this week in broadway

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto play mother and son in glorious revival of Tennessee Williams’s THE GLASS MENAGERIE (photo by Michael J. Lutch)

Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 23, $42 – $147
theglassmenageriebroadway.com

In the past eighteen months, two of America’s greatest playwrights have experienced glorious Broadway revivals — Mike Nichols’s version of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Pam MacKinnon’s Steppenwolf production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Tracy Letts and Amy Morton battling it out for three hours — but Tennessee Williams has not fared nearly so well. Until now. On the heels of disappointing adaptations of A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, John Tiffany’s The Glass Menagerie, which originated at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater earlier this year, is a spectacular celebration of one of Williams’s best plays, a haunting examination of a fragile family and the concept of memory. In depression-era St. Louis, Tom Wingfield (Zachary Quinto, of American Horror Story and the Star Trek reboot) and his sister, Laura (two-time Tony nominee Celia Keenan-Bolger), live in a small apartment with their caring yet domineering mother, Amanda (two-time Tony winner Cherry Jones). Tom works in a local warehouse but dreams of becoming a writer and traveling the world. Laura has a lame foot that has turned her into a shy, mousey girl who collects glass animal figurines and treats them like friends. Amanda, who has never quite gotten over the departure of her husband, is desperate for Laura to entertain “gentleman callers” and get married. So when Tom brings home a coworker, Jim (Stargate Universe’s Brian J. Smith), Amanda jumps all over the sudden opportunity to make sure things are just right for this potential suitor.

Amanda Wingfield (Cherry Jones) will do anything she can to find her daughter (Celia Keenan-Bolger) a suitor (photo by Michael J. Lutch)

The story unfolds on Bob Crowley’s relatively spare set, which includes a refrigerator and a small kitchen table on the left, a couch in the middle, and a Victrola and a fire escape on the right, the latter seemingly rising to the heavens. Front and center is a small table on which Laura keeps a single figurine that stands in for her larger collection, which is occasionally represented by glittering specs on a reflecting pool of water that surrounds the stage. Every so often the neon shape of a shark’s fin rises ominously above the surface, psychologically threatening the proceedings. Natasha Katz’s lighting demarcates the past (memory) from the present (reality), and Nico Muhly’s music adds texture between scenes. While Quinto, in his Broadway debut, and Smith are both exceptional, Jones and Keenan-Bolger virtually redefine these long-familiar characters, Jones delivering a performance for the ages as Amanda, words rolling off her tongue as if they were written just for her, Keenan-Bolger embodying Laura’s fears in subtle ways that offer a kind of catharsis for the audience. It’s heartbreaking when she kneels down in front of her figurine and its glow spreads across her face as if illuminating her soul. In his opening monologue, Tom explains that the “play is memory,” and that relates to both the story and Williams himself, as Laura is based on Williams’s sister, Rose (at one point, Laura remembers a high school boy calling her “Blue Roses” after mishearing her say that she has “pleurosis”), and Williams’s given name is Thomas. Tiffany’s version of this deeply personal play is indeed unforgettable, a sparkling example of the power of live theater and a mesmerizing examination of the conflicting emotions that complicate memory.

ROMEO AND JULIET

Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad star as ill-fated young lovers in new Broadway version of ROMEO AND JULIET (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Richard Rodgers Theatre
226 West 46th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 8, $87-$142
877-250-2929
www.romeoandjulietbroadway.com

The first Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in more than a quarter century might have fire, but it lacks sizzle. On Jesse Poleshuck’s relatively stark stage, which includes a large bell (hanging through the entire show), sand on either side, and a three-piece fresco that serves as a climbing wall, an artistic backdrop, and a doorway, the slick Romeo Montague (Orlando Bloom, in his Broadway debut) arrives on a motorcycle, making it clear from the start that this will not necessarily be a traditional version of the play. It’s love at first sight when he comes upon Juliet Capulet (Condola Rashad) at a party, but their families are sort of like the Hatfields and the McCoys, with a long history of not exactly getting along with each other. A fight ensues between the white Montagues and the black Capulets involving switchblades and chains, more West Side Story than Shakespeare, leaving several dead and Romeo in a heap of trouble. Meanwhile, Juliet flies high on a swing and later declares her love for Romeo on a balcony that juts out from the right like a deus ex machina. In addition, two horizontal poles occasionally show up, spitting out flames.

