this week in broadway

BIG & SMALL SCREEN STARS ON BROADWAY: YELLOW FACE / THE ROOMMATE / McNEAL

Francis Jue and Daniel Dae Kim play father and son in Yellow Face (photo by Joan Marcus)

YELLOW FACE
Todd Haimes Theatre
227 West Forty-Second St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 24, $70-$348
212-539-8500
www.roundabouttheatre.org

Three recently opened shows on Broadway feature television and movie stars either making their Great White Way debut or returning after a long absence, but, was we learn, success on the big and/or small screen does not always guarantee onstage triumph.

In an April 2021 interview in Vulture, actor and anti-Asian-hate activist Daniel Dae Kim said, “I take a great deal of pride in being Korean American. I know that not every representation is 100 percent something we can stand behind all the time, but I choose to look at things as whether they’re moving the needle of progress on a larger scale.” Talking about his and Grace Park’s departure from the successful Hawaii Five-O reboot in 2017 after the seventh season following a contract dispute — the two Asian Americans wanted equal pay with their Caucasian costars — Kim explained, “I had hopes that Hawaii Five-0 would be different because it was a show set in Hawaii, where the majority of people are not white. I thought it was going to be more of an ensemble show, and if you look at the early marketing and promotion for the show, where Grace Park and I were featured equally as prominently as anyone else, it led me to believe that it could be. I was proven to be wrong.”

In the article, he also discusses initially wanting to cast an Asian lead in the American version of the Korean television drama The Good Doctor, which his 3AD company produced, but eventually agreeing with showrunner David Shore and hiring white English actor Freddie Highmore.

Kim, who was born in South Korea, is now back on Broadway in the Great White Way debut of David Henry Hwang’s semiautobiographical 2007 Obie-winning Pulitzer finalist, Yellow Face, at the Todd Haimes Theatre through November 24. Kim plays a version of Hwang, known as DHH, a first-generation Chinese American playwright and activist who gets involved in a series of casting controversies. DHH makes a public stand against producer Cameron Mackintosh’s insistence on casting English actor Jonathan Pryce as a French-Vietnamese pimp known as the Engineer, altering his eyes and skin color to make him look more Asian; Pryce went on to win a Tony for his performance.

DHH, who won a Tony for his 1988 play, M. Butterfly, decides to write about “yellow face” in his next play, Face Value, choosing unknown actor Marcus G. Dahlman (Ryan Eggold) as the lead, believing he is at least part Asian. But when it turns out that the renamed Marcus Gee probably has no Asian blood in him at all, DHH convinces the actor that he must have had a Siberian Jewish ancestor, and things go haywire from there.

Yellow Face is told in flashback, with DHH often directly addressing the audience, guiding the tale while freely admitting the many mistakes he made. It starts with various public figures commenting on the Marcus Gee situation.

“Wow. That is one of the strangest stories I’ve ever heard,” Vice President Al Gore (Marinda Anderson) says.

“David Henry Hwang is a white racist asshole,” playwright Frank Chin (Kevin Del Aguila) declares.

“This is a tempest in an Oriental teapot,” Mackintosh (Shannon Tyo) insists.

DHH (Daniel Dae Kim) and Marcus Gee (Ryan Eggold) have different ideas of ethnic representation at Todd Haimes Theatre (photo by Joan Marcus)

Among the other real-life famous and not-so-famous people chiming in at one point or another are casting director Vinnie Liff, author Gish Jen, theater critics Frank Rich and Michael Riedel, New York City mayor Ed Koch, columnist George F. Will, talk show host Dick Cavett, Taiwanese American computer scientist Wen Ho Lee, actors B. D. Wong, Mark Linn-Baker, Lily Tomlin, Gina Torres, Jane Krakowski, and Margaret Cho, politicians Fred Thompson, Sam Brownback, Tom Delay, and Richard Shelby, and theater luminaries Bernard Jacobs, Joe Papp, and Jerry Zaks, all played by Anderson, Del Aguila, Tyo, and Francis Jue; Jue also portrays DHH’s father, HYH, an immigrant immensely proud of his success in the financial sector but whose bank finds itself in a bit of hot water with a congressional committee as the opening of Face Value approaches.

Kim is most well known for playing Jin-Soo Kwon on the seven seasons of Lost and Chin Ho Kelly for seven years on the Hawaii Five-O reboot; he has also appeared onstage in New York City, Los Angeles, and London since 1991, including Romeo and Juliet, A Doll’s House, The Tempest, The King and I, and Hwang’s Golden Child. He is amiable and confident as DHH, instantly gaining the audience’s faith as he balances the sublime and the ridiculous with acute self-awareness and self-deprecation; he’s particularly strong as DHH digs himself into a deeper and deeper hole. His casting in and of itself is fascinating; there’s been a recent movement for people of Asian descent not to be called “Asian” but to be identified by the specific country they or their ancestors come from; in this case, the South Korean Kim is playing the Chinese American Hwang.

Eggold (Dead End, All My Sons) is hilarious as Marcus, a regional actor who can’t believe how his stature has changed once he agreed to pretend to be Asian, getting hooked on the hoopla. Keller (Dig, Shhhh) excels as the announcer and a reporter identified as “Name withheld on advice of counsel,” Jue, who originated the role of HYH at the Public and played an alternate version of DHH in Hwang’s autobiographical soft power, is gleeful as the father, and Tyo (The Comeuppance, The Chinese Lady), del Aguila (Some Like It Hot, Frozen), and Anderson (Merry Me, Sandblasted) shift seamlessly from role to role.

Arnulfo Maldonado’s changing sets and Yee Eun Nam’s projections keep the audience fully engaged under the smooth-flowing direction of Leigh Silverman, who helmed the original production of Yellow Face as well as Hwang’s Chinglish, Kung Fu, and Golden Child, her familiarity with the material delivering a fun experience while making its important points.

Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone return to Broadway in Jen Silverman’s The Roommate (photo by Matthew Murphy)

THE ROOMMATE
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 15, $48 – $321
theroommatebway.com

The Broadway premiere of Jen Silverman’s 2015 play, The Roommate, dooms itself from the very start. Longtime friends Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone take the stage together, their names projected across the top of the set, and they bask in the uproarious applause of the audience. They exit, then return seconds later in character. While the laudatory moment removes the need for applause at the beginning of the actual narrative, it also makes sure we never forget we are watching a pair of superstar performers, even though the success of the play — any play — depends on our believing in the fiction that is about to unfold before us.

Two years ago, LuPone, who has won two Grammys and three Tonys, announced she was retiring from the Great White Way because of Actors’ Equity’s lack of support of its union members, writing on Twitter, “Quite a week on Broadway, seeing my name being bandied about. Gave up my Equity card; no longer part of that circus. Figure it out.” She later told People magazine, “I just didn’t want to give them any more money. . . . And I don’t know when I’m going to be back on stage.”

Meanwhile, Farrow, who has never been nominated for an Oscar or Tony, last appeared on Broadway in 2014 in Love Letters, sitting at a table with Brian Dennehy and reading A. R. Gurney’s epistolary play. Here only other Broadway appearance was costarring with Anthony Perkins in Bernard Slade’s 1980 Romantic Comedy. (She made her off-Broadway debut as Cecily Cardew in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1963.)

So there was a lot of buzz surrounding LuPone and Farrow teaming up at the Booth Theatre for a play about an odd couple living together in rural Iowa. Unfortunately, they lack any kind of chemistry, and three-time Tony-winning director Jack O’Brien (Shucked, The Invention of Love) can’t get around Jen Silverman’s inconsequential, clichéd script.

