April 14-20, 2005

art

Star Turns

woolf in sheep's clothing: Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin play Albee's repressed '50s couple. Photo By: Carol Rosegg

Hollywood names hit and miss on Broadway.

Jessica Lange, Kathleen Turner, Christian Slater, John C. Reilly, Natasha Richardson, Alan Alda, Amanda Peet: It's not an all-star movie, it's springtime on Broadway.

Tennessee Williams' wonderful "memory play" is remembered/narrated by Tom, the son who abandoned his family after his mother tries to solve their financial and emotional problems by marrying off her pathologically shy daughter. This disappointing revival is marred by director David Leveaux's exceedingly slow pace, which creates a stupefying sameness among the scenes, as well as Leveaux's creepifying choice of incestuous physical touching among Amanda, Tom and Laura: Everyone talks two inches from each other's faces, while thighs and arms are constantly caressed, the son kisses his mother's neck, the sister lies full-length on top of her sleeping brother, etc.

Jessica Lange, in the famous role of Amanda, warbles her lines, using only the shrill, upper register of her voice, and, because she is so beautiful and youthful-looking, creates none of the pathos of Amanda's grotesque pretensions and heart-wrenching nostalgia for her jonquil days at Blue Mountain. Sarah Paulson's hollow-voiced, labored speech makes her seem brain damaged rather than leg crippled, and Christian Slater's Tom is robust and energetic — hardly an aesthete trapped in a shoe factory; he conveys no complexity in his memory of guilt and desperation (who wouldn't want to get away from that voice?). Emotionally superficial, the production gets laughs in the wrong places and betrays one of the great American classics.

Open run, Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., 800-432-7250, www.telecharge.com.

It's Paula Vogel's turn for a season at Signature, and unlike her well-known Baltimore Waltz and How I Learned to Drive, this one has never been performed in New York. Like her other shows, Hot 'n' Throbbing is funny, semi-surreal and laden with a sexual-political agenda. A divorced mother (Lisa Emery) with two teenagers supports the family by writing erotic screenplays; while she types at the kitchen table, her noirish narrators appear and provide the voiceovers. Woven into this hot 'n' throbbing softcore porn is the family drama — her drunken, violent, unemployed ex-husband, her bookish son, her defiant daughter (Suli Holum, familiar to Philadelphia audiences as a member of Pig Iron). And making occasional guest appearances are passages from Ulysses and Moby Dick. The central dysfunctional-family drama — especially the character of the ex-husband — is fairly trite and dull, but it does illustrate that sexual violence is a two-way street; as Vogel says, "obscenity begins at home." The production itself, directed by Les Waters, is anything but dull with lots of highly theatrical amusements and some very stylish acting, especially from the narrators, Rebecca Wisocky and Tom Nelis.

Through May 1, Signature Theatre, 555 W. 42nd St., 212-244-PLAY.

David Mamet's new courtroom farce (is that a tautology?) takes up Big Ideas (religious bigotry, peace in the Middle East, marital fidelity, gay rights, judicial corruption) with much style and little substance. It provides many laughs ("God forgive me, I hired a goy lawyer — it's like going to a straight hairdresser") and much Mamet-speak, that oddly formal style and sentence structure that is the playwright's signature (prosecuting lawyer to sneezing judge: "I do not wish to descend to the picayune, but since my colleague has wished you gesundheit, I feel I must too. Gesundheit."). The cast is uniformly superb, able to turn a line on a dime, and since it's all a farce, the upshot is to reveal Mamet's profound cynicism about everything except, finally — and very surprisingly — gay love.

Through May 1, Atlantic Theatre Co., 336 W. 20th St., 800-432-7250, www.telecharge.com.