Benvolio (Conrad Kemp) offers advice to Romeo (Orlando Bloom) (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Benvolio (Conrad Kemp) offers advice to Romeo (Orlando Bloom) as rope for bell hangs down ominously (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Directed by David Leveaux, who specializes in Broadway revivals (Nine, The Real Thing, Fiddler on the Roof), this version of Romeo and Juliet ends up falling flat, with only flashes of excitement, even if it does include one of the longest kisses in Broadway history. Rashad, who was nominated for Tonys for her first two performances on the Great White Way, in Stick Fly and The Trip to Bountiful, is too innocent and wide-eyed as Juliet, and the chemistry between her and Bloom, who is fine if not exceptional, never quite ignites. The always reliable Jayne Houdyshell is a powerhouse as Juliet’s nurse, Brent Carver makes for a caring Friar Laurence, and Christian Camargo has a blast as the wisecracking Mercutio, dry-humping everything in sight. The cast also includes Corey Hawkins as Tybalt, Conrad Kemp as Benvolio, Chuck Cooper as Lord Capulet, Roslyn Ruff as Lady Capulet, Michael Rudko as Lord Montague, and Tracy Sallows as Lady Montague. Leveaux wisely avoids turning this into a story about race, even casting Justin Guarini, the son of an African American father and an Italian American mother, as Paris, Romeo’s rival for Juliet’s hand in marriage. (The previous Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet in 1986 had a multicultural cast led by Rene Moreno and Regina Taylor as the star-crossed lovers.) But the inconsistent and often confusing staging, along with little or no spark from the leads, leaves this Romeo and Juliet sadly lacking.

BROADWAY WEEK 2013

New production of ROMEO AND JULIET, starring Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad, is one of nineteen Broadway shows offering two-for-one tickets September 2-15

Multiple venues
September 2-15, buy one, get one free
www.nycgo.com/broadwayweek

After the long, hot summer, the Great White Way looks to keep fans filling seats during the annual Broadway Week discount, when tickets for nineteen shows are available for half price for performances September 2-15. You can buy one ticket and get one free for such newer productions, some still in previews, as Big Fish, First Date, Forever Tango, The Glass Menagerie (with Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto), Romeo and Juliet (with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad), and Soul Doctor as well as such mainstays as Chicago, Jersey Boys, The Lion King, Rock of Ages, Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera, and Mamma Mia! Also available are seats to Once, The Trip to Bountiful, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Newsies, Annie, and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Quantities are limited, so you have to act fast.

SOUL DOCTOR: JOURNEY OF A ROCK STAR RABBI

Shlomo Carlebach (Eric Anderson) and Nina Simone (Amber Iman) develop an unusual friendship in SOUL DOCTOR (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 13, $39 – $135
www.souldoctorbroadway.com

The new Broadway musical Soul Doctor follows the unusual relationship between a gentle, soft-spoken Orthodox rabbi and a vivacious chanteuse who wind up having a lot more in common that either would ever think. Eric Anderson stars as Shlomo Carlebach, the real-life Singing Rabbi whose family left Nazi-occupied Vienna when he was a boy, making a new life in New York City. While trying to find his place in America, Carlebach meets singer and activist Nina Simone (Amber Iman), and the two develop a long-term friendship, becoming each other’s muse. As Simone goes on to become the High Priestess of Soul, Carlebach turns away from the rigid rules of his Orthodox background, which severely disappoints his rabbi father (Jamie Jackson), his worried mother (Jacqueline Antaramian), and his devout brother (Ryan Strand), who has fallen under the influence of Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson (Jackson). But soon Carlebach, the King of Kosher Music, has a hit record, is playing in nightclubs, and forms his own, unique temple, the House of Love and Prayer, in hippie-era San Francisco. But he’s constantly trying to prove to himself and his family that what he is doing matters, that it is all part of the expansion of the Jewish faith.

