this week in theater

SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY

Springsteen on Broadway continues at the Walter Kerr Theatre through December 15 (photo by Rob DeMartin)

Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Friday/Saturday through December 15, $75-$800
brucespringsteen.net/broadway

A few minutes into Springsteen on Broadway, sirens could be heard outside the Walter Kerr Theatre. Bruce, who was standing at the front microphone, acoustic guitar strapped across his chest, backed away, looked offstage, and said, “They’re coming to get me. They know I don’t belong here.” If there’s one thing the New Jersey native has proved since October 3, 2017, it’s that he is right at home on the Great White Way, so much so that what was initially a limited run through November 26 of that year has been extended several times, now through December 15 of this year. And despite most tickets going for $400 to $800 a pop, the shows still sold out in minutes. The Boss is famous for his four-hour concerts with the E Street Band, but Springsteen on Broadway is more reminiscent of his solo tours behind such records as The Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils and Dust. Yet it is not a concert; written and directed by Bruce, Springsteen on Broadway is a moving, powerful exploration of a man and his innate, unquenchable desire to become a successful musician. Inspired by a secret performance he presented to President Barack Obama and about 250 White House staffers as a thank-you just before the end of Obama’s second term, Springsteen has crafted a two-hour show that combines personal stories from his childhood to the current day with songs from throughout his career. Many of the intimate tales are adapted from his bestselling 2016 memoir, Born to Run, but this is no mere book reading with music. The sixty-eight-year-old Springsteen has always been an engaging storyteller, and he takes it to the next level on Broadway, unafraid to reveal his faults along with his triumphs. As he details, years of therapy have helped him face his demons.

Bruce Springsteen shares his personal adventure in intimate ways on Broadway (photo by Rob DeMartin)

On the road, Springsteen changes his setlist night after night, playing deep cuts, reinventing old favorites, and taking requests, reacting to signs held up in the crowd, but Springsteen on Broadway is a much tighter affair, even if it feels loose and improvisational. Heather Wolensky’s spare set evokes the feel of a small club, with music trunks scattered about, a piano at stage left, a glass of water on a stool, and a bare brick wall, with no adornment anywhere. Going back and forth between guitar and piano, Springsteen, in a black T-shirt, boots, and jeans, plays fifteen songs related to episodes from his life, from acquiring his first guitar to jamming in clubs in Asbury Park, from falling in love to raising a family. He discusses his relationship with both his father, which he has documented in many songs, and his beloved mother, for whom he wrote one of his sweetest tunes. He often steps away from the microphone while continuing to talk or sing, his voice fading from the speakers but instead gently and dramatically drifting across the theater. To give away any of the numbers would be unfair, so you’ll find no spoilers here, but know that he doesn’t stray from the script, except for a few shows when his wife, singer-songwriter Patti Scialfa, was sick and he replaced one section of the show with a different story and song about raising his kids.

Bruce Springsteen has won a special Tony for his Broadway debut (photo by Rob DeMartin)

And proper etiquette demands that you don’t sing along; at one point, as some audience members started to join Bruce on one of his biggest hits, he stopped and said, “You know this is a fucking one-man show, right?” He later encouraged audience participation on a treasured classic. “My vision of these shows is to make them as personal and intimate as possible. I chose Broadway for this project because it has the beautiful old theaters which seemed like the right setting for what I have in mind,” Springsteen explained in a statement announcing the run. “My show is just me, the guitar, the piano, and the words and music. Some of the show is spoken, some of it is sung, all of it together is in pursuit of my constant goal — to communicate something of value.” As he has been doing since the late 1960s, Springsteen has again communicated something of value. Early in the show, the Grammy, Oscar, and now Tony winner — Bruce has been awarded a special Tony for his “once-in-a-lifetime theatregoing experience” — notes that he has spent his entire existence avoiding the dreaded five-day-a-week job. But now he can’t get enough of it, all told spending more than a year on Broadway, sharing his poignant, personal, life-affirming story as only he can.

