We recently returned from a week in NYC, a whirlwind
revisit of our old stomping grounds, cramming in too much for a single blog
entry. Thus, this one focuses on the
five Broadway shows we saw while there.
I could write detailed reviews of each, but Broadway is well reviewed
and doesn’t need my help. So this is a
brief coverage of the shows we booked many months before the Tony Awards and
even before three of them actually opened.
In other words, we took a chance on those – although we knew something about
them in advance. Call this write up an
impressionistic review.
Before getting into the shows themselves, I must confess
we were not fully prepared for the theatre district in the summer, although
we’re both ex-New Yorkers and should know better. The week before we left, every long term
weather forecast had promised a week of ideal conditions, temperatures in the
mid 80’s, moderate humidity. Ah, we said
in confidence as we packed to catch a Jet Blue flight to LaGuardia, lucky us. But that following week morphed from idyllic
into a scorching heat wave, one day reaching the mid 90s with high
humidity. And we left “cool” Florida for
this?
As anyone who has lived in the city knows, if the air
temperature is in the mid 90’s, the buildings and the macadam, the traffic, and
the hordes of people, just magnifies the heat.
We were staying at 54th between Broadway and 8th
Avenue and thought we’d be able to walk or Uber wherever we needed between the
hotel, the shows, and restaurants. More unrealistic
thinking. Traffic was at a standstill
most of the time. The only way to get to
your destination was to walk. Subways
were impossible too. And we walked
mostly on 8th Avenue, frequently in the street as the sidewalks were
so congested. Because of the heat, the
sidewalk vendors, the mobs of tourists and trash all over the place, the stench
sometimes was insufferable. But as ex
New Yorkers we beat on to our destinations.
I’ll start with the least appealing show, although it was
very entertaining, War Paint. We bought tickets way before it opened and
had front row seats and were showered by the spit of Patti LuPone and Christine
Ebersole, whose presence alone was worth the price of admission. When their contracts are up, War Paint will recede into Broadway
history. The music was agreeable but not
memorable. However, the costumes were fantastic
as well as the scenic design by David Korins who designed Hamilton and two other shows running on Broadway now, Dear Evan Hansen, and Bandstand. We were disappointed that there was little
dance, unusual for a big Broadway show.
Personally, I also found the subject frivolous. Do I care about cosmetics, although I get the
point that these were two women battling in a man’s world. Nonetheless it was a privilege to see two
divas at work.
Dear Evan Hansen lived
up to its hype, Ben Platt a unique performer who can sing beautifully while
crying at the same time. In fact, the
audience was crammed with Ben Platt groupies.
A young lady sitting in front of us (her friend sitting two rows behind
us so we were privileged to be in on some of their conversation before the show
and during the intermission), was seeing the show for the 6th time,
seats to this particular performance being a present from her mother on this,
her 21st birthday. She was at
the end of her seat whenever Platt was on stage and singing, which is most of
the time. The music moved the plot along and some beautiful songs, “Waving
Through a Window,” sung by Evan and Company, “So Big/So Small” sung by Evan’s
mother Heidi (Rachel Bay Jones) to name just two. Both Jones and Platt won Tonys for their
performances. Steven Levenson wrote the
book and the Music and Lyrics were by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (who is from
our old home town, Westport, CT).
As moving as the show was, it’s the first time Ann and I
felt that this was a show for another generation (didn’t feel that way when we
saw Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton
show, In the Heights in London which
is hip hop multiculturalism). It’s not that we didn’t feel moved but the
reality of how millennial families connect or are torn apart by social media is
a major theme. We understand but it’s not
our world.
The Great Comet of
1812 was spectacular. The Imperial
Theatre was gutted for the staging, some of the audience sitting at tables, the
action taking place all around. Josh
Grobin had just left the show. Okierite
Onaodowan who we saw in Hamilton is
his replacement. He did a credible job
but I think Grobin’s voice might have worked better in the role. But that is not to detract from the overall
impression of the show, great music, phenomenal choreography – constant
movement, and the kind of show only Broadway could put on in that form. It leaves an indelible impression, in the
same way Hamilton and Les Mis does. 
