this week in broadway

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 – June 28, $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?”

Mary Todd Lincoln (Cole Escola) is in search of alcohol and more in “Oh, Mary!” (photo © Emilio Madrid)

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.]

RACE AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION ONSTAGE: JORDANS / SALLY & TOM / SUFFS

Naomi Lorrain and Toby Onwumere both play characters named Jordan in Ife Olujobi’s new play at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

JORDANS
LuEsther Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 19, $65-$170
publictheater.org

“A reckoning is coming and the likes of you will be crushed by the likes of me!” the enslaved James tells his owner, Thomas Jefferson, in Sally & Tom, one of three current shows with ties to the Public Theater that deal with race and gender discrimination — and a coming reckoning.

At the Public’s LuEsther Hall, Ife Olujobi’s Jordans is set at a modern-day photo studio called Atlas, where some heavy lifting has to be done. The small company is run by the white, domineering Hailey (Kate Walsh), whose staff consists of the white Emma (Brontë England-Nelson), Fletcher (Brian Muller), Tyler (Matthew Russell), Ryan (Ryan Spahn), and Maggie (Meg Steedle) as well as a Black woman named Jordan (Naomi Lorrain), who they all treat, well, like an enslaved woman. While the others bandy about ridiculous ideas regarding Atlas’s future, Jordan has coffee purposefully spilled on her, is told to clean up vomit and human waste, gets garbage thrown at her, and is essentially ignored when she’s not being harassed.

When a photographer (Spahn) is snapping pictures during a photo shoot, he calls out to the model (England-Nelson), “Tell me, who is this woman? What does she want?” It’s a question no one asks Jordan.

Concerned that the company is becoming “vibeless” because their personnel lacks diversity, Hailey hires a Black man also named Jordan (Toby Onwumere) as their first director of culture. When 1.Jordan, as he’s referred to in the script, arrives for his first day, he asks Jordan, “What’s a brotha need to know?” And she tells him: “Well . . . the way I see it is, I work in an office owned by an evil succubus, staffed by little L-train demons, and I spend all day trying not to fall into their death traps. Sometimes it feels kinda like a video game: me running around, dodging flying objects, trying to save my lives for future battles. But then I remember this is my actual life, and I only have one. So.”

Hailey enters and runs her hands over 1.Jordan’s body as if she were evaluating a slave she has just purchased. Maggie demands to know where he is from — and she does not mean where he was born and raised, which happens to be in America. Fletcher, Emma, Tyler, and Ryan bombard him with questions about why his father was not around and was such a deadbeat. The stereotypes keep coming, but 1.Jordan stands firm, even as Hailey asserts to him when they are alone, “I am the owner of this studio.” He has been hired to be the (Black)face of the company and to do whatever he is told. Did I mention that 1.Jordan’s last name is Savage?

Outside the office, the two Jordans disagree on how to “play the game.” Jordan advises 1.Jordan to keep his head down, follow the rules, and not to show off his accomplishments. “You have to let them think that they own you,” she says. But 1.Jordan is determined to be a success on his terms, not theirs, arguing, “I want the freedom to do what I want without having to beg.”

Soon the Jordans become interchangeable, their roles and responsibilities merging and veering off in strange ways, each seeing the white world they inhabit from a new viewpoint. “Who are you?” Jordan asks. 1.Jordan replies, “Who am I?!” Meanwhile, the racist clichés ramp up even more.

Ife Olujobi’s Jordans is set at a modern-day branding studio (photo by Joan Marcus)

In her 2021 pandemic book No Play, in which Olujobi interviewed hundreds of theater people about the state of the industry as impacted by current events — I was among the participants — she asks in the chapter “the end of all things as we understand them”: “In the context of the racial and social justice movements reinvigorated by last year’s uprisings in response to the police killings of Black people, and in the simplest and most literal terms possible, what does ‘doing the work’ mean to you?”

Jordans — the title instantly makes one think of Michael Jordan’s heavily marketed and branded sneakers — is about doing the work, no matter your race or gender. Olujobi, in her first off-Broadway play, and director Whitney White (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, On Sugarland) don’t back away from harsh language and brutal situations to make their points about where we have to go as a nation, when to take action, and when to sit back and listen. At a talkback after Donja R. Love’s Soft in 2022, White, who directed the show, told the audience that white people were not allowed to take part in the discussion. It was a sobering experience that has remained with me.

