilt embellishments of the recently refurbished historic Landmark Theater really set off Wicked’s ornate set design — with its eye-popping green Emerald City, its steam-punk gears and clockworks and massive red-eyed, winged dragon poised scarily across the proscenium.
I suspect he will continue to look out over full houses for a long time to come.
Details Box:
What: Wicked, music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz; directed by Joe Mantello
Who: Famous Artists Broadway
Where: The Landmark Theatre, 362 S. Salina St., Syracuse
When: Through December 9
Length: Two hours and 50 minutes, with one intermission
Tickets: Prices start at $30. Call (315) 424-8210 or http://www.famousartistsbroadway.com/
Family guide: Themes dealing with bullying and discrimination
Nov. 10 Met simulcast: The Tempest
Thomas Adès’s ‘The Tempest’ takes the Met by storm
The British composer’s bold musical score and Robert Lepage’s magical visuals add an expressionist dimension to the Shakespeare play
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
In a 1963 episode of the expressionist television series The Twilight Zone, a desperate screenwriter uses black magic to summon Shakespeare to the present. The Met’s new production of Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, broadcast live from Lincoln Center last Saturday, brings the Bard and expressionism together once again — only the “dark arts” here come not from the chain-smoking Rod Serling, but from the fertile imaginations of the composer and Robert Lepage.
In The Tempest, Lepage — the controversial director and scenic imagist whose 45-ton set monstrosity in the Met’s Ring Cycle last season deserved a Twilight Zone episode all its own — spins a handsomely crafted and visually stimulating supernatural fantasy combining magical spells, monsters, spirits and surrealism that would have made Serling envious. Add to this Adès’s dark and brooding (and brilliantly orchestrated) score and you’ve got a riveting piece of theater that engages the eyes and ears with great intensity.
Adès (pronounced ADD-iss) was in his early 30s in 2004 when his opera premiered at London’s Royal Opera House (Covent Garden). After several revivals (including the American premiere at Sante Fe Opera in 2006) The Tempest made its way to the Met in this Lepage version, a co-production of the L'Opéra de Québec and Wiener Staatsoper.
It’s not easy to make sweeping generalizations about Adès’s musical style in this opera. The continuous music and strongly independent orchestral writing give The Tempest the look and feel of a “music drama,” as championed by Wagner. But the work’s busy and thickly orchestrated writing, particularly its angry and abrupt staccato outbursts in the brass section, pays homage to Alban Berg’s expressionist masterpiece, Wozzeck. Unlike Berg, however, Adès — in spite of some harshly dissonant sections — never quite abandons tonality in The Tempest.
Beyond the brassy moments of anger (often associated with the courtiers of the Milanese Court) are sections of serene musical delight that suggest the innocence and unspoiled beauty of the island and its surroundings. Included here is the love duet between Miranda and Ferdinand where the writing for winds and strings is especially lovely, as the pair walks off into David Leclerc’s inviting video image of rippling sea waters. Still, such moments of aural relief are all too rare in the thickly textured scoring in this work — which like many music dramas drives the full sound of a large orchestra with relentless perseverance.
The storyline centers on Prospero (Simon Keenlyside), who has been deposed from his throne as Duke of Milan by his brother Antonio (Toby Spence) and the King of Naples (William Burden). Prospero and his young daughter Miranda (Isabel Leonard) are then cast out to sea, where the pair eventually settles on a mysterious island. Prospero quickly learns the art of sorcery, which among other things empowers him to manufacture a storm that later shipwrecks his helpless rivals onto the island. Among the shipwrecked is the King’s son, Ferdinand (Alek Shrader), who meets and falls in love with Miranda. The couple’s strong bond of innocence and righteousness eventually persuades Prospero to forgive his enemies. He renounces his magical powers and returns to his rightful throne in Milan.
The role of Prospero calls for a high baritone, which is well suited to Simon Keenlyside’s vocal strengths. Keenlyside “owns” this role, having sung the part in the original 2004 Royal Opera House premiere and several times thereafter.
In his opening duet with Miranda detailing the pair’s banishment from Milan, Keenlyside takes his cue from Adès’s wide-intervals and choppy, disjointed phrases and forges a character whose irritable disposition and pent-up vengeance strikes terror in the heart of his terrified daughter. Keenlyside plays his character stoically and enigmatically, so much so that I found it difficult to decide whether to fear or pity him. I eventually opted for the latter.
Adès makes no excuses for his musical treatment of the high-flying Ariel, a bizarre part representing a male spirit played here in masterful fashion by coloratura soprano Audrey Luna. Flying up and across the stage under TV Director Gary Halvorson’s close-up camerawork, Luna’s wide-eyes and large mouth evoke the image of Carol Burnett playing Peter Pan during one of her television skits. (Credit Halvorson for not revealing the hidden wires that kept Luna airborne through much of the production.)
It’s rare that coloratura sopranos are abused in such a manner as in the role of Ariel. Mozart’s Queen of the Night and Offenbach’s Olympia require singers who can reach high Es and Fs effectively, but they are asked to do so only sparingly. Adès writes a pernicious part that demands considerably more screeching than singing. The one moment where Ariel sings in what might be considered a soprano’s normal range comes during the line, “If I were human” — a clever touch, indeed.
When asked why he made such stratospheric demands on Ariel, Adès answered simply “because that’s where he lives.” By this reasoning, the part of Mephistopheles — were Adès ever to write such a role — would require a sub-contra bass of extraordinary depth. Let’s hope that Luna has enough voice left to continue her career once this production runs its course.
Isabel Leonard captures a sense of innocence and beauty in her role as Miranda, and her exquisite voice brought some much needed contrast to the opera’s other roles requiring exaggerations both of register and vocal timbre. Curiously, the part of Miranda calls for a mezzo — but aside from the love duet with Ferdinand at the end of Act 2, Miranda sings in the higher (soprano) register.
Those watching the opera in HD simulcast and close-up camerawork are likely to have noticed that Leonard’s beauty reaches beyond just her voice. Dressed in a low-cut gown (there’s no dress code on this island), Leonard makes it abundantly clear to the listener why the monster Caliban is in a constant state of lust for the girl (Miranda is just under 15 years old in the Shakespeare original) and why the King of Naples’ son Ferdinand falls in love with her at first sight.
As Ferdinand, Alek Shrader looked the part of the earnest and handsome suitor to Miranda and his command of the high register was as delicate and pure as his well intentioned character. Adès keeps the part high, as if to project the full-strength virtue of the man worthy of marrying Prospero’s daughter. William Burden, as Ferdinand’s father, also maintained a solid upper vocal register and was convincingly heartbroken when faced with the prospect of his son's apparent drowning during the shipwreck.
In both looks and voice, Alan Oke projected a magnificent image as the savage Caliban and delivered one of the most convincing vocal efforts of the production — spitting out Adès's jagged lines with all due vengeance as the rightful heir to the island before Prospero had arrived to enslave him. Oke’s character lusts for Miranda the way Monostatos salivates for Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, and is costumed like a grotesque Papageno in a blackbird outfit.
As Prospero’s nefarious brother Antonio, Toby Spence (who played the role of Ferdinand in the original 2004 production) appeared less comfortable in the high register than the other male singers.
The incongruent pairing of voices in the roles of Trinculo and Stefano (Countertenor Iestyn Davies and bass-baritone Stefano Kevin Burdette, respectively) provided much of the comic relief in this production as the imbibing dynamic duo who, along with Caliban, aspire to usurp Prospero as ruler of the island.
I thought Lepage’s setting of the three acts as different views from the La Scala Opera House in Milan — an obvious allusion to Prospero’s nostalgic yearning for home — was a clever and welcome touch to the production’s set design concept. Act 1 takes place on the theater’s stage looking out into the auditorium and iconic box seats; Act 2 takes place backstage, while the action in Act 3 unfolds on the floor of the auditorium with the characters facing the stage.
Diction throughout the production was a problem, as Meredith Oakes’s rhymed couplets were all but impossible to decipher. Adès’s wide-intervalled, angular melodic lines that routinely dwell in the singers’ high-registers keep intelligibility of diction within a very narrow range — from what I’d call “somewhat distinguishable” to WTF?
Adès led a well-prepared Met Orchestra that navigated the composer’s busy and thickly textured musical score with no apparent signs of fatigue or loss of stamina. This is demanding writing, particularly with respect to the brass writing (which is on par with many Strauss operas). During intermission Adès hinted, ever so gently, that not all in the pit went as he had hoped. But then, how many composers are totally satisfied with any public performance of their works?
Costume Designer Kym Barrett indulges Lepage’s fairylike concept of his very own Fantasy Island, dressing the spirit Ariel in purple-colored tights with matching purple lipstick (creating a sort of birdlike “Papageno” image), and casting Caliban as an outlandish blackbird. Why Barrett thought it necessary to carve so much body art onto Prospero’s upper-torso with gothic tattoos is anybody’s guess — although the intricate ink pattern invites an unintended pun when Caliban tells the sorcerer, “Your art makes me bow to you.”
The quote may apply equally well to Messrs. Adès and Lepage.
Details Box:
What: Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, Simulcast Live in HD
When: November 10, 2012
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: About three hours, including intermission
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: 6:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, November 28
Nov. 2 Covey Theatre Company: Playing God
Covey Company’s ‘Playing God’ a provocative amalgam of drama and comedy
Imaginary characters come to life in Garrett Heater’s insightful new “dramedy” about three writers attempting to co-author a novel
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
Garrett Heater is turning out to be the local theater community’s Renaissance man. He is the artistic director of the Covey Theatre Company, which he also directs. He is an engaging actor and singer, most recently in Covey’s summer production of Avenue Q. He’s also an up-and-coming playwright with local awards to his credit.
Heater’s most recent work is Playing God, now premiering at Covey, which displays his ability to craft a well-written, coherent and creative play.
I must admit, when I first read about the Heater’s concept it sounded dreadful. Playing God is about three different authors who have been contracted to co-write a novel. The ultra-serious title Playing God makes it sound as if the authors will be self-important and histrionic, talking laboriously about the meaning of “art.” The intense-looking poster for the production features the three characters’ faces in stark half-shadow, along with the catchphrase “Three authors. Three egos. One book” — making this look like an intense psychological drama along the order of Equus.
My misgivings were erased after seeing the opening night production. Far from being a ponderous, stilted examination of a faux literary dilemma, much of Playing God is actually rather tongue-in-cheek and quite funny. In fact, it would probably best be called a “dramedy,” with its artful blend of serious insight into human pathos and perfect comic phrasing and timing, poking fun at the ridiculous.
Part of what was off-putting about the concept was just pondering the result. Writing by committee, as we all know from various experiences in our work environments, has to be the worst process to go through and generally results in obtuse material. Yes, it has been done in the real literary world — most recently the 2011 serial novel No Rest for the Dead by Alexander McCall Smith, Sandra Brown, R.L. Stine, and Jeffery Deaver (among numerous others). To me, that sounds gimmicky at best. How could such a book possibly hang together?
To his credit, Heater allows his own characters to approach this inexplicable task with the cynicism that it warrants. They are equally perplexed as to why they have been talked into doing this project. They share an agent and muse aloud to each other as to what her reasoning could possibly be. Is it is a nod to “two washed up hacks trying to rejuvenate their careers?” Is it, as the character Ken Prescott notes, comparable to “lashing together pieces of driftwood to make a better raft?” Or, in another, related nautical metaphor, are two of them being used as a “human buoy” in a desperate tactic to fend off a potential disaster that might befall the third author?
The answer isn’t clear either to the three writers or to the audience — which raises the ante and makes the play immediately provocative and engaging. For you see, the three characters are on completely different arcs in their lives and literary careers. Prescott (played by Louis Balestra with neediness shielded by a patina of dignity) is the older, revered writer of serious merit. He is past the prime of his career and is reduced to living alone and talking to his possibly fatally ill cat, incongruously providing some hilarious moments.
Ann Jackson (played by the classy yet down-to-earth Karis Wiggins) is a former best-selling author of thrillers. She has been suffering from writer’s block for 36 months — also known as three years (a running joke in the play that shows what a slump she has been in). Her marriage isn’t giving her much sustenance either: She and her husband communicate by email in the same house. Into this demented menage á trois enters Paul Caine (played by Covey newcomer, Darian Sundberg). Caine is either a brilliant, inspired wunderkind with a phenomenal career ahead of him, or a total jerk. He is insufferable. (One example: “No one is as interesting as me.”)
Part of Heater’s creativity is evident in how he has the three characters engage with one-another. They never meet face-to-face as a threesome; they live in different places. Their interactions and the narrative thread move forward via their conversations through 21st century communication technology and social networking, demonstrating that Heater is up to speed on current trends. While Prescott talks to the others with a cordless telephone, Jackson has a hands-free miniature device hung perpetually over her ear, and Caine — the Gen-Xer that he is — has a smart phone, naturally. In addition, Wikipedia has a few key moments in the play that are quite droll and contemporary.
The set depicts the three different personalities of the authors very clearly. Prescott’s work desk is mahogany, covered with several old and perfectly aligned books. His chair is sturdy, classic black leather. It evokes the aura of an academic, esoteric person. Jackson’s desk has clean lines with lovely cherry wood, glass and chrome. Fittingly, the most prominent book on her desk seems to be one of her own earlier successes — the one with a younger picture of herself on the jacket. And Paine’s is a complete mess, much like the young author himself, haphazardly strewn with crumpled up papers, off-kilter CD covers and other detritus. Hats off to the properties designer Susan Blumer for making the characters’ respective parts of the stage so clearly an extension of their personalities.
Playing God has another dimension, as well. Two additional characters — The Woman (Julia Berger) and The Man (Jordan Glaski) — are the protagonists in the authors’ evolving novel. We first see The Woman sitting alone in a café in the beginning passage of the book as written by Prescott. The Man enters later, and their storyline is added to incrementally.
Having imaginary characters come to life as a plot device is not unprecedented. Sometimes this is done brilliantly, as with Woody Allen’s 1969 Broadway play and 1972 hit movie, Play it Again, Sam — in which none other than Humphrey Bogart (in his Casablanca persona) crosses into the plane of reality to offer romantic advice to a neurotic movie critic. Sometimes it’s done dreadfully, as in the completely forgettable 2003 Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson film Alex and Emma, where they are simultaneously writing and acting as the characters in the novel being created.
Some of the most hilarious scenes in Playing God occur as the Jackson-Prescott-Caine (or is it Caine-Jackson-Prescott?) novel jolts from author to author in this game of literary Post Office. Is The Man loving and heartbroken? Or is he a dangerous, vengeful killer? Is The Woman a demure lady or a seductress? Berger and Glaski are called upon to change tempo and mood in rapid-fire fashion as the words on the authors’ computer screens are crossed out and rewritten again and again. The “play-within-the play” sparked some of the biggest laughs from the audience.
However, the real action isn’t in the pretend novel the writers are hacking out. In an interview with The Post-Standard, Heater said, “This play has to do with the concept of creating characters and playing God. You’re dealing with three authors who are playing God. And you have three people who are trying to manipulate the people around them.”
It seems to me that the play isn’t about writers manipulating the book’s characters like marionettes. The true action seems to be in Jackson’s, Caine’s and Prescott’s internal passage — how they see some things and recognize some truths in themselves, when held up to the unvarnished mirror of their publishing-world competitors. This fitful journey on the part of three main characters is what makes this comedy-drama have a real heart.
It’s not just a gimmick, like the one conjured up by the offstage literary agent. It’s something much better: a new, good play.