Farrow is Sharon, a divorced mother from Illinois who has made a peaceful life for herself in a large home in Iowa City. She likes things as they are, simple, without complications, but she seeks out a roommate, both for financial reasons and, perhaps, friendship.

LuPone is Robyn, a divorced mother from the Bronx who is ready for a major change. She is not exactly what Sharon expected: a tough-talking vegan lesbian whose black leather provides a sharp contrast to Sharon’s loose-fitting sun dresses. (The costumes are by Bob Crowley, who also designed the set, a skeletal house with a kitchen and a small staircase leading up.)

After learning these facts about Robyn, Sharon declares, “I mean. A roommate! I’ve never had a roommate. I’m sixty-five years old. A roommate!”

While there is no reason an actor can’t play well above or below their age, the line gets a curious stare from the audience, who know Farrow cannot be sixty-five. (In actuality, Farrow is seventy-nine and LuPone is seventy-five). In a script note, Silverman suggests, “In terms of age, you should feel free to adjust the character’s age to fit the actor.” Because the production made such a big deal of Farrow and LuPone’s star power when they first took the stage, the number sticks out as false.

Robyn (Patti LuPone) and Sharon (Mia Farrow) form an odd couple in The Roommate (photo by Matthew Murphy)

As the play continues, we learn more about both women, their prejudices, their pasts, and their futures. Each is dealing with not being on the closest of terms with their children. While Robyn knows about what’s going on around the world, Sharon seems to be happily stuck in an old-fashioned bubble straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, oblivious to what is happening right outside her door, although that changes as she grows more and more intrigued with what she at least initially considers Robyn’s vices.

The Roommate is in part a riff on The Odd Couple, with Sharon a fuddy-duddy like Felix Ungar, Robyn a more coarse figure like Oscar Madison. (At the 2017 Williamstown Theater Festival, S. Epatha Merkerson was Sharon, and Jane Kaczmarek was Robyn.)

But the effects they have on each other are difficult to believe, not fully formed. Silverman (Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, Spain) might have a lot to say about human vulnerability and morality and female friendship, but she goes too far off the rails in the play’s slow-moving ninety minutes.

Farrow is lovely as Sharon, every line delivered with a touch of wonder, going especially high and squeaky when something Robyn reveals surprises her. She handles Sharon’s absurd shifts in right and wrong with aplomb, just going with the flow, but LuPone (Company, Shows for Days) looks like she’d rather be just about anywhere else, as if she knows she made a mistake choosing this play as her return to the stage. Hopefully Farrow and LuPone will join forces again, only next time in a better piece of theater.

“There’s a great liberty in being bad,” Robyn tells Sharon, who repeats the line later on.

It’s a catchy phrase that never comes to fruition in The Roommate.

Jacob McNeal (Robert Downey Jr.) gets good and bad news from his doctor (Ruthie Ann Miles) in McNeal (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

McNEAL
Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through November 24, $195.50-$371
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

The night before I saw Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, I watched Dario Argento’s 1982 giallo cult classic, Tenebrae, starring Tony and Oscar nominee and New York City native Anthony Franciosa as Peter Neal, a popular American novelist on a book tour in Italy, accompanied by his agent, Bullmer (John Saxon), and his assistant, Anne (Daria Nicolodi). One critical scene involves Neal sitting down for a television interview with superfan Christiano Berti (John Steiner). Fact and fiction start weaving in and out of the plot as violent scenes from his books come to life in a series of murders.

In McNeal, Tony and Emmy winner and New York City native Robert Downey Jr. is the title character, Jacob McNeal, a popular American novelist who, while being examined by his doctor, Sahra Grewal (Ruthie Ann Miles), gets notified that he has won the Nobel Prize in Literature, an award he feels he deserved many years ago. His agent, Stephie Banic (Andrea Martin), immediately contacts his publisher to negotiate a new contract, and the Times finally agrees to do a front-page magazine profile of him, sending over New York Times journalist Natasha Brathwaite (Brittany Bellizeare), who is not planning on doing a puff piece. “Were you a diversity hire?” he asks her, kicking off an awkward interview. McNeal flirts with using AI for his Nobel acceptance speech, but soon he is counting on AI for much more as fact and fiction intermingle.

I prefer Tenebrae.

Jacob McNeal (Robert Downey Jr.) says way too much in interview with journalist Natasha Brathwaite (Brittany Bellizeare) (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

In his Broadway debut, Downey, who first acted on the stage in Alms for the Middle Class in Rochester in 1983, delivers a solid performance as the self-destructive McNeal, who has a serious kidney issue but can’t stop going back to the bottle. (Downey himself has had problems with drugs and alcohol and has been drug-free for more than twenty years.) He looks completely comfortable in McNeal’s skin, playing a character who is adorable and unlikable at the same time, as it’s difficult to dismiss his misogyny as just exemplary of the way things used to be. The sets by Michael Yeargan and Jake Barton rise and lower from above and below as Barton’s projections beam out visual stimuli, from texts and close-ups to the spewing of words and letters.

In such previous works as Junk, The Invisible Hand, Corruption, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Disgraced, Akhtar has proved to be a master of complex plots, tackling such issues as politics, race, religion, the financial industry, capitalism, and personal ambition. In McNeal, however, he takes on too much, straying from the central focus on the future of AI and its impact on literature and humanity itself to include scenes that feel like they’re from another play; even director Bartlett Sher (The King and I, Oslo), who has been nominated for eight Tonys and won one, is unable to weave together subplots involving McNeal’s son, Harlan (Rafi Gavron), with its bizarre revelation; McNeal’s flirtations with Banic’s assistant, Dipti (Saisha Talwar), and fondness for Harvey Weinstein, as his agent’s actions confound believability; his liberal use of the lives of his friends and relatives in his plots; and his relationship with journalist Francine Blake (Melora Hardin).

The 105-minute show does have a magical finale, but it’s not enough to save it. Near the end, a typing prompt acknowledges that the audience is “confused by what is real and what isn’t.”

There was no such problem in Tenebrae.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

Sutton Foster is an unstoppable force of nature in Once Upon a Mattress (photo by Joan Marcus)

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS
Hudson Theatre
141 West Forty-Fourth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 30, $89-$389
onceuponamattressnyc.com

Sutton Foster makes an entrance for the ages in Lear deBessonet and Amy Sherman-Palladino’s delightful revival of Once Upon a Mattress, which opened tonight at the Hudson Theatre for a limited run through November 30.

In 2022, deBessonet made her Broadway directorial debut with a spectacular, streamlined adaptation of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s fairytale mashup, Into the Woods, which transferred from the popular “Encores!” series at City Center to the St. James. She should have another smash hit on her hands with her spectacular, streamlined adaptation of another fairytale classic, Once Upon a Mattress, the Tony-nominated 1959 show featuring music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, and a book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer, adapted here by Sherman-Palladino, the six-time Emmy-winning creator, writer, and producer of such series as Gilmore Girls, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Bunheads, which starred Foster.

Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1835 story “The Princess and the Pea,” Mattress is set “many moons ago,” in a medieval castle where Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) is seeking a bride to become princess of the land. However, his strict mother, Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer), has devised impossible tests for his suitors, as she doesn’t want her son to be betrothed. Meanwhile, his father, King Sextimus the Silent (David Patrick Kelly), has nothing to say on the matter, as he cannot speak because of a curse that can only be lifted when “the mouse devours the hawk.” Even if he could talk, it is unlikely he would be able to get a word in edgewise with his powerful, domineering wife.

