Noises Off

In what might be the most anticipated production of the season, Roundabout's 50th Anniversary, Noises Off hits the boards this week at the American Airlines Theatre.

I saw the last NYC incarnation of this gem 14 years ago - Click Here - with Peter Gallagher, Patti Lupone, Katie Finneran, TR Knight, Faith Prince, and Edward Hibbert.  Needless to say I have fond and vivid memories of the hilarity that ensued.  Of course when I saw the show for the first time I had no idea what was going to happen - this time around, I sort of knew what was going to play out.

This time around, the indomitable Andrea Martin (Dotty) brought her physical comedy to the stage.  Campbell Scott (Lloyd Dallas), tackles the prickly and frustrated director. David Furr (Garry Lejeune), Megan Hilty (Brooke Ashton), Kate Jennings Grant (Belinda Blair), and Jeremy Shamos (Frederick Fellows) tackle the interlopers.  Tracy Chimo (Poppy Norton-Taylor) and Rob McClure (Tim Allgood) tackle the stage crew roles and Daniel Davis (Selsdon) is the bungling alcoholic burglar.

Anyone who knows anything about Nothing On (the play within the play) knows it is a physical comedy inside the physical comedy Noises Off - Three progressively "worse" acts repeated with disastrously funny consequences.  Timing is more than half the battle and tuning the characters just right is the rest.  I'd say they did a great job at the first part - the timing and physicality was nifty. The set (Derek McLane) was quite literally exactly what I remembered it to be - as if they pulled it out of storage.  What the production lacked, I thought, was a sense of mad-cap pace and hilarity.  It was almost very deliberate and plodding.  Certainly Ms. Martin had moments of glory - mostly in Act I as she labored over the sardines and later when she got tangled in the phone cord.  I remember TR Knight having a bigger part than Mr. McClure - and I don't know why.   Ms. Hilty delivered those stilted and quite literally memorized lines perfectly - and by perfectly I mean at just about the most incorrect time and always mugging to the audience like her character is supposed to.   This time around Mr. Scott walked around the entire theater including the mezzanine with his booming director's voice and I don't remember Mr. Gallagher doing the same except for right down front.  There were plenty of stars in this production although none of them shone overly brightly.  There was plenty of talent and great timing in this production, but nothing transported me.  That could be a bit of the 2nd time around syndrome, or it just might possibly be that the production seemed a bit more farcical and deliberately physical than it needed to be.

In the end, it doesn't much matter.  The family behind me had no idea what was going to happen and half my fun was listening to their reactions in Act 2.  I enjoyed this production but not quite as much as I enjoyed my first one.

The Heidi Chronicles

Wendy Wasserstein certainly had something to say.  An now her bold play is back on Broadway to the delight of feminists everywhere.  There's a sense that it is just as timely as ever.  Others think it's a tired episode re-hashed on stage that needs to be made current.  Heidi is not a technology genius.  She's not a power-hungry executive of 2006.  What she is is a feminist and what Ms. Wasserstein does so brilliantly and powerfully is to showcase a proud and true woman in her journey through the years.  What someone needs to have done, however, is to shorten the play.  Heidi and her companions always grade things.  Here i find it an A+ for effort, C- for brevity and content.

Elisabeth Moss (Heidi Holland) was an interesting choice for Heidi.  Not quite as dynamic as I would have expected her to be.  Kind of a doormat.  Moments of brilliant acting interlaid with a lot of hum-drum. Jason Biggs (Scoop Rosenbaum) is the dashingly successful boy she never married.  He's dashing alright.  But more of the hum-drum thing going on.  The bright spots in this production are Bryce Pinkham (Peter Patrone) as her gay foil for life and Tracee Chimo (Fran, Molly, Betsy, and April) as a multitude of funny, biting, bold, and hysterical characters that pass through Heidi's life.

The design of the set  (John Lee Beatty) is clever - a rotating platform that transforms the stage over the decades - sort of an homage to as time spins on and on.  By the size of the audience at the performance I attended the show is off to a slow start - which is surprising with the high profile names attached to the show.  Despite being too long, this show achieves a passing grade, it's just felt it's not quite as powerful or succinct as it could be.

Lips Together, Teeth Apart

What a magical time on and off Broadway for Terrence McNally.  Three of his shows - two now running concurrently (Lips, It's Only a Play) and one that just closed (Mothers & Sons) are/were on stage entertaining audience to various degrees of success.  Unfortunately, Lips Together, Teeth Apart is likely on the bottom of the success scale.  Unlike his other two plays which evoke opposite but equally powerful emotions - a visceral reaction (Mothers and Sons) and hysterical laughter (It's Only a Play) - this play is neither rousingly happy nor sad.  It just is. And it wasn't that good.

