this week in broadway

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.]

MOTHERS DAY ON BROADWAY: MARY JANE / MOTHER PLAY

Jessica Lange is mesmerizing as a troubled matriarch in Mother Play (photo by Joan Marcus 2024)

MOTHER PLAY
Helen Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 16, $108-$270
2st.com/shows

Mothers and motherhood have always taken center stage on Broadway, from Rose in Gypsy, Fantine in Les Misérables, and Heidi in Dear Evan Hansen to Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night, Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, and Canteen Anna in Mother Courage and Her Children. This Mother’s Day is an ideal time to pay tribute to two extraordinary semiautobiographical plays now on Broadway, each focused on a unique mom.

At the Helen Hayes through June 16, Tony, Oscar, and Emmy winner Jessica Lange is starring as Phyllis Herman in Paula Vogel’s Mother Play — A Play in Five Evictions. As the audience enters the theater, a soundtrack is playing mother-related pop songs, from the Beatles’ “Your Mother Should Know” to the Mothers of Invention’s “Mother People,” getting everyone in the mood.

The story takes place from 1962 to the present as Phyllis and her two children, Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger), keep moving apartments, going up a floor each time, trying to improve their lot in life. Phyllis is a supreme diva, laying out on a fancy chair and having her kids light her cigarettes and serve her martinis. Her husband left years before and is out of the picture; Phyllis works in a typing pool but imagines herself enrobed in haute couture like Audrey Hepburn.

The memory play is narrated by Martha, who tells the audience at the beginning, “By age eleven, I had already moved seven times. My father had a habit of not paying rent. My mother, brother, and I could pack up our house in a day. A very useful skill. To know what household goods are in every box so one can also unpack in a day. Family in, family out. When I packed up my brother Carl’s apartment after he died, everything he loved fit into one medium size U-Haul box. There is a season for packing. And a season for unpacking.”

There’s a lot of packing and unpacking in the play, literally and figuratively. Whenever the family moves, they rearrange David Zinn’s set, using the same furniture, although different lighting fixtures come down from above. Phyllis insists on listening to old songs on the radio — her favorite is “Moon River,” which Hepburn sang in Breakfast at Tiffany’s — while her children attempt to listen to more modern music but are unable to get their mother out of the past.

Early on, Carl asks, “It’s over, isn’t it?” Martha replies, “What?” Carl answers, “Childhood.”

Carl and Martha have to grow up fast, catering to their mother’s needs, as opposed to her taking care of theirs. She does have a magic purse from which she can suddenly pull out a bag of McDonald’s, but she lacks almost any kind of mothering instinct. It gets worse when Carl tells her he is gay, as she angrily banishes him from their home. And she has little hope for Martha, who she calls “unremarkable,” believing the best she can do is “find an unremarkable man who doesn’t have enough imagination to cheat and drink and whore himself around town like her father does. After a year of learning how to cook, Martha will get a bun in the oven, and give me a grandchild. Because, honey, you are never a true woman until you have children.”

Phyllis might not win any Mother of the Year contests, as she admits herself, but she is not a monster. She works hard to keep a roof over their head, even if there are occasional roach problems, but she doesn’t help matters when she says she never wanted to have children, coldly explaining to Martha, “It’s a life sentence.”

The closing scenes are emotionally gut-wrenching, avoiding genre clichés as some threads are resolved and others remain packed away in boxes, perhaps never to be opened again.

Phyllis (Jessica Lange) seeks solace from her son (Jim Parsons) and daughter (Celia Keenan-Bolger) in new Paula Vogel play (photo by Joan Marcus 2024)

Pulitzer Prize winner and three-time Tony nominee Vogel (How I Learned to Drive, Indecent) based Mother Play in part on her life. Vogel, who has been married to author and professor Anne Fausto-Sterling since 2004 and does not have any children, had a brother named Carl who died of AIDS; her other brother is Mark. Their parents divorced when she was eleven, the same age as Martha in 1962, and Vogel’s mother was a secretary for the United States Postal Service, a job that Phyllis gets in the play.

But Vogel is such a potent writer that Mother Play feels intimate and personal but never overly confessional or didactic. Except for one out-of-place scene, the narrative flows with a natural sensibility that is transfixing, directed by Landau (SpongeBob SquarePants Big Love) with a powerful fluency.