Details Box:
What: Playing God, written and directed by Garrett A. Heater
Who: The Covey Theatre Company
Where: Bevard Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center, Syracuse
Date of performance: November 2, 2012
Remaining performances: 8 p.m. November 9 & 10
Length: Two hours, with one intermission
Ticket: $21. Call 315-420-3729 or http://www.thecoveytheatrecompany.com
Family guide: Some profanity.
October 20 Met (Live): Otello
The Met’s chilling ‘Otello’ all you could ask for, and Moor
Falk Struckmann’s commanding performance as Iago a show-stopper in this historically informed production set in 15th century Cyprus
By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html
The chilling Credo Verdi wrote at the start of Act Two of Otello to introduce Iago presents a blunt and brutal philosophy of life. “I believe in a cruel God who has created me in his image,” Iago snarls. “I am evil because I am a man.” And when he dies, he believes there will be “nulla.” Nothing. “Heaven is an old wives’ tale.”
This Iago — a master puppeteer who uses jealousy to bring down Otello — is no stock operatic villain. The role has drawn most of the great baritones of the last 125 years, including Leonard Warren, Robert Merrill, Tito Gobbi, and Sherrill Milnes. Now add to that list the German baritone Falk Struckmann, who is singing the role in the revival of Elijah Moshinsky’s lavishly traditional production of Otello at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
Struckmann delivered the Credo so effortlessly, with such power and venom, that he took over the performance from that point to the end. (The audience broke into applause for the Credo despite the fact that Verdi offers no break in the music that invites it.) Struckmann went on to overpower Otello in the vengeance duet that concludes Act Two. He demonstrated surprising agility in the Falstaff-like scherzo and trio with Cassio in Act Three that convinces Otello of Desdemona’s betrayal. When he puts his booted foot on the chest of the prostrate Otello at the end of that act to proclaim him, sarcastically, the “Lion of Venice,” his triumph as Iago was complete in every way.
Struckmann easily has the volume to reach all 4,000 of the Met’s seats. He can float a lovely head tone. The bottom of his voice goes into bass territory — the proof being that he has also sung Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger and Wotan in Wagner’s Ring abroad. By turns charming, oily, hearty but always deeply evil, Struckmann dominated the stage. I admit I was rooting for him as, spider-like, he trapped Otello in his web of jealousy. When he was not on stage, I missed him.
The part of Desdemona still suits Renée Fleming’s creamy voice and innocent good looks. She embodies the virtuous, wronged wife. Her Willow Song and Ave Maria in the Fourth Act were achingly beautiful. The top of her voice is now a bit over-bright, but she phrases beautifully, and the middle of her voice is as lush as ever. Her pitiable cry for Emilia, her attendant, just before the Ave Maria was heart-stopping. “How my eyes burn! It bodes weeping,” she tells Emilia, knowing she will never see her again.
In this starry company it was a challenge for tenor Avgust Amonov to replace an ailing Johan Botha in the title role. He has been singing at the Mariinsky Theater in Russia for more than a decade in such roles as Herman in The Queen of Spades, Don Carlo, Calaf, and Cavaradossi. His opening Esultate, as hair-raising an entry for a tenor as one can imagine, rode over the orchestra — but was not thrilling, as it must be. The love duet with Desdemona that ends the First Act lacked the floated high notes and the delicacy suggested in the orchestral accompaniment. He seemed to force his delivery during the first two acts, his voice taking on an acidic tinge on top. While Struckmann has limitless reserves of vocal power, the music flowing out of him, Amonov was singing on the edge.
Amonov settled down in the last two acts and provided an exciting impression of the unhinged Otello who collapses in a fit at the end of Act Three. He was properly menacing to Desdemona in Act Four, and his own suicide was powerful. However, Amonov’s voice lacks an essential Italianate quality. He doesn’t have the throb of a Jon Vickers, or the power and steadiness of a Plácido Domingo, to name two great Met Otellos. He got the job done, at times quite well, but this was a performance better titled Verdi’s Iago.
Michael Fabiano as Cassio, Eduardo Valdes as Rodrigo, and Renée Tatum as Emilia all created memorable characters. James Morris, who has also sung Iago at the Met, appeared as Lodovico, the diplomat from Venice who is shocked at how Otello treats Desdemona. He added a patrician, sonorous presence.
Semyon Bychkov whipped up a big sound in the storm scene and pushed heavily on the brass and tympani throughout. At times the tempo flagged. The brindisi in Act One, in which Iago launches his plot by goading Cassio into a drunken brawl, needed more swagger and energy. The “flame” chorus in Act One was stolid.
This is a splendid production for those who like opera presented in the historical period for which it was written. We are back in Cyprus in the 15th century. Costumes are lush and realistic. Eight immense marble columns on stone pedestals frame the playing space. In a theatrical coup in Act One, the chorus is massed on top and in front of ramparts that drop out of sight and into the basement once the storm has subsided, creating a new space for the brindisi and the balance of the act. An enormous Renaissance painting was effectively employed to define interior and exterior spaces in Act Three.
A tighter directorial hand would have helped in a couple of places. Otello’s movements as he enters Desdemona’s bedchamber were not well coordinated with the music, which suggests a more furtive Otello than Amonov provided. In Act Three, Otello was placed so far away from Iago and Cassio that it is impossible to believe he could have overheard them discussing Cassio’s love life, which is supposed to feed his jealousy.
But these were small matters in a production that was gripping from the beginning to Desdemona’s alarming tumble from her bed and down the stone stairs after she has been strangled.
The audience gave Fleming and Struckmann the huge ovations they deserved. They were respectful of Amonov and Bychkov.
Now, why isn’t Struckmann singing Wotan and the Wanderer in the Met’s Ring?
Details Box:
What: Verdi’s Otello, Live at The Met
When: Saturday matinee, October 20, 2012
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Time of performance: about 3½ hours
HD Live Simulcast: 12:55 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012
October 20: Ying Quartet with pianist Elinor Freer
Ying Quartet, pianist Elinor Freer give SFCM crowd a taste of Skaneateles
The stimulating three-work program, anchored by Shostakovich’s treasured Piano Quintet, included the premiere of a promising new work by American composer Kenji Bunch
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
Saturday’s Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music program proved a homecoming of sorts for Rochester-based Ying Quartet and pianist Elinor Freer.
As co-artistic directors of the Skaneateles Festival, Freer and cellist-husband David Ying made the drive from Rochester to Skaneateles countless times since taking the reins of the summer music festival in 2005. This time they kept heading east and drove into the welcome arms of an enthusiastic Syracuse audience well versed in the ensemble’s work.
When the three-work program came to a close with a persuasive performance of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor, one thing was clear: The road connecting Western and Central New York runs through Skaneateles.
The Ying Quartet has much of what the SFCM crowd has come to expect, including a dependable first violinist (Ayano Ninomiya) who hits all the right notes, plays in-tune and with a phrases handsomely. The other players are second violinist Janet Ying, violist Phillip Ying and, of course, cellist David Ying.
They are also fun to watch — particularly David Ying, who swayed left and right and seized the moment several times throughout the performance. And while the group’s sound may lack the penetrating resonance of SFCM’s prior guest, the Tokyo Quartet, it produces a warm and malleable blend of tone that maintains its quality both in the softest passages (the whisper-quiet opening of the Intermezzo from Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A minor) and the loudest (the Scherzo of the Shostakovich Quintet).
Written in 1940, Shostakovich’s Quintet is uncharacteristically tame, both in its demands on the pianist (Shostakovich wrote the part for himself) and with respect to the composer’s controlled temperament, which unlike his later chamber works reveals little of Shostakovich’s frustration with the oppressive regime that stifled his every turn towards creative self-expression and growth. The work nevertheless allows ample room for intense expression and introspection, beginning with the opening piano solo entrance that sets the work’s contrapuntal wheels in motion before methodically building to a full-blown catharsis by movement’s end.
Freer’s cleanly articulated lines in the Bach-like stately introduction, and in the “walking bass” line at the beginning of the section that follows, set the tone for the good playing to come throughout the five-movement work. I especially enjoyed David Ying’s emotionally charged high-register solo that follows the piano introduction, which soared powerfully above the collective sound of the four other players.
Although the wild scherzo movement was just a bit slow for my tastes, there’s little doubt that the ensemble came out smoking — hammering out the dense chordal string accompaniment to Freer’s widely-spaced (and equally relentless) pounding octave passages. Ninomiya captured the ethnic flair of the Gypsy-like middle (Trio) section that followed with grace and élan, and her command of the altissimo register in the final movement was outstanding.
The ensemble’s handling of Shostakovich’s unusual Finale, a constrained and gentle movement that threatens to break into a march at a moment’s notice, was truly a delight — from the dreamy opening to the stormy sections that demanded (and received) fingers of steel from Freer. The ethereal ending was especially lovely as the players massaged the tranquil final chords so adroitly, the audience (convinced that no Shostakovich ending could possibly be this polite) withheld its applause for what seemed like an embarrassing period of time.
The novel work on the program was the world premiere of Kenji Bunch’s Concussion Theory, whose title — Phillip Ying explained in his talk from the stage — refers to the “science” of using a series of explosions designed to disturb the equilibrium of the atmosphere in order to induce rainfall.
This is the composer’s second string quartet, and from the absence of program notes (other than a small disclaimer that the work was still in progress at the time of the booklet’s publication) I would imagine that the ink on the pages was still wet when the Ying Quartet sank its teeth into this work.
The four-movement work is programmatic, with a descriptive title accompanying each movement: No Man’s Land; Black Sunday; Concussion Theory; A Gentle Rain. Insofar as it aims to examine (and at times mimic) these violent disturbances in the atmosphere, Concussion Theory makes use of a variety of disquieting contemporary sound techniques such as altissimo harmonics and glissandi, and gritty bowing techniques such as sul ponticello, sul tasto and col legno.
The overall effect is dramatic and often shocking, in spite of the fact that the listening experience remains wholly accessible. Still, the piece ultimately succeeds largely because of its vivid musical imagery. The impression of the dry and barren farmlands in No Man’s Land is captured by the instruments’ soft harmonics, gentle cello pizzicatos and glissandi (one can almost see the tumbleweed blowing across the stage). The strains of church hymns in Black Sunday are juxtaposed with disturbing bowing techniques — strongly reminiscent of the striking opening of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody to The Victims of Hiroshima — that portends disaster soon to come.
The atmospheric explosions in the brief but mighty third (Concussion Theory) movement are mirrored in the relentless 16th-note figures and sextuplet triplets. The elegiac opening to the final (Gentle Rain) movement crescendos sharply to a loud and intense climax punctuated by slow, scalewise passages in the cello — suggesting perhaps that this “science” comes at a terrible cost — before giving way to a soft ending that I interpret as sorrowful resignation to forces beyond one’s control.
Concussion Theory was well received by the large crowd in attendance, and rightly so. This is bold and effective writing that, like Penderecki’s Threnody, never strays far from the composer’s intent to connect with the audience.
The program opened with Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A minor Op. 13, which although satisfactory was the least convincing of the Ying Quartet’s efforts that evening.
Most of the problems fell early on, during the opening movement — where pitch on Ying’s cello during the slow introduction remained slightly but doggedly sharp on the vital half-step intervals, which affected the harmonic foundation of the four-voice texture. At first I thought this was an aberration, given his excellent intonation elsewhere on the program. But the identical pitch problem reoccurred when the introductory theme returned at the close of the final movement.
There were, to be sure, several memorable moments in this performance, particularly in the quartet’s warm phrasing and homogeneous blend of tone in the sweet Adagio non lento movement. And then there was that precious moment in the Intermezzo when Ninomiya’s violin sang sweetly and ever so delicately over synchronized tutti string pizzicatos on the three other instruments — which gets my vote for the singular most breathtaking moment of the evening.
Details Box:
What: The Ying Quartet, with pianist Elinor Freer
Who: Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse
When: October 20, 2012
Next: Flanders Recorder Quartet, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17
Ticket prices: Regular $20, Senior $15, Student $10
Information: call (315) 682-7720
Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org
Oct. 19 Rarely Done Productions: The Musical of Musicals
Rarely Done Productions’ rollicking ‘The Musical of Musicals’ a ‘comedy of comedies’
Can’t pay the rent? Rarely Done Productions has just the ticket for you
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
If you want a musical that is corny and homespun, over-the-top and melodramatic, edgy and a bit sordid, twisted and discordant, flashy and larger than life, then The Musical of Musicals is for you.
If you’re wondering why it has such a broad array of qualities it’s because, as the name implies, it’s not one musical at all. In fact, this is five different musicals. But there’s a clever conceit: five hilarious variations of the same story, told in styles parodying the greatest musical theater composers and lyricists.
And what a parody it is. This Rarely Done production is rollicking and outstanding from start to finish — from the Rodgers and Hammerstein-inspired Corn to the Kander and Ebb-satire Speakeasy.
Directed by Dan Tursi with musical direction by Michael Copps, The Musical of Musicals was first done by Rarely Done in 2007. Tursi, the company’s artistic director, wisely uses three of the four original players from that great production, and the new addition is a brilliant choice.
The story is simple and has been told numerous times before — in Puccini’s La Bohème, the rock opera/Broadway play Rent, Baz Luhrmann’s Nicole Kidman-star vehicle Moulin Rouge!, and in any number of Silent Era Nickelodeon features. A lovely ingénue cannot pay her rent. She is beset by a rapacious, greedy landlord/villain and seeks true love in the form of a romantic, handsome leading man. The Musical of Musicals adds a key fourth figure to this dynamic: a trusted woman to whom the sweet innocent turns for guidance — with comical results.
The four versatile performers move dexterously from musical to musical and from character to character. What is especially intricate about Musical is that each role in the mini-musicals is an amalgam of various characters from that particular composer’s oeuvre. As such, the quickly paced show is probably most enjoyable to those Broadway aficionados familiar with the original musicals and who recognize the many allusions.
Take Peter Irwin’s character, Jitter, in A Little Complex — done in the style of Stephen Sondheim. He’s crazed and threatening in a white artist’s smock dabbed in paint that easily doubles as a butcher’s jacket splattered in blood. His songs quickly move from references to pointillist painter George Seurat, from Sunday in the Park with George, to the lead character in Sweeney Todd. In Getting Away With Murder, this Jitter also evokes Fredrik Egerman’s dilemma in A Little Night Music. In that play, Egerman is torn between his wife and his mistress. Here, Irwin’s character, á la the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is torn between his preferred methods of murder: “Hemlock is easy, but too Socratesy. Hat’s off to decapitation!”
The Big Willy character from Corn is also a hysterical blend of the Rodgers and Hammerstein leading men. Greg Halpen was in the 2007 Rarely Done production and was admirable. The new Big Willy (a.k.a. Billy, Bill, William and Villy) is a stunningly good addition to the cast. In Corn, he is a combination of the vain King of Siam from The King and I (“Is a puzzlement!”), the hayseed Curly from Oklahoma and the tortured carnival barker from Carousel. Why, he even has Billy’s obligatory “Soliloquy” from the latter musical. Curtin, like all four actors, is uniformly good throughout — but he does have another show stopping number as one of the “slutty dancing girls” in Speakeasy, the send-up of both Cabaret and Chicago.
Aubry Panek plays the sometimes ding-batty ingénue in the plays. Her character also takes a turn as both an Evita-like Eva Perón and a Sunset Boulevard-like diva in Aspects of Junita, drawing on Andrew Lloyd Webber. There are allusions to both Webber’s hits (Phantom of the Opera, of course) and his flops, the silly and widely trashed musical Starlight Express (where the cast performed on roller skates) and Aspects of Love, which lost a reported $8 million in its limited New York run.
Aspects of Junita also has a sly putdown in the lyrics, “It might just sound a teeny like something by Puccini. But no, it’s all brand new. In fact, so new that who would sue?” Webber paid an undisclosed sum to the Puccini estate, which brought suit for alleged musical plagiarism in Phantom from the Italian composer’s horse opera, La Fanciulla del West.