PEACE FOR MARY FRANCES

A dysfunctional family receives important information about hospice care in Peace for Mary Frances (photo by Monique Carboni)

The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 17, $30-$125
www.thenewgroup.org

Having recently lived through situations resembling those in Peace for Mary Frances, Lily Thorne’s debut play that opened tonight at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center, it wasn’t easy for me to sit through the New Group production. Unfortunately, that wasn’t because the 155-minute play was right on target, offering me a cathartic experience. Thorne, who has worked on several documentaries and is currently getting her MFA in playwriting at Brooklyn College, has written a lifeless drama about end-of-life care. It feels more like an instructional primer on what to do when a loved one is dying than a dramatic work that sheds light on what can be a devastating time. Eighty-seven-year-old Lois Smith stars as Mary Frances, the matriarch of a dysfunctional West Hartford family. As her quality of life deteriorates, Mary Frances tells her Armenian-American family that she wants hospice care so she can be as comfortable as possible at home for whatever time she has left. It proves difficult for her two daughters, Fanny (Johanna Day), a divorced drug addict who works as a security guard at the Y and is estranged from her daughter, and Alice (J. Smith-Cameron), a divorced astrologist with no money and two grown children of her own, Helen (Heather Burns), a TV star, and Rosie (Natalie Gold), a married mom with two kids. While Fanny and Alice fight brutally, nonstop, Mary Frances’s son, Eddie (Paul Lazar), a divorced lawyer, comes by once a week, watches TV, and eats sushi, avoiding getting involved in anything of real importance. As Mary Frances hangs on longer than expected — “Typically, people don’t leave this life until their unfinished business is taken care of,” hospice nurse Bonnie (Mia Katigbak) says — the family relationships devolve into a crazy mess.

Mary Frances (Lois Smith) argues with daughter Alice (J. Smith Cameron) as granddaughter Helen (Heather Burns) looks on in New Group world premiere (photo by Monique Carboni)

Peace for Mary Frances takes place on Dane Laffrey’s two-level set, a suburban living room / kitchen and Mary Frances’s upstairs bedroom, all decked out in flowery designs. Director Lila Neugebauer has done sensational work, particularly at Lincoln Center and the Signature, with such plays as At Home at the Zoo, The Antipodes, Everybody, The Wolves, and The Wayside Motor Inn, showing an innate sense of narrative structure, choreographed movement, and cutting-edge staging that both challenges and entertains. But she has little to work with here, unable to bring life to Thorne’s deadening dialogue and forced conflicts. Early on, Rosie and Helen are unable to lift Mary Frances off the couch. But when the scene ends a few moments later, Smith gets up herself and walks up the stairs. It instantly destroys the theatrical illusion that Mary Frances is dying, taking the audience out of the story and damaging the empathy we are trying to have with the characters. In addition, throughout the play, there is a hard-to-identify noise that seems to be coming from the front left of the stage. My companion and I wondered whether it was an audience member who was breathing very loudly (or was snoring), the air-conditioning, or part of the show, sounds meant to represent Mary Frances’s oxygen machine, mimicking the rhythm of her breathing. I even asked an usher what it was during intermission and she was not sure. (The script does say, “The machines are on and pumping throughout the play.”) If it was indeed intentional, it was ridiculously distracting. The play also sadly wastes the talent of two-time Tony nominee and Obie winner Smith, who recently starred in the stage and film versions of Marjorie Prime and previously did excellent work at the Signature in Annie Baker’s John and Sam Shepard’s Heartless. Despite an extremely talented director and an acting legend, Thorne’s debut is on life support from the beginning, and it goes on far too long before the plug is pulled.

WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2018

Brian Greene will moderate a discussion on black holes at World Science Festival

Multiple venues
May 29 – June 3
Most events free – $100
www.worldsciencefestival.com

The eleventh annual World Science Festival is another foray into the future, an inner exploration of the mind as well as an outer adventure into space. There will be lectures, panel discussions, workshops, labs, film screenings, readings, and more, at such locations as NYU, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Ace Hotel. Below are only some of the highlights.