Keenan-Bolger (A Parallelogram, The Glass Menagerie) and Parsons (A Man of No Importance The Boys in the Band) are exceptional as the siblings, who are caught up in a seemingly unwinnable existence but refuse to give up. As psychologically tortured as they are by their mother, they still know when to do the right thing for the family. Keenan-Bolger, Parsons, Vogel, and Lange all received well-deserved Tony nominations.

Lange is magnificent as Phyllis; she gives a grand dame performance that you can’t take your eyes off of. At seventy-five, Lange, who has three children, continues to hone her craft with grace and elegance while not being afraid to reach deep inside her. She has previously portrayed Mary Tyrone (Long Day’s Journey into Night) and Amanda Wingfield on Broadway, and Mother Play completes a kind of unofficial trilogy in style.

Rachel McAdams is sensational as the mother of a seriously ill child in Mary Jane (photo by Matthew Murphy)

MARY JANE
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 16, $80-$328
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

The concept of Mother’s Day goes back to before the Civil War, but it began to take shape in 1868 when Ann Reeves Jarvis started Mothers’ Friendship Day as a way to bring together Union and Confederate families, and then in 1870 when abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” presented the Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace. In 1904, Fraternal Order of Eagles Past Grand Worthy President Frank E. Hering called for a day to honor mothers everywhere; he later became known as the Father of Mother’s Day. President Woodrow Wilson, who had fought against women’s right to vote, proclaimed Mother’s Day a national holiday in May 1914.

On this Mother’s Day, Phyllis Herman may understand that she is not going to be named Mother of the Year, but Mary Jane has a much better shot at it.

In Amy Herzog’s exquisitely rendered Mary Jane, continuing at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through June 16, Rachel McAdams makes a sensational stage debut as the title character, a single mother raising a seriously ill child who requires round-the-clock care. Mary Jane is a kind of saint; she navigates through her complicated circumstances with a smile even as she sacrifices her career and personal life to devote nearly every minute to Alex, who is essentially being kept alive by machines.

Mary Jane does not complain about her husband’s leaving shortly after Alex’s premature birth. She refuses to report one of Alex’s nurses for falling asleep on the job and endangering him. She gives important advice to a woman (Susan Pourfar) who has just had a child like Alex. And she finds the time to listen to other people’s problems and concerns, not concentrating solely on her situation.

Mary Jane lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, where she sleeps on a foldout bed in the living room/kitchen. She is friendly with her most dependable nurse, Sherry (April Matthis), as well as with her dedicated super, the tough-talking, straight-shooting Ruthie (Brenda Wehle). She encourages Sherry’s shy, neurodivergent niece, Amelia (Lily Santiago), who would like to meet Alex.

While fixing a clog in the kitchen sink, Ruthie tells Mary Jane, “You seem to be someone who’s carrying a lot of tension in her body. . . . You’re very nice, very pleasant, you’re very pleasant and with what you’re dealing with I wonder if you have an outlet for expression or if you’re absorbing that all in your body. It’s just a thought. It might not be a useful thought. . . . Because that’s how my sister got cancer.” It’s an astute observation that is all too true.

Mary Jane’s job, and health insurance, is in jeopardy when Alex is hospitalized for months after a seizure. At the hospital, Mary Jane speaks with Chaya (Pourfar), a Hasidic woman with seven kids, including one in the same situation as Alex. Chaya has a more practical point of view with more hope for the future; it’s no coincidence that her name means “life” in Hebrew and that her sick daughter’s name, Adina, means “delicate” or “gentle.” In the Bible, Adina is the mother of two of the matriarchs, Rachel and Leah.

At the hospital, Mary Jane speaks with Dr. Toros (Matthis), who strongly advises she get some rest. “I’ve seen a lot of parents come through here. It’s important to take care of yourself. Sleep in your own bed, take a bubble bath,” the doctor says, but Mary Jane insists she’s okay. Dr. Toros calls Mary Jane “mom,” perhaps because she knows Mary Jane will never hear that word from Alex. But the cracks start showing up when Kat (Santiago), the music therapist, has not shown up yet to sing to Alex.

Mary Jane (Rachel McAdams) and Chaya (Susan Pourfar) share their stories while on the pediatric floor of a Manhattan hospital (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Pulitzer finalist and three-time Tony nominee Herzog (A Doll’s House, 4000 Miles) based Mary Jane in part on her life. Herzog and her husband, Tony-winning director Sam Gold — the partners collaborated for the first time on the current Tony-nominated adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at Circle in the Square — had two daughters, but their eldest, Frances, died from nemaline myopathy in 2023 at the age of eleven.