Panek is a great comedian and excels in all incarnations of June, Jeune, Junie Faye, Juney and Junita. The most sidesplitting part of Friday’s show came at an unplanned moment when one of her costume pieces in Aspects of Junita went awry. Panek, a consummate professional, kept her cool — but the wardrobe malfunction led the audience into hysterics. If the props crew offstage could somehow manage that “accident” again, it would not be a bad addition.
The program notes that Jodie Baum won a Syracuse Area Live Theatre (SALT) award for her first turn in Rarely Done’s The Musical of Musicals. She may want to clear a space on her shelf right now for another award. Her sardonic character Fraulein Abby in Speakeasy is ever so funny when she suggests that Juny take to streets to raise the money for the rent. Baum has what may be the most humorous line in the show in her song, Easy Mark.
Elsewhere, Baum is an Auntie Mame-like Aunt Abby in Dear Abby, in the style of Jerry Herman — also known for Hello Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles. And yes, there is a reference to the need to “put a little more mascara on.” She’s a neurotic Abby in A Little Complex and also channels Gloria Swanson as Abigail Von Schtarr in Aspects of Junita.
Baum is most impressive in the campy Corn, in which her Follow Your Dream is the dark incarnation of the Mother Abbess’ inspiring anthem Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music. Can the phrasing Follow your dream! Chin up! Belly High also be a tongue-in-check reference to South Pacific’s Bali Ha’i? Baum’s performance, mining the schmaltz for all its worth, is no less a master class in vocal power, range and control.
The play itself starts with the entire cast singing a nonsensical number offstage, along the lines of “It’s a musical of musicals. We’re singing because it’s a musical!” As with any Broadway musical, they keep on singing and singing once they enter the spotlight.
And while they are singing, the audience just keeps on laughing.
Details Box:
What: The Musical of Musicals, music by Eric Rockwell, lyrics by Joanne Bogart
Who: Rarely Done Productions
Where: Jazz Central, 441 E. Washington St., Syracuse
When: October 19, 2012
Next: 8 p.m. Oct. 20, 26, 27, Nov. 2, 3
Length: One hour and 45 minutes, one intermission
Ticket: $20. Call 315-546-3224 or http://www.rarelydone.org
Family guide: Nothing overtly offensive, but heavy on satire
Oct. 13 Metropolitan simulcast: L'Elisir d'Amore
The Met’s L’Elisir d’Amore mixes a potion better suited to singing than staging
Director Bartlett Sher’s bleak staging burdens Donizetti’s comic book-like pastorale with needless weight, but this new production will ultimately be remembered for its magnificent singing
By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html
Gaetano Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love is a delicious comedy of unending melody and fun. The young composer dashed it off in 1832 in a mere six weeks, and it quickly became a staple of the repertoire. Between 1838 and 1848, according to the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, it was the most performed opera in Italy.
For years the Met offered Elixir in a bright, cartoonish production that caught the silly mood of the piece. The love-struck peasant Nemorino pines for the wealthy and cultured landowner Adina, who won’t give him the time of day. But when she learns that Nemorino is so stuck on her that he bought a love potion from the mountebank Dr. Dulcamara, she melts and performs a neat 180 in the last ten minutes of the opera. Nemorino’s surprise inheritance from a dead uncle of millions of scudi — or lira or euros — pushes Adina to the altar.
The opera offers a great basso buffo role in Dulcamara and a sweet tenor part for Nemorino that includes the famous aria Una Furtiva Lagrima that helped launch Enrico Caruso’s career in 1900. Adina is the standard soprano minx. The required baritone is the swashbuckling egotistical soldier Belcore, who thinks he can win Adina with testosterone.
Once this happy but slight work was selected to open the Met’s 2012-13 season, the old comic book set apparently had to go. Director Bartlett Sher, perhaps to justify the opera’s exalted opening night status and the presence of the bankable Anna Netrebko as Adina, found a heretofore hidden dark side to this pastorale. The antics of Dulcamara aside, the laughs in this new production are few. In their place we have some gratuitous violence with Nemorino being punched by Belcore and another soldier. Adina parades around in a top hat, illustrating her dominatrix side. The timid Nemorino is pushed totally out of character when brandishing a rifle and smacking Adina on the rump. How dare he! Lighting, by Jennifer Tipton, is dark and darker.
While Sher managed to impose his grim will on most of the cast, Ambrogio Maestri, the Dulcamara, resisted the conceit and brought what laughs there were to the piece. A mountain of a man with a big nose and a fleshy, rubbery face, Maestri has the buffo style down pat. He is a natural for Rossini’s Dr. Bartolo, which he has never sung at the Met but should, immediately. (Oddly, he lists no Rossini in his repertoire.)
When Dulcamara arrived in the town square in his carriage and stepped out wearing a wine red cape and bright red vest, a grey fright wig parked on his head, the production came alive. His famous patter aria Udite, udite, o rustici was a hoot as he sold his patent medicine to the rubes in the crowd. His diction was impeccable (he was the only Italian in the cast) and he articulated most of the many notes without barking or sliding, as is often the case with less talented basses.
Overall the vocalism was at a very high level. The temperature really heated up in Act Two when Belcore convinces Nemorino to enlist in order to get bonus money to spend on more of the magic love potion. As Belcore, Mariusz Kwiecien ripped off the notes in Venti scudi like a comic veteran. This was followed by a delightful duet between Maestri and Netrebko when the doctor offers to concoct a potion for her so she can now attract Nemorino. Then came tenor Matthew Polenzani’s Una Furtiva Lagrima, delivered with such sweetness and purity that the audience begged for an encore. Polenzani, who should be better known, seemed inclined to deliver it, but the Met frowns on such pandering to the audience. Do they really deserve it if they only paid $250 for an orchestra seat?
Netrebko’s voice is a bit heavy for Adina, and her sunny nature doesn’t fit Sher’s conception of Adina as the ice princess Turandot. (When she finally took off her top hat and let her long black hair down to embrace Nemorino, I wondered if Sher was channeling the Puccini opera. If so, it’s an odd model for this innocent comedy.) Netrebko handled the coloratura well and her basic sound is as ravishing as ever. She and Polenzani meshed well and demonstrated considerable stage chemistry. But it’s hard to imagine her singing this role much longer.
Conductor Maurizio Benini, who looks like an Italian banker, led the Met Orchestra with zip and provided the proper Italianate style. Catherine Zuber’s costumes seemed to be a realistic representation of the 1830s Italian countryside.
The HD production was, as always, maddening in its relentless close-ups and fast cuts. Even in duets and trios where it is essential to see the characters interact, the producers generally declined to put two faces on the screen together, or pull back to show the whole stage. The reigning aesthetic seems dictated by music videos.
Despite Sher’s efforts to produce a weighty Elixir, two images remain of this production that have nothing to do with his concept. One is Polenzani’s face as he basked in the waves of applause that greeted his Una Furtiva Lagrima. The other is Maestri jamming has fists into a huge bowl of pasta at the wedding banquet, pulling out handfuls of spaghetti to eat without benefit of a fork, spoon, or napkin. At least he got the point.
Details Box:
What: Donizetti’s L'Elisir d'Amore, Simulcast Live in HD
When: October 13, 2012
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: Three hours and 2 minutes, with intermission
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Oct. 12 Syracuse Stage: Moby Dick
Syracuse Stage harpoons a whale of a tale in bare-stage adaptation of ‘Moby Dick’
Nine talented performers and imaginative minimalist staging bring scenes from Melville’s anthropomorphic masterpiece to life, in spite of the disappointing ending
By Barbara Haas
http://cnycafemomus.com/Barbara_Haas.html
“Call Me Ishmael.” Syracuse Stage opened the celebration of its 40th anniversary season with what is probably the most recognizable opening line in Western literature.
Surprisingly, Herman Melville’s huge, sprawling novel Moby Dick sparked little interest during the author’s lifetime. Electricity was on the way, whale oil was becoming expendable, and few were interested in reading everything you could possibly want to know about whales.
It wasn’t until after World War I that a few influential critics resurrected the tale of Captain Ahab’s monomaniacal pursuit of The Great White Whale, and Moby Dick entered the pantheon of American literature as The Great American Novel.
It’s an exciting tale, and adaptations began at once. In a 1926 silent movie, John Barrymore’s Ahab kills the white whale and — not quite what Melville intended — comes home to the woman he loves. There have been cartoon versions: Woody Woodpecker was shanghaied onto the Peapod by its nefarious captain to go after the whale that bit him. In one of several TV versions, Patrick Stewart played Ahab with smoldering intensity. Then, of course, there is John Huston’s classic 1956 film starring the terrifically handsome Gregory Peck as Ahab, with Orson Welles giving the sermon on Jonah and the Whale in what has got to be one of the great dramatic orations of all time. (You can catch it on YouTube.)
For the Syracuse Stage production, Director Peter Amster and his versatile cast of nine must have had a wonderful time recreating Julian Rad’s adaptation. Okay guys, we can imagine them saying, “We’ve got nine actors on a (mostly) bare stage. How do we give the illusion of setting out on a rowboat to harpoon a whale? How do we recreate a typhoon at sea? How do we show the meeting of two ships at sea?”
Of course, Amster and his cast had the assistance of Syracuse Stage’s first-class artistic/technical team to support them. Together they achieved some remarkable effects, such as when six men with straining muscles set out for a whale pod, the savage Queequeg (Antoine Pierre Whitfield) in the prow, harpoon raised on high, grimacing as fiercely as an aboriginal war god. When he sends his harpoon down the trap door, a red glow spreads out on the stage — and our imaginations do the rest. For the typhoon scene, a row of swaying lanterns helps create the illusion of a ship pitching so violently that one of the sailors is nearly knocked off his high lookout perch.
The beginning of the show is particularly engaging — but then that’s true of the novel, too. Erik Hellman makes an appealing young Elijah, cautiously making his way among the rough-and-ready old salts in the whaling harbor of New Bedford. In the lively scene at the Inn we hear first of the sea chanteys that effectively punctuate the play. When Elijah and his new-found pal Queequeg set sail on the Pequod, there is a lovely moment when a huge white curtain descends across the back of the stage as if inflated by sea breezes.
Again as in the novel, there is a long build-up before we meet the awe-inspiring Captain Ahab, described by Melville as a “grand, ungodly, godlike man.” Big shoes to fill. Kurt Ehrmann looks the part and speaks Melville’s Shakespeare-influenced speeches with a commanding presence and richly rotund voice. We can understand why Starbuck (David Studwell), the sensible man who wants to fill the ship’s hold with oil and get back home to his family, finally yields to Ahab’s idée fixe. But there’s a problem built into Ahab’s role. Since he is either shouting commands to his crew or railing against the forces of nature, most of his lines are necessarily delivered fortissimo.
Alas, just when the Pequod finally catches up to the Great White Whale they have been seeking all along, this production loses its impetus. It’s as if the director and cast lost their creativity out of sheer exhaustion. At this most climactic moment, all they could think of to represent the destruction of the boat by the thrashing whale is to have that area of the stage go dark. Ishmael gives us Melville’s description of the scene, but nothing very dramatic is happening on stage. It’s a disappointing ending.
A note for trivia fans: Yes, the international coffee firm got its name from the Melville character, but only after “Pequod” was rejected by one of the co-founders. “Let’s meet for coffee at Pequod’s?” No, I don't think so either...
Details box:
What: Moby Dick, adapted for the stage by Julian Rad from the book by Herman Melville
Who: Syracuse Stage
Where: Archbold Theater, 820 East Genesee Street, Syracuse
When: through November 4
Length: about 2 hours and 30 minutes, with 15-minute intermission
Tickets: $30 to $51; various discounts available: Call (315) 443-3275 or www.SyracuseStage.org
Family guide: a few suggestive bumps and grinds from raunchy sailors, but nothing to worry about
Oct. 12 Famous Artists Broadway: Jersey Boys
Fuggedaboutit: ‘Jersey Boys’ a nostalgic, jukebox musical that will take you back to the ’60s
The 2005 Tony Award winning Best Musical, featuring music of The Four Seasons, has enough foot-tapping tunes to give baby boomers restless leg syndrome
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
I often laugh at pharmaceutical ads on television touting Madison Avenue-named prescriptions for disorders most people do not even recognize as actual medical syndromes.
I think I can ignore those commercials for the dreaded condition of inadequate eyelash growth. However, I do think I have come down with a case of restless leg syndrome: My feet want to keep tapping and my legs want me to get up and move. This condition has even spread up my body. My torso is swaying and my head is bobbing up and down.
This all started Friday night when I saw a production of the national tour of Jersey Boys, presented by Famous Artists at the Landmark Theater. From the first bars of music (the French version of Oh, What a Night!) to the last rousing number (Who Loves You?), I seemed to have been possessed by an external power: the music of the timeless group, The Four Seasons.
The Four Seasons’ songs are more than catchy or “ubiquitous,” as one of the original group members Tommy DeVito (Colby Foytik) says at the beginning of the show. Those of us who are old enough to notice those pharmaceutical commercials have loved these songs for years: Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Let’s Hang On (To What We’ve Got), C’mon Marianne, Walk Like a Man and more. All The Four Seasons classics are here. They bring back both memories and reinvigorate — hence my restless, dancing legs.
Jersey Boys opened on Broadway in 2005, winning eight Tony Awards including Best Musical. Still going strong in New York, it now has six international productions (Jersey Boys Singapore anyone?) and two national touring companies performing throughout the U.S. and Canada. The music is, of course, incredible. But Jersey Boys has legs because it has a powerful story, as well.
It is a fully developed Broadway musical and not just a revue with a sketchy framework on which to hang the songs. (Other similar attempts, such Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on Broadway, failed for that reason.) The “book” part of Jersey Boys provides substantial detail for a captivating narrative arc, with telling moments of both humor and tragedy. We learn about the early run-ins with the law on the part of DeVito, Nick Massi (Brandon Andrus) and Frankie Valli (Brad Weinstock). There’s an incredible back-story involving little Joey Pesci. Yes, that Joe Pesci of Goodfellas fame. And who knew that Bob Gaudio (Jason Kappus) wrote the silly but successful (Who Wears) Short Shorts when he was only 15 years old?
The behind-the-scenes tale also includes off-stage rivalry, music business maneuvering, romances and failed marriages. Foytik, Andrus, Weinstock and Kappus are not just superb singers — they are capable actors, embodying the original Four Seasons performers themselves.
Four talented young women play a variety of roles, such as girlfriends and back-up singers. Most notably, Natalie Gallo plays Mary, Frankie’s first wife, who urged him “ya gotta end your name in a vowel,” changing Vally to Valli. Alas, Valli’s first marriage did not run smoothly and had more than its share of pathos, as depicted in the play.
The touring show, directed by Des McAnuff, has strong production elements, as well. The physical set is spare, beginning with a chain-link industrial look. It quickly becomes apparent that the key motif of the stage design is a constantly changing video “billboard” that moves up and down at regular intervals. At times it flashes the name of a season in jumbo letters, evoking the name of the group and the passage of time in their lives. In other scenes it projects Roy Lichtenstein-like massive comic book images. The lighting design won the production one of its Tony Awards, although some viewers with sensitive vision might be overwhelmed by its eye-popping brightness.
The play spends a lot of time on the financial troubles that almost brought the group under. The reference to a debt of $150,000 may seem piddling now, but in 1963 this could have been catastrophic. A quick visit to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online inflation calculator shows that amount is comparable to a whopping $1,129,308.82 in today’s dollars. Amazingly, that figure is almost exactly the gross revenue brought in by the Broadway production of Jersey Boys for the week of October 7 — that’s right, in one week. (Check out the grosses at Internet Broadway Database, the official website of the Broadway League.)
