Starting with tonight and moving backwards...
EH JOE
Liam Neeson sits on stage for 30 minutes and doesn't say a word. Curtain. I know - sounds like a riveting evening of theatre. Then again this is Beckett. If you want action, I hear there's a movie opening this weekend about a some sort of bat guy.... The "action" of "Eh, Joe" is as follows: Joe (played by Liam Neeson) walks over to a window, closes it, and pulls a curtain in front of it; he then walks over to the door, looks out, closes it, and pulls a curtain in front of it; he then walks over to a cupboard, looks in, closes it, and pulls a curtain in front of it; he then walks over to the a bed, looks under it, and sits down on it. He then sits for 25 minutes. Presumably because the play was written for television, and because the director isn't totally sadistic, for the time Neeson sits on his bed, a closeup of his face is projected on a scrim in front of the stage, so we see his face blown up, next to the live Neeson. A mysterious voice (pre-recorded by Penelope Wilton), presumably the voice inside Joe's head, proceeds to drive Joe slowly mad. While the voice is speaking, Joe's eyes are open, when it stops, he closes his eyes. And during each of the non-speaking intervals, the camera zooms in closer to Joe's face. The thrilling climax (spoiler here, for the most exciting physical bit in the play) comes near the end, when Neeson, after sitting still for so long... get this... grabs his face. I know. Theatre doesn't get much more exciting than that. I read the script during my lunch hour today - not too hard since it's a whopping seven pages long, include a page and a half of stage directions - and that grabbing of the face was not in there. So this was particularly shocking. Then again, Neeson did blink while the voice was talking, and the stage directions specifically say that Joe is not to blink during that time. So obviously the director and Neeson decided it unnecessary to follow Beckett's strict orders. So we get blinking and face grabbing. All whining aside, I actually kind of enjoyed the play. If it had been any longer it may have been irritating, but 30 minutes is just about the right about of time to hear a woman's voice verbally prod a man, and to stare at his face in close-up. For a large chunk of the time, I wasn't all that impressed with Neeson's performance (Michael Gambon did this production in London, and somehow I think he may have been more interesting), but Neeson did sort of grow on me, as the subtle changes in his expression became more noticeable. And of course, the shock of the hands on the face made me jump a little, and the moments after that, as the hands slowly slid down the face, well... were sort of intriguing. This was only Neeson's first performance in the role, so I assume he'll improve over the short run. If you happen to be in the area anyway, and this happens to pop up on tdf again (which is how I saw it, a dollar a minute or so), this is actually kind of worth catching. And walking back after the 7 o'clock curtain at a rather leisurely pace, I made it to Times Square a few minutes before 8 o'clock. So I could have fairly easily made an 8 o'clock curtain of say... [title of show] (had they had a performance tonight), and I'm always a big fan of cramming in as much theatre into a day as is humanly possible.
JACKIE MASON. I couldn't resist. He claims his current engagement (which ends this weekend) at New World Stages will be his final in New York - and not that I believe him for a second, but I always enjoy his shows. The "new" show isn't his finest hour - much of the humor was less than fresh - I mean after the obviously new stuff about Obama and McCain, he moves on to Clinton and Monica... and then when he moves on to making fun of musicals, his targets are "Riverdance" and "Titanic." Which closed how many years ago? And of course, there's the inevitable section about how they should just install beds at the opera. The only things missing were the Ed Sullivan impression and burnt coffee at Starbucks. Then again, "Riverdance" and sleeping at the opera, stale as they were, were actually the sections that made me laugh the most. So maybe I shouldn't be complaining. This show may not be his best, but it's certainly not his worst ("Laughing Room Only" anyone?), and let's face it - Jackie Mason off his game a bit, is still far funnier than most of the people today who claim to be comedians.
THE BACCHAE. I'm not really a huge Greek tragedy fan, and this really wasn't on the short list of the ones I do like. But I was curious about Alan Cumming (as Dionysus), and I was offered a free ticket. And it was actually better than I was expecting. I had read in the reviews that the first half or so was the best part, and (I think it was Isherwood who said) people were disappointed when the fun ended. But to be perfectly honest, I found the second half (where the tragedy part of "Greek tragedy" kicks in) to be far more compelling. In the first half, we have a group of women in bright red dancing around and singing, with Cumming, in a bright and shiny gold dress, mostly in the lead every now and then. And that part felt a little forced to me. When the king's mother (played by the excellent Paola Dionisotti) finally arrives, and goes through from the joy of killing a lion to the horror of realizing she's slaughtered her son, that's what really interested me. Alan Cumming prancing around and playing the Emcee from "Cabaret" all over again, not so much. The whole thing overall seemed to drag on too long. But I'm glad I saw it. Might I as here, what's with all the abusive lighting design lately? Both "Bash'd" and this used with irrating frequency, bright lights shined directly in the audiences eyes. With "Bash'd," it was during a fight sequence, so I guess we were meant to feel the pain of the punches, but with this, first there's a fire (that is not only quite hot, even from the back of the orchestra, but also quite bright), and then repeated use of lights shined in our eyes for unnecessarily long periods of time to allow for actors walking on and off stage unseen. I mean, it's one thing for the guys getting naked in "The Full Monty," but for Dionysus walking on and stage... well, maybe this show was sponsored by some optometrists who will maybe get some business from the blinded audience members. End rant.