In Mother Play, the set remains the same but the furniture is moved around for each scene. In Mary Jane, Lael Jellinek’s set undergoes a major change when the action shifts to the pediatric ICU of a Manhattan hospital; what happens to Mary Jane’s living room/kitchen is pure genius, adding an extra level of insight to the story.

Herzog and director Anne Kaufman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, The Nether) premiered the play at Yale Repertory Theatre in April 2017, then brought it to 2017 at New York Theatre Workshop that September, with Carrie Coon as Mary Jane, Liza Colón-Zayas as Sherry and Dr. Toros, and Danaya Esperanza as Amelia and Kat. Pourfar (Mary Page Marlowe, Tribes) and Wehle (The Big Knife) do a fine job reprising their roles on Broadway, with Obie winner Matthis (Primary Trust, Toni Stone) excelling as Sherry and Dr. Toros, and Santiago (King Lear, Mac Beth) making a fine Broadway debut as the curious Amelia.

Making her New York City theatrical debut at forty-five, Oscar nominee McAdams (The Notebook, Mean Girls) is magnificent as Mary Jane, commanding the stage and the audience’s attention as if she were a seasoned theater pro. McAdams, who has two children, imbues her character with a positive attitude that belies, deep down, her carefully controlled anxiety. Mary Jane wants to do all the right things as a mother, but, as with Phyllis, finances get in the way, and the definition of “a life sentence” is very different. However, there is a key moment when Mary Jane wonders if what she’s doing is right for Alex himself, something that never occurs to Phyllis.

The play, which earned four Tony nods, for McAdams, Herzog, Kaufman, and sound designer Leah Gelpe, concludes with a fascinating scene that seems to unfold in its own time and space, in which Mary Jane finally opens up. It’s funny, strange, and heart-wrenching, a moving coda to a powerful, emotional experience.

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

NOT A SENSATION: THE WHO’S TOMMY / LEMPICKA

The Who’s Tommy is back on Broadway in a bewildering revival (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

THE WHO’S TOMMY
Nederlander Theatre
208 West Forty-First St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 21, $89.75-$319.50
tommythemusical.com

Watching Lempicka at the Longacre, where it just announced an early closing date of May 19 — it was scheduled to run until September 8 — I was struck by how similar it was to The Who’s Tommy, which is packing them in at the Nederlander.

Each show focuses on a unique title character — one a fictional “deaf, dumb, and blind kid” who has been part of global pop culture since 1969, when the Who’s rock opera was released, the other a far lesser known real Polish bisexual painter named Tamara Łempicka, who was born in Warsaw in 1898 and died in Mexico in 1980.

Both musicals were presented at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego prior to opening on Broadway, both involve world wars and fighting fascism, both feature ridiculously over-the-top choreography, and both use empty frames as props that detract from the protagonist’s creative abilities. And as a bonus coincidence, Jack Nicholson, who portrayed the specialist in Ken Russell’s 1975 film adaptation of Tommy, is a collector of Lempicka’s work, having owned Young Ladies and La Belle Rafaela.

While there are elements to like in Lempicka, there is virtually nothing worth singing about in Tommy.

In his Esquire review, John Simon called Tommy “the most stupid, arrogant, and tasteless movie since Russell’s Mahler. To debate such a film seems impossible: anyone who can find merit in this deluge of noise and nausea has nothing to say to me, nor I to him.” Although I’m not as vitriolic as Simon, I felt similarly about the movie — and now about the current Broadway revival.

The Who’s double album is a masterpiece about a young boy who witnesses a violent death and loses the ability to see, hear, and speak. The record delves into Tommy’s mind as he is abused and harassed by relatives and strangers but finds surprising success at pinball. The loose narrative allows the listener to fill in the blanks by using their imagination.

That imaginative space was taken away by the bizarre film, but the original Broadway musical version from 1993, with music and lyrics by Pete Townshend of the Who and book by Townshend and director Des McAnuff, did an admirable job of bringing the somewhat convoluted tale to the stage, earning ten Tony nominations and winning five trophies, for director, choreographer, score, scenic design, and lighting. With McAnuff again directing, this iteration earned a solitary nod as Best Revival of a Musical, which is one too many.