Could those guys who started singing under a street lamp and in shady, marginal venues possibly have foreseen this kind of success back then?
In the musical, DeVito tells the audience that there were only three choices for blue-collar guys growing up in Jersey: “Get mobbed up, join the Army or become stars.” Hoboken’s Frank Sinatra and Asbury Park’s Bruce Springsteen certainly did the latter. And for decades of music lovers, we’re glad that these four Jersey boys did, too.
Details Box:
What: Jersey Boys, music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe; book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
Who: Famous Artists Broadway
Where: The Landmark Theatre, 362 S. Salina St., Syracuse
When: Through October 28
Length: Two hours and 40 minutes, with one intermission
Ticket: $128 for premium; $65 to $75, orchestra; $30 to $60, balcony; student rush tickets $28. Call (315) 424-8210 or http://www.famousartistsbroadway.com/
Family guide: Repeated profanity, some sexual references
Oct. 4 Redhouse Theater: Assassins
Redhouse Theater’s production of ‘Assassins’ hits target
Stephen Sondheim's brazen black comedy about actual (and wannabe) presidential assassins will simply kill you
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is a raucous, often hilarious and constantly entertaining musical romp through U.S. history, as well as a profoundly incisive and chilling look at the dark side of the American spirit.
Redhouse is audaciously presenting the 1990 Off-Broadway musical, a rouges’ gallery of presidential assassins, in an election year. It’s a vigorous production, directed by Stephen Svoboda, and the big names here are: Charles Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. They are joined by lesser eccentrics who either succeeded or failed at hitting their intended targets. The Proprietor (Alex Levin) serves as a barker in a crazy carnival booth atmosphere, tallying the prizes. Abraham Lincoln? Shot and martyred. James Garfield? Ding! William McKinley? Another ding.
Dan Williams is hilarious as the overweening, posturing and preening Charles Guiteau. To Guiteau, it is of no consequence that all his endeavors have come to naught. He’s failed at everything — whether being an insurance salesman or even a free-love advocate. (He spent time Central New York’s very own utopian society, the Oneida Community.) Who cares if no one sees his innate potential and isn’t rapturously following his self-published opus? He will be Ambassador to Paris, after all! For Guiteau, it’s always “morning in America” in terms of his vapid self-expectations.
The most intense and realistic portrayal of the evening (and perhaps on any local stage in recent months) was that of Brian Detlefs as Giuseppe Zangara. Zangara is bent over in apparent anguish for much of his time on stage, as he suffers from unrelenting stomach pain. Alas, nothing helps (poor Zangara was 50 years too early for the Nobel-Prize winning discovery that ulcers are actually caused by a fairly easily-treated bacterial infection).
Ah, but there is a solution for “trouble in your tummy.” Wilkes suggests that killing Franklin Roosevelt may not help — but “it can’t hurt.” The scenario of someone trying to assassinate a revered political leader because of a glorified stomachache is ridiculously incongruous. But don’t laugh at this assassin. Detlefs may meet your eyes with a glare that, at that moment, makes you believe he is Zangara himself.
Detlefs, like the other capable community and Equity actors, enables you to develop empathy (dare I say sympathy) for this motley crew. While you can be repulsed by their actions, the characters in Assassins compel you to comprehend why they attempted (and occasionally succeeded) in their single-minded deeds. Everything has context and cause for action.
Leon Czolgosz, expertly played by David Cotter, has truly suffered in the bowels of America’s Industrial Age factory system. You can sense the injustice of what he has gone through when Czolgosz explains what it’s like to tend the fiery furnace in a glass bottle plant, earning six cents an hour — less if a bottle is accidentally broken. You recoil when you see the evidence of horrific burns, as much as you jump at the report of the gun when he shoots William McKinley. Big Bill—he loved beef!
Can we doubt that John Hinckley, still being held at St. Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Hospital in Washington, singularly believed that Jodie Foster would be impressed by his assassination of Ronald Reagan? Anthony Malchar is earnest and impassioned as he sings a truly beautiful love song to Foster, “Unworthy of Your Love,” joined by another would-be assassin proclaiming what she would do for love.
We know Charles Manson was a swastika-adorned, delusional cult leader who led his followers to kill a lovely Hollywood actress and six others. (Manson, now 78, remains in prison.) To an entranced Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, played winningly by Marguerite Mitchell, Manson is first a “dirty-looking little elf” and ultimately the Son of God. Manson has saved her and she will attempt to repay him by trying to kill President Ford.
Sara Jane Moore is a hot mess with her five husbands, obnoxiously whiny son (Kyle Johnson, in one of several roles in the ensemble) and inability to fire a weapon (or for that matter find anything) in her handbag. From the first glance at Laura Austin Moore’s darting, bugged-out eyes, she appears totally off her rocker even as she exclaims that things are “groovy” and “far out!”
The cuckoo meter also ramps up whenever John Bixler is on stage as Samuel Byck, the chap who protested in front of the White House in a Santa suit and later tried to kill Richard Nixon. Bixler portrays Byck as a zany “every man,” beaten down by a world going bad (pollution, the economy, etc.) His rant is absolutely hysterical — that is until you hear his plan to hijack a 747 and crash it into the White House. Can anything make your blood run colder than to be reminded of the other group of single-minded fanatics who did hijack planes? They, too, fully believed their cause as real and righteous.
September 11 prompted composer and lyricist Sondheim and Assassins book author John Weidman to add an additional song for the play’s highly successful Broadway revival in 2004. In the CD liner notes, Weidman writes that the song “Something Just Broke” allows the audience to “express the simple, uncomplicated grief that we all experience in response to these vicious, horrific attacks.” Krystal Scott (elsewhere playing Emma Goldman) is moving as the lead singer in this meaningful song. The musicians, Zach Orts, Rob Kronen and Kelly Covert, beautifully accompany this and the other ten numbers. Also relevant is that the Redhouse program fittingly notes that “in an effort to keep with the original intention of the show, this evening will not have a bow at the end of the show.”
But before the poignant finale, we have the Big Act. All of these characters are being propelled to the real crescendo of Presidential assassinations: the events in Dallas on a November afternoon in 1963. Here, Wilkes — the aggrieved Southern patrician actor — pops up again as the evil Genie. In a reimagining of Oswald’s final moments in the Texas Book Depository, Wilkes (archly and charismatically played by Chris Baron) convinces Oswald (Jacob Sharf, in a dual role as the Balladeer) that in order to take all of the Presidential killers to the next level he has to take out the Big Fish himself — John F. Kennedy. Without Oswald, Czolgosz, Guiteau and crew are just pathetic “footnotes in a history book.” Oswald can be their rock star. With him, they can enter the pantheon of antiheroes in infamy — and, for Oswald, ever-unfolding conspiracy theories.
Their argument is realized in “Another American Anthem,” which points out clearly that for all the numerous people in our country who “make it,” there are others who fail miserably and are beaten down by the system and life. In the closing number, “Everybody’s Got the Right,” they sing, “Everybody's got the right to some sunshine. Not the sun, but maybe one of its beams.”
One by one, these assassins — blinded by their own vision — tried to ride a beam of light and change history.
Details Box:
What: Assassins, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, presented by Redhouse.
Where: Redhouse Arts Center, 201 S. West Street, Armory Square, Syracuse
Next: 8 p.m. October 6, 10, 11, 12, 13
Length: About two hours, no intermission
Ticket: $25, $15 for members and $10 for students. Call 315) 425-0405 or http://www.theredhouse.org/
Family guide: Multiple gunshots, profanity
September 29 Tokyo String Quartet
Tokyo Quartet returns to Syracuse, bids farewell to some old friends
Now in its final season, the venerable ensemble plays SFCM for the last time — ending a remarkable 44-year journey with flashes of brilliance… and signs of fatigue
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
No sooner had the final two chords of Schubert’s massive G-Major String Quartet sounded than the oversized audience packing the Lincoln Middle School Auditorium Saturday evening jumped to its feet with vociferous shouts of approval.
It couldn’t have ended any other way.
The Tokyo Quartet’s farewell concert marked the end of a lengthy and rewarding association with Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music — an ongoing love fest that first bonded the two organizations in 1974 and stretched on for more than a dozen visits afterwards. And while the level of Saturday’s performance may have fallen somewhat short of the bar set by this ensemble over the course of its three decade-plus history, this was a concert worth remembering, if only for its parting image: four distinguished and beloved performers taking bows as they prepare to ride off into the sunset of chamber music immortality — a true Kodak moment.
Tokyo’s warm and amiable blend of tone was at once evident during the opening Allegro di molto of the Haydn Quartet in D Major, Op. 20 no. 4 that launched the three-work program. Such homogeneity of tone is no doubt due in part to the matching set of Strads that the four players have been using since 1985. (The instruments are on loan from Japan’s Nippon Foundation.) But it takes more than great equipment to produce great sounds.
A professional string quartet’s tone is developed, cultivated and refined over a period of years — which explains why so many great quartets, past and present, have a distinctive uniqueness and consistency of tone that set them apart from the others. And few string quartets can stand up to the cohesive blend and uniformity of sound heard Saturday from the Tokyo Quartet. The ensemble’s sumptuous tone was not enough however to bring this Haydn Quartet to life. Despite some impressive individual efforts and a technically tidy ensemble, the performers never quite captured the magic of the moment.
To be sure, Tokyo enjoys an outstanding reputation for its stylistic interpretations of “Papa” Haydn. (Their recording of the Opus 76 Quartets remains the benchmark against which I measure any quartet’s ability to play Haydn.) And in the Quartet in D Major, the players seemed to do most everything right. At least on paper. Tempos in the final (Presto scherzando) movement were brisk and the 16th-note runs cleanly articulated; the highly syncopated Menuetto was snappy and rhythmically secure (and buoyed by Clive Greensmith’s lovely cello solo in the Trio section); and the slow movement (Un poco Adagio affetuoso) variations were agreeable enough.
So what could possibly have been missing? Inspiration. Chemistry. The spontaneity of ensemble that makes the whole greater than the sum of the individual parts. For whatever reason, the players never appeared to open throttle, let go and join in the fun. It’s not that this was a poor performance of a Haydn quartet; it was actually perfectly acceptable. But acceptable doesn’t measure up to what we’ve come to expect from the Tokyo Quartet.
Whatever magic may have been lost on the Haydn reappeared for Anton Webern’s Fünf Sätze (Five Pieces) Op. 5, a complicated and thorny work the players appeared eager to sink their teeth into — and deeply, at that.
Dating from 1909, this set of pieces that string together as a quartet is not dodecaphonic, although the writing here makes free use of atonality (Webern didn’t use pitch serialization until 1925). And typical of the composer, these pieces are brief and the feelings muted — as if the profuse emotions of late German Romanticism had been drastically reduced to a finely distilled essence of musical timbre, devoid of any degree of sentimentality.
Tokyo gave an alert, faithful and determined rendition of these expressionistic miniatures — making the most of Webern’s angry pizzicatos, tremolos, harmonics, sul ponticello and muted strings effects. They faithfully observed Webern’s expansive dynamic spectrum that runs the gamut from exaggerated fortissimos to “barely audible.” And while this work may hardly be described as a crowd pleaser, listeners appeared attentive and in-sync with the players, who cut deeply into the core of the abstract writing to capture the composer’s anguish, urgency and grief (this was written in the aftermath of the death of his mother).
I had high hopes for a tour de force (or at least a second wind) in Schubert’s mammoth Quartet in G Major D. 887, coming as it had after the resolute performance of the Fünf Sätze. But if the performance of the Haydn was less-than-inspired, the players in this warhorse appeared fatigued — as if the jam-packed schedule of The Tokyo Quartet’s final season were beginning to take its toll.
Ensemble among the four players was not especially tight in the weighty and dramatic opening movement, as the players tended to rush the strongly over-dotted rhythmic motifs that permeate the movement. A cautious tempo in third movement Scherzo (hardly the Allegro vivace indicated by the composer) dampened an otherwise exciting movement, and the reliable and dependable first violinist Martin Beaver experienced some pitch problems in the altissimo register passages during the first three movements.
There were nonetheless the familiar flashes of brilliance we’ve come to expect from the Tokyo Quartet, such as Greensmith’s sinuous cello solo in the lyrical Andante movement and a well executed final movement Allegro assai — which generated the first-rate playing we’ve come to expect from this ensemble.
While this may not have been The Tokyo Quartet's finest two hours, they remain a class act — and the model upon which other such ensembles may be judged. And they will sorely be missed.
Details Box:
What: The Tokyo String Quartet
Who: Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James Street, Syracuse
When: 7:30 P.M., Saturday September 29, 2012
Time: Two hours, including intermission
Next: Ying String Quartet with pianist Elinor Freer, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20
Ticket prices: Regular $20, Senior $15, Student $10
Information: call (315) 682-7720
Website: http://syracusefriendsofchambermusic.org
September 28 SU Drama: Merrily We Roll Along
SU Drama’s ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ breathes new life into a Sondheim flop
A strong cast of SU Drama students led by Avery Bryce Epstein overcomes the problems endemic to reverse chronology narratives
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
Merrily We Roll Along may be one of Stephen Sondheim’s biggest flops, but it is an excellent vehicle to showcase the prodigious talents of the Syracuse University Drama Department in the current production directed by Professor Brian Cimmet. The ensemble of 23 talented students hailing from across the United States speaks to the depth of SU’s musical theater program.
The wide-open set designed by Sang Min Kim and the brilliant lighting by Allison P. Shumway, both students, are absolutely stupendous. The set is versatile — large, rolling staircases whose lighting along the risers changes in key scenes. The lighting gives depth to the horizon behind the beautifully realized Manhattan skyline.
The costumes by recent SU drama graduate Danielle Hodgins represent a formidable accomplishment, as well. Designing costumes for such a huge cast that must evoke different time periods and meet the specific demands of each musical number is no easy task. The hard work that went into the design and construction of the dozens of costumes was clearly evident.
The play itself is known in the annals of theatre as a massive misfire. Sondheim, the Broadway legend whose credits include West Side Story, Gypsy, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Company, and Follies (along with multiple revivals of those masterpieces), had his share of theatrical disasters. The worst may have been 1964’s Anyone Can Whistle — which closed after only nine performances. Merrily did not fare much better, playing for only 16 performances in 1981. The then-New York Times drama critic Frank Rich wrote, “To be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one’s heart broken at regular intervals.”
Such a provenance may make this seem like an unusual choice for SU’s Drama Department. However, the basic flaw with the original production (admitted by Sondheim himself) becomes irrelevant in this student production.
The conceit of the musical (not really a musical comedy) is the reverse chronology of the narrative. It starts out in 1976 in the opulent Southern California mansion of the commercially successful composer Franklin Shepard (played by senior Kyle Anderson). With scenes set at two to five-year intervals moving backwards in time, we learn that Frank has let his personal and musical integrity slip away. He has left his two dearest friends in the wake of his pursuit of success.
The play ends 19 years earlier on the rooftop of a cheap New York City flat, where we see Frank with those two friends at their first heart-felt encounter as a threesome. Frank and his lyricist Charley Kringas (played by junior Dan Reardon) are struggling but inspired musical collaborators. A neighbor, Mary Flynn (played by junior Avery Bryce Epstein), is starting out as a magazine copywriter. She has heard — and adores — Frank’s music through the open window and becomes their biggest cheerleader and mainstay.
In Finishing the Hat, Sondheim’s collection of lyrics and commentary, he writes of the Merrily Broadway production: “What we envisioned was a cautionary tale in which actors in their late teens and early twenties would begin disguised as middle-aged sophisticates and gradually become their innocent young selves as the evening progressed. Unfortunately, we got caught in a paradox we should have foreseen: Actors that young, no matter how talented, rarely have the experience or skills to play anything but themselves, and in this case even that caused them difficulties.”