The queen’s dismissal of princess after princess has a terrible impact on her subjects; no one else can marry until Prince Dauntless has been led to the altar. The law particularly hurts Lady Larken (Nikki Renée Daniels), who will be the new princess’s lady-in-waiting. Lady Larken is pregnant and is desperate to wed her true love, the handsome, brave, and not very bright Sir Harry (Will Chase), Chivalric Knight of the Herald, before she starts showing. Sir Harry — and his jangling spurs, which he is obsessed with — heads out to find a princess. And what a princess he brings back.

King Sextimus the Silent (David Patrick Kelly) and Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer) oversee the potential marriage of their son, Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) (photo by Joan Marcus)

Princess Winnifred the Woebegone (Foster) is everything the queen despises. She’s dressed in muddy rags, her hair is a mess, she’s utterly uncouth, and she is covered in leeches and other surprising creatures, as she swam the moat and climbed the wall to enter the castle. “What on earth are you?” the disgusted queen says to Winnifred. The princess wriggles around as if something is on her body and asks the queen, “It feels weird. Is it weird?” Queen Aggravain responds, “For you? I’m going to say no.”

In a role originated by Carol Burnett and later played by such other comedic actors as Dody Goodman, Jo Anne Worley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andrea Martin, Tracey Ullman, and Jackie Hoffman, Foster holds nothing back. She romps across the stage with infectious glee, singing, dancing, and telling jokes, a seeming free spirit who Dauntless is instantly smitten with, even as she claims, “Despite the impression I give, / I confess that I’m living a lie, / because I’m actually terribly timid, and horribly shy.” She continues her hilarious high jinks through to the adorable finale.

But before Fred, as she prefers to be called, can marry Dauntless, she has to pass the queen’s toughest test yet by proving she has the sensitivity of royalty. “Sensitivity, sensitivity, / I’m just loaded with that!” the queen tells her wizard (Brooks Ashmanskas). / “In this one word is / the epitome of the aristocrat / sensitive soul and sensitive stomach, / sensitive hands and feet. / This is the blessing, also the curse / of being the true elite. / Common people don’t know what / exquisite agony is / suffered by gentle people / like me!”

As the jester (Daniel Breaker), who serves as the narrator of the show, informed the audience at the beginning, the test will involve twenty down mattresses and a tiny pea.

Princess Winnifred the Woebegone (Sutton Foster) creates havoc after swimming a moat and climbing a castle wall (photo by Joan Marcus)

As with deBessonet’s Into the Woods, which was nominated for six Tonys, including Best Director and Best Revival of a Musical, Once Upon a Mattress is great fun, although the show lacks some of the serious edges that make Woods so special, instead concentrating on inspired goofiness. Two-time Tony winner Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes) is a force of nature, a whirling dervish of id; every bone and muscle in her body gets in on the action — and you might never look at a bowl of grapes the same way again. Urie (The Government Inspector, Buyer & Cellar) could not be any more charming as the prince, a man-child who has not learned how to walk up steps yet and doesn’t know how to stand up for himself. Just watching Urie’s and Foster’s eyes are worth the price of admission.

SNL veteran Gasteyer (The Rocky Horror Show, Wicked) is phenomenal as the nasty Queen Aggravain, nailing the Mamalogue; Tony nominee Chase (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Nice Work If You Can Get It) has a ball portraying the dimwitted Sir Harry; Tony nominees Ashmanskas (Shuffle Along, Something Rotten!) and Breaker (Passing Strange, Shrek) form a fine duo as the wizard and the jester, who knows his secret; Kelly (An Enemy of the People, The Warriors) is wacky as the king, portrayed over the years by Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton, Milo O’Shea, Tom Smothers, and David Greenspan; and Daniels (Company, The Book of Mormon) is sweet and lovable as the endearing Lady Larken.

David Zinn keeps it simple with his set, consisting of vaguely medieval beribboned poles and family-crest-style banners slyly referenceing New York City; the orchestra plays in the back of the stage, performing Bruce Coughlin’s enchanting orchestrations. Lorin Lotarro’s playful choreography keeps up the often-frenetic pace, while Andrea Hood’s costumes add elegant color, all superbly lit by Justin Townsend, with expert sound by Kai Harada.

Sir Harry (Will Chase) and Lady Larken (Nikki Renée Daniels) share only part of their story with Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer) and Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) (photo by Joan Marcus)

Not everything works. Several songs feel extraneous, a handful of comic moments are repeated, and a few bows are left untied — the show could probably be trimmed down to a tight hundred minutes without intermission instead of two hours and twenty minutes with a break. But who’s to complain when that means more time with Foster and Urie, delivering such lines as “Alas! A lass is what I lack. / I lack a lass; alas! Alack!??” and “In my soul is the beauty of the bog. / In my mem’ry the magic of the mud.”

Early on, the jester asks, “What is a genuine princess?” It’s a question that relates more than ever to the state of the world in the twenty-first century. And one deBessonet, Sherman-Palladino, and Foster go a long way toward redefining.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A TALE OF TWO ACTORS: STEVE CARELL AND MICHAEL STUHLBARG ON BROADWAY

Steve Carell did not receive a Tony nod for his Broadway debut in Uncle Vanya (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

UNCLE VANYA
Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through June 16, $104-$348
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

PATRIOTS
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 23, $49–$294
patriotsbroadway.com

When the 2024 Tony nominations were announced on April 30, there were several notable names missing, particularly that of Steve Carell. The Massachusetts-born Carell, sixty-one, is currently finishing up his Broadway debut as the title character in Heidi Schreck’s muddled new translation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, running at the Vivian Beaumont through June 16. The show received a single nomination, for Carell’s costar William Jackson Harper as Best Actor in a Play, for his portrayal of Dr. Astrov; Schreck and director Lila Neugebauer focus so much on the doctor that the play ought to be renamed Dr. Astrov.

Carell, who cut his comic chops at Second City in Chicago and on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, has been nominated for an Emmy eleven times for his role as Michael Scott on The Office, and he received a Best Actor Oscar nod for his portrayal of the real-life multimillionaire and murderer John Eleuthère du Pont in Foxcatcher. Carell has also appeared in such films and television series as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, The Big Short, and The Morning Show as well as the very dark limited series The Patient.

One name that might have been a surprise was that of Michael Stuhlbarg. The California-born Stuhlbarg, fifty-five, is currently finishing up his role as the real-life Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in Peter Morgan’s bumpy but ultimately satisfying Patriots, running at the Ethel Barrymore through June 23. The nomination was the only one for the play, which is directed by Rupert Goold.

All five of the nominees are known for their work on television; in addition to theater veteran Harper, who played Danny Rebus on the reboot of The Electric Company and Chidi Anagonye on The Good Place, the nominees include Emmy winner Jeremy Strong of Succession for An Enemy of the People, nine-time Emmy nominee and Tony winner Liev Schreiber of Ray Donovan for Doubt: A Parable, and Tony and Grammy winner and Emmy and Oscar nominee Leslie Odom Jr. of Smash for Purlie Victorious (A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch).

A two-time Emmy and Tony nominee and Obie and Drama Desk winner, Stuhlbarg has appeared in such films as A Serious Man, Call Me by Your Name, and The Shape of Water; has portrayed such villains on TV as Arnold Rothstein in Boardwalk Empire, Jimmy Baxter in Your Honor, and Richard Sackler in Dopesick; and has seven Shakespeare plays on his resume in addition to Cabaret, The Pillowman, and The Invention of Love on Broadway.