Using Edward Albee's new (and somewhat diminished) revision of his most famous play, Anthony Page directs the unlikely pairing of Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin as the famous battling couple. The late-night after-party that turns into drunken war begins when Martha, the university president's daughter, and her husband, George, a failed history professor, are joined by Nick, a young, newly arrived biology professor and his dippy wife, Honey (both David Harbour and Mireille Enos are superb, making the minor couple major). Turner has never had a better role for her sensual, whiskey-soaked voice, while Irwin creates a stiff-backed walk that implies decades of self-restraint and resignation — in a performance that suffers from the same restraint. The entire production lacks physical intensity, and the central fact of George and Martha's deep, marital love seems absent, nor do they ever team up against the younger couple. Also muffled is the underlying metaphor of the play, where nothing less than American values are at stake (George and Martha, i.e., Washington, i.e, the past threatened by soulless scientific progress, i.e., the future — which, in the intervening 40 years since Albee first wrote this, may have become the present). Despite the flaws, this is still a wonderful play in a highly entertaining and engrossing production.

Open run, Longacre Theatre, 240 W. 48th St., www.telecharge.com or 800-432-7250.

LaBute's This Is How It Goes with Ben Stiller, Jeffrey Wright and Amanda Peet; Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire with Natasha Richardson and John C. Reilly; Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross with Alan Alda and Liev Schreiber.

—Toby Zinman

Most of the excitement has been behind the scenes. The firing of Daniel Davis from La Cage (Robert Goulet replaces him beginning Friday); the it's-on-it's-off-it's-on-again saga of Sweet Charity (Christina Applegate, recovering from a broken ankle, is now promised to appear on May 4, the show's scheduled New York opening); how the mega-hit Spamalot captured an audience previously unknown at Broadway musicals (frat boys and frat boys emeriti) — this is what is generating buzz. Curiously, the shows themselves spark far less interest. Still, there are things to review and report.

When the name "Robert Goulet" generates Broadway excitement, well … Anyway, let's hope that Goulet (coming in as Georges) helps things along. This tedious revival of the Jerry Herman/Harvey Fierstein gay, easy-listening musical needs all the resuscitation it can get. La Cage's "why don't we all get along" sentiments have never exactly stretched us to higher levels of understanding, but the show does have some potential to move us. Yet the current production, dinner theater-ishly directed by Jerry Zaks, is an utter failure, since none of the characters seems to love one another. Gary Beach (Albin) loses every sympathetic moment in fusillade of camp shtick. The boyishly handsome son, Jean-Michel (Gavin Creel) is loutish rather than likable. (20 minutes after I saw La Cage, I couldn't even remember the ingenue.) That the dancing boy-girl Cagelles are terrific is in this context almost insulting — just "color and movement," as Dame Edna would say, enough to satisfy the rubes from Peoria.

Open run, Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway, 212-307-4100.

Alcott purists will be distressed by the Reader's Digest approach to the beloved classic, but I found Little Women charming. The score (by Jason Howland and Mindi Dickstein) alternates clever pastiche songs and ensembles with life-affirming, slam-'em-home Big Numbers (the latter no doubt the lasting stylistic contribution Idina Menzel has made to our theater … may she rot in hell). Sutton Foster was born to play Jo, and she confirms the delightful impression she made in Thoroughly Modern Millie: She's the real deal, sparkling with star quality, especially in the early tomboy-ish scenes, where she reminds me of Judy Garland in Meet Me In St. Louis. Maureen McGovern is a very placid actress but, oh my, that voice is a thing of wonder: burnished, resonant and under complete control. Susan Schulman has directed with taste and imagination.

Open run, Virginia Theatre, 245 W. 52nd St., 212-239-6200.

Upcoming:

The Light In The Piazza

Does musical theater genius run in families? Fans of Adam Guettel (grandson of Richard Rodgers, son of Once Upon A Mattress' Mary Rodgers) say it does. Guettel (composer-lyricist of Floyd Collins) has taken Elizabeth Spencer's somewhat overwrought novella and fashioned what many already claim is one of the great scores of recent years. This is certainly one of the strongest casts on Broadway today — Victoria Clark, Sarah Uriarte Berry, Patti Cohenour and many more.

In previews, opening April 18, Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65th St., 212-239-6200.

Sweet Charity

Charity is the crapshoot of the season, and backstage gossip (including tales of a feud involving Neil Simon and virtually everybody else in New York) abounds. I remain hopeful. Charity really is a sensational score, with at least one unkillable showstopper ("Big Spender") and much else to offer. It worked magic with Gwen Verdon, Debbie Allen, Bebe Neuwirth and others … will Applegate be next?

In previews, opening May 4, Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200.

—David Anthony Fox

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