That problem doesn’t arise here. It isn’t discordant to have twenty-ish actors plays people in their 40s because audience members come expecting to see student cast members in their late teens and early twenties. And, unlike Sondheim’s rather disparaging words about the original cast, these young performers are impressive and adroit as they negotiate the getting-younger-as-the-musical-moves-on challenge of Merrily We Roll Along.
Epstein is a standout among the three leads. As the play opens, her character is rather frumpy as a cynical drama critic far too much in her cups. She sheds the weight of world by stages, revealing the joyful young woman she once was. Can this ingénue at the end (1957) be that same hard-edged figure we see in in the first scene in 1976? Epstein makes it compellingly believable.
The play includes several other key characters who figure prominently in Frank’s life. SU junior Danny Harris Kornfeld as Joe Josephson is pitiful at the beginning, begging for a handout. In other scenes, Kornfeld skillfully shows him as a crass power player. Senior Olivia Gjurich is Frank’s ex-wife, who also started out with high hopes but who also suffers the consequences of Frank’s bad decisions. Another victim of Frank’s wrong turns in life is his young son, beautifully portrayed by a Cortland fifth-grader, Seamus Gailor. (Gailor is no theater newbie: He wowed local audiences last year in Syracuse Stage’s Caroline, or Change.)
Sophomore Callie Baker has the showiest (albeit the most thankless) role in Merrily. She plays Gussie Carnegie (a contrived name, if ever there was one), who has parlayed her looks into Broadway stardom. Baker is gorgeous and embodies Gussie with a full measure of bravura. Unfortunately, Carnegie’s character is too much of a cliché. She’s not only blond and buxom but also somewhat of a bimbo. Example: She wants to redecorate her home in the “hues of anemones.” Not only that, she is cruel — making her the transparently obvious villain of the piece. It’s far too easy to blame her as the other characters’ lives get more muddled.
If Gussie Carnegie seems contrived, the entire plot itself seems tired. Haven’t we seen this same story before? A group of small town friends pledge to remain true to each other and not forget their roots. One achieves fame and forgets his or her salt-of-the-earth origins, leaving the “true friends” behind. There have been many variations of this story. One notable one is the tear-jerker film Beaches, with Bette Midler as the star and Barbara Hershey as the forgotten friend. Myriad screenwriters probably owe this story line to the original Merrily We Roll Along — not the 1981 musical but the 1934 non-musical, written by two other Broadway legends: George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
Merrily We Roll Along has its place in theatre history: It’s part of Stephen Sondheim’s unparalleled oeuvre. Unfortunately, the songs — with the exception of “Old Friends” — are not among Sondheim’s best. As a musical, Merrily We Roll Along will interest you, but probably not transport you.
SU Drama’s version, however, may be the very best production of a Broadway flop you’re likely to see.
Details Box:
What: Merrily We Roll Along, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by George Furth, presented by the Syracuse University Drama Department
Where: Storch Theatre, Department of Drama/Syracuse Stage Complex, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Through October 7
Length: Two and a half hours, one intermission
Ticket: $16 to $18; $8 rush tickets available at the door one hour before curtain. Call 315-443-3275 or http://vpa.syr.edu/drama
Family guide: A mildly risqué dance number
September 22 Rarely Done Productions: Pinkalicious
Rarely Done Productions paints a picture perfect ‘Pinkalicious’
The popular children’s musical looks and sounds pretty in pink
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
“I love this play!” exclaimed Arielle Sheedy, my seven-year-old technical consultant, at the first performance of Rarely Done Production’s children’s musical, Pinkalicious. The fact that Arielle’s stamp of approval came five minutes before the play began is a testament to the kids-friendly atmosphere the theater is achieving with its newly inaugurated Dormouse Series.
Arielle, her younger sisters and the numerous other children in the audience (mostly girls) could have easily exclaimed “I love this play!” at any point during and after the production. It is a whole package of family fun, as compact and bright as a pink-frosted cupcake.
As discerning theatergoers, Arielle and her sisters Madalyn and Kaylie had different critical impressions of the play. One said her favorite part was when Pinkalicious turned pink. Another said it was when Pinkalicious turned normal again. And — spoiler alert! — another said her favorite part was when Pinkalicious’ brother turned pink.
They might have favorite moments, but the entire show was a positive experience reinforced by the great perks offered by Rarely Done Productions. Before curtain, the children were handed colored construction paper and crayons and invited to draw pictures to be brought backstage for Pinkalicious to admire. After the curtain call, Pinkalicious herself answered questions from adoring fans, posed for pictures and signed autographs. In the lobby were cupcakes by Kathryn Woods and family, and flowers and animal-shaped balloons by C.J. Young.
The musical, with book and lyrics by Elizabeth Kann and Victoria Kann and music by John Gregor, is based on the first of what proved to be a series of successful children’s books by Victoria Kann. Starting with Pinkalicious, the bestselling books now include Purplicious, Silverlicious and Goldilicious. You get the idea.
Pinkalicious Pinkerton, played by (grown-up) actress Sara Weiler, is an adorable, lively “child” who has a preternatural obsession with all things pink. She’s also a little bit naughty — particularly with her bad habit of sneaking into the kitchen to eat more cupcakes. They’re so delicious, and the pink frosting is so enticing.
The child’s mother and father, played by Sarah Elmer and David Witanowski, are hard working, caring adults who are beside themselves when faced with Pinkalicious’ pink-centered habits. Alas, they spend so much time worrying about their daughter they tend to ignore their son, Peter — played by a tall and gangly Jon Basla. Peter himself is hiding a bit of a secret. He, too, has a fondness for the color pink and a palpable fear of catching a football. (Was Jerry Falwell in his waning years as concerned about Peter’s color-orientation as he was about poor, purple Tinky-Winky?)
Rounding out the cast is Ceara Windhausen, who plays both Pinkalicious’ fast-talking friend, Alison, and Dr. Wink, the physician to whom the Pinkertons take their daughter when her pinkness takes a dramatic turn. Not to fear: Dr. Wink knows the cure for the dreaded pinkatitus and is experienced in treating this dreaded (if all-too-rare) malady. The good doctor has already cured one poor soul of this disease and knows that the remedy lies in eating nutritious, vitamin-filled food — all in the hue of green. Guacamole-dipped Brussels sprouts, anyone?
Directed by David Cotter and choreographed by Jodi Bova-Mele, this production is a joyful romp through a variety of musical styles — torch song, blues, and typical Broadway show tunes, to name a few. The numbers are fast-paced and entertaining and the entire cast is consistently diverting. The centerpiece, of course, is Weiler’s performance. She may be the hardest-working local performer in recent months. By day she is a pink-loving, spunky child; by night she is a besotted Manhattan bride (at least in the first weekend’s overlap with Covey Theater Company’s Barefoot in the Park). A couple of months ago, Weiler was a blue, furry monster — or at least her puppet persona was, in the sweetly raunchy Avenue Q.
Weiler is not just pinkatastic. She is just plain fantastic.
DETAILS BOX:
What: Pinkalicious, by Elizabeth and Victoria Kann
Who: Rarely Done Productions
Where: Jazz Central Theater, 441 E. Washington St.
Syracuse
When: Sep. 22, 2012
Next: 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sep. 29 and Oct. 6; 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Sep. 30 and Oct. 7
Length: Just under one hour, no intermission
Ticket: $10 age five and under; $12 ages six through 12; $15 ages 13 and up. Call 315-546-3224 or http://www.rarelydone.org
Family guide: Family-friendly, preferable for pre-school and primary pupils
September 15 Syracuse Stage: Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo
Syracuse Stage’s ‘Cry for Peace’ a declamatory chorus of horrific tales too easily ignored
No actors to be found here — just real people recounting real atrocities in a real world far from the comfort of our own
By Barbara Haas
http://cnycafemomus.com/Barbara_Haas.html
Timothy Bond, artistic director of Syracuse Stage, has often expressed his belief in the community-building power of theater — the belief that when people sitting together in the same space share a response to the same story, fellow-feeling is strengthened.
It’s little wonder then that Bond greatly admires the work of Director Ping Chong, who has gone to communities around the country to create oral-history theater works in which real people, not actors, tell their own stories. Participants have included Native Americans, people with disabilities, children who witnessed civil disorder or domestic violence, and — here in Syracuse three seasons ago in Tales from the Salt City — stories of people from other cultures who have made Central New York their home. “We’re all insular,” Chong said then, “but in the end we come to realize that all humanity is the same. All islands connect under water.”
In Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, at Syracuse Stage through September 23, five people share their personal experiences. The three men (Cyprien Mihigo, Emmanuel Ndeze, Kambale Syaghuswa) are from the Congolese community of about 300 people who have found political asylum here in Syracuse from the tribal warfare that has ravaged their country. Beatrice Neema, also from the Congo, is a surrogate for another woman who wanted to share her story but wished not to appear in person. Mona de Vestal, of African-Belgian parentage, has a very different, but related, story to tell.
Syracuse Stage Dramaturg Kyle Bass worked over a period of years with Chong and assistant Sara Zatz to craft a script that combines the personal histories of these five with the underlying history of the plundering by Western nations of their vast, resource-rich country.
Naturally, the stories these people have to tell are pretty horrific. They speak of abandoning family and village to avoid being forced to serve in the army, of running for your life to reach the comparative safety of a neighboring country, of imprisonment, of years in a refugee camp, of atrocities witnessed and suffered — stories that elicited sympathetic gasps from the audience.
It’s kind of a shock, then, when stories of such people whose experiences seem worlds away from our own snug little lives are transposed to our own home town. And how does it feel to be living in America? For a few, the sense of insecurity follows them here. They are separated from family, from village, from all that is familiar. They worry, and with good reason, about those left behind in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are unwilling to let their tribal identities be known to other Congolese here, and resist the efforts of Cyprien Mihigo to pull the Congolese community together. The most hopeful sign has been that in choosing teammates for a soccer match, they chose the best players rather than members of their own tribe.
Chong allows his five narrators to tell their story simply, seated with their scripts before them in a semi-circle. He evokes the beauty of Africa at peace through occasional songs and projected images. But his way of organizing these people's stories has a curiously alienating effect. All five participate in each other's stories in a declamatory way we used to call choral speaking. They punctuate the narrative with simultaneous clapping and shout out the year together, as if the chronology is what really matters. That works fine for important historical events, such as 1960, when the Congo won independence from Belgium. But is it of prime importance to establish whether the year was 1995 or 1996 when the woman telling her story was gang-raped? Somewhere along the way from lived experience to prepared script, the emotion has vanished from the telling.
The narrators recite the words in their scripts with varying degrees of dramatic flair in a language that doesn't always fall comfortably from their tongues. Because Mona de Vestal speaks so well (she came to America as a youngster), hers is the story that emerges most clearly. Unlike the others, her struggle is within herself, since as a Belgian-African she incorporates both the oppressor and the oppressed. A student at NYU when the bloodshed was at its height in the Congo, Vestal was hurt to see New Yorkers going about their daily lives, oblivious to what was happening in her mother's country.
But then, that’s why all five of these people are willing to share their stories: They want us to know.
Details Box:
What: Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, at Syracuse Stage
Where: Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Sep. 15, 2012
Remaining performances: 7:30 p.m. Sep. 20; 8 p.m. Sep. 21; 3 and 8 p.m. Sep. 22 and 2 p.m. Sep. 23
Length: 1 hour and 20 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $20 general public; $15 for subscribers and flex pack holders. Call (315) 443-3275 or visit SyracuseStage.org.
Family guide: Adult themes, disturbing accounts from the Congolese Civil War
September 14 Covey Theatre Company: Barefoot in the Park
Covey Company’s ‘Barefoot in the Park’ keeps the gags fresh — and the laughter continuous
Neil Simon’s classic comedy, while somewhat dated, stands up well in this effervescent ensemble effort directed by Garrett Heater
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
The Covey Theatre Company’s Barefoot in the Park is a charmingly acted artifact of another era in American theater… and American life.
Barefoot in the Park, Neil Simon’s first huge theatrical success, opened on Broadway in 1963 and ran for more than 1,500 performances, launching the career of Robert Redford in the romantic male lead. It was a successful movie in 1967, starring Redford and pre-Hanoi sex kitten Jane Fonda, and featured the memorable Johnny Mercer and Neil Hefti theme song by the same name.
The romantic comedy is set in 1962 and centers on the first few weeks of married life for Paul and Corie Bratter. Paul is somewhat insufferable and straight-laced. Corie is an effervescent and joyful new bride. They’ve just moved into their first apartment — a small, ill-equipped flat on 48th Street in New York City that’s five flights up (six, if you count the stoop). In his 1998 memoir Rewrites, Simon wrote that every play, comedy or tragedy, has to be about “an event. Like the first time ‘something’ has ever happened.” For Barefoot in the Park, that event is moving into the new apartment — which becomes a comic foil and character in its own right, causing much of the conflict between the protagonists and the ensuing highjinks among the entire ensemble.
Paul, played with deadpan seriousness by J. Allan Orton, is trying to buckle down as a newly hired lawyer, reminding his wife repeatedly that he has a court case to attend in the morning. Corie, played with delightful and sweet aplomb by Sara Weiler, has gone directly from her childhood home to this first apartment as a married woman — with just a six-day honeymoon at the Plaza Hotel in between. She spends every day on the phone calling Paul at work because she’s bored. When he’s home and flees to the bedroom to prepare his case, Corie pleads, “Can’t I come in to watch you?”
Corie’s identity is “Mrs. Paul Bratter” — as she proudly exclaims to Harry Pepper, the Bell Telephone installer played by Bill Hughes. And having “my very own phone!” is a milestone for her. Did Corie go to college? We don’t know. Has she contemplated doing something other than paint all the walls an overly pastel blue? We also don’t know. When Corie’s mother Ethel Banks (hilariously played by Karis Wiggins) comes to visit, we learn that at the ripe old age of 50 she too can’t imagine entering the workforce.
At this point, even if you’ve seen all five seasons of Mad Men, you may want to pinch yourself as a reminder that this really was the norm in the pre-Feminine Mystique era. In 1962, only 30 percent of married women worked. The General Social Survey (GSS), an annual survey of social attitudes among the American public conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, found that as late as 1977 “more than half of respondents felt that mothers working was harmful to children.” Times have changed. Barefoot in the Park may be a Neil Simon classic, but it is dated.
What doesn’t change is that people love to laugh. And like so many Neil Simon plays, this one delivers. With spot-on direction by Covey Artistic Director Garrett Heater and great performances by the entire cast, Barefoot in the Park provides continuous opportunities for raucous laughter.
One of the greatest catalysts for laughter in this play is the aforementioned flight of stairs, which every character treats as if he or she has just climbed all 102 floors of the Empire State Building. One by one, they stagger and wheeze their way through the front door of the apartment, occasionally needing assistance to be pulled in the rest of the way, like dead weight. As a device, this shtick never gets stale at the hands (or perhaps feet) of this strong troupe of comedians.
A lot of the pratfalls are sparked by a second continuing catalyst: the abundance of liquor all are sloshing down. Corie mixes up knock-em-dead cocktails in her ill-equipped apartment with as much frequency as Don Draper in the ad man’s Madison Avenue office. One of the funniest scenes in the entire play follows an evening at an Albanian restaurant on Staten Island (where all have had just a bit too much Ouzo), as Paul at last loses control, flailing and flopping on the couch with his equally impaired mother-in-law — who had compounded things by her copious use of “little pink pills”).