The King of Kosher Music preaches love and peace in San Francisco temple (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Anderson, who left the Kinky Boots ensemble to reprise the role of Carlebach, which earned him a Drama Desk nomination for last year’s presentation at New York Theatre Workshop, brings a sweet innocence to the mild-mannered Rock Star Rabbi, displaying the kind of charm that established Carlebach’s success and reputation. And Iman is a force as Simone, dominating the stage with her bold, brash style. The book, by director Daniel S. Wise, glosses over too many details, including Carlebach’s relationship with follower Ruth (Zarah Mahler), and just skips over others, leaving too many unexplained holes, and Carlebach’s never-ending battle with his childhood teacher and later cantor, Reb Pinchas (Ron Orbach), who he calls the “holy heckler,” grows repetitive and tiresome. The script is filled with such platitudes as Carlebach telling Pinchas, “If I had two hearts, I could use one to love and one to hate. But I only have one heart, so . . . I use it to love!” Despite less-than-inspiring choreography by former Cedar Lake artistic director Benoit-Swan Pouffer, the musical numbers, from the Carlebach tunes (“Rosh Hashanah Rock,” “Ki Va Moed,” “Yerushalyim,” “Am Yisrael Chai”) to new songs with lyrics by David Schechter, are mostly a lot of fun, with the exuberant cast, dressed in Maggie Morgan’s period costumes, often running up and down the aisles. Mahler turns in a strong solo near the end, “I Was a Sparrow,” that will have audiences wondering why she wasn’t featured more. Although you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy the show, those who attend High Holiday services will be thrilled to hear many familiar liturgical melodies that were written by Carlebach. But Soul Doctor does more than merely preach to the converted, instead exploring a fascinating figure in American folk music.

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE ON BROADWAY

Vanya (David Hyde Pierce) and Sonia (Kristine Nielsen) look back at their sad lives in Christopher Durang’s Chekhovian mashup (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Golden Theatre
252 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 28, $62 – $142
www.vanyasoniamashaspike.com

When he was at Yale in the 1970s, Christopher Durang teamed with Albert Innaurato and Jack Feldman on The Idiots Karamazov, a musical about a Russian translator that begins with a song titled “O, We Gotta Get to Moscow,” as the translator confuses Dostoevsky with Chekhov and other writers. Going to Moscow shows up again in Durang’s delightful satire, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which has made a successful transition from Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse to Broadway’s Golden Theatre. Durang sets his latest play in a Bucks County farmhouse by a lake where a blue heron stops by daily, based on the Bucks County farmhouse by a lake with a blue heron where Durang and his partner reside. Living in the fictional house are Vanya (David Hyde Pierce) and Sonia (Kristine Nielsen), a pair of fiftysomething siblings (one adopted) who have essentially sacrificed what lives they might have had by taking care of their ill, elderly parents while their sister, Masha (Sigourney Weaver), became a famous movie star gallivanting around the world with five husbands. Clearly, their parents had a thing for Chekhov; Masha is named after characters from The Seagull and Three Sisters, Vanya and the adopted Sonia from Uncle Vanya. Invited to a neighbor’s costume party, Masha arrives at the house in grand diva fashion, overemoting and unable to keep her hands off her hot new boy toy, Spike (Billy Magnussen), who enjoys taking off most of his clothes at a moment’s notice and striking muscular poses. Masha quickly grows jealous when Spike meets young, pretty ingénue Nina (played at Lincoln Center by Genevieve Angelson and now by Leisel Allen Yeager, the only cast change from the original production), a wannabe actress named after the young, innocent actress in The Seagull. Meanwhile, the cleaning lady, Cassandra (Shalita Grant), makes dire predictions that keep coming true, just like her namesake, the Greek mythological figure with second sight. As Vanya, Sonia, Masha, Spike, and Nina prepare for the party — Masha insists they all go as characters from Snow White, with Masha as the beautiful protagonist, slyly referencing Weaver’s portrayal of the evil stepmother in the 1997 television movie Snow White: A Tale of Terror — jealousy, fear, deception, childhood resentment, and more bubble to the surface and threaten to erupt, albeit in primarily wacky, hysterical ways.

Spike (Billy Magnussen), Masha (Sigourney Weaver), and Vanya (David Hyde Pierce) spend a crazy weekend together in Bucks County (photo by Carol Rosegg)

You don’t need to know anything about Chekhov and his searing dramas about seriously dysfunctional families to get a huge kick out of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which has a unique family feel itself — Weaver has been working with Durang since the Yale days, Hyde Pierce starred in the Broadway production of the playwright’s Beyond Therapy (as well as Peter Brook’s The Cherry Orchard), and Nielsen is Durang’s acknowledged muse, having appeared in many of his shows, in parts specifically written for her. Director Nicholas Martin, who previously helmed Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them at the Public, keeps things relatively natural and grounded even with Weaver, Magnussen, and Grant playing things deliciously way over the top, as the story’s tender heart is wonderfully captured by the amazing Nielsen and Hyde Pierce, who agonize over their loneliness and advancing age, the importance of family, and, perhaps most Chekhovian, a world that seems to be passing them by. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a thoroughly enjoyable if often goofy and now, on Broadway, even bigger and broader mashup from one of America’s most engaging satirists at the top of his game. (And be sure to go here to read the fall 2012 issue of Lincoln Center Review, which includes Durang’s “My Life with Chekhov,” an essay detailing seven encounters he had with the Russian playwright, dating back to when he was fourteen.)

