Long time no update. I guess I've been lazy. So, starting with tonight and working (approximately) backwards:
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. In a word, disappointing. It's certainly no "Producers." It was really just felt very ordinary. My main issue is that it's just not that funny. I expected to be rolling in the aisles, and instead I chuckled every now and then. The songs, with the exception of "Puttin on the Ritz," which of course Mel didn't write, are pretty lousy. The story doesn't really lend itself to musicalization, so with so few obvious spots to put songs, it seems like he just looked for the funniest line in the scene and turned that into a song. So we're stuck with deadly songs on the topics of "Don't Touch Me" and "He Was My Brother" that just go on and on, aren't very funny, and don't do anything to further the plot. The best thing in the show is definitely the set. Big, creative, and fabulous. The performers all did a very good job, though I wasn't really blown away by anyone. Roger Bart (aka, Dr. Frankenstein) was out (rumor is it's a slipped disc in his back). His understudy was fine, except he's kind of young meaning that Megan Mullally, who plays Elizabeth the fiancee, looked like his mother. I don't know that Roger Bart is really that much older to make it a better pair, but the Mullally only really shined in her scenes with the Monster. The show is fine, certainly painless, but it certainly doesn't live up to it's must-see hype.
THE GLORIOUS ONES. Intermissions are good things. They allow the actors to rest, the audience to stretch their legs, and the theatre to sell merchandise and alcohol. So when a show doesn't have an intermission I get a little concerned. The official reason is usually that they don't want to put a break in the action. And every now and then that is true. More often though, I suspect it's so the audience doesn't leave. If there had been an intermission at "The Glorious Ones," I most certainly would have walked out. The first hour is absolutely excruciating. The show is about a commedia del arte troupe, and the first hour is just used to slowly introduce each character, and then to introduce the troupe. Granted, I am not a commedia fan - clowning, slapstick and all that stuff puts me to sleep. So I suppose if I had found the troupe's schtick funny I may have not been in so much pain. Instead I was bored to tears. Eventually they get around to introducing conflict and things get interesting. I wouldn't say this is one of Ahrens and Flaherty's better scores. There are a couple of good songs. The score is sort of a cross between "Ragtime" (especially that "Gliding" song) and "A Man of No Importance." In fact for a while the show just seemed like "A Man Of No Importance" set in Italy. Without the gay guy. And why oh why did they have to use once again one of those cheesy cliched epilogues - you know, the type why each character steps forward and says what happened to them after the main story ended? It's not creative, it's not dramatic, and it really just does more harm than good. Near the end, a stagehand comes out, picks up a bag (that I think represented commedia) and threw it in a trash can. That's a good recommendation for how to fix the show. Throw out most of the commedia stuff, and focus more on the relationships in the troupe. That's what I found interesting and moving. The show need a lot of work, and considering the state it's in after an out of town tryout in Pittsburgh, and the fact that it's opening pretty soon in New York, I feel pretty safe in saying there's no chance of an overhall. I thing I would be curious to listen to a cast recording though, for the few good songs.
CYRANO. A really beautiful production. I was definitely getting teary eyed in the final scene. Kevin Kline is fabulous. Jennifer Garner tried. She's not a great Roxanne, but she's not awful. The set design is really beautiful - sort of a traditional set with some deconstructed modern touches. The only other production of the play I've seen was the Frank Langella one that the Roundabout did a number of years ago, that I don't remember anything about. But I don't think it was anywhere near as good as this. I actually went to TKTS for tickets rather than buying the $20 last row mezz tickets, because I actually wanted to see, and I would say it was definitely worth the extra money. Finally David Levaux has redeemed himself. Of course, with the criticism of his "Fiddler" not being Jewish enough, I'm waiting for the critics to tear this apart for not being French enough. No French people in the cast? How dare they.
MACBETH. There was a mix of boos and bravos at the opening night of the Met's new production of Verdi's "Macbeth." I can't say I thought the director deserved to be booed, but bravos weren't in order either. I really liked the first act (or rather, the acts that led up to the intermission). Yes, the witches looked like dowdy housewives, and the set was a bit minimalist, but I thought it all worked. The lighting especially was really beautiful. And then I came back from intermission, and things went downhill. The special effects for the Act 3 witch scene were pretty lame. In the refugee chorus, the lighting designer for some inexplicable reason, had a spotlight going from face to face in the chorus for the entire time. It looked awful, and was very very distracting. There was a jeep onstage for on of the later scenes, and rather than roll it off stage, they just put it in the back and covered it with a black cloth. Was it that hard to get it offstage? Jeesh. And the sleepwalking scene? Well, it was strange. Lots of playing with a hanging light fixture. I do really love the opera, and this is certainly better than the lousy production I saw at the Royal Opera in London two or three years ago, but I was still kind of disappointed.
PETER AND JERRY. Well, I love Albee, so it's hard for me to criticize this. It's absolutely amazing that "The Zoo Story" was his first play, and it still absolutely holds up today, and still caused people in the audience to gasp at certain points, a whole 49 years after it was written. The first act, "Home Life," didn't really do much for me. It does definitely flesh out the character of Peter in "The Zoo Story," which was apparently Albee's intension in writing it, but I wouldn't say it stands up on it's own as a one-act, as "The Zoo Story" does. Dallas Roberts was a great Jerry. I still haven't gotten over his firing from the Jessica Lange revival of "The Glass Menagerie." I have no doubt that production would have been great with him in it (as opposed to the mediocrity we got with his replacement - Christian Slater).
THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION. An interesting problem here. After it ended, I really found I had enjoyed it - it felt both really entertaining and very educational - and it held my interest the entire time. Well, then I got home and went to Wikipedia and read the real story of Farnsworth v Sarnoff. And basically, Sorkin changed almost the entire story. Which leads me to wonder why he didn't just change the names, and write a work of fiction, rather than write a work of fiction disguised as history. I wonder if I went to see it again, knowing that there was almost nothing educational about it. I mean, I'll eat a vegetable and rationalize that I'm enjoying it because it's healthy, but if I learn it actually has no nutrients, well then what's the point? I mean, I guess the dialogue will still crackle, and the second act opener (which actually did happen) will still be a great scene, but I can't help but feel a little bit cheated.
SPAIN. This was really weird. Good weird in the first act, and bad weird - as in I had no idea what was going on anymore - in the second. It's about a Spanish conquistador who appears in a woman's apartment. The first act is pretty funny, but the metaphors get confusing and out of hand in the second, and I left totally unsatisfied, and not understanding anything I had just seen.
There's probably something or other I'm leaving out, but I think that's the major stuff.