Tuesday, May 29
Gala celebrating Marie Curie, Alice Ball, Rosalind Franklin, Vera Rubin, and Maryam Mirzakhani, with performances by Carolee Carmello, Hannah Elless, Rosemary Loar, Ingrid Michaelson, Alice Ripley, Michelle Wilson, and others, Jazz at Lincoln Center, $1,000+, 6:00 – 10:30

Wednesday, May 30
Cheers to Science: The Absence of Absinthe, Distilling the Science of the “Green Fairy,” with Kevin Herson and others, moderated by Shannon Odell, Liberty Hall at Ace Hotel, $40 (twenty-one and older only), 7:00

Bump: The Magic, Mystery, and Mechanics of Pregnancy, new play (Bump) by Chiara Atik, directed by Claudia Weil, performance followed by talkback, with Catherine Birndorf, Linsay Firman, and others, moderated by Lynn Sherr, Ensemble Studio Theatre, $25-$40, 7:00

Thursday, May 31
Planting the Seeds, Seeding the Plants: Can CRISPR Save the World?, with Dave Jackson, Carolyn Neuhaus, Yiping Qi, Friedrich Soltau, and Matthew R. Willmann, moderated by Brooke Borel, NYU Global Center, Grand Hall, $15-$25, 4:00

A Merger in Space: Black Holes and Neutron Stars, with Duncan Brown, Vicky Kalogera, Frans Pretorius, and Jocelyn Read, moderated by Mario Livio, NYU Global Center, Grand Hall, $15-$25, 6:00

World Science Festival includes special Lab Tours for Girls

Deep Dive Live: Trivia Night at the American Museum of Natural History, hosted by Faith Salie, $45-$100, 6:00 (includes special exhibition access)

Friday, June 1
World Science U, with Andrea Ghez, Sara Walker, and others, NYU Global Center, Grand Hall, free with advance registration, 10:30

Carl Zimmer: She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, with Carl Zimmer, moderated by Maria Konnikova, NYU Global Center, Grand Hall, $15-$25, 6:00

The Matter of Antimatter: Answering the Cosmic Riddle of Existence, with Marcela Carena, Janet Conrad, Michael Doser, Hitoshi Murayama, and Neil Turok, moderated by Brian Greene, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, $20-$100, 8:00

Saturday, June 2
Great Fish Count: 1 Fish, 2 Fish, I Fish, You Fish, Great Fish Count Sites, free (advance registration suggested), 9:00 am – 6:30 pm

Cook-off will pit human against machine at World Science Festival

Science and Story Cafe: The Story of Science, One Book at a Time, with Lisa Barrett, Michael Benson, Susana Martinez-Conde, Oren Harman, Janice Kaplan, Stephen Macknik, Barnaby Marsh, Ken Miller, and Andrew Revkin, moderated by Budd Mishkin and Richard Panek, NYU Kimmel Center, free (advance registration suggested), 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Notes on the Folds: Why Music Makes Us Shiver, with Meagan Curtis, Mari Kimura, Edward Large, Psyche Loui, and others, moderated by John Schaefer, NYU Global Center, Grand Hall, $15-$25, 11:00

Backyard Wilderness, 3D film and postscreening BioBlitz,Lefrak Theater, the American Museum of Natural History, 2:30

To Be or Not to Be Bionic: On Immortality and Superhumanism, with Jessica Brillhart, S. Matthew Liao, Hod Lipson, and Max Tegmark, moderated by Mariette DiChristina, NYU Global Center, Grand Hall, $15-$25, 4:00

Saturday Night Lights: Stargazing in Brooklyn Bridge Park, with Ken Blackburn, Steve Howell, Kent Kirshenbaum, Steve Liddell, Hod Lipson, Scott M. Smith, Nicole Stott, Jennifer Swanson, and Bill Yosses, Pier 1, free (advance registration suggested), 7:00 – 11:00

World Science Festival features free stargazing in Brooklyn Bridge Park

Sunday, June 3
Science and Storytime: Science Books Come to Life, with Helaine Becker, Ken Blackburn, Lynn Brunelle, “Science Bob” Pflugfelder, Jennifer Swanson, and Mike Vago, moderated by Jana Grcevich and Olivia Koski, NYU Kimmel Center, free (advance registration suggested), 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

Alien Contact: What Happens Next?, with Kathryn Denning, David Kipping, Karen Lewis, and Marcelo Magnasco, moderated by Wendy Zukerman, NYU Global Center, Grand Hall, $15-$25, 11:00

Flame Challenge: “What Is Climate?,” with Michael Bronski, Cyndy Desjardins, Soumyadeep Mukherjee, and Bernadette Woods Placky, moderated by Alan Alda, NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, $15-$100, 1:30

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

Sir Richard Eyre’s intimate staging of Eugene O’Neill classic continues at BAM through May 27 (photo by Richard Termine)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
through May 27, $25-$150, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