So much has been written about Josh Grobin that one would
think his role playing Pierre was the primary one in the show. It is not – it is more of a fulcrum. The two dominant characters revolving around
him are Natasha played by Denée Benton in her Broadway debut, who was nominated
for a Tony, and Lucas Steele who plays the dashing womanizer, Anatole. It is a large cast, with many outstanding
performances.
The music is infectious, rock at times, lyrical at other
times (usually with a Cossack aspect), with an interesting back story as to how
Dave Malloy who wrote the book, the music, and the lyrics came to envision the show:
“I first read War and Peace while
working on a cruise ship, playing piano in the show band, as a way for my
landlocked girlfriend and I to stay connected. I remember being so enthralled
by the scope of Tolstoy’s vision; the book was a trashy romance novel, a family
drama, a hilarious farce, a military thriller, a philosophical scripture, a
treatise on history, all wrapped into one giant, messy, nearly unmanageable
tome. And then there was that section. Volume 2, Book 5. I think I read the
whole 70-page slice in one sitting, staying up til 5 a.m. with the delirious
obsession I usually reserved for Stephen King or Harry Potter. Up to this
point, Natasha had been so mirthful and pure that her downfall seemed to come
screaming out of nowhere . . . and then Pierre, his sudden righteous action,
his heart finally alive, his simple kindness, the comet . . . it all happened
so quickly. At the end of it, as I read the last words “into a new life” with
tears streaming down my face, I had the weirdest and clearest epiphany: that
this was the perfect story for a musical.”
His epiphany is our delight.
Groundhog Day
was enjoyable, surprisingly faithful to the movie. Very clever set designs and the infectiously
likeable and talented Andy Karl who performed in spite of a torn ACL made the
show. Great dancing too and the music was more than incidental. I just didn’t see how that film could be
turned into a musical, but it worked wonderfully. Groundhog
Day will become a traveling show one day.
Don’t miss it if you can’t get to NYC!
One disappointment was not being able see an equal number
of dramas as well, but we took a chance on one of The Roundabout’s new plays
which they developed with the Long Wharf in CT: Napoli, Brooklyn. Long after
we got tix it opened and the NYT had
a so-so review. It deserved a much better
one. Rarely have we seen characters so
sharply drawn, memorable, except in some of the classic American plays.
It is set in
Brooklyn in 1960. I was living there
then and there is a horrific incident that takes place at the time (no further
detail to avoid a spoiler). It becomes a
catalyst. The play is about Italian
immigrants, a man who arrives as a stowaway with his wife, and how they try to make
a life in Brooklyn. He’s a manual
laborer and his wife bears him three daughters.
That’s strike one in the family, the father frustrated he has no
sons. His disappointment with life in
the New World and his family is clear: “If we stayed in Italy we would have had
a son.”
He’s not an O’Neill alcoholic father, but he is a
workaholic and expects the same from his family. He demands absolute obedience and is baffled by
the way things devolved in his life. This leads to the conflict and the resolution. The mother is trying to please everyone, her
husband in particular, with her food and peacemaking efforts, the older
daughter has sacrificed her youth for the benefit of the family, the middle
daughter has to retreat to a Catholic convent after being attacked by the
father, while the youngest, 16 years old, is trying to stowaway to Paris with
another girl, daughter of an Irish immigrant, with whom she’s in love. There is much more to the play than that -- it
was riveting, a feminist spin on American family drama , written by Meghan
Kennedy. Remember that name. Fantastic acting.
In addition to the 5 plays we caught our favorite jazz
pianist at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, Monty Alexander (and his “Junkanoo Swing”),
who takes swinging jazz and combines it with the rhythms of Jamaica. His original composition, Hope reminded me of Oscar Peterson’s Canadian Suite, jazz compositions which
have classical underpinnings, not improvisational jazz. It was an ideal setting on the 5th
Floor of the Time Warner building at 60th St, overlooking Columbus
Circle, nearby our first apartment. The
view is as breathtaking as the music.
All in all, it was a magical week of theatre in
Manhattan. Hopefully, next year we can
do it again!