Mrs. Walker (Alison Luff) tries to help her young son in The Who’s Tommy (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

It’s 1941, and Captain Walker (Adam Jacobs) goes off to war. His pregnant wife (Alison Luff) is devastated when the military arrives at her doorstep and tells her that her husband has been killed in action — even though he is actually in a prison camp. Four years later, Captain Walker returns home to find his wife has taken a new lover (Nathan Lucrezio); the men get into a scrap, and the captain shoots the lover dead. Four-year-old Tommy (Cecilia Ann Popp or Olive Ross-Kline) witnesses the scene, and his parents plead with him, “You didn’t hear it. / You didn’t see it. / You won’t say nothing to no one / Ever in your life.” The boy takes those words to heart.

As he grows up (played by Quinten Kusheba or Reese Levine at ten and Ali Louis Bourzgui as a teenager and adult), he is taken advantage of by his uncle Ernie (John Ambrosino) and cousin Kevin (Bobby Conte) while his mother and father try to cure him by taking him to a psychiatrist (Lily Kren), a specialist (Sheldon Henry), and a prostitute known as the Acid Queen (Christina Sajous). But he shows no interest in life — although he does spend a lot of time looking at himself in a large mirror — until he winds up at a pinball machine, where he proves to be a wizard and soon becomes a hero to millions, the modern-day equivalent of a YouTube gamer going viral. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean everything is suddenly coming up roses for him.

McAnuff, choreographer Lorin Latarro, set designer David Korins, projection designer Peter Nigrini, costume designer Sarafina Bush, lighting designer Amanda Zieve, and sound designer Gareth Owen bombard the audience with so much nonsense that it is impossible to know what to look at or listen to at any given moment; it’s like the London Blitz has taken over the theater for 130 overcharged minutes (with intermission), complete with dancing uniformed fascists. The orchestrations by Steve Margoshes and Rick Fox are fine, but this has to be about much more than just the Who’s spectacular songs, too many of which tilt here. The barrage of empty frames and projected images might hurt your neck and give you a headache, while the vast amount of unnecessary movement and strange costume choices will have you bewildered, as will the decision to have no actual pinball machines onstage, just a pretend table.

Luff (Waitress, Les Misérables) and Jacobs (Aladdin, Les Misérables) avail themselves well amid the maelstrom, as do the younger Tommys, but Bourzgui, in his Broadway debut, fails to bring any nuance to the character, whether he is patrolling the stage following his younger selves or being chased by Sally Simpson (Haley Gustafson). He’s certainly no Roger Daltrey, on the record or in the film.

This hyperkinetic mess is no sensation, lacking emotional spark as it takes the audience on a less-than-amazing journey for which there appears to be no miracle cure.

Tamara de Lempicka (Eden Espinosa) examines her work in biographical Broadway musical (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

LEMPICKA
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 19, $46-$269
lempickamusical.com

Many of the technical aspects of Lempicka are oddly similar to those of Tommy. Just as Tommy never plays an actual pinball machine, Tamara de Lempicka (Eden Espinosa) never actually paints; she often stands in front of an easel with no canvas, carefully moving a brush in her hand. Riccardo Hernández’s set is laden with empty frames much like those in Tommy. Paloma Young’s costumes for the fascists are overwrought, like Sarafina Bush’s in Tommy.

However, Bradley King’s lighting makes sense, playing off Lempicka’s Art Deco style and angular figuration, while Peter Nigrini’s projections provide necessary historical context and spectacular presentations of her work.

But the biggest difference is in the two leads. Espinosa gives a powerful, yearning performance as Lempicka, a woman caught between her traditional family — husband Tadeusz Lempicki (Andrew Samonsky) and daughter Kizette (Zoe Glick) — and her lover, Rafaela, beautifully portrayed by Amber Iman. (Rafaela is a conglomeration of Lempicka’s girlfriends rather than any one of her individual historical lovers.) She is also trapped by her desire to become an artist and go out clubbing at a time when women were expected to stay home and take care of the household.

The story is bookended by an older Lempicka sitting on a park bench in Los Angeles in 1975 with an easel; at the beginning, she recites a kind of mantra: “plane, lines, form. / plane, color, light.” A moment later, she sings, “Do you know who I am? . . . An old woman who doesn’t give a damn / that history has passed her by / History’s a bitch / but so am I / How did I wind up here?”