Michael Stuhlbarg received his second Tony nomination for his role as Boris Berezovsky in Patriots (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Uncle Vanya and Patriots are both set in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall, around the time of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika program, although the exact time of Schreck’s narrative is never specifically stated. Vanya has sacrificed happiness in order to manage the family estate with Sonia (Alison Pill), his niece. When professor Alexander (Alfred Molina) — who was married to Vanya’s late sister, Sonia’s mother — and his younger, sexy wife Elena (Anika Noni Rose), arrive at the estate with plans to sell it, Vanya, who is in love with Elena and is not a terrific businessman, is forced to take stock of his life, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

Boris of Patriots is a stark contrast: He seeks out the many pleasures the world has to offer, determined, since childhood, to be a success with power and influence, unconcerned with the bodies he leaves in his wake. Cutting a deal with Alexander Stalyevich Voloshin (Jeff Biehl), Boris assures the politician that he is going to be a rich man. “No good being rich if I’m dead,” Voloshin says, to which Boris responds, “It’s always good being rich.” Boris believes he is in control of Russia when he chooses to groom a minor functionary as president, intending to make him his puppet, but the man, Vladimir Putin (Will Keen), ultimately has other ideas and soon becomes Boris’s hated enemy.

Carell hovers in the background of Uncle Vanya, giving the stage over to the other characters, similar to how Vanya has surrendered taking action in his life. He often sits and mopes on a couch in the back, fading into the shadows; even when he pulls out a gun, he is too meek and mild. For the play to work, the audience needs to connect emotionally with Vanya, but Carell can’t quite carry off the key moments.

Stuhlbarg leaps across Miriam Buether’s multilevel stage with boundless energy in Patriots as Boris battles Putin over the heart and soul of Russia. Boris has no fear, until he realizes that Putin is a lot more than he ever bargained for. “I will make sure the Russian people learn to love our little puppet,” Boris says, but it’s too late. “The fact is I am president,” Putin declares. Boris responds, “And I put you there!!!!!” To which Putin replies, “That’s opinion. Not fact.”

Carell may be more of a household name than Stuhlbarg, but the latter gained notoriety when, on March 31, a homeless man struck him with a rock near Central Park, and Stuhlbarg, much like Boris most likely would have done, chased after him until the police caught up with the attacker outside of the Russian consulate on East Ninety-First. The consulate was a fitting location for the two-time Tony nominee.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

JUKEBOX HEROES 2: HELL’S KITCHEN / THE HEART OF ROCK AND ROLL

Ali (Maleah Joi Moon) and Knuck (Chris Lee) have each other’s back in Hell’s Kitchen (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

In 1981, Joan Jett shouted, “I love rock n’ roll / So put another dime in the jukebox, baby / I love rock n’ roll / So come and take your time and dance with me / Ow!”

When was the last time any of us put a dime — or quarter, or dollar, or credit card — into a jukebox? However, the jukebox musical, a show built around existing songs, usually by a specific artist, is thriving, and it costs a whole lot more than loose change to see one.

The genre kicked off as the ’80s began, shortly before Jett released “I Love Rock n’ Roll,” with such instant favorites as Beatlemania (the Beatles), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Fats Waller), and Eubie! (Eubie Blake), but it really found its groove in the 2000s, with The Boy from Oz (Peter Allen), Jersey Boys (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons), and king of them all, Rock of Ages, which created a compelling narrative based on songs by Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, Twisted Sister, Steve Perry, Poison, Night Ranger, Europe, Whitesnake, and, well, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

There are several keys to a successful jukebox musical, whether biographical or fictional: It has to be able to attract fans and nonfans of the music or musician; it needs to sound more like a Saturday-night cover band than a traditional Broadway orchestra; and if it’s basically historical, it should be honest and thorough, while it should be clever and bold if telling a new tale. Biomusicals about Neil Diamond, Tina Turner, Carole King, Cher, Michael Jackson, Motown, and the Temptations all were lacking that certain something, if not more, while Head over Heels did a terrific job incorporating the songs of the Go-Go’s into a sixteenth-century romance, & Juliet extended Romeo and Juliet with the music of Swedish producer Max Martin (made famous by the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Robyn, Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, *NSYNC, and Justin Timberlake, among others), and Jagged Little Pill used Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album to entertainingly explore a suburban family’s dysfunction.

This season saw the Broadway premiere of two exciting, though very different, jukebox musicals that stand apart from the pack. Although they showcase songs by artists I never play at home, I was thrilled to see them performed onstage by excellent casts.

The Heart of Rock and Roll gives reason to jump for joy (photo by Matthew Murphy)

THE HEART OF ROCK AND ROLL
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West Forty-Eighth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 23, $58-$288
heartofrocknrollbway.com

The music of Huey Lewis and the News is its own kind of ear candy. The San Francisco band, which started in 1979 and is still together — although they no longer tour because Lewis contracted Ménière’s disease, which causes severe hearing loss — has sold tens of millions of records, boosted by twenty top-fifty singles between 1980 and 1994. Among those to wax poetic about the group was fictional serial killer Patrick Bateman in Bret Eason Ellis’s 1991 novel, American Psycho, and the subsequent 2000 film starring Christian Bale and the 2016 Broadway musical with Benjamin Walker, the last of which features Lewis’s “Hip to Be Square.”

In 1985, Huey Lewis and the News garnered their sole Grammy, winning Best Music Video, Long Form for the single “The Heart of Rock and Roll.” Unfortunately, the new Broadway musical The Heart of Rock and Roll was snubbed by the Tonys and received a lone Drama Desk nomination, for Lorin Latarro’s delightful choreography. But don’t let that stop you from seeing this superfun show, now running at the James Earl Jones Theatre.

Jonathan A. Abrams’s book skirts around clichés in telling the story of Bobby Stivic (Corey Cott), a blue-collar dreamer who is forced to choose between a stable, professional career and playing in a band. When Bobby gets fired from his job on the factory floor of the family-run, Milwaukee-based Stone Box Co., which makes shipping supplies (boxes, tape, packing peanuts, bubble wrap), for cutting a bad deal with a stereo company in order to give every employee a Walkman to help boost productivity, he decides he has to make it right. He heads off to a conference in Chicago where he believes he will be able to get the keynote speaker, Swedish furniture mogul Otto Fjord (Orville Mendoza), to become a client.

Tough HR head Roz (Tamika Lawrence), the easygoing Mr. Stone (John Dossett), and his extremely efficient workaholic daughter, Cassandra (McKenzie Kurtz), see Bobby at the trade show, and, discovering that he is representing the company he no longer works for, are not exactly pleased. But when the ever-charismatic Bobby manages to get a meeting with Fjord — in the hotel sauna — Stone considers giving Bobby another chance.

Meanwhile, Bobby’s former bandmates and childhood friends, optimistic guitarist JJ (Raymond J. Lee), realistic drummer Eli (John-Michael Lyles), and fatalistic bassist Glenn (F. Michael Haynie), suddenly snag a gig that could put them on the map, but they need their lead singer and songwriter to return in order to have any potential shot at the big time. And Bobby and Cassandra might have to answer the big question: Do you believe in love? as her high school sweetheart, the smarmy, WASPy Tucker (Billy Harrigan Tighe), is back in town.