The restaurant (and Ouzo) came recommended by Paul and Corie’s upstairs neighbor, Victor Velasco — a gourmand of indeterminate origin (and accent) who helped the young bride pick out chotskies for the apartment while introducing the group to some rather daring foreign culinary items.
Ed Mastin is superb as Velasco, and his ensuing encounter with Corie’s mom is a highlight. At the beginning of the play, Banks’s role in life appears to be sending Corie daily wedding presents (all carried up the stairs by the Delivery Man, played by Bernard Kaplan — who like the others milked the ordeal for all it’s worth). Velasco proceeds to open up Banks to new realms of experience.
As contrived as parts of the plot to this story may sound, theatergoers should know that there were real newlyweds living in this improbable Manhattan apartment.
Neil Simon adored — truly adored — his first wife Joan Baim, who tragically died of cancer in 1973 after 20 years of marriage. The Rewrites narrative of Simon’s first days of marriage to Baim, a former actress and dancer, reads like a plot summary of Barefoot in the Park. The ridiculously small bedroom was true: “One could open the window by standing on the bed, but opening the small closet on the opposite wall was another matter. What we did was walk across the bed, [and] pull the closet door open about three inches, a major feat in itself.” The same for the large hole in the skylight fourteen feet above, the bain of Paul’s existence in the play: “Unfortunately, this also permitted rain, sleep, and snow to fall gently and otherwise on the sofa, the only good piece of furniture we had.” Despite the holes in the ceiling, telephone booth-sized bathroom and impossible bedroom, they were “gloriously happy” in their cheap, multi-flight walk-up. Their young love is what he remembered, treasured and set down for posterity.
Barefoot in the Park might be a sociological artifact, but it is also the lasting valentine to the true love of a real-life couple. And, yes, Joan did like to walk barefoot in Washington Square Park.
Details Box:
What: Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park, by The Covey Theatre Company
Where: Bevard Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center
When: Sep. 14, 2012
Remaining performances: 8 p.m. September 21, 22
Length: Two and a half hours, with two intermissions
Ticket: Purchased at door, $20; purchased online, $21. Call (315) 420-3729 or http://thecoveytheatrecompany.com
Family guide: Nothing objectionable
August 23 Skaneateles Festival
Always a pleasure to hear this celebrated pianist, but Serkin's overly meditative and contemplative delivery tests the listener's patience
By Kevin Moore
http://cnycafemomus.com/Kevin_Moore.htmlContrary to the popular view of Beethoven as composer of primarily dramatic and powerful works such as the Eroica, Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, Appassionata Sonata or Coriolan Overture, the predominant character of his piano music is joyous lyricism and expressive beauty. It appears to me that Peter Serkin is by nature a deeply thoughtful, somewhat introverted pianist with an intellectual bent. Especially in a program consisting mostly of works from the composer’s late period, all of this would appear to make the ideal combination of pianist and music. Yet on Thursday evening this was only occasionally true.
Beginning with the Eleven Bagatelles, Op.119 the pianist seemed to impose a concept of pure meditation on the music. Most of these were played softly and slowly — allegretto became andante, andante became adagio, forte became mezzo-forte, piano became pianissimo, etc. The musical flow was so attenuated that the listener was kept at arm’s length from Mr. Serkin’s private meditation. It made me, as well as several younger listeners around me, impatient.
It is true that he played with a wonderful clarity of texture, immaculate pedaling, consistently beautiful tone and beautiful and detailed attention to melodic figuration, but all within an apparently meditative limitation. For my taste in Beethoven, that was a bit frustrating. When Beethoven wrote forte it must mean something comparative. Despite some very beautiful moments, the performance overall simply lacked contrast.
The same limitation applied to the Piano Sonata no.31 in A-flat major, Op.110. This is one of the “eternal verities” of music and there is a tendency to deify the music. That often involves over-doing every little nuance in the name of “expressiveness.” The short second movement Scherzo did have a bit more muscle although the trio was somewhat mangled. That’s no crime, however. All pianists who play this piece, even the greatest ones, have such moments with that perilous passage. In the third movement’s “Sorrowful Song” section there was some beautiful and expressive playing, and again the meditative predominated. Even the final fugue seemed to take forever to develop into that scintillating and joyous ending. Yet by that point it just seemed too little too late.
Serkin’s performance of this work reminded me of a story told by the pianist’s good friend, Richard Goode. Like Serkin, Goode studied with the distinguished Mieczyslaw Horszowski at Curtis. The gist of Goode’s story was that when he first learned the A-flat Sonata he worked exceptionally hard on it and was pleased with the results. He couldn’t wait to hear what Horszowski would say. Goode played the work for him and thought to himself that surely no one had ever played it as emotionally as he. When the playing stopped there was silence for a few moments. Horszowski then walked over to Goode and slowly put his hand on his shoulder. “Richard,” the teacher said quietly, “this sonata is for piano, not for pianist.” Goode said he never forgot that.
The point, of course, is that it’s often too easy and tempting to “gild the lily” and run the risk of overbearing Beethoven’s sometimes very direct message. This is an interpretive choice, and the results of such choices may vary from night to night. Last night I don’t think those choices worked particularly well in these opening works.
On the other hand, the Six Bagatelles, Op.126, which opened the second half of the recital, were a very different story. The word “bagatelle” may translate as “trifle,” but there is certainly nothing trifling about these pieces. And Peter Serkin made the most of these profound pieces with a flowing, natural exposition of pieces that revealed Beethoven’s basic humanity as clearly as anything he had written. Along the journey were some wonderful and vivid contrasts that made the music come alive. I enjoyed it immensely.
The recital ended with the deservedly popular Sonata in E-flat major, Op.81a, subtitled Les Adieux, or Das lebewohl in the German editions. The slow opening of the first movement was serious and touching at the same time, as it should be. However, the allegro seemed eccentric and jagged to me, and the pacing seemed discontinuous as if Serkin was attempting to characterize every little detail. I didn’t find it particularly convincing.
The rest of the sonata was played for all it was worth. The vivacissimamente finale was exactly that — very fast — and captured perfectly the exuberance and joyous character of the work, even if not quite every note (which really doesn’t matter when the music itself comes across so vividly). The pianist complied graciously with an encore, the fast, witty, short and catchy Finale from the Sonata no. 25 in G major, Op.79.
Serkin drew a full house for this recital, with overflow folding chairs all around the outside and in the back of the sanctuary. I was sitting in one of them against the wall on the non-keyboard side. However, the acoustics are such that I could hear perfectly, and honestly — I prefer not to watch pianists: I’d rather listen and not be distracted by the physical details of what they’re doing. I believe it’s more important to hear the music than to see the musician.
The Skaneateles Festival deserves praise for sponsoring Peter Serkin. Events like this are all too rare in Central New York, and despite my interpretive quibbles, hearing such a wonderful and interesting artist play great music is a real pleasure.
Details Box:
What: All-Beethoven recital by pianist Peter Serkin
When: August 23, 2012
Who: Skaneateles Festival
Where: First Presbyterian Church, Skaneateles, NY
August 5 Cooperstown Summer Music Festival: Horszowski Trio
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html Once the little chamber festival that could, the smartly managed Cooperstown Summer Music Festival has over the course of its 14 seasons steadily been building upon its artistic successes. In baseball parlance, it now stands ready to shed its minor league image and join The Big Show. CoopFest, whose current season began July 8 and continues through August 24, continues to attract some of the most exciting chamber ensembles on the circuit. And it’s not all the longhaired stuff, either. Along with such names as the Jupiter Quartet and the Juilliard Quartet, the festival Sunday is bringing the Tierney Sutton Band for an evening of vocal jazz at the Otesaga Resort Hotel.
The move towards a more eclectic variety of programming, which last season precipitated a change in the festival’s name from the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival to the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival, reflects the group’s willingness to experiment with expanded musical styles in the hopes of attracting a larger audience with increasingly wider interests.
Details Box:
What: Cooperstown Summer Music Festival
Program: The Horszowski Trio
Where: Otesaga Resort Hotel, 60 Lake St., Cooperstown, NY
When: August 5, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including intermission
Information: call 1(877) 666-7421
Ticket prices: Regular $25, Students (6-18 yrs.) $15
Order tickets by phone: 1(800) 838-3006, open 24/7
Website: http://www.cooperstownmusicfest.org
Next: Tierney Sutton Band, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, 8/12, Otesaga Resort Hotel, 60 Lake St., Cooperstown, NY
July 21 Glimmerglass Festival: Armide
Glimmerglass’s ‘Armide’ a lavish courtship of music and ballet fit for a king
But French Baroque opera is an acquired taste that can tickle your sensibilities — or test your patience
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
“It’s good to be the king,” says a smug Mel Brooks famously while dressed as Louis XVI in the 1981 film comedy, History of the World, Part I. But for listeners brought up on a steady diet of da capo and bel canto arias from 18th and 19th-century operas, the seemingly endless drone of récitatifs and airs endemic to 17th-century French Baroque opera may not turn out to be an entirely “royal” experience.
Credit Glimmerglass Festival for staging its first-ever production of an opera from the French Baroque era, in keeping with its mission to produce new and little-known works. Its production of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s last completed opera, Armide (1686), shined impressively both visually and aurally, particularly in its charming choral and dance numbers.
Still, French Baroque opera, like French Vieux Boulogne, is an acquired taste that may take some warming up to. And while Saturday’s audience at the opening premiere of Armide included a large number of enthusiastic champions of the tragédy-lyrique (Lully’s term for opera), there were plenty of empty of seats to be found in the Alice Busch Opera Theater. And more following intermission.
The current production is a joint collaboration with the Toronto-based Opera Atelier, whose co-directors Marshall Pynkoski and Jeanette Lajeunesse Zingg directed and choreographed the present Glimmerglass effort, respectively.
The plot, a convoluted story set to a libretto by Phillippe Quinault (after Torquato Tasso's epic poem, Gerusalemme liberata), is set against the backdrop of the early Crusades and centers on two principal characters: the Muslim sorceress-princess, Armide, and the undefeated Christian warrior-knight, Renaud. Although sworn enemies, these two are swept into a stormy relationship that pits love against duty and wisdom.
The often-stagnant drama is livened considerably by frequent divertissements — stylized ballet-dance episodes that were required fare for composers serving the dance-happy French monarchy. Far from superfluous interruptions to the action, these “diversions” were designed to enhance the mission of the actors and actresses.
In his lively and informative pre-concert talk, Pynkoski likened the actors to storytellers and the audience to participants — which was an agreeable arrangement to the aristocratic circles of the absolute monarchy during the reigns of Louis XIV to XIV. Still, ballet-operas found only limited acceptance outside of France, and up until recently were largely ignored by mainstream opera companies.
Opera Atelier is largely responsible for the renewed interest in Armide, and was recently invited to reprise its Toronto performances at the Opera Royal of Versailles. Heading the cast of singer-actresses in those performances was Peggy Kriha Dye as the title character — who is cast in that role for this Glimmerglass production. Dye’s character proved a fireball of unrelenting hate, anger, scorn and frustration. And this after she falls in love.
Dye captured the listener’s attention early on, beginning with the Act One Je ne triomphe pas du plus vaillant de tous, in which she reveals the mighty range of her fury and frustration. And when she sang the dramatic recitative Enfin, il est en ma puissance, as she hovers — dagger in hand — over the sleeping Renaud, one can she how deeply she reaches into the core of the her character’s agonizing ambivalence between feelings of love and hate.
As a singer, Dye’s supple soprano is rich in nuance of expression and she uses her entire body in bringing her troubled character to life — inviting the audience to feel, and not just hear, Armide’s agony.
Still, the character of Armide does not invite any appreciable degree of sympathy. By the time this sorceress gets to her last number, Le perfide Renaud me fuit, I had already lost all patience with the non-stop agonizing and lugubrious self-pity. By the fifth act I seriously contemplated rising from my seat and shouting, “get over it, witch!” Or something to that effect.
As the mighty warrior Renaud, Colin Ainsworth captured the persona of the mighty Crusader who ultimately chooses honor and duty over love and self-indulgence.
Ainsworth has a pleasant tenor that maintains its luster in the higher registers — although on this occasion his voice seemed a bit raspy at times, as if singing through a cold. One of the bright spots of his vocal efforts was the second-act air Plus j’observe ces lieux, an exquisite sicilienne sung as the warrior prepares for a lengthy sleep, that Ainsworth delivered with lavish expression, buoyed by the tender gestures of his hands, arms and body.
Next to Dye, Canadian soprano Meghan Lindsay is the production’s standout singer in the dual role of Sidonie and the Water Nymph. Athough minor characters in this opera, Lindsay’s roles delighted the crowd with her sweet and sinuously expressive vocal delivery, made all the more meaningful through the enhanced movement of her hands — which generally resembled those of a ballerina. The fact that she is a Glimmerglass Young Artists speaks volumes about the depth of this program.
Lindsay was paired with fellow Young Artist Mireille Asselin (in the dual smaller of Phènice and Lucinde) who also possesses a lovely voice, although I wished she had projected a little more strongly early on.
The competing themes of love and hatred in this drama are personified respectively by a winged dancer resembling Cupid (Love) and and a fiery character resembling the Devil (Hatred).
As Love, Rennie proved a first-rate dancer and gifted athlete whose character sports a large (and I imagine somewhat heavy) pair of wings upon his back at all times. When the sorceress Armide places Renaud into a magical state of unconsciousness, Love hovers over the sleeping warrior’s body performing gentle, ceremonial-like hand gestures that looked like an ancient version of a Reiki treatment.
But when fighting the demons unleashed by Love’s nemesis, Hatred, Rennie twisted and turned his way across stage in a series of acrobatic gyrations — charging his body, wings and all, through the crowded troupe of dancers onstage like a bull in china shop. Had he been dancing like this on the Thruway, Rennie would surely have gotten pulled over.
As Hatred, Curtis Sullivan cuts a menacing (if not somewhat campy) figure, standing in front of a “ring of fire” intended to intimidate but looking hardly more menacing than a hoop through which animals jump at the circus.
Aaron Ferguson and Olivier Laguerre, as the goofy pair of knights dispatched to break Armide’s spell over Renaud, provided a much-welcome dose of comic relief to the otherwise solemn dramatic action in the final act. The pair worked well together with respect to the timing and execution of their moves onstage. Still, Young Artist Ferguson’s tentative tenor still has a way to go — as does his French diction.
As Hidraot, João Fernandes (listed in the program as a bass but leaning a bit closer to the timbre of a baritone) began singing slightly under-pitch early in the first act but soon warmed up and delivered a worthy performance as Armide’s nefarious uncle.
The troupe of dancers (which included choreographer Zingg) looked spectacular onstage in their colorful attire and moved about the stage with grace, poise and a finely tuned ensemble of movement. I enjoyed the ballet divertissements at least as much as the singing, and had it not been for this visual phantasmagoria I don’t know if I could have lasted through some two and one-half hours of récitatifs and airs.
The Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra, while hardly what may properly be labeled a “period ensemble,” responded willingly to the urging of conductor David Fallis. The instrumentalists faithfully executed the highly stylized writing of the French Baroque — from the over-dotted rhythmic figures of the overture to the deeply ornamented melodic lines figures in the airs, and finally to the fury of the relentless ostinato rhythms during the title character’s angstful Venez, venez, Haine implacable.
Fallis used a wide arsenal of hand motions to mold the sound he wanted from the singers, instrumentalists and chorus, while the continuo (consisting here of harpsichord, cello, bassoon and a pair of theorbos) conducted the lion’s share of the accompanying responsibilities.
The orchestra pit was raised rather high in this production (it’s important to maintain a firm sighting of the singers and dancers in such dramatic works), and this afforded listeners a birds-eye view of Fallis’s shapely cues. His delicate hand gestures in the choral numbers in particular drew some incredibly lovely singing from an ensemble clearly eager to please him.