In 1916, during WWI, Lempicka marries lawyer Tadeusz, whose prominent family wanted him to wed a woman of higher status. (The book, by Carson Kreitzer and Matt Gould, plays fast and loose with some of the facts for dramatic purposes.) Tadeusz is arrested in the Bolshevik Revolution, and Lempicka goes to extreme lengths with a commandant (George Abud) to get him released. After losing everything, they start all over in Paris, where Tadeusz takes a job at a small bank and Lempicka mops floors. While he is obsessed with finding out what she did to get him freed, she explores her art, experiencing Paris’s nightlife and meeting Rafaela, a prostitute, at a lesbian club run by Suzy Solidor (Natalie Joy Johnson), who later opens the hot La Vie Parisienne.

Lempicka is energized by her new lifestyle, but her husband is growing suspicious — and jealous when, helped by the Baron Raoul Kuffner de Diószegh (Nathaniel Stampley), his wife (Beth Leavel), and Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (Abud), Lempicka’s art career starts taking off. “We do not control the world,” Marinetti tells Lempicka. “We control one flat rectangle of canvas.”

When using Kizette as a model, Lempicka can’t differentiate between art and life. Kizette pleads, “mama, look at me / mama, look at me / see me / keeping so still / while your eyes dart back and forth / me / the canvas / me / the canvas / me / me / mama, look at me.” But all Lempicka can offer is, “eyes, Paris blue . . . flecked Viridian green . . . my daughter / shape and volume / color and line.”

Rafaela (Amber Iman) creates a sensation in Lempicka (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Lempicka garnered well-deserved Tony nominations for Espinosa (Rent, Wicked) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, Iman (Soul Doctor, Shuffle Along) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical, and Hernandez and Nigrini for Best Scenic Design of a Musical. In key supporting parts, Johnson (Kinky Boots, Legally Blonde) and Abut (Cornelia Street, The Visit) overdo it, while Glick (Unknown Soldier, The Bedwetter) is sweet as Kizette and Tony winner Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone, Crazy for You) stands out as the Baroness, but both could use more to do.

Tony-winning director Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) has too much going on, unable to get a firm grip on the action, while Raja Feather Kelly’s choreography brings too much attention to itself. Kreitzer’s music, with orchestrations by Cian McCarthy, meanders too much, often feeling out of place as the narrative changes locations and emotional depth, while Gould’s lyrics range from the absurd (“The Beautiful Bracelet,” a love song to a piece of jewelry; “Women,” in which the ensemble declares, “Suzy / You’ve made an Oasis / we live through the days / till we can be Here / Where Everything — and Nothing / is Queer”) to the obvious (“Pari Will Always Be Pari,” “The New Woman”) to the heartfelt (a pair of lovely duets between Espinosa and Samonsky on “Starting Over” and Iman and Samonsky on “What She Sees”).

“I can see the appeal,” Rafaela sings, and it is easy to see the appeal in a show about Tamara de Lempicka. Unfortunately, this one is not it.

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

“OH, MARY!”

President Abraham Lincoln (Conrad Ricamora) and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln (Cole Escola) have a rare pause in “Oh, Mary!” (photo © Emilio Madrid)

“OH, MARY!”
Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher St. between Bleecker & Hudson Sts.
Through May 12; moves to Lyceum Theatre June 26 – September 15, $49-$298
www.ohmaryplay.com

Cole Escola’s “Oh, Mary!” is the funniest, most outrageous show I’ve seen this season. I was finally able to catch it after several extensions at the Lucille Lortel — and now it’s on its way to Broadway, opening June 26 at the Lyceum. Nearly a week after seeing it, I’m still laughing about it.

In the eighty-minute farce, Escola plays the desperately unhappy Mary Todd Lincoln. It’s nearing the end of the Civil War, and President Abraham Lincoln (Conrad Ricamora) has had enough of the first lady, who has a fondness for booze; he’d rather spend private time with one of his young officers, Simon (Tony Macht). Mary wants to return to her previous career in cabaret, much to Abe’s displeasure, so he tells Mary’s chaperone, Louise (Bianca Leigh), to come up with other activities to keep Mary busy — and away from him. Abe himself suggests that Mary study acting, which he considers a far more respectable profession than cabaret, hiring a teacher (James Scully) who will change the course of the couple’s life.