Roz (Tamika Lawrence) has some key words for Cassandra (McKenzie Kurtz) in Huey Lewis musical (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Director Gordon Greenberg (Working, Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors) strings it all together like a series of interrelated music videos, except with more depth — but not too much — with the help of Japhy Weideman’s lighting and John Shivers’s sound. Just because you don’t have Huey Lewis and the News on your digital playlist doesn’t mean you won’t be charmed by the poppy songs, performed by a crack eight-piece band. Music supervisor Brian Usifer’s arrangements and orchestrations stay true to the original tunes without getting Broadway-fied under Will Van Dyke’s solid musical direction. There are plenty of familiar hits (“If This Is It,” “Workin’ for a Livin’,” “I Want a New Drug,” “The Power of Love”) along with a new song written for the musical, “Be Somebody,” which is, well, a bit too square.

Derek McLane’s sets (with backdrops that pay homage to the game Connect Four), Jen Caprio’s costumes, and Nikiya Mathis’s hair, wigs, and makeup keep you firmly in 1987 middle America, from the factory to a nightclub to the convention, where Stone’s booth includes such signs as “Too Cool to Spool,” a riff on “Hip to Be Square.” Latarro wonderfully integrates her choreography into parts of the set, using a conveyor roller, lockers, and, most ingeniously, bubble wrap. (Now, that’s tap dancing!)

The Tucker subplot is stale from the get-go, but just about everything else succeeds, especially the various relationships: between father and daughter, bandmates, potential lovers, and ex-employee and HR diva. Lawrence has a field day as Roz, delivering one of the show’s best lines: “If you’re having a business meeting without your clothes on, then HR better be present.” Dossett is heartwarming as Stone, who evokes some of the dads in the 1980s John Hughes movies. Cott, looking like a young Hugh Jackman, is endearing as Bobby, who just wants everyone around him to be happy. And Kurtz is hilarious as the bumbling, adorable Cassandra, her facial gestures alone worth the price of admission.

“New York, New York / Is it everything they say,” JJ sings in the title song. In the case of The Heart of Rock and Roll on Broadway, it most assuredly is.

Hell’s Kitchen ups the ante on Broadway, earning thirteen Tony nominations (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

HELL’S KITCHEN
Shubert Theatre
225 West Forty-Fourth St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 19, $74-$318
www.hellskitchen.com

When Hell’s Kitchen made its world premiere this past winter at the Public, there was something missing. In my review, I noted, “With some significant tweaking, Hell’s Kitchen has the chance to be both a critical and popular hit on the big stage.” That’s exactly what has happened. (Note: Much of that original review is repeated verbatim below, with some tweaks to emphasize how the Broadway production has improved.)

On Broadway at the Shubert, the semiautobiographical musical, inspired by the life of Alicia Keys — the singer-songwriter, producer, and art collector who has won sixteen Grammys and has been nominated for two Emmys and one Tony — is now a much tighter, fresher coming-of-age story set in mid-1990s Manhattan, thanks to small changes in Kristoffer Diaz’s book. In her first professional role, Maleah Joi Moon makes an explosive Broadway debut as Ali, a seventeen-year-old girl living with her extremely protective single mother, Jersey (Shoshana Bean), in a one-bedroom apartment “on the forty-second floor of a forty-four-story building on Forty-Third Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, right in the heart of the neighborhood some people know as Hell’s Kitchen.” The building is designated as artist housing, and it’s filled with a bevy of artists, including a trumpeter on thirty-two, a dance class on twenty-seven, opera singers on seventeen, poets on nine, painters on eight, a string section on seven through four, and a gospel pianist in the Ellington Room on the ground floor.

It’s summer, and Ali has decided it’s time for her to get busy with the older Knuck (Chris Lee), who drums on buckets in the street with his friends Q (Jakeim Hart) and Riq (Lamont Walker II). Ali and her homegirls, Jessica (Jackie Leon) and Tiny (Vanessa Ferguson), are sure the men are up to no good, but as Ali says, “We need that trouble in our lives.”

That’s the last thing Jersey wants for her daughter, so she enlists her besties, Millie (Mariand Torres) and Crystal (Crystal Monee Hall), and jovial doorman Ray (Chad Carstarphen) to keep an eye on Ali’s comings and goings. Jersey does not want what happened to her — an early, unwanted pregnancy by an unreliable man, a jazz musician named Davis (Brandon Victor Dixon) — to happen to her stubborn daughter.

As she prepares for her potential sexual awakening, Ali becomes intrigued by Miss Liza Jane (Kecia Lewis), the elderly woman who plays the piano in the Ellington Room and soon becomes Ali’s mentor. But the trouble that Ali soon encounters is not the trouble she needs.

Mother (Shoshana Bean) and daughter Ali (Maleah Joi Moon) share a poignant moment in Alicia Keys musical (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

Hell’s Kitchen is structured around two dozen Keys songs, from such albums as 2001’s Songs in A Minor, 2003’s The Diary of Alicia Keys, 2007’s As I Am, 2012’s Girl on Fire, 2020’s Alicia, and 2021’s Keys, and three new tunes written specifically for the show, “The River,” “Seventeen,” and “Kaleidoscope.” The orchestrations by Tom Kitt and Adam Blackstone are lively, and Camille A. Brown’s choreography captures the energy of the street on Robert Brill’s scaffold-laden set, enhanced by projections of the neighborhood by Peter Nigrini. The naturalistic costumes are by Dede Ayite, with lively lighting by Natasha Katz and spirited sound by Gareth Owen.

The show is directed with a vibrant sense of urgency by Tony nominee Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal), even more exciting with Diaz’s (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Welcome to Arroyo’s) revised book. Moon is magnetic as Ali; you can’t take your eyes off her for even a second. Tony nominee Bean (Mr. Saturday Night, Waitress) is engaging as the overwrought mother, shaking things up with “Pawn It All,” while Obie winner Lewis (Dreamgirls, Ain’t Misbehavin’) nearly steals the show as Miss Liza Jane, channeling Maya Angelou when she says such lines as “I will not allow you to let the pain win,” then bringing down the house with “Perfect Way to Die.” Lee (Hamilton) has just the right hesitation as Knuck, acknowledging the obstacles he faces every step of the way, and Carstarphen (Between the Bars, Neon Baby) is eminently likable as the adorable doorman.

Just as you don’t have to be a Huey Lewis fan to enjoy The Heart of Rock and Roll, you don’t have be an Alicia Keys devotee to get swept away by Hell’s Kitchen. In both cases, it’s well worth putting another dime (or more) in the jukebox, baby.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

FROM PAGE TO SCREEN TO STAGE: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS / THE OUTSIDERS / THE GREAT GATSBY / THE WIZ / THE NOTEBOOK / CABARET

The phrase “Familiarity breeds contempt” has been around for millennia, dating back to Aesop, Chaucer, and St. Augustine. It usually means that the more we know someone, the less we like them.

But the opposite seems to be true when it comes to Broadway, where the more familiar the public is with something, the more likely producers are going to stage it and the crowds will follow, often in adoration.

Such is the case with six current musicals on the Great White Way, each of which started as a book, was turned into a film, and then was adapted into a musical, with varying degrees of success.

As the Drama Desk Awards and the Tonys approach, here is a look at these shows, two of which I heartily recommend — and four of which you might want to take a pass on.

The acrobatic Water for Elephants is a high-flying triumph (photo by Matthew Murphy)

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
Imperial Theatre
249 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 8, $59-$299
www.waterforelephantsthemusical.com

“Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me, and the fry cook. Grady and I sat at a battered wooden table, each facing a burger on a dented tin plate. The cook was behind the counter, scraping his griddle with the edge of a spatula. He had turned off the fryer some time ago, but the odor of grease lingered,” Sara Gruen writes at the beginning of her 2006 New York Times bestseller, Water for Elephants. Francis Lawrence directed the 2011 film, which was written by Richard LaGravenese and stars Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz, and Hal Holbrook.

