that girl allison

I knew it was a political play and one that was filled with names, that’s it. But that was enough to convince me to see it and what an appropriate play it is for this season. The Best Man is about a Republican primary in the year 1960 and how dirty and ruthless candidates can become.

Performances were stellar overall. James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury owned the stage whenever they graced it, naturally. This was in fact my first time seeing Ms. Lansbury live onstage and she was lovely. Some say you become you become a real theatre fan after seeing her live (just kidding).

John Larroquette was convincing as the thoughtful and moral of the two candidates, Secretary William Russell, and Eric McCormack was stomach turning as the other candidate Senator Joseph Cantwell. (I should also mention what an uncanny appearance Eric McCormack has to former presidential candidate Rick Santorum.  I don’t think that was an accident either.) Other notable performances were Kerry Butler as Mabel Cantwell, wife of Joseph, and Candice Bergen as Alice Russell, the estranged wife of William. These two women are as different as they can be - and you feel their different streaks of pain as they campaign with their husbands.

The Best Man could not have been revived at a more appropriate time as it is a reminder of how dirty these elections can get. It’s also reminiscent of the Republican primary we’ve just seen unfolding in front of our eyes - some, if not all, of these events probably occurred at one point or another this year. TBM is an entertaining and enlightening two-and-a-half hours.

I hope in November the best man wins. 

Two weeks ago, David invited me to see the most recent revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, currently playing at the Broadhurst Theatre, with him. I was itching to see a new interpretation on the script, so of course I said yes. I saw the last revival at Roundabout two or three times. It was a beautiful, classic revival starring the late Natasha Richardson and John C. Reilly. I was eager to see what this cast of newcomers could do with the material.

Well, first, I’d forgotten how long Streetcar is. It’s close to three hours long, and in a world of “90-minutes-no-intermission” shows, that’s hard to swallow. But we get through it, of course. A Streetcar, after the first scene is when the last 1/3 of the audience comes into the theatre. No, really, it was ridiculous how many people were seated.

But I digress. The set was fitting and depressingly beautiful, while the lighting was awe inspiring, it was so aesthetically pleasing. I very much enjoyed Daphne Rubin Vega as the love-sick and abused Stella, despite having heard not so positive things at first. Wood Harris, as the surprisingly chivalrous Mitch, was endearing and quite perfect. Blair Underwood was strong and intimidating as the iconic Stanley Kowalski, probably more so than John C. Reilly ever was. 

The real star of this cast was Nicole Ari Parker as the pathologically lying and pathetically delusional Blanche DuBoise. Her quick mental and physical demise before the audiences eyes was astounding. It was a crazier interpretation than Richardson’s, but it was still absolutely affective.  

The one bone I have to pick with this production was the direction. At one very quiet, intense moment in the second act during a speech given by Blanche, a member of the company dressed like an old woman waddled across the stage mumbling words. It was the oddest thing I’d ever seen. Streetcar was probably 25 minutes longer than it had to be because the scene changes took so long. Had they been shorter, we’d have been out of there before 11pm. 

Overall though, it’s a successful (albeit different) mounting of Streetcar.

One of the only benefits to being underemployed is that it leaves your Wednesday afternoons free. I still get up obscenely early every day and the week before last I woke up before 8 on Wednesday and decided to try my luck at the rush line for Death of a Salesman. There were already 20 or so people ahead of me when I got there, but on the other side of the sidewalk was the four person line for people waiting for rush tickets for the matinee. I was given a bracelet as a guarantee that I’d get tickets and I sat next to former Rockette and waited for an hour and a half. I ended up in Row B in the orchestra to the side. There was a full cast and I was ecstatic to finally see a staged version of this classic.

This is a play that is almost shoved down the throats of high school-aged kids, so you probably know what it’s about. It’s a three-hour long tragedy that when acted pristinely is a beautiful tragedy to watch.

The set, a middle class family’s house designed by Jo Mielziner, is beautiful to look at. The lighting, designed by Brian MacDevitt, is also exquisite.  The best part of this production is, obviously, the cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the title role of Willy Loman, with Linda Edmond supporting him as Linda Loman. The sons, Biff and Happy, are played respectively by Andrew Garfield and Finn Wittrock.