The walls are closing in on the Tyrone family and there’s not much anyone can do about it in Sir Richard Eyre’s deeply intimate staging of Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey into Night, a work so personal that O’Neill never wanted it to be performed. Eyre initially brought the show to the Bristol Old Vic as part of the venerable institution’s 250th anniversary in 2016, with Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winner Jeremy Irons as James Tyrone and Olivier winner and Oscar nominee Lesley Manville as his wife, Mary; the Bristol was where Eyre saw his first play and where Irons trained. A stunning, slightly amended production is now running at the BAM Harvey through May 27 before heading out to California. Rob Howell’s set is staggeringly breathtaking, a large living room with sharply angled glass walls and ceilings that seem to both threaten and expose James and Mary as well as their sons, the sickly Edmund (Matthew Beard) and the ne’er-do-well Jamie (Rory Keenan), along with the maid, Cathleen (Jessica Regan). James is a famous actor who, emotionally crippled by childhood poverty, chose the easy way out, a financially successful career touring his big hit, The Count of Monte Cristo, rather than pursuing artistic challenges. Despite his money, he remains fearful and miserly, and his family has been scarred by it. While James, Jamie, and Edmund drink heartily, Mary is addicted to painkillers, claiming they are for the rheumatism that is crippling her hands. She has recently returned from yet another stay in a sanitarium, and the men are keeping a close eye on her, particularly when she goes upstairs and spends time in the extra bedroom, where she loses herself in her morphine-addled world. James desperately wants to keep the truth about Edmund’s illness from Mary, but he no longer has the tight grip on his family that he might have once had.

James Tyrone (Jeremy Irons) and Mary (Lesley Manville) fight many demons in Long Day’s Journey into Night (photo by Richard Termine)

It all takes place on a foggy August day in 1912, but the show feels as relevant as ever, given the current opioid crisis that is devastating America, and O’Neill’s knowing depiction of functional alcoholism is as sharp as ever. Former National Theatre director Eyre (Ghosts at BAM, The Crucible on Broadway) focuses on conversations between two characters, making it feel like we are invading their privacy, intruding on this dysfunctional family, whether we’re watching a sweet, romantic moment between James and Mary, a warm bonding between James and Edmund, or a lovely little talk between Mary and Cathleen. The cast is exceptional, led by a brilliant performance by Manville (The Phantom Thread, Ghosts); she plays Mary with more of a firm grounding than usual, as if Mary has a legitimate fighting chance to beat her addiction. (Previous portrayers of Mary include Tony winners Florence Eldridge, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jessica Lange as well as Geraldine Fitzgerald, Zoe Caldwell, Bibi Andersson, Laurie Metcalf, Liv Ullmann, and Colleen Dewhurst.) In one scene she starts to go upstairs several times but turns back, which tortures her husband and sons and teases the audience, even though we know where she will eventually end up. Irons (Reversal of Fortune, The Real Thing) is classy and erudite as James, his long legs spread apart magnificently when he’s smoking his cigar and reading the paper at the table; he looks at Mary with real tenderness, recalling a love he might never recapture. (The role has earned Tonys for Fredric March and Brian Dennehy and nominations for Jack Lemmon and Gabriel Byrne; other portrayers include Laurence Olivier, James Cromwell, Robert Ryan, Alfred Molina, and David Suchet.)

The Tyrone family can’t look away from their troubled existence in Bristol Old Vic production at BAM (photo by Richard Termine)

Tony nominee Beard (Skylight, And When Did You Last See Your Father?) has an amiability not always associated with Edmund, while Keenan (Liola, The Kitchen) is brash and determined as Jamie, who has given up on any kind of reputable future. Regan (Doctors, Liola) makes the most of the small but important role of Cathleen. Peter Mumford’s lighting often results in characters’ being reflected in the windows, like ghostly apparitions of their troubled souls. As dark as the play is, Eyre holds out just enough hope that this time things will turn around for the Tyrones, that maybe Jamie will get a real job, Edmund will beat consumption, Mary will kick morphine, and James will go back to the stage. But as Mary says, “None of us can help the things life has done to us. They’re done before you realize it, and once they’re done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever.” Written seventy-five years ago, O’Neill’s words still ring true, providing yet more sparks to this American classic.