Lorrain (Daphne, La Race) and Onwumere (Macbeth, The Liar) are superb as the two Jordans, who get under each other’s skin both literally and figuratively. In an intimate and potent sex scene, only Lorrain’s vulva is exposed, not for titillation, but to declare that power and success do not require a penis. Walsh (If I Forget, Dusk Rings a Bell) excels as Hailey, who represents white leaders of all kinds.

The narrative has a series of confusing moments, and it’s too long at 140 minutes (with intermission); the scene with influencer Kyle Price (Russell) feels particularly extraneous, draining the story of its thrust. But the finale makes a powerful statement that won’t be easy to forget.

Sally Hemings (Sheria Irving) and Thomas Jefferson (Gabriel Ebert) pause at a dance in Suzan-Lori Parks’s new play at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

SALLY & TOM
Martinson Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 2, $65-$170
publictheater.org

Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks pulls no punches in her sharp and clever Sally & Tom, continuing at the Public’s Martinson Hall through June 2. It’s a meta-tale about different kinds of enslavement, from the start of America to the present day.

An independent, diverse theater troupe called Good Company is rehearsing its latest socially conscious play, The Pursuit of Happiness, the follow-up to Patriarchy on Parade and Listen Up, Whitey, Cause It’s All Your Fault. It’s set in Monticello, Virginia, in 1790, at the plantation home of Thomas Jefferson, who is in the midst of a sexual “relationship” with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves; he first started having sex with her when she was fourteen and he was forty-four. The show-within-the-show is written by Luce (Sheria Irving), a Black woman who plays Sally; her partner, the white Mike (Gabriel Ebert), is the director and portrays Tom. Dramaturg and choreographer Ginger (Kate Nowlin) is Patsy, one of Tom’s daughters; stage manager and dance captain Scout (Sun Mee Chomet) is Polly, Tom’s other daughter; publicist and fight director Maggie (Kristolyn Lloyd) is Mary, Sally’s sister; music, sound, and lighting designer Devon (Leland Fowler) is Nathan, Mary’s husband; Kwame (Alano Miller), who is looking to break out into film, is James, Sally’s older brother; and set and costume designer Geoff (Daniel Petzold) plays multiple small roles.

The opening scene between Sally and Tom sets the stage.

Tom: Miss Hemings?
Sally: Mr. Jefferson?
Tom: What do you see?
Sally: I see the future, Mr. Jefferson.
Tom: And it’s a fine future, is it not?
Sally: God willing, Mr. Jefferson.
Tom: Do you think we will make it?
Sally: Meaning you and I?
Tom: Meaning you and I, of course, and, meaning our entire Nation as well. Do you think we’ll make it?
Sally: God willing, Mr. Jefferson. God and Man willing. And Woman too.

While Tom is keeping his relationship with Sally secret, Mike and Luce do not hide theirs, although Luce is suspicious of Mike’s ex. Art imitates life as what happens in the play is mimicked by what is occurring to the company members. When Luce points out, “This is not a love story,” she might be talking about not only Sally and Tom but her and Mike. When unseen producer Teddy demands that a key speech by Kwame, aka K-Dubb, be cut and threatens to pull his funding, the company has some important decisions to make that evoke choices that Sally and Tom are facing. Jefferson admits to owning six hundred enslaved people, including Sally and her family, while Luce declares, “Teddy don’t own me.” And just as the company was depending on the money promised by Teddy, Sally and James are quick to prod Tom of his vow to eventually free them. “We build our castle on a foundation of your promises,” Sally tells Tom.

“Handing me a book while you keep me on a leash,” James says to Tom. “Do you want me to remind myself of how kind you are? Kinder than other Masters, hoping that I will rejoice every day that you keep me enslaved? Let me proclaim my Liberty: You are not on the Throne! I stand with all Enslaved People who rise up and revolt! I say ‘Yes’ to the Revolutions that explode and that will continue to explode all over this country. I condemn the ‘breeding farms’ not more than a day’s ride from here. I acknowledge all the Horrors and the Revolutions that you dare not think on, and that we dare not speak of in your presence. What would we do if we were to wake up out of our ‘tranquility’? The wrongs done upon us would be avenged. And the world order would be upended!”

As Tom decides whether he should go to New York City at the behest of the president and who he will bring with him, Luce and Mike have to reconsider the future of the play, and their partnership.