MACBETH

Alan Cumming gives a multifaceted whirlwind performance as an institutionalized man obsessed with Shakespeare’s Scottish play (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Thursday – Tuesday through July 14, $69.50 – $145
www.macbethonbroadway.com

As audience members arrive at the Barrymore Theatre to see the Scottish Play, they’re greeted by a warning on the outside doors: “The producers ask that you please refrain from speaking the name of the play you are about to see while inside these walls.” Once this fascinating, intense reimagination of William Shakespeare’s 1606 tale of bloodlust and blind ambition gets under way and star Alan Cumming says the name of the eponymous character out loud, there’s an audible hush in the theater, as if he’s broken the cardinal rule. For this is no ordinary Macbeth, and Cumming is no ordinary lead actor. Instead, he plays a deeply troubled man locked up in an asylum after some kind of tragic event. A doctor (Jenny Sterlin) and an orderly (Brendan Titley) set him up in his room and watch him carefully through a door and a window as he deals with his psychological crisis by getting lost inside Macbeth, speaking only lines from the play as guilt and fear envelop him. Directors John Tiffany (Once, Black Watch) and Andrew Goldberg (The Bomb-itty of Errors, Betwixt) have Cumming examine himself in a mirror, sit proudly on a chair like it’s a throne, huddle meekly under a stairway, and take a bath as he goes from Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, and Macduff to the three witches, King Duncan, Fleance, and Malcolm. The stark, surreal goings-on are enhanced by Ian William Galloway’s surveillance cameras and video monitors and Fergus O’Hare’s powerful sound design, as loud noises echo through the patient’s head and across the theater. Cumming gives a tour-de-force performance as the man coming undone in one hundred breathtaking minutes, mixing in humor with tragedy as his breakdown continues. “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face,” Duncan says in the first act. In this bold, daring take on the Bard’s classic story, there is plenty of art in the destruction of one mind’s haunted memory.

THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL

Tony nominees Cicely Tyson and Condola Rashad bond on a bus in Broadway revival of THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL

Stephen Sondheim Theatre
124 West 43rd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 1, $42 – $142
www.thetriptobountifulbroadway.com

For its sixtieth anniversary, Horton Foote’s simply lovely The Trip to Bountiful, about an elderly woman’s search for home, has found its own home again on Broadway for the first time since 1953. Cicely Tyson, making her return to the Great White Way after a thirty-year absence, is unforgettably sweet as Carrie Watts, a dream role previously played by Lillian Gish in the original Broadway production, Lois Smith in a 2005 off-Broadway revival, and, most famously, by an Oscar-winning Geraldine Page in Peter Masterson’s 1985 film. Carrie is tired of living in Houston with her henpecked son, Ludie (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and his demanding wife, Jessie Mae (Vanessa Williams). While Carrie sits in her rocking chair reading a book, Jessie Mae complains about not receiving her mother-in-law’s pension check, and Ludie continually allows her to walk all over him and his mother. Fed up with the situation, Carrie decides to take off one day, boarding a bus back to her hometown, Bountiful, which she is desperate to see one last time before she dies. In the bus station, she is befriended by Thelma (Condola Rashad), a young woman who finds Carrie to be charming, even taking pleasure when the older woman starts singing hymns, something that drives Jessie Mae crazy. But little things keep getting in Carrie’s way, jeopardizing her journey. Tyson is delightful as Carrie, whether shuffling in and out of the kitchen of Jeff Cowie’s cramped Houston set or telling station agent Roy (Arthur French) and the sheriff (Tom Wopat) about her youth in Bountiful. Williams is excellent as the domineering daughter-in-law, bossing around her wimp of a husband. Directed by Michael Wilson (Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, Talley’s Folly) with an easy-flowing grace, The Trip to Bountiful has indeed made a bountiful return trip to Broadway.