Bronx Bombers

Major League Baseball and The New York Yankees are actually a part of ("in association with") the new Eric Simonson written and directed two act play, Bronx Bombers.  Yes, it's baseball on Broadway.   And what an iconic team to highlight right here in New York.  Interestingly enough, the last sports show in the round at Circle in the Square was Lombardi.  This one, a recent transfer from The Duke on 42nd also plays well in the round.

The show, as you would imagine, is a baseball lovers delight.  Likely geared to engage the male persuasion, the show takes a look at the greats of the team - combining them all in a quaint dream-like plot.  Act I is a scene from 1977 setting up the conflicts and personalities of Billy Martin (Keith Nobbs), Reggie Jackson (Francois Battiste), Thurman Munson (Bill Dawes), and the ever-caring and genuine star of the show, Yogi Berra (Peter Scolari).

What unfolds is conflict - and what follows in Act II is a dream like sequence of Yogi's that brings all the Yankee greats to a dinner party in his home with his wife Carmen (Tracy Shayne) - Joe DiMaggio, (Chris Henry Coffey), Lou Gehrig (John Wernke), Babe Ruth (C.J. Wilson), Derek Jeter (Christopher Jackson),  Elston Howard (Francois Battiste), and Micky Mantle (Bill Dawes).

What we learn in Act II is that the conflict in Act I was not new at all.  Baseball has always been full of characters, conflicts, and personalities.  And we also gather that fans may wax and wane, but they always come back- especially to this iconic New York team.

I'm not a baseball fan.  I admit it.  The baseball angle didn't jazz me up at all. (I thought it was boring, actually).  But what the show was able to do, even to me, is to tell a story and teach a lesson.  Through all the characters, all the conflicts, and all the noise - there really is one thing that draws men of all ages to the Yankees - and that is tradition above all else.

Will this play hit the mark - being on Broadway now?  I'm not sure, but the tiny audience that watched the show with me seemed to enjoy it.  Especially all those Yogi-isms!  Let's see if wives drag their die-hard husband fans or if they even come on their own!

Lombardi

Who knew a story about a football legend would be so well acted, well executed, and well received by the audience?   I resisted for a long time.  I don't like football - heck I knew neither anything about Vince Lombardi before I entered the theater nor what team he even coached.  Well, let me tell you right here, right now - this show is engaging, informative and entertaining well beyond each of its 89 minutes.

I couldn't believe how well Dan Lauria takes on the persona of Vince Lombardi - the voice, the walk, the stature, the attitude, and smallest of actions and mannerisms.  Judith Light masters the strong, smart, stalwart woman behind the man, Marie Lombardi and Keith Nobbs takes on the young, hungry, naive sports reporter from New York City, Michael McCormick, sent to Green Bay to interview Lombardi for a piece in Look Magazine.  So well executed was this production, I see Tony nods at least for Mr. Lauria as best leading actor - if not also for Light and Nobbs for best supporting actors and possibly for best play for the work by Eric Simonson which was based on the book When Pride Still Mattered:  A Life of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss.

The pace was brisk, the humor sharp and the drama poignant.  Even for a New Year's Day performance, the audience was engaged and the actors were firing on all cylinders.  In a mere 89 mere minutes we were transported to 1960's Green Bay, Wisconsin to observe Mr. Lombardi, his family and players and learn what made this great American football coach tick.  Touchdown Broadway!

Beebo Brinker Chronicles

Combine the mystique of a film noir, a repressed lesbian love affair from the 1950's, a jilted young husband, a young, swaggering, confident, brash, and boyish looking gal named Beebo Brinker, a 40 something gay man from Greenwich Village, and a trashy romance novel author - and you have this fantastic production running at 37 Arts right now.

At times, I felt harkened back to Julianne Moore's story in The Hours - her longing for the unspeakable, her trying to confide in a neighbor (Toni Collette), both of them paralyzed by their time and their culture.

The ensemble cast is fantastic. Jenn Colella (High Fidelity, Urban Cowboy) headlines as Beebo Brinker, but the stage was mostly dominated by Beth and Marcie (Autumn Dornfeld and Carolyn Baeumler), the equally jilted and repressed lovers. David Greenspan plays the mysteriously fabulous older gay man superbly - and to many a laugh.

These gals bring new life to the trashy romance novel - and do so with a lesbian twist. Fans of today's The L Word - beware. You've got some new completion on stage from a bygone era.

My First Time

A multi-media experience. Four actors on stage telling the thousands of stories, snippets, and one liners about the age old "first time". Yes - the reference is to the first time you had sex. Was it good? Was it fun? Who laughed? Who farted? Who's mom walked in? Did it hurt? Oh boy... it goes on and on... and covers just about all kinds!

It's a bit like the vagina monologues - - the actors speaking to the audience telling stories. They take a poll in the audience before the show - and they flash the results up during the show. They have a projector that beams facts and figures above the actors heads in between the vignettes. In our audience there were 2 virgins too! 90 Minutes isn't even enough to cover all the possibilities, but it is certainly enough time to entertain and inform.

If you need a night of plain old fun - take in a performance at the New World Stages! Virgin or not - you will enjoy.