Sally & Tom is about a small theater company putting on historical drama (photo by Joan Marcus)

Presented in association with the Guthrie Theater, Sally & Tom might not be top-shelf Parks — that illustrious group includes Topdog/Underdog, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), In the Blood and Fucking A, and Porgy and Bess — but it’s yet another splendidly conceived work from one of America’s finest playwrights. Parks and director Steve H. Broadnax III (Sunset Baby, The Hot Wing King) breathe new life into a familiar topic, which has previously been explored in film and opera as well as television, music, and literature.

Irving (Romeo and Juliet, Parks’s White Noise) and Tony winner Ebert (Matilda, Pass Over) are terrific as the real couple from the past and the fictional contemporary characters, their lives becoming practically interchangeable on Riccardo Hernández’s set, which contains Monticello-style pillars, the actors dressed in Rodrigo Muñoz’s period costumes. The score was written by Parks with Dan Moses Schreier; Parks, an accomplished musician, composed and played the songs for her intimate 2022–23 Plays for the Plague Year, and on April 29 she appeared at Joe’s Pub with her band, Sula & the Joyful Noise.

“You will be ashamed that you were proud to father a country where some are free and others are enslaved! Where some have plenty and others only have the dream of plenty!” Kwame proclaims to Tom. “All them pretty words you write, Mr. Jefferson, they’re all lies! You’ll soon be ashamed by the lies that this country was built on, Mr. Jefferson! Ashamed by the lies on which we were founded, and on which we were fed, and on which we grew fat!”

As Jordans and Sally & Tom reveal, those lies are still with us, more than two hundred and thirty years later.

Shaina Taub wrote the book, music, and lyrics and stars in Suffs on Broadway (photo by Joan Marcus)

SUFFS
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through January 5, $69 – $279
suffsmusical.com

The reckoning forges ahead at Suffs, Shaina Taub’s hit musical that began at the Public’s Newman Theater in 2022 and has now transferred to the Music Box on Broadway in a rearranged and improved version.

Most Americans are familiar with such names as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but Taub focuses on the next generation of women who fought for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in the second decade of the twentieth century: Alice Paul (Taub), Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz), Doris Stevens (Nadia Dandashi), Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino), and Ruza Wenclawska (Kim Blanck).

The musical focuses on generational conflict and disagreements about strategy that have characterized all sorts of progressive movements in the United States; an older, more sedate crowd wants to work within the system, while young radicals want to bust it open with outright aggression.

In Suffs, the youngsters decide to take on the powerful National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella) and Mollie Hay (Jaygee Macapugay), a group that does not want to ruffle any feathers. While Carrie sings, “Let mother vote / We raised you after all / Won’t you thank the lady you have loved since you were small? / We reared you, cheered you, helped you when you fell / With your blessing, we could help America as well,” Alice declares, “I don’t want to have to compromise / I don’t want to have to beg for crumbs / from a country that doesn’t care what I say / I don’t want to follow in old footsteps / I don’t want to be a meek little pawn in the games they play / I want to march in the street / I want to hold up a sign / with millions of women with passion like mine / I want to shout it out loud / in the wide open light.”

While Carrie is content to set up pleasant meetings with President Woodrow Wilson (Grace McLean) that are either nonproductive or canceled, Alice has no patience, demanding that action happen immediately. After seeing Ruza give a rousing speech at a workers rally, Alice asks her to join their movement. “Look, I want no part of your polite little suffragette parlor games,” Ruza says. Alice responds, “Well, that’s perfect, because when we take on a tyrant, we burn him down.”

One of the most troubling aspect of the fight for twentieth-century women’s suffrage is its relationship with Black-led racial justice and civil rights movements. Suffs does not ignore the issue and instead makes it a major plot point. When Black journalist and activist Ida B. Wells’s (Nikki M. James) offers to bring her group to join the march, Alice initially rejects her, fearing that southern white donors will pull their funding, but Ida won’t take no for an answer.

“I’m not only here for the march,” Ida tells Alice and the others. “My club has also come to agitate for laws against lynching; my people cannot vote if they are hanging from trees.” She also proclaims in the showstopper “Wait My Turn”: “You want me to wait my turn? / To simply put my sex before my race / Oh! Why don’t I leave my skin at home and powder up my face? / Guess who always waits her turn? / Who always ends up in the back? / Us lucky ones born both female and black.”