As a matter of fact, it has the triple-whammy of being slightly boring, all over the map in terms of storytelling, and slightly mis-cast.   Boring?  The story is what it is - two couples on Fire Island at one of the women's dead gay brother's house.  Why are they here?  What keeps these couples together?  Why do we care?  Those questions are barely answered although asked repeatedly on stage.  All over the map?  Yes they talk endlessly about lots of issues - many of which are tangential to the plot, some of which make you wonder why they are telling you this. We never see the gay neighbors to contrast the straight (and out of place) couple at the house.  It's 1990 and AIDS is still an unknown but we really only learn why they are afraid to swim in the pool at the end of Act 3!  Miscast?  Trace Chimo (Chloe) ruled the stage with her overbearing and hysterically funny character.  She hit it out of the park.  America Ferrera (Sally) underwhelmed significantly.  She seemed lost of the stage and generally flat.  Austin Lysy (John) seemed too young and although quite handsome, not as cock-sure as the dialogue might suggest.  Michael Chernus (Sam) just didn't seem to fit with Sally and left you wondering why they were even together in the first place.

Casting aside - A 3-Act play is unique.  This play was way too long for it's own good and it felt like we just wasted time in between for both intermissions and ultimately didn't end up resolving much and left you wondering just what the point was after the 2H:30M is up.

I'm left wondering just what the first incarnation of this play would have been like a while back when Roundabout was going to do it but star Megan Mullally (Chloe, i presume) stormed off the set and quit.  For Roundabout that just may have been a blessing in disguise.  

Bad Jews

Joshua Harmon's new play just got promoted upstairs! Roundabout moved the bitingly funny play from the black-box theater downstairs to the Laura Pels stage for a run during their 2013-2014 subscription.

The play centers around 3 cousins gathering in NYC on Riverside  Drive the during the funeral and Shiva period after their grandfather's (Papi's) death.  Central to the evening's controversy is uber-Jew, Daphna (aka Diana) Feygenbaum, (Tracee Chimo) who seemingly thrives on divisiveness and contentiousness ("We're not arguing, we're talking" she explains at one point).  She clearly dominates her introverted cousin, Jonah Haber (Phillip Ettinger), and clashes head-on with her nemesis and other cousin (and brother of Jonah), Liam (aka Shlomo) Haber (Michael Zegen).  Molly Ranson plays the mousy girlfriend, (Melody) of Liam who unwittingly ends up being the reason for much of the angst-ridden family debate and vitriol.

It's a cauldron of Jewish issues of cultural assimilation, religious beliefs (and the ones chosen to be ignored), and most of all, family.  Everyone, Jewish or not, can find a nugget of family in this play despite the specifics of this plot.  By the end of the 1:35 minute run you'll be exhausted yet relieved at the same time.  You can only take so much family time at once, after all.

Harvey

A rare revival of Mary Chase's delightful and humorous Harvey is just beginning in the summer-slot at the Roundabout Theatre Company over at Studio 54.

The adorable and perfectly talented Jim Parsons is at the helm as the lovable Elwood P. Dowd this time around filling those big shoes of Jimmy Stewart quite nicely.  Jessica Hecht (Veta Louise Simmons) Charles Kimbrough (William R. Chumley MD), Tracee Chimo (Myrtle Mae Simmons) Carol Kane (Betty Chumley) and Larry Bryggman (Judge Gaffney) round out the tremendously talented cast which also includes Rich Sommer (Duane Wilson) and Morgan Spector (Lyman Sanderson, MD).

Roundabout's (David Rockwell's) sets are, as we've come to expect, superb and the cast is already humming like a fine tuned machine.  Mr. Parsons seems to embody the delightfully goofy character and does an excellent job at making sure we always know where Harvey is.   There may be something wrong with everyone these days - but the message behind Harvey tells us that maybe not all of them need to be cured.

The Break of Noon

Neil LaBute's new play is vague.  Was I supposed to walk away thinking this guy was a a phony?  He faked it?  Or was I supposed to walk away snickering to myself about how awful society is and how if one man claims to have found religion, we rebuke him?  Well, to tell the truth, I, along with several heretofore unacquainted theatergoers, I walked away asking for the 100 minutes we invested back.

David Duchovny (John Smith) was flatter than a penny after being run over by the #1 train.  I couldn't tell what he was trying to emote.  The two ladies in the cast turned in decent but generally unremarkable performances - Amanda Peet (Ginger/Jesse) and Tracee Chimo (Jenny/Gigi).  The only actor who impressed was John Earl Jelks (Lawyer/Detective).  He had a presence and a power on stage that none of the other actors seemed to be able to summon.  Peet, as Jesse, came close near the end but the poorly directed character she was playing just got in the way.  Great Long Island accent, however.  

So, I'm wondering the whole time what LaBute was trying to convey here - and along comes this last, incongruous scene where we are presumed to be watching John go "evangelist" to get his message out - and it ends with him levitating.  Levitating?  WTF?

The play was in that dump, The Lucille Lortel Theatre, in the gay ghetto on Christopher Street, which didn't serve to improve my mood any either.  I wouldn't rush out to see this one.  Unless you need a nap in a bad seat.  Don't worry, the play won't wake you.

Irena's Vow