I have not read the book nor seen the movie, but I love the musical, which is built around a traveling circus. When Jacob Jankowski (Grant Gustin) is caught wandering around behind the scenes after a performance as the tent is being taken down, circus boss Charlie (Paul Alexander Nolan) and horse rider June (Isabelle McCalla) are about to ask him to leave until he starts to tell them about how he was present at a famous, awful circus tragedy decades in the past. The narrative heads back decades as the younger Jacob (Grant Gustin), who lost his parents in a car accident, is searching for his place in the world, hops on a train, and ends up at a circus run by August (Nolan), who is in love with horse rider Marlena (McCalla). Jealousy rears its ugly head as Jacob falls for Marlena while dealing with an unsavory group of characters during the Great Depression.

The solid, if sentimental, book is by Rick Elice, with rollicking music and lyrics by PigPen Theatre Co.. Director Jessica Stone gives the narrative plenty of room to breathe amid Shana Carroll and Jesse Robb’s acrobatic choreography on Takeshi Kata’s wood-based sets and David Israel Reynoso’s period costumes.

“Man, this place . . . The sawdust, the smells . . . it’s old but it’s new,” the older Mr. Jankowski says, and he could be talking about the musical itself

THE OUTSIDERS
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West Forty-Fifth St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 5, $69-$379
outsidersmusical.com

“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman — he looks tough and I don’t — but I guess my own looks aren’t so bad. I have light-brown, almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes. I wish they were more gray, because I hate most guys that have green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have. My hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut. Besides, I look better with long hair,” S. E. Hinton writes at the beginning of her beloved 1967 YA novel, The Outsiders. Francis Ford Coppola directed the 1983 film, which was written by Kathleen Rowell and stars C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, and Leif Garrett.

Both the book and the movie had a profound influence on me, so I was anxious about seeing the musical, which is outstanding. Adam Rapp and Justin Levine’s book captures the essence of teen angst not only in 1967 Tulsa, Oklahoma, but anytime, anywhere, with superb country folk-pop and potent lyrics by Jamestown Revival and Levine. Director Danya Taymor and choreographers Rick and Jeff Kuperman avoid genre clichés as the battle between the wealthy Socs and the poor Greasers heats up. The Socs are led by the smarmy Bob Sheldon (Kevin William Paul), who drives around in his fancy car, his girl, Cherry Valance (Emma Pittman), at his side. When Bob nearly kills Greasers Johnny Cade (Sky Lakota-Lynch) and Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant) and ends up himself in a pool of blood, Johnny and Ponyboy — whose parents died in a car crash, so he is living with his older brothers, Darrel (Brent Comer) and Sodapop (Jason Schmidt) — are on the run from the only home they’ve ever known, being helped by legendary Greaser Dallas Winston (Joshua Boone), fresh out of county lockup. It gets more complicated when Cherry and Ponyboy grow close and a rumble is on the horizon.

The Outsiders is highlighted by an unforgettable fight scene in the rain, complete with strobe lights that enhance the slow-motion clash. The one low point is changing Ponyboy’s favorite novel from Gone with the Wind to Great Expectations, resulting in a disappointing and unnecessary underlying theme. It gets everything else right, from Sarafina Bush’s costumes and AMP’s (Tatiana Kahvegian) sets to Brian MacDevitt’s powerful sound and Hana Kim’s projections.

As Ponyboy says, “Unlike in the movies and the books I like to read, nothing in this town plays out the same.”

The Great Gatsby takes a much-needed pause to figure out where it all went wrong (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

THE GREAT GATSBY
Broadway Theatre
Fifty-Third St. at Broadway
Tuesday – Sunday through November 24, $48-$298
broadwaygatsby.com

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’ He didn’t say any more but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores,” F. Scott Fitzgerald writes at the beginning of his 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. Jack Clayton directed the 1974 film, which was written by Francis Ford Coppola and stars Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Sam Waterston, and Karen Black. There were also lesser-known adaptations made in 1926 and 1949, and Baz Luhrmann turned it into a glitzy spectacle in 2013, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, and Elizabeth Debicki.

The magnificent novel about a wealthy man stirring things up in East and West Egg during the Jazz Age is still a must-read; the 1974 film was a snoozy bore, but Luhrmann’s glitzy interpretation was a sumptuous delight. Coming on the heels of a fun, immersive version at the Park Central Hotel last year, the new musical at the Broadway Theater is, essentially, a glitzy bore. There’s no need to reserve judgment about this utter mess, which focuses on the wrong plot points and is more concerned with style over substance; it looks and sounds good for about ten minutes before falling into chaos.

The basic elements are there: The mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby (Jeremy Jordan) likes throwing fashionable parties he doesn’t attend. He is still in love with his onetime flame, the debutante Daisy Buchanan (Eva Noblezada), who is married to the nasty Tom (John Zdrojeski), who is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson (Sara Chase), who wants more out of life than her hardworking husband, George Wilson (Paul Whitty), can manage. It’s all seen through the eyes of Yale grad and WWI vet Nick Carraway (Noah J. Ricketts), who is renting a small bungalow and soon winds up on the arm of amateur golfer Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly).

But the similarities end there as book writer Kait Kerrigan dumbs everything down — who needs character development? — director Marc Bruni seems more lost than the audience, Dominique Kelley’s choreography calls so much attention to itself that it becomes purposeless quickly, Paul Tate dePoo III’s overwrought sets and projections and Linda Cho’s haughty costumes will cure you of ever wanting to go to such parties, Jason Howland’s score has little unique to it, and Nathan Tysen’s lyrics leave much to be desired. It’s all best exemplified by the head-scratching second act opener, “Shady,” in which Meyer Wolfsheim (Eric Anderson), Gatsby’s questionable business associate, declares, “We all need a distraction / We all need a hobby / We also need a second exit / That doesn’t go through the lobby / We enjoy a favorite cut of meat / But it’s rarely ever all we eat / What comes on the side makes a meal complete.”

You won’t have to worry about whether any exit goes through the lobby if you don’t enter the Broadway Theatre in the first place, old sport.

When it’s not underdone, The Wiz is overdone (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

THE WIZ
Marquis Theatre
210 West Forty-Sixth St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 18, $88.75-$319.50
wizmusical.com

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds,” L. Frank Baum writes at the beginning of the first of his fourteen Oz books, the 1900 classic The Wonderful World of Oz. “Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar — except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.” Victor Fleming, with assistance from George Cukor and King Vidor, directed the 1939 film, which was written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf and stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, and Margaret Hamilton.

The story was turned into the 1975 Broadway show The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical “Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” starring Stephanie Mills as Dorothy, Hinton Battle as Scarecrow, Tiger Haynes as Tin Man, Ted Ross as the Lion, and André De Shields as the Wiz. Sidney Lumet directed the 1978 Motown film version, which was written by Joel Schumacher and stars Diana Ross as Dorothy, Michael Jackson as Scarecrow, Nipsey Russell as Tin Man, Ted Ross as the Cowardly Lion, and Richard Pryor as the Wiz. The show won nine Tonys, including Best Musical, while the critically panned movie earned four Oscar nominations.