Despite the march’s surprising success, the suffragists still have their work cut out for them if they are going to convince the powers that be that women deserve the right to vote.

Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz) leads the charge for women’s right to vote in Suffs (photo by Joan Marcus)

Taub’s (Twelfth Night, As You Like It) lively score, with wonderful orchestrations by Michael Starobin, and sharp lyrics keep the show moving at a fast pace, matching Alice’s determination to break down political malaise by getting things done ASAP. Tony nominee Leigh Silverman (Merry Me, Grand Horizons) directs with a stately hand that never lets the energy slow down.

Taub fully embodies Alice, a fierce, driven fighter you would want on your side no matter the issue. Tony nominee Colella (Come from Away, Urban Cowboy) is a terrific foil as Carrie; their battles are reminiscent of those between Gloria Steinem and Phyllis Schlafly over the ERA in the 1970s — which Alice also was a part of. Tony winner James (The Book of Mormon, A Bright Room Called Day) brings down the house with “Wait My Turn,” and, in their Broadway debuts, Bonino is lovable as Lucy, Blanck (Octet, Alice by Heart) is a force as Ruza, Cruz rides high as Inez, Dandashi is sweet as the nerdy Doris, and Tsilala Brock adds a sly touch as Dudley Malone, President Wilson’s chief of staff.

As in Jordans and Sally & Tom, Taub’s Suffs explores various aspects of race- and gender-based discrimination, and each offers a very different conclusion.

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

CHARLES BUSCH IN CONVERSATION WITH MELISSA ERRICO

Who: Charles Busch, Melissa Errico
What: Book talk
Where: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Monday, April 15, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: In the first chapter of his memoir, Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy (Smart Pop, September 2023, $27.95), Charles Busch is writing about meeting up with Joan Rivers. “Dining with a group of friends at Joe Allen, Joan expressed wistfully, ‘I wish I had a gay son I could phone at midnight and discuss whatever movie was on TCM.’ Everyone laughed. I fell silent, but inside I was pleading, Take me. I’ll be your gay son. Joan was the most prominent in a long line of smart, bigger-than-life mother figures I’ve attached myself to. All my life, I’ve been in a search for a maternal woman whose lap I could rest my head on.”

New York native Busch has been part of the entertainment scene in the city since the late 1970s, writing and appearing in numerous plays and films, often in drag. The Tony nominee and Drama Desk Award winner has dazzled audiences with such plays as The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, The Tribute Artist, and The Confession of Lily Dare as well as Psycho Beach Party and Die, Mommie, Die!, both of which transferred from stage to the big screen. He currently can be seen in Ibsen’s Ghost at 59E59 through April 14.

On April 16, Busch will be at the National Arts Club to talk about his life and career, in conversation with Manhattan-born, Tony-nominated actress and singer Melissa Errico, who has starred in such shows as My Fair Lady, High Society, Dracula the Musical, Amour, Sunday in the Park with George, and Aunt Dan and Lemon. Expect lots of great stories featuring many all-time theater greats.

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

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

Jeremy Strong stars in new translation of Henrik Ibsen’s cautionary An Enemy of the People (photo by Emilio Madrid)

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 23, $99 – $499
anenemyofthepeopleplay.com

What price truth?

That is the question that drives Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 drama An Enemy of the People, which can currently be seen in an intense new translation by Obie winner and Tony nominee Amy Herzog, directed by her husband, Tony and two-time Obie winner Sam Gold, at Circle in the Square; this is the first time the couple has worked together, and hopefully not the last.

The story takes place in the late nineteenth century in a small Norwegian town in late winter, but it could also be set anytime, anywhere, including America in 2024. The fortysomething Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Jeremy Strong), a widower, lives a quiet life with his daughter, Petra (Victoria Pedretti), a schoolteacher in her early twenties. They have an open house, welcoming friends and colleagues to stop by for a drink, a smoke, a meal, or stimulating conversation.

The play opens with Petra and the family maid serving dinner to an eager Billing (Matthew August Jeffers). When Petra points out how hard it can be teaching her class of sixteen boys “anything of value,” Billing replies, “So take a load off, sit with me. Teach me something, I’m very ignorant, it’s a real shame.” Value, ignorance, and shame will become key themes to the show.

