Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Sometimes it takes just one diamond to make a musical sparkle - and Encores! final installment of the 2012 season has several.  With a cornball book by Loos and Fields, silly lyrics by Leo Robin and delicious music by Jule Styne, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has a rich history of exploding stars into orbit.  In 1949 it introduced Carol Channing to the American lexicon.  In 1953 the movie by the same name propelled Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell's careers into the stratosphere.  This time around, we've got the SMASH *Bombshell*, Megan Hilty (Lorelei Lee) and triple-threat star of the upcoming national tour of Anything Goes, Rachel York (Dorothy Shaw).

Encores! concert renditions are *almost* fully staged.  Books in hand occasionally, but never a missed note or a called line.  The cast aboard the S.S Ile de France is magnificent.  GPB is most surely a dancer's musical - with full-on tap, ballet, and ballroom all packed into several razzle-dazzle numbers in addition such as great vocal numbers as Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, and I'm Just a Little Girl From Little Rock, and the titular song, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

If I had a vote for the hardest working ensemble in the biz right now, GPB would win hands-down.  Tap dancing can get a crowd to its feet in raucous applause and the tap number with Megan Sikora (Gloria Stark) and Attmore & Grimes (Phillip Attmore and Jared Grimes are their actual names) was nothing short of stupendous.  A well earned standing ovation - and that was just the opening of Act II.  Ms. Hilty tore the roof off the place (encores are a trademark of this show) with 3 encores in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the last one nearly delayed the show by 3 minutes alone due to the uproarious applause.  And I haven't even discussed the to-die-for bodies of the male dancers (shirts on AND off), the hysterical Robert Lemanteur and his son Louis (Brennan Brown and Steven Boyer) or the genius comedic timing of Deborah Rush as Mrs. Ella Spofford or her elegantly tuneful son, Henry (Aaron Lazar).  And lest we not forget to mention the always-delightful and uber-talented Encores! Orchestra - led by Music Director and Conductor Rob Berman... And on... And on...

Now, the show is not perfect.  Don't get me wrong.  It's just that when you combine talent and an old fashioned good-time with top notch dancing, pitch-perfect singing, and great comedic acting it's hard to complain about structure and connecting a few dots with a show that has a run of less than a week!  It's not about that at Encores!  

Is it Broadway bound?   I doubt it - but it may be the closest we get to SMASH's Bombshell being on Broadway this season or next!  Marc Shaiman & Scott Whitman may indeed have all the songs written as we have heard, but ... pssst... Debra Messing nor Christian Borle are *really* book-writers in real life.  Go figure.

Equus

Peter Shaffer's homo-erotic play about a young boy raised in a house filled with religious fundamentalism and working class anger who blinds 6 horses made it's debut on Broadway this past week.  Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Richard Griffiths (History Boys) headline.  Kate Mulgrew (Tea at Five, Our Leading Lady, Star Trek), CarolynMcCormik (Private Lives) and T.Ryder Smith (Dead Man's Cell Phone) are among the stand outs in the supporting cast.  

Martin Dysart (Griffiths), an aging psychiatrist attempts to get to the core issues behind why Alan Strang (Radcliffe) has blinded 6 horses in a stable in a small town.  At first blush, a horrific act, however the story unwinds itself to reveal a young man caught up in religion, loneliness, sexual attraction, and a very sad, yet plausible explanation to the tragedy.  

In the course of the story, we learn that the aging Dysart may indeed be battling his own version of these devils.  Are any of us exempt?  Are we all secretly jealous of those who take the reigns of life? Even if those reigns lead us down a path to hell?  Perhaps Marx had it right. Religion may just be the opiate of the people.

Griffiths and and Radcliffe are aided by remarkable sound, well designed and executed lighting and smoke on the stage - not to mention the very physically fit boys who play the horses.  The horse heads are a clever trick but it was the actors behind those heads executing the subtle horse movements brought their grandeur to life.

Well worth a full price ticket to see this show.  Run, don't walk.  

Suddenly Last Summer

Mrs Venable and Miss Holly rule the stage in a battle of wills at the Laura Pells Theater on West 46th. Blythe Danner and Carla Gugino weave Tennessee Williams' scandalous tale originally written in the early 20th century.

Violet and Sebastian - mother and son. What dark secret does this relationship hold? Why will Violet, the very rich and protective mother, go to the extreme of sending her niece to a mental hospital for a lobotomy?

Of course the answer lies in the fact that Sebastian was gay. His mother hid the secret all his life, but let him live his life in secret at home and through their worldly travels. But when he travels with his cousin Catherine instead of his mother this past summer things unravel. He's not able to deal in the same way he would have under the protective wing of his mother and ultimately that change is the cause of his horrific death on the street while traveling. The elderly Violet refuses to let this story get out and ruin her son's (and her) reputation, but her niece is "blabbing" the story all around. Violet's remedy is to seek out (and bribe) a doctor - (played rather stiffly by Gale Harold) who has a new procedure - the Lobotomy - to shut her up.

We learn about all the characters in Act I, and in Act II, when the doctor arrives, we ultimately hear the long, dramatic story of this past summer's vacation taken by Sebastian and Catherine in a poetic, dramatic, and poignant monologue. The crescendo, highlighted perfectly by a dramatic lighting effect, is, of course, the horrible death of Sebastian.

In what could only have been a shocking ending in its day - is the doctor's simple admission that perhaps the whole story could indeed be true, that Catherine is indeed not crazy, and not a candidate for the extreme procedure. (Lights Out).