Since precious little of Lully’s original choreography has survived, Zingg had to fashion a series of stylized Baroque dances that remained faithful to the performance practice and the spirit of late 17th-century France. Her graceful, tasteful and often athletic dance numbers were among the highlights of this performance.
David Moody’s magnificent Glimmerglass Festival Chorus — perched high stage right in the third-tier loft — provided some of the most emotionally convincing and musically engaging moments of this production.
The opulent, multicolored removable pastel flats by set designer Gerard Gauci were visually alluring, resembling something of a cross between the Met’s The Enchanted Island and a Disney fantasy film.
Dora Rust D’Eye’s richly colored costumes channeled all eyes squarely on the dancers during the handsome ballet numbers, although I felt the full-length Renaissance dresses robbed the audience of the opportunity to see what I imagine was some fine legwork on the part of the female dancers. Curiously, Armide wore the identical red gown throughout the entire opera — a decision possibly intended to underscore the sorceress’s unwavering sense of fiery anger and frustration.
Glimmerglass’s production of Armide will either transport you to a time of opulence, elegance and polish — or have you looking impatiently at your watch. But if you agree that it’s good to be the king, you ought to do what Mel Brooks did and see for yourself.
Details Box:
What: Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide
When: July 21, 2012
Who: Glimmerglass Festival
Where: Cooperstown, N.Y.
Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission
Call: Glimmerglass Box office: (607) 547-2255
Ticket prices: $26 to $132 weekends; $26 to $112 weekdays
(discounts for students, educators and seniors)
Website: http://www.glimmerglass.org
Remaining performances: July: 29m; July 31m; August: 5m, 9, 10, 13m, 18, 23 (m=matinee)
July 22 Glimmerglass Festival: Lost in the Stars
Eric Owens shines in Glimmerglass’s emotionally charged ‘Lost in the Stars’
But Weill and Anderson’s theatrical adaptation of the compelling Alan Paton novel about South Africa in the 1940s gets ‘lost in translation’
By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html
Lost in the Stars, Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s adaptation of Alan Paton’s powerful novel of South Africa in the 1940s (Cry, The Beloved Country) is an unusual work in the history of American musical theater. It is really a stage drama with music, containing only 60 minutes or so in a show of more than two hours’ duration. Weill offers many musical styles to the audience — embracing blues, folk, Tin Pan Alley and occasionally opera. It was written for Broadway. It opened at New York’s Music Box Theater in 1949 and managed a respectable run of 281 performances.
While it is not an opera, it is surely operatic in its demands on the lead character. That character is the black clergyman Stephen Kumalo, a man of such dignity, charity, and nobility that he is, for Weill and Paton, all that is good in the native South African people.
The character of Kumalo delivers many of the important songs in the piece. These include the famous title song in which he fears that his god has left him and his people to wander lost in the stars; his decision to travel to Johannesburg to find his lost son Absalom (Thousands of Miles); and his appeal to his god Tixo for guidance as he struggles to decide how to help Absalom — who has murdered a white man and faces hanging for it (O Tixo, Tixo, Help Me).
It is hard to imagine Lost in the Stars succeeding without a towering Kumalo. In bass-baritone Eric Owens, Glimmerglass has one. While a bit young for the role and not quite world-weary enough (at least as Paton created Kumalo), Owens brings Kumalo to life. His rich, warm, magnificent voice is just right for the clergyman. He projects every word of his songs and considerable dialogue clearly. (Only the songs receive supertitles.)
Owens is also singing Amonasro in Glimmerglass’s Aida this season, and he will be giving a solo recital of music made popular by Billy Eckstein on July 27. Given that he is also a superb Wagnerian (he sang Alberich in the Met’s Ring Cycle), his range is impressive.
Owens is a special artist, with a long career ahead of him. His Kumalo is not to be missed.
The chorus is the second most important character in Lost in the Stars, sometimes commenting on the action as spectators and sometimes interacting with Kumalo as his parishioners. The chorus was particularly persuasive in singing about traveling to Johannesburg (Train to Johannesburg) and reacting to news of the murder (Murder in Parkwold).
Sean Panikkar, with a lithe tenor voice like clear water, was a sympathetic Leader or Narrator. He begins the work with his description of Kumalo’s little rural village and the surrounding countryside (The Hills of Ixopo). Panikkar was a constant welcome presence as he commented on the action.
The role of Absalom’s pregnant girlfriend, Irina, was sung by mezzo Brandy Lynn Hawkins — a member of the Young Artists Program. Hawkins has a voice of warmth and strength. She portrayed Irina as older and wiser than the naïve girl in Paton’s original. As the prostitute Linda, Chrystal Williams was entirely convincing in her song of double entendre, titled Who’ll Buy? Amos Nomnabo was expert in the small role of John Kumalo, Stephen’s sleazy brother. Both Williams and Nomnabo are also in the Young Artists program.
A special place in the pantheon of child singers/actors goes to little Caleb McLaughlin in the role of Alex, the nephew of Stephen Kumalo — who has come to live with him in the countryside. McLaughlin stopped the show late in the second act with Big Mole, ostensibly a child’s song about a big black mole digging ever deeper into the earth. I took it as a song about the lost potential of South Africa’s young black population, but also its resiliency. McLaughlin’s pitch was close to perfect, his diction clear, and his manner beguiling. I laughed and cried at the same time. The audience loved him.
Lost in the Stars is a problematic work for many reasons. Paton’s novel is almost as much about the journey of the white father James Jarvis as it is about Stephen Kumalo. But in Lost, the murdered son of James Jarvis — named Arthur — barely registers as a character, and James Jarvis is a stick figure of a South African white racist. How he eventually overcomes his racism to embrace the native cause and Stephen Kumalo — so moving and credible in Cry, The Beloved Country — is entirely lost in Lost.
Weill and Anderson didn’t even give James Jarvis anything to sing. It is a speaking part, delivered in predictably nasty fashion by Wynn Harmon. Indeed, the only whites permitted to sing are in the chorus. As a result, Jarvis’s embrace of Stephen Kumalo and his parishioners at the very end of the opera are neither sung nor credible. Indeed, it deflates what should have been a moving close to the piece. If ever a plot cried out for a duet between Kumalo and Jarvis, this is it. Weill and Anderson clearly had their reasons for keeping the whites from singing, but those reasons hurt the dramatic potential of Lost in the Stars.
Given the dramaturgical shortcomings of the piece, director Tazewell Thompson did a solid job. Set designer Michael Mitchell presented the audience with a spare wooden box divided into two playing levels separated by a low step. It was filled, as necessary, with tables, chairs, a lamp, and other props. Thompson expertly moved from scene to scene within this simple box, sometimes by dropping wooden slats to separate front from back.
He created some startling stage pictures. Especially noteworthy were the citizens of Johannesburg as they read their newspapers about the murder; and the pregnant Irina surrounded by glowing white sheets — hanging on lines to dry in the breeze — as she sang of her affection for Absalom.
Anthony Salatino provided choreography to heighten the sense of place.
John DeMain conducted the small orchestra (no violins) expertly. He is also conducting The Music Man this summer, so he seems to have become the company’s Broadway maestro.
By bringing back Lost in the Stars and putting its famous title song into context, Glimmerglass has done a service. The audience reacted with great enthusiasm and emotion — not to mention some tears — at the curtain. Now, for the full story of the Kumalo-Jarvis relationship, read the book.
Details Box:
What: Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars
When: July 22, 2012
Who: Glimmerglass Festival
Where: Cooperstown, N.Y.
Time: 2 hours and 35 minutes, with one intermission
Call: Glimmerglass Box office: (607) 547-2255
Ticket prices: $26 to $132 weekends; $26 to $112 weekdays
(discounts for students, educators and seniors)
Website: http://www.glimmerglass.org
Remaining performances: July: 28m; July 28; August: 3, 7m, 11, 16, 18m, 20m, 25m (m=matinee)
July 15 Glimmerglass Festival: Aida
Glimmerglass’s provocative ‘Aida’ combines great singing, shocking images
No room for elephants or camels on Zambello’s daring geopolitical stage
By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html
Francesca Zambello, the artistic and general director of the Glimmerglass Festival outside Cooperstown, New York, plants her artistic stake in the ground early in her provocative, updated, and often brutal staging of Verdi’s chestnut, Aida.
Immediately following the dying notes of the overture, an enormous explosion rocks the 900-seat auditorium as the audience is plunged into a contemporary Middle East conflict. Soldiers rush in to what looks like the bombed-out shell of a former government palace. Perhaps Sadaam Hussein lived here, or Muammar Gaddafi, or Bashar al-Assad.
Verdi’s Egyptians have become Kalashnikov-toting, combat-boot wearing militiamen or terrorists. Forget the sandals and spears. The chorus in Act One, Scene One, calling for a victorious return from battle against the invaders (Ritorna vincitor) was bloodthirsty and raucous. I expected a CNN journalist to provide a voice-over commentary.
Zambello incorporated other post-9/11 references. In Act One the soldiers studied their laptop computers. In Act Three, in which Aida tricks her beloved Radames into revealing his battle strategy, the action was played in and around a military jeep. In the Judgment Scene in Act Four, Radames refused to answer the charges of treason even though he is being subjected to waterboarding in a most terrifying manner. I doubt I will ever see this scene again divorced from that image of Radames bound to a chair, gagging, feet twitching, as he experienced the sensation of drowning. In the final scene, Radames was injected with a paralyzing nerve drug by his captors, then strapped to a gurney in a vertical position and left to die.
When this opera is set in the historical mist of ancient Egypt it is easy for the audience to ignore the creaky geopolitical overlay and focus instead on the love triangle of the captured Ethiopian princess Aida, the Egyptian military hero Radames with whom she is in love, and the Egyptian princess Amneris, her rival for the affections of Radames.
In this production, however, televised images in our heads of the very real brutality that has been raging for more than a decade in the Middle East limit any American’s interest in this trivial love affair. Who cares about Amneris’s jealousy when Zambello makes the audience recall waterboarding?
She made it even easier to forget the rivalry between Aida and Amneris by dressing them — particularly Amneris — in glamorous gowns that would be appropriate at a $10,000-a-ticket fundraiser at the Temple of Dendur in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Why is a Muslim girl in the middle of a 21st-century war zone in the Middle East dolled up in slinky green, gold, and peach confections, acting like a spoiled party girl? No wonder Radames spit in her face—truly—as she tried to save him from his fate.
And why were Verdi’s ancient Egyptian priests not converted into mullahs with beards and turbans? Why dress them in old-fashioned robes straight out of a 1950s Met production? Why not go all in and dress Aida and Amneris in burqas?
Still, it was a pleasure to be challenged this way by Zambello. The elephants were gone. The triumphal parade was little more than the display of a few prisoners and some looted antiquities.
As one of my Welsh colleagues suggested, the production was a “dog’s breakfast.” Zambello offered too many ideas, many of them not fully worked out. But she did have the audience on the edge of its collective seat wondering what was coming next. Would Dick Cheney show up?
It is quite astounding how young singers can cope with any staging and deliver the vocal goods, and such was the case here. The announced Aida was replaced by the young American soprano Adina Aaron, a product of young artist programs in Santa Fe and Seattle. She has sung Aida extensively abroad at Finland’s Savonlinna Festival, in Marseilles, and in Busseto, Italy (a performance that was televised and recorded). In short, she was not a substitute but rather an Aida of considerable experience.
This showed in her performance, which was engaging on every level. She has a beautiful upper register with the ability to float soft notes and hold them forever. She has the volume to ride over the orchestra, which, under conductor Nader Abbassi, was occasionally overpowering and inconsiderate of the singers.
Aaron is a fine actress, emphasizing the vulnerability of Aida and her inability to cope with the violence around her. She is due to be replaced later in July by the singer originally cast, Michelle Johnson — but Aaron is worth seeing here, or elsewhere.
Radames was performed by the young tenor Noah Stewart. Born and raised in Harlem, Stewart is a product of the Fiorello LaGuardia High School and Juilliard, with additional training as an Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera. The opera world is lucky not to have lost him to other musical genres that are a lot more popular with his age group.
Stewart has buckets of talent. His voice has heft and an attractive vibe. He forced a bit on the high notes, and the end of Celesta Aida in the first scene of Act One was too blunt. But most tenors sing it that way. He already seems comfortable on the stage.
He has the physique of an Olympic sprinter, with six-pack abs. Stripped to the waist for the Judgment Scene, he was something to behold. This is by far the biggest vocal and dramatic challenge he has accepted. He made the most of it.
Amonasro was sung by baritone Eric Owens. Those who saw the Met’s recent Das Rheingold will vividly recall him as an Alberich of venomous intensity whose baritone easily plunges to bass depths. However, Owens scaled back his voice for Glimmerglass and blended well with his daughter, Aida. His appeal to her in Act Three to aid her people in exacting revenge on the Egyptians (Rivedrai le foreste imbalsamate) had fatherly intensity and reminded listeners that Aida is more about fathers and daughters (a favorite Verdi theme) than about war in Egypt.
The character of Amneris suffered most in this staging, in part because she was so out of place in her various glamorous gowns. She seemed to have wandered in from some other opera, perhaps Fledermaus. For the role, Zambello selected the young Greek-American mezzo, Daveda Karanas, with whom she had worked in San Francisco in her full Ring cycle in the summer of 2011. There she sang a solid Waltraute, among other Ring roles. Karanas was also an Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera. (Clearly Zambello is drawing from a specific network of talent in her casting of young singers.)
Karanas’s mezzo is a bit brittle, without the plummy depths of some, but she projects well with considerable volume. She didn’t really command much attention until Act Four in her confrontation with Radames, when she offers to save him if only he will give up Aida. Here she sang with intensity and showed considerable dramatic skills.
Both the High Priest Ramfis (bass Joseph Barron) and the King (bass Philip Gay) were uncommonly well cast, Gay in particular. Both are members of the Glimmerglass Young Artists Program. Both are ready for successful careers.
Another Young Artist, Lenora Green, was cast in the small role of the High Priestess, and she, too, contributed to a performance of great vocal beauty.
At times conductor Abbassi unleashed more sound than I have ever heard from chorus and orchestra in the Alice Busch Opera Theater. Aida is among the grandest of operas ever presented here and an unusual departure for the company. It was exciting, for sure, but as noted above, Abbassi was not always kind to the young singers. Balances were off, with the brass overpowering the strings most of the time. But Abbassi had the measure of the score, which he has conducted often. His tempos made sense, the performance never lagged, and he moved along the final death scene, which can seem endless.
The male chorus in particular deserves special phrase for the delicate control they exhibited in hushed moments, and for the power they unleashed in saluting the Golden Kalashnikov as they headed for battle.
The bombed-out palace, which was either the location for the action or the frame for other scenes, was designed by Lee Savage and worked well enough. Some of the lighting, by Robert Wierzel, was provided by portable spots on tripods lugged on and off by performers.
This Aida suggests what Zambello intends to offer her audience when she programs an opera from the basic canon: highly talented young singers in a production that will strike you either as involving and intelligent, or unnecessarily provocative and unfaithful to the original. While she did not fully work out her modern setting, Zambello deserves credit for some striking stage images, and for assembling a terrific young cast.
Details Box:
What: Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida
When: July 15
Who: Glimmerglass Festival
Where: Cooperstown, N.Y.
Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission
Call: Glimmerglass Box office: (607) 547-2255
Ticket prices: $26 to $132 weekends; $26 to $112 weekdays
(discounts include: 50% students, 30% educators, 10% seniors)
Website: hhttp://www.glimmerglass.org
Remaining performances: July: 23m, 27; August: 4, 9, 11m, 14m, 17m (special matinee featuring members of Young Artists program), 17, 25 (m=matinee)
July 14 Glimmerglass Festival: The Music Man
Glimmerglass hits all the right notes in ‘The Music Man’
Singing, dancing and comedic acting all gel nicely in this rare acoustical production of the famed Broadway musical
By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html
Composer Meredith Willson was so worried his listeners might miss words during the briskly paced patter (“talk-song”) sections of The Music Man, he rigged a string of microphones that spanned the entire front floor of the stage. Too bad he never got to hear his Broadway masterpiece in the listener-friendly venue of the Alice Busch Opera Theater — whose strict policy forbidding amplification is something I expect he could have lived with. And rather happily, at that.
The cast of Glimmerglass Festival’s opening-night performance Saturday spoke in strong, booming voices that in the acoustical splendor of this theater came across in crisply articulated syllables that drew attention to Willson’s crafty, mostly-unrhymed lyrics. Between sections of dialog, large ensembles of colorfully outfitted singing-dancing actors and actresses (comprised largely of Glimmerglass Young Artists) sang and danced their way gleefully across the stage and down the aisles.
All in all, this Glimmerglass production directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge was as visually appealing as it was vocally gratifying. And fun from start to finish.
The Music Man is, from soup to nuts, a product of Willson’s own cooking. He wrote the story, lyrics and music, and tinkered with the project for eight years and some 30 revisions. When finished to his liking, the musical comedy became an unqualified success, running for 1,375 performances and winning five Tony Awards including “Best Musical” of 1957 (beating out the mighty West Side Story).
Yet for all its popular appeal, The Music Man contains precious few tunes (notably Seventy-Six Trombones and Till there Was You) capable of lingering in your musical memory long enough to hum back on the trip home from the theater. And in spite of such stand-alone hits as It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Willson can hardly be considered a tunesmith along the lines of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin or Jule Styne. If he was going to make a hit on Broadway, he would have to find an alternate musical route to get there.
In The Music Man, Willson arrived at a novel technique whereby spoken dialog — delivered in a catchy rhythmic pattern — continues alongside a melodic instrumental accompaniment until the spoken words “catch up” to, and join with, the melody line. This technique is taken to the extreme in the musical’s opening number, Rock Island — a pitchless, spoken-only rhythmic number delivered by travelling salesmen on a moving train that calls for rapid dialog set to relentless 16th-notes that mimic the “chug-a-chug-a” motion of the train. No melody, no pitches, no problem: The era of rappers had begun.
The storyline, set in River City, Iowa in 1912 (shifted in this production to 1946), centers around a slick traveling salesman and inveterate con man, Harold Hill. “Professor” Hill travels from town to town carrying a large suitcase and lots of moxie. He sells musical instruments and marching band uniforms to schoolchildren’s parents under the guise of establishing a “boys band” in their community, but after collecting the money he skips town before they realize he can’t read music. When the “professor” reaches River City he soon falls for the town librarian, Marian — a real music teacher who can see through the scam. Through flattery and praise, Harold endears himself to River City’s students, parents and school board — all of whom begin to shed their drab lives and reinvent themselves into the beautiful images of their dreams. When Marian sees her shy, introverted younger brother come out of his shell after Harold hands him a shiny new cornet, she recognizes that the faux professor who can’t read music somehow brought harmony to River City after all, and decides not to expose him.
Dwayne Croft forged a Harold Hill who is as lovable as he is unctuous. No easy task. Aided by his solid vocal presence and a wardrobe that includes a slick double-breasted suit with spats, Croft is a confidence man who oozes confidence. All eyes are on him when he takes stage, pitching his instruments and sermonizing the crowd about the dangers of the town's new pool table. When Croft sheds his plaid jacket, dons a drum major’s cloak and gets the townspeople marching to Seventy-Six Trombones, the image of the Pied Piper is unmistakable. By the beginning of Act Two, I was ready to buy a used car from this man.
Croft was less credible as the love interest to Marian, principally because his Harold Hill remains a one-dimensional character who cannot switch gears and show any appreciable degree of vulnerability. When at the end of the show he fesses up to the boy Winthrop and admits he’s a liar and a fraud, there’s little indication of contrition or introspection.
There was nothing to doubt about Croft’s singing. His operatic baritone was sufficiently malleable to reshape itself to the demands of Broadway, as he so aptly demonstrated in Ya Got Trouble and Marian Librarian. And his attractive speaking voice was invariably clean and articulate.
As Marian, Elizabeth Futral has a well-trained operatic voice as well, but unlike her male counterpart, the soprano could not muster a stylistic switch from polished to pop. The timbre of Futral’s high register in particular reveals the unmistakable signs of her extensive training, and when she reached for the top register it sometimes sounded as if she were on the verge of switching roles to Violetta in La Traviata.
Beyond the apparent identity crisis, Futral’s soprano is lovely to listen to. I especially enjoyed Till There Was You and her touching duet with Croft at the reprise of Goodnight my Someone. And Futral’s speaking voice, while not perhaps as crisp in diction as the male leads in this production, remained pleasant and intelligible.
The standout minor character in this production was Josh Walden, a gifted singing-dancing comic who played the role of Harold Hill’s accomplice, Marcellus Washburn, to perfection. Waldron’s enthusiastic delivery made for some hilarious sight gags, and his fancy legwork in the dance numbers was a howl. He all but stole the show.
As Marian’s excitable Irish mother Mrs. Paroo, Cindy Gold fashioned a strong-willed character who played matchmaker to Marian and her would-be suitor, Professor Hill. Her duet with Futral in the clever song that spins out of rising perfect-fourths during Amaryllis’s piano lesson (If You Don’t Mind My Saying So) was alone worth the price of admission.
Glimmerglass Young Artist Megan Ort, as the mayor’s older daughter, Zaneeta, catches the eye immediately and stands out from the rest of the ensemble dancers at the school gymnasium during the rousing Seventy-Six Trombones. As an actress, Ort handsomely projects the image of the love-struck teen to fellow student and town prankster Tommy Djilas, played by Allan K. Washington.
The Pick-a-Little Talk-a-Little ladies, cohorts of the mayor’s wife comprising Glimmerglass Young Artists Samantha Korbey, Lisa Williamson, Stephanie Lauricella and Amanda Opuszynski, proved a hilarious assortment of village gossips. When Harold Hill inquires about the town librarian, Marian, they waste little time bending his ear about her shameful promotion of “dirty books,” which turns out to be Chaucer and Balzac — or as the mayor’s wife is fond of pronouncing it, BAAAAL-zac. The five ladies sang with crisply articulated diction that rendered their rapid-fire lines intelligible.
The four ubiquitous school board members who under the spell of the slick professor morphed from a bickering assortment of adversaries to an inseparable barbershop quartet (played in appropriately syrupy fashion by Glimmerglass Young Artists Eric Bowden, Adam Bielamowicz, John David Boehr and Derrell Acon) provided a steady diet of laughs and moans throughout the show. The four devoted singers rehearsed extensively with a barbershop coach to capture the proper cornball demeanor of this type of ensemble, both in vocal technique and in manner of onstage deportment. Still, by the quartet’s final number, Lida Rose, I was fighting the urge to hurl tomatoes at them.
The roles of the children — Amaryllis (Marian’s young piano student, played by Aria Maholchic) and Winthrop (Marian’s lisping younger brother, played by Opie Taylor look-a-like, Henry Wager), boosted the “cuteness factor” of the production considerably. Maholchic played the piano without benefit of a stand-in, while the listeners all but adopted Master Wager after he ignited the crowd in Gary Indiana.
Among the non-singing roles, Jake Gardiner, as the town’s overly pompous Mayor Shinn, drew a steady stream of chuckles from his near-constant state of outrage over the rapidly changing state of affairs in his otherwise sleepy hometown of River City since the arrival of the mysterious newcomer. As the “straight man” in this cornucopia of comedic characters, Gardner spoke in a boisterous, authoritative voice that commanded attention.
Director and Choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge’s dance numbers were appropriately snappy and extrovert but included more subdued routines as well, such as the quiet soft-shoe in the town library during the crafty Marian the Librarian. “What do you want to take out?” an impatient Marian asks Harold at the checkout desk. “The librarian,” he answers. The most visually appealing dance number came during Shipoopi — the name given to a new dance Professor Hill introduces to the students that in the current production leads to a rousing, cowboy-style square dance.
Dodge’s stage direction included lots of sight gags, and during the singing numbers she invariably kept the background characters in-motion. Her decision to update the action from 1912 to 1946 (in order, she writes, “… to access a closer nostalgia”) nevertheless creates some unintended paradoxes. The year of Hill’s supposed graduation from the (fictitious) Gary Indiana Conservatory, identified several times throughout the show as having occurred in 1905, would have brought the good professor to about 62 years of age — hardly a credible romantic interest to Marian.
James Noone’s clever yet economical mobile sets were ingenious, taking the listeners on a journey through River City that included the town’s main street intersection, train station, school gymnasium, beauty parlor, library, and surrounding farmlands. Changes in location were accomplished by sliding panels left and right and raising backdrops up and down — none of which impeded the action onstage.
Leon Wiebers’s colorful costumes were hardly confined to Dodge’s vision of the 1940s, and often transcended the boundaries of the “swing era” to suggest 1950’s rock and the iconic Mayberry of Andy Griffith fame.
Conductor John DeMain’s mostly vivacious tempos kept pace with the kinetic stage action and kept the tightly knit chorus of townspeople and schoolchildren in-sync with the pit orchestra during larger ensemble numbers such as Seventy-Six Trombones, Wells Fargo Wagon and Shipoopi. A full strength Glimmerglass Festival pit orchestra — a rarity in revivals of Broadway shows — was up to task in Willson’s strongly rhythmic musical score.
Audience reaction to the production was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and rightly so. I wouldn’t mind seeing it a second time — even if it means buying yet another cornet from Professor Hill.
Details Box:
What: Meredith Willson’s The Music Man
When: July 14
Who: Glimmerglass Festival
Where: Cooperstown, N.Y.
Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission
Call: Glimmerglass Box office: (607) 547-2255
Ticket prices: $26 to $132 weekends; $26 to $112 weekdays
(discounts include: 50% students, 30% educators, 10% seniors)
Website: http://www.glimmerglass.org
Remaining performances: July: 20, 24m, 26, 28m, 30m; August: 2, 4m, 6m, 12m, 19m, 24 (m=matinee)
July 13 Covey Theatre Company: Avenue Q
Covey Theatre’s ‘Avenue Q’ a raunchy but endearing production that will have you laughing, blushing
Here’s one “block party” you’re not likely to forget anytime soon
By Laurel Saiz
http://cnycafemomus.com/Laurel_Saiz.html
The most entertaining local address is not Carousel Center Drive, soon to be renamed DestinyUSA Drive. It’s Avenue Q. That’s not a street in a neighborhood in the City of Syracuse or the environs of Onondaga County, but the locale of the hilarious production playing at the Bevard Theatre downtown.
Avenue Q beat out the megahit Wicked for the Best Musical Tony Award in 2004. It also trumped the witches by winning Tony Awards for best book and best original score. This catchy, top-notch production by the Covey Theatre Company, directed by Susan Blumer and Garrett Heater, certainly shows why. Avenue Q is clever and constantly engaging, with an accessible story, laugh-out-loud lines and memorable Broadway songs.
As the poster clearly shows, and most theater fans by now know, Avenue Q is a send-up of every Sesame Street trope—from oversized hand puppets in eye-popping colors to the “educational” videos explaining important learning concepts. It is by turns raunchy and endearing, ribald and touching. Like the 2011 Tony Award winner The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q includes things you never thought you’d see or hear on a musical theatre stage. Like Book of Mormon, it’s both wildly irreverent and sweet to the core.
The heart of the play and of this production are the on-again, off-again couple, Princeton—a recent college graduate with a “useless” bachelor’s degree in English; and Kate Monster—a furry, nicely coiffed substitute kindergarten teacher. They are played by standouts Sara Weiler and Heater (also the Covey’s artistic director). Weiler is just plain adorable and Heater has true stage presence. (Not to keep bringing up Mormon, but Heater would be incredible in the lead role of Elder Kevin Price.)
The denizens of Avenue Q are a mish-mash of eccentrics, including the unemployed comic Brian (played by Josh Mele); Brian’s Japanese-American—not “Oriental”—girlfriend, Christmas Eve (played by Sunny Hernandez); the Cookie Monster-inspired Trekkie Monster (played by Josh Taylor) and the Bert-and-Ernie pairing of Nicky and Rod (Rob Lescarbeau and David Cotter, respectively). When seeing Nicky and Rod’s interaction it certainly makes one wonder how many children asked their parents, “Why are Bert and Ernie always together and why do they sleep in the same bedroom if they’re not brothers?”
The superintendent of the somewhat seedy block of flats is none other than Gary Coleman, down on his luck after the demise of Diff’rent Strokes and selling off all his possessions on eBay to stay afloat. As in the original Broadway production, Gary Coleman is played by a woman—in this case Syracuse’s local treasure, Karin Franklin-King. A Miss Piggy-style temptress Lucie the Slut (played by Jodie Baum) arrives on Avenue Q to shake things up a bit, as she shakes her maracas, so to speak.
The entire cast is uniformly strong and credit must also be given to the supporting puppeteers who ably assist in the portrayal of the puppet and “monster” characters. The puppets’ eyes are fixed, yet their faces impart much nuance of expression merely by a slight angle of the head, posture of the body or position of the hands. At the same time, some puppeteering is not subtle at all. (Have reviewers ever before had to include the disclaimer “graphic puppet sex” as a guide to family viewing?)
Some of the tongue-in-cheek “lessons” depicted in Avenue Q are the reverse of those imparted by The Children’s Television Workshop’s long-running series. If you work hard and do well in school you might just end up unemployed, living on a dead-end street in an outer-borough. Instead of staying home to do your homework, why not have an excessive number of Long Island ice teas? People may not always be supportive and kind, but may relish when you have flopped, engaging in some musical “Schadenfreude.” And instead of a happy Reading Rainbow kind of world, it turns out that “Everybody is a Little Bit Racist,” as another one of the irresistible songs proclaims.
With the downturn in the economy in which college graduates are unemployed and living in less-than-ideal circumstances, it could be that Avenue Q resonates more with audiences today than it did when originally conceived in 2002 by Robert Lopez and Richard Marx as a potential television series. Rather than becoming a hit TV show, it was developed Off-Broadway and shortly moved to Broadway to its well-earned and lasting acclaim.
In Syracuse, the opening night show was sold-out, as was the Saturday, July 14 performance. The Covey Theatre Company webpage posted an additional performance in its two-weekend run, which is likely to be a best seller. With the strength and popularity of this delightful production, it’s too bad that Avenue Q couldn’t be a more extended destination.
Details Box:
What: Avenue Q
When: July 13
Who: The Covey Theatre Company
Where: Bevard Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center, Syracuse
Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission
Ticket prices: $26. Call (315) 420-3729
Website: http://www.thecoveytheatrecompany.com
Remaining performances: 8 p.m. July 19, 20, 21
Family guide: Graphic puppet sex, strong language
Next: Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, 8 p.m. Sep. 14, 15, 21, 22
July 7 Chautauqua Opera: Lucia di Lammermoor
Considering the widespread use of campy horror and gore occupying today’s mainstream entertainment, the sight of a blood-spattered Rachelle Durkin shuffling around the stage brandishing a knife dripping gelatinous, crimson liquid cannot be considered anything new. But this deranged bride in Chautauqua Opera’s production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor looked as if she could have been directed by Stephen King.
Details Box: