NewYorkReport

An Almost Holy Picture



Kevin Bacon in An Almost Holy Picture.

I wish Kevin Bacon’s return to the N.Y. stage were in a better play than this cloying piece by Heather McDonald. A two-hour monologue on a hill of dirt gives us a mournful, self-pitying God-besotted weirdo, but we’re supposed to see Samuel Gentle as a suffering, sensitive man who first hears God’s voice when he’s 9 years old. After many miscarriages, he and his anthropologist wife have a daughter who suffers from a rare genetic condition which covers her body with soft hair. This proves to be too much for him, and the lamentation, invented rituals of penance and outbursts of rage are almost all that’s left of his personality. When we learn late in Act 2 that his wife has left him, we wonder what took her so long. He says, over and over, "A father’s love can be a fairly spectacular thing." Of course, considering the God-the-Father analogies throughout, this notion has likely occurred to any thinking person.

Through April 7, Roundabout Theatre Co. at American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., 212-719-1300.

The Dazzle

The Collyer Brothers, famous junk-collecting hermits of N.Y., are the basis — with considerable license — of this melodrama. After an amusing and exceedingly arch first act, the play dissolves into shameless gothic goo, despite the presence of three excellent actors: Peter Frechette, Reg Rogers and Francie Swift. The biggest surprise is that it was written by the very contemporary Richard Greenberg (who does love threesomes: witness his best play, Three Days of Rain ). Even Masterpiece Theatre wouldn’t touch this one — lavish set and all — with a 10-foot pole.

Through May 26, Roundabout Theatre Co. at Gramercy Theatre, 127 E. 23rd St., 212-307-4100.

Elaine Stritch:
At Liberty

Calling herself an "existential problem in tights" (her signature getup is a white shirt and black tights—which when you’re 75, is both heroic and vulgar), Stritch regales an adoring audience of fans with tales of her first whiskey sour when she was 13 (she has been a notorious drunk), her romances with Brando, Gig Young, Ben Gazzara and Rock Hudson, and with fabulous stories of show biz folks from Ed Sullivan to Noel Coward. She sings (including her still show-stopping rendition of Sondheim’s "Ladies Who Lunch"); she wisecracks, she reveals herself. It’s more or less terrific.

Through May 26, Neil Simon Theater, 250 W. 52nd St., 212-307-4100.

Further Than The Furthest Thing

In 1961 a volcano erupted on a tiny island off the coast of South Africa. All the inhabitants were brought to England where they were put to work in a jar-making factory. Zinnie Harris took this story of natural and civilized calamities and built it around five characters — all of whom have terrible secrets and all of whom use those secrets as blackmailing leverage with the others. Volcanic eruptions are matched by boiler-room explosions; Penguin egg smashing is matched by infanticide. It is engrossing the way an event-filled plot is engrossing: the kind of lucky find at an airport bookstore. It is acted by good actors who have no more interest in subtlety and complexity than the playwright does.

Through March 31, Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 W. 55th St., 212-581-1212.

The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?

Edward Albee plans to add a second subtitle when the play is published: "Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy," and despite a laugh-out-loud beginning, the play deals with the most serious and dangerous of our human tasks: loving. The play examines the limits of passion and the limits of tolerance as it takes on, under the sleek realistic surface, the enormity of Greek tragedy. Archetypally, the family — all smart, articulate, funny, passionate — implodes with the help of a best friend. An architect (Bill Pullman), at the top of his life, career and happiness, falls in love, and (without spoiling the astonishing plot) destroys his wife (Mercedes Ruehl) and his son (Jeffrey Carlson). The acting is intense and eccentric — just what the play requires and deserves.

Through June 29, Golden Theatre, 252 W.45th St., 800-432-7250.

Metamorphoses



(From left): Doug Hara and Felicity Jones in Metamorphoses.

Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation to the stage of Ovid’s tales of transformation transferred from its much-celebrated off-Broadway production. The focus of all the stories is loss and grief, and the focus of the show is a spectacular reflecting pool in which most of the action occurs (people on the first row get splashed). Filled with beautiful images, the show remains, frankly, boring, because these images are static and merely illustrative. The actors take turns narrating while others perform the events told. It is all fairly simpleminded and the lit-crit/psych-crit interpretations offered by the script provide a wise-child guide through the familiar myths, including King Midas, Halcyon and her drowned husband and (funniest) a teenage Phaeton begging Zeus for the keys to the car.

Through June 30, Circle in the Square, Broadway & 50th St., 212-239-6200.

The Sweet Smell of Success

"Dirt: It’s the reason I read." That lyric sums up both the power of J.J. Hunsecker (based on Walter Winchell, the unscrupulous gossip columnist) and the reason the famous old movie of the same title tempted some big names into turning it into a Broadway musical. The descent of morality into gossip has been the direction of things (in politics, privacy, law) as society’s appetite for dirt grows. But the movie is full of nasty noirishness, as tough-guy Burt Lancaster wields power and beautiful, slimy Tony Curtis does his bidding. The new musical has John Lithgow (who can neither sing nor dance and seems bitchy rather than tough) with Brian d’Arcy James as his merely creepy, schnooky protégé. The songs are lackluster (Martin Hamlisch and Craig Carnelia), and the sticky, Freudianized book by John Guare provides a backstory nobody needs. Rent the video.

Martin Beck Theatre, 302 W. 45th St., 800-432-7250.