NERO. This was a workshop of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater (of "Spring Awakening")'s new musical. It's still obviously under development, so I won't say too much, but let's just say it needs a lot of work. Like "Spring Awakening," the songs don't really advance the story - they're mostly either songs that express the inner feelings of the characters, or they're performed as part of a show within a show (Idina Menzel played a singer, and so she had quite a few pointless songs that she performed as part of her act). Nero (played by the endlessly amusing Jeffrey Carlson) is basically a whiny brat of a king who's pushed into power by his mother, and miserable as he is, he ends up killing all of the main characters by the end of the show (and anyone who he hasn't directly killed, is killed in a big final fire). Unfortunately, the book was somewhat lacking, so I didn't particularly care that anyone died. As for the lyrics, well... they're really very bizarre. In one song, I think it's called "Double Dip of Darkness" - a duet between Nero and his mother - part of the refrain is something like "Shut up my dear, and suck my rear" (I kid you not - imagine a grown son and his mother singing that line over and over again - oy). I've probably already said more than I should have. I'm sure the guy who made the pre-show announcement about not blogging and keeping the cozy work-in-progress environment would be very disappointed in me. That all said, based on the state it was in at the Sunday matinee I saw (probably already scrapped state, based on the pages and pages of notes Sater seemed to be taking) I don't see this as having anywhere near the appeal of "Spring Awakening" unless some major work is done on it. The music is pretty, but it's far too ballad heavy, and it's just doesn't have anything near as exciting as "The Bitch of Living" or "Totally Fucked" in SA. I get that this is a different type of musical - much more of a small chamber show, I'd guess - the sort of thing that I'd imagine playing out a limited run at the Public, and then being forgotten - so perhaps those types of songs aren't appropriate for the creators' vision of the show - but considering how completely insane the character of Nero is as written, surely they could give us something a little peppier. As someone who's seen "Spring Awakening" *cough*15times*cough*, I have high hopes that Sheik & Sater will do the work necessary to get this show into a more satisfying shape. And if not, they're supposedly working on a version of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Nightingale," so maybe that'll be better.
SHE LOVES ME. I went to see this up at Williamstown, and just had a huge smile on my face for almost the entire time. It's just a delightful confection of a show, given a beautiful production by Nicholas Martin. Brooks Ashamanskas and Kate Baldwin were wonderful as the leads in an especially strong ensemble. I had seen the show once before in a community theatre production (that I remember exactly nothing about), so I was especially happy to finally hear "Ice Cream" sung in context, after hearing the original Barbara Cook version so many times (and might I saw Baldwin did Cook proud, with her delightful rendition). This isn't the sort of show that will knock anyone's socks off as being just the most amazing show ever, but it is just so absolutely charming and sweet, well, I can't really imagine that anyone in that audience could not have had their day brightened by being in that theatre watching that show.
PAGEANT PLAY. I was going up to the Berkshires to see "She Loves Me," and needed something else to fill up an empty slot, and based solely on the fact that Jenn Harris (of "Modern Orthodox" and "Silence! The Musical") was in it, I picked it to see. The show, it turns out, was written by one of the co-writers of the hilarious "Fully Committed," and actually also stars the actor who created the role in that play - I don't know what I did with my program, so his name will have to remain unsaid. Anyway, "Pageant Play" is a four actor/seven(?) character comedy about the world of children's beauty pageants. For all haters of child actors, you will be glad to hear the children are all "played" by empty costumes... which is to say the parents just carry around the costumes the children would be wearing, which makes especially good sense since the children have no lines (because they have no say in anything, and the parents and coaches are so overbearing, of course). The whole thing is just a bunch of silly fun. The moments of greatest hilarity probably came when the coaches and parents were teaching the children to do their pageant dances (now wipe that counter, oh yeah, oh yeah, now show they how dirty the rag is, oh yeah, oh yeah, now carry a pizza... etc, etc). Seeing adults do those silly dances with those ridiculous explanations, just really tickled me the right way. I don't know that this play would play all that well in New York, but I imagine it will have a long life as a crowd pleasing, low budget community theatre staple.