Hoffman and Edmond are fantastic, as expected, but Garfield was a different story. We know he can act in movies, but the timeless question of theatre snobs is, “But can they actually act onstage without 15 takes?” Well, I was thrilled to conclude that Garfield can indeed act onstage. His transitions between being 17 and 31 were easeful and believable. He broke down crying no fewer than 4 times in the second act, all believably. Finn Wittrock, a more seasoned stage actor, was also heartbreaking as Happy. A last stand-out in the cast was Fran Kranz as the nerdy-turned-successful schoolmate of the Loman brother’s, Bernard. 

This revival of Death of a Salesman is tragically beautiful in every sense of the phrase. It was definitely worth those 90 minutes on the street.

Lots of people laugh at the top of the first act of The Lyons. Half of those people are laughing at the ridiculousness of what Linda Lavin says, while the other half are laughing because they had, or have, a Jewish grandmother exactly like Rita Lyons. I knew nothing really had changed about the script, but I was excited to see The Lyons again after it was announced that it was transferring from it’s small stage at the Vineyard in Union Square. 

The Lyons is about absolutely nothing other than a dysfunctional upper-middle class family in which all of the members are dysfunctional in their own unique ways. Is it entertaining? Oh, yes, you will keel over laughing. Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa, as Rita and Ben Lyons, bicker and you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. Have you ever wanted to hear Dick Latessa yell “motherfucker”? Well, then this is your show. Rita is redesigning their living room while Ben is in a hospital bed dying from cancer when their two equally as dysfunctional grown children show up. 

Brother and sister Lisa Lyons and Curtis Lyons, played respectively by Kate Jennings Grant and Michael Esper, each have their own problems, including alcoholism and compulsive and delusional lying. 

Their lives have all crumbled by the end of the second act, except for Rita’s, and we’re left with Rita proclaiming, “You can wish me bon voyage, or you can go fuck yourselves.” Motherly love at it’s best, indeed. 

Performances are fantastic throughout. Esper is pitiful, humorous, and creepy (though not all at the same time), Grant is a frantic mess, and the two supporting characters the nurse and Brian, the real estate agent, played by Brenda Pressley and Gregory Wooddell are comical and sad respectively. 

It goes without saying that Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa are masters of their crafts and therefore own the stage with ease. The Lyons is hysterical and appalling at the same time, on any sized stage. 

I’d watched Newsies, the movie, once a few months ago. It was OK. To be honest, I didn’t truly understand the hype, but I still wanted to see the stage version which everyone was going insane over at Papermill last year and now again on Broadway. Newsies is about a group of newsies, the paperboys, form a union after the newspaper publishers unexpectedly and unfairly raise their prices. 

The story is engaging but probably not as much if the cast wasn’t as top-notch. Jeremy Jordan is sexy and charming as the head of the newsies union Jack Kelly, and his love interest and biggest cheerleader Katherine, played by Kara Lindsay, is absolutely lovely and has a beautiful voice. Jon Dossett is evil and conniving as the head of the newspaper with questionable practices, Pulitzer. Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Ben Frankhauser are continuously entertaining as Crutchie and Davey, newsie confidants of Jack Kelly.

It’s very unique for an audience to have such high energy before a show begins. I experienced this only when working at Mamma Mia back in 2008 where every single person, practically, was so excited to be seeing that show. Well, Newsies is also a show like that. The amount of screaming after each song was loud, and at some points almost deafening. It was annoying at first, but in the end, it energized the cast even more and so we, the audience, were given a better performance. 

The set is incredibly simple, but intricate to look at and I’m rendered speechless when trying to find a way to describe it. Newsies is hands-down going to win the TONY Award for Best Choreography. The other nominees can just go home (yes, even though they’ve yet to be announced). The ensemble work their asses off and give 100% in every number. 

I’m not converted to a Newsies groupie by any means, but the show is a lot of fun. And who could say they don’t like looking at Jeremy Jordan for two and a half hours? You’d have to be crazy to not enjoy that. 

Who here misses High Fidelity on Broadway or wishes they had seen it?