Billing’s boss, Hovstad (Caleb Eberhardt), arrives, followed by Peter Stockmann (Michael Imperioli); the former is the editor of the local paper, the People’s Messenger, while the latter is the mayor and Thomas’s older brother.

Town mayor Peter Stockmann (Michael Imperioli) doesn’t like what he hears in Broadway revival (photo by Emilio Madrid)

The town’s future has been built on the success of the Baths, the main attraction at the new spa resort. The local economy is about to boom as spring and summer approach, but Thomas has some bad news. “The water at the Baths is rife with bacteria, tiny micro-organisms that cause disease. It’s completely unsafe,” he tells Petra, Billing, Hovstad, and Captain Horster (Alan Trong). Petra says, “Thank goodness you discovered it in time.” They toast Thomas as a local hero, but Petra’s response is not necessarily shared by the rest of the town, including her maternal grandfather, Morten Kiil (David Patrick Kelly), who owns a tannery that might be contributing to the water pollution.

Hovstad is excited “to expose these clowns” by publishing Thomas’s article about the poisonous water and what it will take to save the spa. The printer, Aslaksen (Thomas Jay Ryan), who is also the chair of the Property Owners’ Association and a temperance leader, offers Thomas his full support but suggests he proceed carefully, in moderation.
But when Peter finds out what it will take to make the Baths safe, Thomas goes from hero to villain as he’s publicly declared an Enemy of the People.

Herzog, whose 4000 Miles was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and whose Mary Jane begins Broadway previews April 2, last year adapted Ibsen’s 1879 masterpiece, A Doll’s House, earning six Tony nominations, including Best Revival of a Play. Gold, who won an Obie and a Tony for directing Fun Home at the Public and Circle in the Square, respectively, and another Obie for Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation, was also nominated for a Tony for helming Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2. You can expect a boatload of Tony nods for their inaugural collaboration.

The audience sits on three sides of the narrow rectangular stage, which runs down the middle. Thomas’s home is plainly furnished, with simple tables and chairs; small changes are made when the scene moves to the printing press and a large meeting room. A white building facade surrounds the space at the top, seemingly unnecessary except to hide a surprise that arrives at intermission. The set is by dots, with tender lighting, featuring several gas lamps, by Isabella Byrd, sound by Mikaal Sulaiman that incorporates dialogue and musical performances, and fine period costumes by David Zinn.

Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Jeremy Strong) is afraid everything will all fall apart unless local town listens to him (photo by Emilio Madrid)

Taking a page out of Daniel Fish’s 2019 Tony-winning revival of Oklahoma! at Circle in the Square, which invited the audience onto the stage during intermission for cornbread and a cup of chili, An Enemy of the People offers shots of a prominently featured Nordic liqueur while several ensemble members (Katie Broad, Bill Buell, David Mattar Merten, Max Roll, Kelly) sing Norwegian folk songs. After intermission, more than a dozen audience members remain onstage, becoming citizens at the town meeting where the mayor maneuvers to silence his brother, along with the rest of the audience, as the speakers address all of us directly with the lights on, each person in the theater involved in the controversy.

Emmy winner Strong (A Man for All Seasons, The Great God Pan), best known for his role as Kendall Roy on Succession, gives a profoundly measured performance as Thomas, a gentle, considerate, if somewhat elusive man, at the edge of exploding, whose life turns upside down when he becomes a whistleblower, standing nearly alone as he staunchly refuses to surrender his principles; it’s a cautionary tale that’s ripe for the modern age, given the spread of fake news over social media and the rejection of truth in favor of money and power by politicians and corporations.

In his Broadway debut, Emmy winner Imperioli (The Sopranos, The White Lotus) is a fine foil as Peter, an arch-conservative to his liberal brother. The ever-dependable Ryan (Dance Nation, The Nap) is phenomenal as Aslaksen, whose belief in freedom of the press goes only so far.

All that said, Herzog is not able to solve some of the play’s inherent problems, a significant reason why it is performed relatively rarely. Arthur Miller’s adaptation debuted on Broadway in 1950 with Fredric March as Thomas and Morris Carnovsky as Peter and was turned into a 1978 film with Steve McQueen and Charles Durning; a 2012 revival with Boyd Gaines and Richard Thomas as the brothers was disappointingly trite. Unfortunately, Robert Ickes’s inventive, interactive 2021 solo version starring Ann Dowd at the Park Ave. Armory was cut short when Dowd had to leave for unstated personal reasons.

