War Paint

Look out New York - here comes two powerful women.  I say this about both the characters and the actresses portraying them.  In their latest installment, War Paint, Doug Wright (Book), Scott Frankel (Music), Michael Korie (Lyrics), and Michael Greif (Director), come together to tell us the yet untold story of two very powerful women who were pioneers in the cosmetics industry - Elizabeth Arden (Christine Ebersole) and Helena Rubinstein (Patti LuPone).

With these powerhouses, one would expect a slam-dunk hit.  What was delivered was substantially less than that.  The music was melodious and delightful.  The story was a tad bit long and not exactly the most interesting throughout.  What turned this possible star vehicle into a half baked show was fortunately or unfortunately mostly the fault of Ms. LuPone.  She portrays Ms. Rubinstein with a thick (presumably) Polish accent.  Although it really just sounded Russian.  There was nothing wrong with her vocal abilities - which often blew the roof off.  There was nothing wrong with her acting abilities either.  One hundred percent of the failure was her accent.  Mr. Wright's story is often told through Mr. Korie's lyrics - and when you can't understand a single word in entire song after entire song, it becomes a bit of a problem for the audience to understand what the hell is even going on. While there was some humor in the dialogue also - once again - the accent intercedes and causes confusion.   One of these effects is to turn Ms. Ebersole (Arden) into the dominant, understandable, and significantly more liked character.  An imbalance that does not correct itself throughout the entire show.  Ebersole's portrayal of Arden was pitch perfect, humorous, and sublime.

Note to the director and Mr. Wright - cut the prologue and open the show with Arden's number - it was fantastic, colorful, rousing, and set the mark very high.

At times there are two signatures hanging above the set (Arden and Rubinstein) and occasionally, the actors were under the wrong name.  When you do that in the beginning it's a fairly bad idea.

Costumes (Catherine Zuber) and sets (David Korins) were fantastic.

These two ladies were mavericks of their time and their story is somewhat interesting, but there were too many detours, side stories, and un-explored plot lines.  This script needs a doctor.  It brings new meaning to the phrase "Let's put some lipstick on this pig."

Dear Evan Hansen

I've never felt so torn about the review of a show as I have after attending an evening at Second Stage to watch Dear Evan Hansen.  The title represents a key document in the teen-angst musical's plot - an alleged suicide note to be specific.  The trouble here - it wasn't s suicide note and just about everything that Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) told Colton's (Mike Faist) family after they mistook it for their son's suicide note is a complete lie.  The lie explodes beyond friends, family, school and ultimately and predictably overtakes social media into the entire community and larger social network.  The social commentary here has something to do with "fitting in".  It is complicated by the fact that the chief liar is a messed up kid himself - so one might ask "Is it OK to lie and promote those lies about a dead kid as long as it actually helps heal and help the messed up one who is still alive?"  I really think that the fact that this show made it this far means that people just look at the premise and say "That's just how it is."

I understand that one of the writers of this musical (Benj Pasek or Justin Paul I am not sure which) wrote it as a response to a suicide they experienced in their own young school life.  The trouble I found here is that although there is a mild "you get what you deserve" ending, it basically promotes this behavior or if you can't take that  strong a position, you must admit it does virtually nothing to reject the premise.   To make my life harder - the music and songs were astonishingly beautiful.  It really is possible to pair superb music with sub-standard material.

As for the acting - overall despite the youth and inexperience of the cast - it was indeed superlative, and in Ben Platt's (Evan Hansen's) case - (once this show makes it to Broadway) Tony Award Winning stuff.  Seriously, it was that good.  Mr. Platt takes the mannerisms, verbal ticks, quirks, and eye movements of a shy, anxious, socially awkward boy and makes you believe he really is.  His staccato verbal style, pregnant pauses, and nervous laughter is real.  His emotion and actual tears on the stage are quite literally present and true.  His vocals are angelic and the songs/lyrics by Messers Pasek and Paul are quite literally haunting.  Although I will make note that way too many songs had wild swings in octave which forced Mr. Platt into and out of his falsetto voice way too many times.  His cast mates Mike Faist (Connor Murphy) and Will Roland (Jared Kleinman) support Mr. Platt well.  It's a  fine young ensemble cast, the look of the stage, digital and the sound, electronic.

Indeed, I cried at multiple points at the show.  I was upset, I was disturbed, I was sad for Evan Hansen.  But those tears were often tears for the sad and tragic situation he created.  I was crying for his predicament.  Some would argue that is the achievement of theatrical empathy.  I would agree with that theatrical analysis, except I was more upset at what he did rather than for him.

At over 2h:35m (at my performance) the show, which is known to be heading to Broadway after this run, is also way too long.  There is much to be cut and if asked I could readily suggest at least 3 different scenes that could be scrapped.  This show should probably come in at 2 solid hours including the intermission.

Much like Evan, I too am tortured and torn.  This show was so good, yet so disappointing all at the same time to me.

Newsies

They are indeed the Kings of New York.  Given their tender ages one might instead use the term Prince to describe them.   Whatever you choose, there's no doubt they power through the show from start to finish with plenty of pluck and lots of heart.

I'm a bit late to the party with Newsies, but now I see what all the original fuss over Jeremy Jordan and his Tony-award winning band of newsies was all about.  At the helm today, making his Broadway debut, is the effortless talent of Corey Cott (Jack Kelly).

As a matter of fact, I was surprised to see just how many Broadway debuts there were in the cast.  Young is the understatement here.  But unbelievably talented may be the runner up for that award.  The boys gave it their all and the results were clear - a technically challenging dance-show (Christopher Gattelli) with powerful tunes and toe-tapping melodies (Alan Menkin) and an unbelievably masterful and crisp delivery of the book (Harvey Firestein).

It didn't appear that Disney's money is the real secret to the success either.  The sets were surprisingly basic.  Lighting appeared masterfully focused and sound was decent.  What put this show over the top was the energy, heart, and all-in dance effort by each and every talented member of the cast.

Broadway veteran John Dossett (Joseph Pulitzer), a master in his own right, even takes a back seat to the boys and  LaVon Fisher-Wilson (Medda Larkin) and Kara Lindsay (Katherine) both get to belt out a tune or two alongside the boys.  Nothing can match the adorable Joshua Colley (Les) - a mere 10 years-old and on stage almost as much as the elder boys.  Mild-mannered Andy Richardson (Crutchie) and charming Ben Frankhauser (Davey) aptly hold up their leading roles with aplomb.

I'm sure the Disney brand kept me away this long, but I'm sure glad I finally gave into the hype and plunked down some cash for this one.  It's worth every penny to see these Kings of New York grace every square inch of the stage at the Nederlander Theatre.  

The Constant Wife

Gypsy

Dinner at Eight