OUR LADY OF 121st STREET

Victor (John Procaccino) and Balthazar (Joey Auzenne) wonder what’s wrong with the world in Our Lady of 121st Street (photo by Monique Carboni)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Irene Diamond Stage
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 10, $30
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

The Signature Theatre follows its blistering production of Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train with a wickedly funny adaptation of Guirgis’s Our Lady of 121st Street. Originally presented in 2002 at the LAByrinth Theater and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, the two-hour play takes place in and around the Ortiz Funeral Home in Harlem, where the body of the dearly departed, much beloved Sister Rose has gone missing. A group of her former students and various other relatives and parishioners are gathering to pay their respects to the nun, an alcoholic who tragically died in the street. Victor (John Procaccino), a middle-aged man in a pair of boxer shorts, stands over the empty coffin and cries out, “What kinda fuckin’ world is this?!” adding, “What did she ever do anyway, huh?! What did Rose ever do till the day she died but to be a fuckin’ living saint on this earth to deserve this . . . this sacrilege!” Local detective Balthazar (Joey Auzenne) affirms, “Sister Rose was a good woman.” People start filtering in, many who have not seen one another in a long time. The mourners include Rooftop (Hill Harper), a flashy, successful morning radio host; the sharp-tongued, even-sharper-dressed Inez (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), Rooftop’s ex-wife; the tough-talking Norca (Paola Lázaro), who apparently has slept around a bit and doesn’t give a shit about anyone; Flip (Jimonn Cole), now known as Robert and living with Gail (Kevin Isola), a male actor, in Wisconsin; Edwin (Erick Betancourt), who has dedicated his life to caring for his younger brother, Pinky (Maki Borden), who is slow because of a head injury; Marcia (Stephanie Kurtzuba), a relative of Sister Rose’s; and Sonia (Dierdre Friel), a friend of Marcia’s.

Inez (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) and Norca (Paola Lázaro) reconnect after some bad blood (photo by Monique Carboni)

Walt Spangler’s set features the Ortiz Funeral Home sign (an inside joke for LAByrinth cofounder John Ortiz?) above the empty coffin, a bench that also serves as a bar, and a black structure that rotates from a confessional to a small café table; Keith Parham’s effective lighting helps navigate the action, which unfolds across ten scenes in two acts that cover a little less than twenty-four hours. Over that time, Rooftop decides to confess his myriad sins to Father Lux (John Doman), Flip is desperate to hide his homosexuality from his old crew, Inez attempts to avoid Rooftop but confronts Norca, Edwin sends Pinky out for some Yodels, and Marcia takes an interest in Edwin, all while Balthazar, nipping at his small bottle of booze, tries to figure out what happened to Sister Rose’s body.

Rooftop (Hill Harper) has plenty to confess to Father Lux (John Doman) in Stephen Adly Guirgis play at the Signature (photo by Monique Carboni)

Our Lady of 121st Street is superbly directed by Phylicia Rashad (Gem of the Ocean, Immediate Family), who gives ample space to each actor to establish their character and deliver Guirgis’s incisive dialogue, which sizzles like street poetry. This is the third production of the play I’ve seen, including the 2003 version at the Union Square Theatre (starring Ortiz, David Zayas, Ron Cephas Jones, Portia, Russell G. Jones, and others), and what shines through most brightly each time is the writing itself; Guirgis, who won the Pulitzer for Between Riverside and Crazy and earned a Tony nomination for The Motherfucker with the Hat, writes with the rhythm, energy, and honesty of real people living real lives, black, white, Latinx, male, female, whatever. In the case of Our Lady, Guirgis actually had tremendous difficulty coming up with the second act and ultimately finished the play in an overnight fury after Hoffman broke down in tears, afraid that they would have to cancel the show.

Edwin (Erick Betancourt) and Pinky (Maki Borden) display a little brotherly love in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Our Lady of 121st Street (photo by Monique Carboni)

Each of the twelve men and women in Our Lady is damaged in some way, either psychologically, emotionally, and/or physically, whether they realize it or not, as they deal with regrets that bubble up to the surface as they reflect on Sister Rose’s demise. “This is, in fact, a confessional, sir. A confessional — not a ‘conversational.’ Do you understand that distinction?” Father Lux tells Rooftop, who has a little trouble getting to the point, hesitant to own up to the specific things he has done. “Pick a commandment, any commandment,” Rooftop says, not necessarily proudly. The idea of the confessional/conversational can be applied to nearly every scene as the twelve characters, Sister Rose’s disciples, take stock of who they’ve become, perhaps remembering what they once wanted to be. The cast is exceptional, an outstanding ensemble that hits all the right notes. Born and raised on the Upper West Side, Guirgis was in Hollywood on 9/11, writing for episodic television. He decided right then that he was through writing about things that did not matter, so as soon as the show was canceled, he returned to the theater. His first play after that was Our Lady of 121st Street, a ferociously funny tale about realistic people facing tragedy in realistic ways.