However, something rather unpleasant must have happened when the 2024 revival eased on down that Yellow Brick Road, because this iteration is dull and lifeless; Dorothy’s house should have fallen on the whole production. The shell is still there: Dorothy (Nichelle Lewis) has ended up in Oz after a tornado swept across her home in Kansas. In order to get back, she must find the Wiz (Wayne Brady), but along the way she picks up a ratty scarecrow (Avery Wilson), a sad tin man (Phillip Johnson Richardson), and a meek lion (Kyle Ramar Freeman). She gets a bit of help from a good witch named Glinda (Deborah Cox), who has advised her to avoid her sister, Evillene (Melody A. Betts), a wicked witch.

“Don’t nobody bring me no bad news,” Evillene declares to her numerous flunkies. Too late.

The original book, by William F. Brown, has been updated by Amber Ruffin, Dorothy has been aged up a few years, and Toto is nowhere to be found, none of which works. Just because everyone basically knows what happens doesn’t mean director Schele Williams should forget about actual drama, while choreographer JaQuel Knight keeps any momentum at a low ebb with tired repetition. Hannah Beachler’s sets and Sharen Davis’s costumes are colorful, but Joseph Joubert’s orchestrations and arrangements are lackluster. The crows who harass Scarecrow are kinda nifty, so there’s that.

So what’s missing? Well, just a little heart, some smarts, and a dose of courage.

Musical version of The Notebook is all wet (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

THE NOTEBOOK
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 24, $74-$298
notebookmusical.com

“Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?” Nicholas Sparks writes at the beginning of his 1996 debut novel. The Notebook. “The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life gone by. I’m a sight this morning: two shirts, heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck and tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirty birthdays ago. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go, and a smaller space heater sits directly behind me. It clicks and groans and spews hot air like a fairytale dragon, and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a cold that has been eighty years in the making. Eighty years, I think sometimes, and despite my own acceptance of my age, it still amazes me that I haven’t been warm since George Bush was president. I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age. My life? It isn’t easy to explain. It has not been the rip-roaring spectacular I fancied it would be, but neither have I burrowed around with the gophers. I suppose it has most resembled a blue-chip stock: fairly stable, more ups than downs, and gradually trending upward over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I’ve learned that not everyone can say this about his life. But do not be misled. I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.” Nick Cassavetes directed the 2004 film, which was written by Jeremy Leven and stars Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, Gena Rowlands, James Marsden, and Sam Shepard.

The novel and film had plenty of naysayers, decrying it as sentimental claptrap; the third time is unlikely to be the charm for the haters out there. The show is nothing special, with underwhelming music and lyrics by American singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and a tepid book by Bekah Brunstetter.

The plot is the classic hardworking tough guy meets rich girl, rich girl’s parents (Andréa Burns and Dorcas Leung) break them apart, boy joins the army with his best friend (Carson Stewart), girl finds a respectable lawyer (Chase Del Rey) to marry, boy and girl imagine what might have happened had they stayed together. The older Noah believes that by telling the story to Allie over and over again, it might help her regain at least some of her memories, while the nurse (Burns) insists Noah follow the rules and his physical therapist (Stewart) tries to get him to accept treatment for his ailing knee, but Noah has more important things on his mind.

Codirectors Michael Greif and Schele Williams are unable to rein in the overall befuddlement on David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis’s rustic set, which switches from a nursing home to a historic house that needs significant work; there’s also a pool of water in the front of the stage where Allie and Noah swim and play. When boredom sets in, you can check out Ben Stanton’s lighting design, which features dozens of narrow, cylindrical, fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling with bulbs at the bottom that make them look like big pens (that one might, say, use to write in a notebook?). The lighting also casts a cool shimmer when it focuses on the pool.

The score, with arrangements by Michaelson and music supervisor Carmel Dean and orchestrations by Dean and John Clancy, can’t keep pace with the narrative, slowing it down dramatically. When teenage Allie asks teenage Noah if he has a pen and he says, “Why would I have a pen?,” I pointed up at the lights. When Middle Noah sings, “Leave the Light On,” I suddenly felt as if I were in a Motel 6 advertisement. And when the young Allie and Noah sing about his chest hair — twice — but Cardoza doesn’t have any, I wondered if it was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek joke. (If it was, it didn’t draw laughs.)

The musical probably has a big future ahead of itself too, naysayers be damned.

Yes, this is a picture from the current Broadway revival of Cabaret (photo by Marc Brenner)

CABARET AT THE KIT KAT CLUB
August Wilson Theatre
245 West Fifty-Second St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Monday – Saturday through March 29, $99-$529
kitkat.club/cabaret-broadway

“From my window, the deep solemn massive street. Cellar-shops where the lamps burn all day, under the shadow of top-heavy balconied façades, dirty plaster frontages embossed with scrollwork and heraldic devices. The whole district is like this: street leading into street of houses like shabby monumental safes crammed with the tarnished valuables and second-hand furniture of a bankrupt middle class,” Christopher Isherwood writes at the beginning of his semiautobiographical 1939 novel, Goodbye to Berlin, the second part of The Berlin Stories. “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”

Straying slightly from the theme, Goodbye to Berlin was first adapted into the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten, then into the musical Cabaret, which opened on Broadway in November 1966, with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander, and lyrics by Fred Ebb, directed by Harold Prince and choreographed by Ron Field; Joel Grey was the emcee, with Jill Haworth as Sally Bowles, Bert Convy as young American writer Clifford Bradshaw, Lotte Lenya as Fräulein Schneider, and Jack Gilford as Herr Schultz. The production was nominated for ten Tonys, winning seven, including Best Musical. Bob Fosse directed the 1972 film, which was written by Jay Allen and stars Liza Minnelli as Sally, Michael York as renamed young American writer Brian Roberts, and Grey reprising his role as the enigmatic emcee. The film was nominated for ten Oscars, winning eight.

It has been revived on the Great White Way four times, the latest bamboozling audiences at the August Wilson Theatre, which has been transformed into the Kit Kat Club to attempt to create a more intimate and immersive environment. Instead, the atmosphere is cold and alienating. Ticket holders are encouraged to arrive more than an hour before curtain so they can order pricey drinks at bars on several floors, where dancers perform behind beaded curtains and on platforms. The preshow is better than the show, which is set in the round, so half the time the audience is watching the characters’ back on Tom Scutt’s circular stage, which rises and descends because, well, why not. Director Rebecca Frecknall, choreographer Julia Cheng, and costume designer Scutt choose to focus on the grotesquerie of 1929–30 Weimar Germany, with Fascism right around the corner. Cabaret needn’t be clean and pretty, but you shouldn’t leave the theater in desperate need of a cold shower.

Oscar and Tony winner Eddie Redmayne does all he can to make the attendees deeply dislike him as he portrays the emcee as if he’s auditioning to be the Joker from hell in the next Batman movie, not making anyone feel welcome. Tony nominee Ato Blankson-Wood sleepwalks through his role as Cliff. Gayle Rankin brings the house down with the torrid title song but otherwise has no chemistry with the rest of the cast. Only Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth as Fraulein Schneider and Obie winner Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz manage to exhibit sensitivity and heart.

In one of the few scenes that work, Neuwirth poignantly and gorgeously sings, “With a storm in the wind, / What would you do? / Suppose you’re one frightened voice / Being told what the choice must be, / Go on, tell me, I will listen. / What would you do if you were me?”

What should you do? Avoid the Kit Kat Club — and choose one of Broadway’s many other excellent offerings, especially something that you might not be so familiar with, old chum.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

DRAMA DESK AWARDS 2024: CELEBRATING ARTISTIC ABUNDANCE

DRAMA DESK AWARDS
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl.
Monday, June 10, $105-$205, 6:15
nyuskirball.org
dramadeskaward.com

Balcony tickets are still available for the sixty-ninth annual Drama Desk Awards, honoring the best of theater June 10 at the Skirball Center. Founded in 1949, the Drama Desk (of which I am a voting member) does not differentiate between Broadway, off Broadway, and off off Broadway; all shows that meet the minimum requirements are eligible. Thus, splashy, celebrity-driven productions can find themselves nominated against experimental shows that took place in an East Village elevator or Chelsea loft. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of star power at the awards presentation.

Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit will cohost the event; among the nominees this year are Jessica Lange for Mother Play, Patrick Page for All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, Rachel McAdams for Mary Jane, Leslie Odom Jr. for Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, Sarah Paulson for Appropriate, Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara for Days of Wine and Roses, Bebe Neuwirth for Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Dorian Harewood for The Notebook, and Michael Stuhlbarg for Patriots. The Drama Desk also does not distinguish between male and female; the acting categories have ten nominees each, regardless of gender, with two winners. Thus, d’Arcy James is competing against his costar, O’Hara, for the same prize, although they both could take home the award.

Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara are both nominated for Days of Wine and Roses and will participate in the 2024 Drama Desk Awards (photo by Joan Marcus)

Among this year’s presenters are Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Montego Glover, Lena Hall, James Lapine, Debra Messing, Ruthie Ann Miles, Andrew Rannells, Brooke Shields, Seth Rudetsky, Shoshana Bean, Corbin Bleu, James Monroe Iglehart, and Steven Pasquale. O’Hara will perform a special tribute to William Wolf Award honoree André Bishop, Foster and Nikki M. James will both sing, and Nathan Lane will receive the Harold S. Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement. Others being honored are the How to Dance in Ohio Authentic Autistic Representation Team, lighting designer Isabella Byrd, and press agent Lady Irene Gandy.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HOME

Tory Kittles is flanked by Brittany Inge and Stori Ayers, who play forty characters in Samm-Art Williams’s Home (photo by Joan Marcus)

HOME
Todd Haimes Theatre
227 West Forty-Second St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 21, $49-$149
212-539-8500
www.roundabouttheatre.org

Tony-winning director Kenny Leon describes his Broadway revival of Samm-Art Williams’s rhythmic, poetic Home as a two-hundred-yard dash. It’s more like an Olympic relay, and his team wins the gold.

In December 1979, the Negro Ensemble Company debuted Home at St. Marks Playhouse, with Charlie Brown, Michele Shay, and L. Scott Caldwell, directed by Douglas Turner Ward; the show transferred to the Cort Theatre on Broadway in May, earning Tony nominations for Best Actor and Best Play. A 1982 DC version featured Samuel L. Jackson, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Elain Graham. Sadly, Williams, who was also an actor and television writer and producer, working on such series as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin, and Frank’s Place, passed away in his hometown of Burgaw, North Carolina, on May 13 at the age of seventy-eight, just a few days before the first preview of Leon’s throughly engaging Roundabout production at the Todd Haimes Theatre.

Home takes place on Arnulfo Maldonado’s low-tech, cozy set, centered by a rocking chair on a wooden platform in front of a tall row of vegetables and a backdrop of vast green fields under a cloudy sky in the town of Cross Roads, North Carolina, a storm sometimes visible in the distance. Occasionally, a black cutout of a silhouetted house narrows the stage. The show begins with Cephus Miles (Tory Kittles) taking a deep breath — as if getting ready for the race — and two unnamed women who serve as a Greek chorus (Brittany Inge and Stori Ayers) singing, “In the great gitt’n up morning fare you well. Fare you well.” The second woman adds, “If there was ever a woman or man, who has everlasting grace in the eyes of God. It’s the farmer woman . . . and man.”

Cephus Miles (Tory Kittles) searches for home in fast-paced Roundabout revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

However, everlasting grace does not necessarily mean success and happiness. A moment later, after the first woman agrees that Cephus is blessed, the second woman says, “Shit. Big deal. He can think about grace while he’s chopping wood this winter to go in that ‘pop belly’ stove that he cooks on. Or when he has to pack mud in the cracks of his house to keep the wind out, or when he has to use newspaper to wipe his ‘behind’ because toilet paper is just not in his budget.”

Cephus is a simple man with simple desires. He cultivates the fields with his uncle Lewis and granddaddy and appears destined to marry the young and innocent Pattie Mae Wells (Inge). Though not a religious man, he agrees to be baptized by Rev. Doris (Ayers), who warns Pattie Mae, “Keep your eyes on this one, honey. He ain’t a whole Christian yet.”

The chorus lets us know early on that Cephus, like many local men before him, headed off to the big city but didn’t find what he was looking for. “Maybe they’ll all leave,” the first woman says. The second woman responds, “Most of them have. He left. But he came back. Fool.” Cephus also runs afoul of the draft board when his number comes up to go to Vietnam, as he was taught to love thy neighbor and thou shalt not kill. And to make matters more complicated, Pattie Mae decides to go to college, promising to write him every day.

Cephus undertakes a personal Great Migration in an attempt to find a new home, but amid all that befalls him, he sticks to his roots, explaining, “I have no regrets. No bitterness. I’m thankful. And I pray from time to time.”

Stori Ayers, Tory Kittles, and Brittany Inge make the Todd Haimes Theatre feel like home (photo by Joan Marcus)

Serving as the offstage anchor for this wise and very funny and intimate play that never stops once Cephus draws that first deep breath, Leon further establishes himself as contemporary theater’s most consistently successful Broadway revivalist; in the last ten years, he has directed memorable productions of A Raisin in the Sun, A Soldier’s Play, Topdog/Underdog, Ohio State Murders, and Purlie Victorious (among several off-Broadway shows and Shakespeare in the Park). Next up for Leon is Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the fall, with Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, Katie Holmes, Billy Eugene Jones, Ephraim Sykes, Richard Thomas, Michelle Wilson, and Julie Halston.

Williams (The Montford Point Marine, The Dance on Widows’ Row) wrote Home while taking a bus back to where he was born and raised, Burgaw, North Carolina, influenced by the many characters he met on his journey. The play introduces us to such fanciful figures as Joe-Boy Smith, One Arm Ike, Old Chief, Hard Headed Herbert, Lottie Bell McKoy, Aunt Hannah, Pearlene Costin, Sydney Joe Murphy, Mr. Hezekiah Simmons, Miss Lizzie, and Dingles the invisible dog, each worthy of their own individual story as they tend to the fields, go to church, throw craps in the graveyard, or enjoy the fish fry.

Inge (Father Comes Home from the Wars, The Ballad of Klook and Vinette), and Ayers (Blood at the Root, Travisville) are phenomenal, taking on some forty roles between them, metaphorically passing the baton as they swiftly move from one part to the next with only small changes to their voice and demeanor and to Dede Ayite’s naturalistic southern costumes. Allen Lee Hughes’s tender lighting sharpens the focus on the character-driven narrative, while Justin Ellington’s sound maintains the sense of place even as the basic set stays the same as Cephus experiences life outside of Cross Roads, traveling miles away from his family farm (hence his last name).

Kittles (8 Hotels, Richard II) gives a career-defining performance as Cephus, a kind of southern Odysseus wondering what awaits him when he returns to a land he left years before. Kittles fully embodies the unpredictable Cephus, whether sitting in a rocking chair contemplating his fate, relaxing on the wooden platform sharing sweet memories, standing firm for his principles, or, perhaps, becoming a ghost, his right hand shaking.

The ninety-minute play concludes with a glorious finale that crosses the finish line with pure genius, reminding us all that there’s no place like home.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]