Escola mines every line for hilarity while director Sam Pinkleton, who is primarily a choreographer, never misses an opportunity for physical comedy gold. Lincoln is not a brave, thoughtful leader but a complaining buffoon. “God, we’re screwed! We might as well surrender and kill ourselves now!” he tells Simon when the outcome of the war is still in doubt. When Simon advises they should meet with General Burnside, Honest Abe admits, “Let’s go. After dealing with my foul and hateful wife all morning, a little war might be a breath of fresh air.” Later, when Abe is looking to blow off more steam, Simon says that would make him very happy too. Abe asks Simon, “Would it? Would it put a big smile on your face to see me release everything I’ve got pent up?” Simon responds, “Of course. I want you to take it easy, sir.” To which Abe adds, “Oh, I’ll take it easy. And you’ll take it hard.”

Escola gleefully gobbles up the scenery as Mary appears in a drunken stupor, jumps on her husband’s desk, and gets oh-so-close to her daring acting teacher. She’s not exactly the most on-the-ball of first ladies. Each time the president mentions the North and the South, Mary asks, “The south of what?” Quoting Shakespeare, she recites to her teacher, “To be or not to be, that is a great question.” Excited to learn about subtext, she attempts to impress her teacher by explaining, “Well, a character might say, ‘Chicken tummy time’ when what they really mean is, ‘I’m hungry,’ only it doesn’t come out quite right because they’re inbred. Is that subtext?”

While some of the subtext is completely made up, some is based on fact or the gossip of the time. It has long been rumored that Lincoln might have had a thing for Union officer and law clerk Elmer E. Ellsworth, which was explored in Roger Q. Mason’s 2022 streaming play, Lavender Men. Mary did have a difficult life, losing three children and suffering from mental illness that Dr. John Sotos diagnosed in his 2016 nonfiction The Mary Lincoln Mind-Body Sourcebook as the effects of pernicious anemia, but she also was well educated, spoke French fluently, and had studied dance, music, and the social graces. Escola never merely makes fun of her but instead celebrates her with nonstop hilarity.

The set by dots is true-blue and unpretentious, from Lincoln’s White House office, complete with a portrait of George Washington looking down on the absurd proceedings, to a wood-paneled saloon. Holly Pierson’s period costumes are right on point, highlighted by Mary’s full-skirted black gown, as are Leah Loukas’s wigs, particularly Mary’s pigtails and Abe’s black hair and full beard. Cha See keeps it all well lit, with fun music by Daniel Kluger, who designed the sound with Drew Levy.

Escola, who scored with the online pandemic comedy special Help! I’m Stuck!, is magnificent as Mary, fully embodying her as they have a blast with her foibles while also honoring what she went through. It’s an unforgettable breakthrough performance by a writer-actor with a bright future. Ricamora (Here Lies Love, The King and I) is simply fabulous as more than just Escola’s, er, straight man, giving Honest Abe some surprise edges. Scully (The Erlkings), Leigh (The Nap, Transamerica), and Macht (The Alcestiad) all excel in their supporting roles.

The title of the show refers to the prayer to the Virgin Mary seeking protection from sin, but it also is a twist on the catchphrases Mary Tyler Moore’s character often said to her husband, “Oh, Rob,” and her boss, “Oh, Mr. Grant,” on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, respectively; Moore changed television as a successful actress, singer, dancer, and producer, so Escola reverses the dynamic, seeing Moore as a kind of role model for Mary Todd Lincoln in a time warp.

The tongue-in-cheek lunacy even extends to the two-sided program card, which is styled like the one for Our American Cousin, the play Abe and Mary were watching at Ford’s Theatre when he was assassinated.

But the play gets serious as well. At one point, Mary asks her teacher if he has ever had a great day. She clarifies, “I mean a truly great day. The kind of day so great it imbues every single sad or boring or terrible day that came before it with deep meaning because from where you stand on this great day, all those days were secretly leading to this one. And you stand there, high on the hilltop of this great day, watching the sun set on your past, and it all looks so beautiful and so perfect and you think, ‘if only I could stay here, where I can see everything so clearly, where all of my hopes feel rewarded and all of my pain finally makes sense.’ But you can’t stay there. You have to come down the hill and walk into tomorrow and it becomes so clear that the sad days and the boring and the terrible days aren’t secretly leading anywhere.”

Any day that includes “Oh, Mary!” is a great day; we might not be able to stay there, but we can keep on laughing as we come down that hill and walk into tomorrow.

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