Herzog excises the doctor’s wife, and we never see their two sons, making Thomas more of a lone wolf. The town hall scene gets a bit ludicrous at the end with the addition of awkward props. And there is far too much editorializing as the narrative reaches its overly simplistic resolution.

But the play’s relevancy still hits home in 2024, amid domestic and international crises that continue to shake the stability of the world as we realize it will take a lot more than just one brave man to save us from our destiny.

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

THE NOTEBOOK: THE MUSICAL

Teens Allie (Jordan Tyson) and Noah (John Cardoza) fall in love in The Notebook (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

THE NOTEBOOK
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 7, $74-$298
notebookmusical.com

“I don’t think there was any way I could have imagined that it would become as successful as it did. It’s like catching lightning in a bottle,” former pharmaceutical salesman Nicholas Sparks told Show Daily about his blockbuster debut novel, 1996’s The Notebook, which was lifted out of a literary agency slush pile. The tearjerker spent more than a year on the bestseller list, though it never reached number one. It caught lightning in a bottle again in 2004, when it was adapted into a hugely successful film, directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Ryan Gosling, James Garner, Rachel McAdams, Gena Rowlands (Nick’s mom), Joan Allen, James Marsden, and Sam Shepard.

The novel and film had plenty of naysayers, decrying it as sentimental claptrap; the movie is certified Rotten on Rotten Tomatoes, but it won eight Teen Choice Awards as well as Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards. It knows its audience. (For the record, I have not read the book nor seen the film.)

The third time is unlikely to be the charm for the haters out there, as The Notebook is now a Broadway musical, running at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre through July 7. If this iteration is a hit, it won’t be because of quality, which it is sadly lacking.

The show features underwhelming music and lyrics by American singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and a tepid book by Bekah Brunstetter, who has written such plays as The Cake and Oohrah! and was a writer, story editor, and Emmy-nominated producer on This Is Us. Incorporating elements from both the novel and the film, the narrative moves between 1967, 1977, and 2021 in an unnamed mid-Atlantic town.

John Cardoza, Dorian Harewood, and Ryan Vasquez portray the same character at three different times in The Notebook (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

It opens with an older man watching two teenagers meet and fall instantly in love. “Time to get up, time to get up now / And let the bones crack into place / I look in the mirror, I see an old man / But in my eyes, a young man’s face,” the old man sings. “Time, time time time / It never was mine, / mine mine mine / But you know what is? / Love, hope, breath, and dreams / As cliché as that seems.” Cliché becomes a kind of leitmotif throughout the show’s 140 minutes (with intermission).

In 2021, Noah (Dorian Harewood) is in an extended caregiving facility reading from a handwritten notebook to Allie (Maryann Plunkett), whose dementia is worsening. As he reads, scenes from the notebook are acted out onstage by the teenage Allie (Jordan Tyson) and Noah (John Cardoza) in 1967 and the twentysomething Allie (Joy Woods) and Noah (Ryan Vasquez) ten years later.

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 follows the rules and his physical therapist (Stewart) tries to get him to get treatment for his ailing knee, but Noah has more important things on his mind.

The narrative goes back and forth in time, occasionally with some Allies and Noahs watching the others. Diverse, race-blind casting is one of the best things to happen to Broadway in recent years, but The Notebook takes it to new, confusing levels. The three Noahs and the three Allies are different sizes, different heights, and different colors. Tyson and Cardoza lack the necessary chemistry to kick things off; Woods and Vasquez have more passion, but the story keeps their characters apart for too long. By the time you figure out what is happening with the older Noah and Allie, it’s too late, although there are a few touching moments between them near the end, and the handling of the painting is the most successful part of the show.

Maryann Plunkett, Joy Woods, and Jordan Tyson portray the same character at three different times in The Notebook (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Codirectors Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal) and Schele Williams (Aida, The Wiz) 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.)

It’s a treat to see Tony winner Plunkett (Agnes of God, Me and My Gal) and Emmy nominee and NAACP Image Award winner Harewood (Streamers, Jesus Christ Superstar), and Woods (Six, Little Shop of Horrors) nearly steals the show with her solo turn in “My Days”; when she sings, “Where am I going,” I could only think that she has a big future ahead of her.

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

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