THE GENTLEMAN CALLER

Tennessee Williams (Juan Francisco Villa) and William Inge (Daniel K. Isaac) loosen up in The Gentleman Caller (photo by Maria Baranova)

Abingdon Theatre Company
Cherry Lane Mainstage Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Monday – Saturday through May 26, $67 (use code GC45 for $45 tickets)
212-989-2020
abingdontheatre.org
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

In the fall of 1944, St. Louis Star-Times arts critic William Inge invited up-and-coming playwright Tom “Tennessee” Williams to his garden apartment to interview him about his latest work, The Gentleman Caller, which was scheduled to open right after Christmas in Chicago (where it would be retitled The Glass Menagerie). Although the two men became friends — Williams referred to their “long association” in a personal homage he wrote for the New York Times in 1973 following Inge’s death — it has never been firmly established how close they actually were and whether they indeed may have been lovers. Playwright Philip Dawkins makes that jump in a big way in The Gentleman Caller, which is having its New York premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre through May 26. The two-character, two-hour, two-act Abingdon Theatre Company production is like a piece of fan fiction; although Dawkins did extensive research in writing the play, he still uses creative license as he relates what might have happened when the thirty-three-year-old Williams and the thirty-one-year-old Inge met, first on November 10, 1944, in Inge’s apartment and again that New Year’s Eve in a Chicago hotel room. Sara C. Walsh’s dramatic set features approximately a dozen lamps of all different heights, each constructed of stacks of typed manuscript pages; there are also pages scattered across the corners and back of the stage. At the center is a couch, with a chair to the right, a rolling wet bar to the left, and a record player in the right corner. In the second act, the couch turns into a bed but most everything else remains the same.

William Inge (Daniel K. Isaac) and Tennessee Williams (Juan Francisco Villa) get close at the Cherry Lane Theatre (photo by Maria Baranova)

Williams (Juan Francisco Villa) serves as the narrator of the work, reminiscent of Tom in The Glass Menagerie, as if he’s looking back at the past, occasionally making side comments in an affected southern drawl to the audience. The snarky, swishy, no-holds-barred, extremely self-aware Williams is the opposite of Inge (Daniel K. Isaac), a stiff, rigid, overly serious, and unimaginative introvert. Within minutes, the deeply closeted Inge is climbing on top of Williams, then is horribly embarrassed by his actions. A few moments later, Williams, discussing where he goes to be with men, says, “Hotels are wonderful inventions, especially for inveterate homosexuals like ourselves.” Inge quickly responds, “I’m not a homosexual,” to which Williams replies, “And my name’s not Tennessee, but we all gotta answer to something’. Drink up. You’ll need it. ’Specially if you’re not a homosexual.” The two men drink a lot — while it affects Williams, Inge barely changes — as they discuss the theater, sex, suicide, isolation, sin, secrets, truth, and fantasy. Williams gets particularly excited when he discovers that Inge has written a play as well. All along the way, Tennessee makes such grand statements as “Mmm, one ought never to trust a playwright”; “Confess your sins to a priest, and he tells you privately what to do to save yourself. Confess your sins on stage and they crucify you in the town square”; and “A sanctuary is a prison to those that cannot leave it.”

the gentleman caller

“Ignite me,” Williams says to Inge, asking him to light his cigarette. However, the play never really catches fire. Most critically, there is no sense of connection between the Mississippi-born Williams and Kansas native Inge, or Villa and Isaac. There are some charming moments — Villa gets a well-deserved round of applause for using his feet in a most unusual sexual way — but it’s all just a little bit too quaint and calculated. And the ethnic-blind casting doesn’t help matters; Villa is of Colombian descent, while Isaac is Korean American, causing confusion. Plays about what went on behind closed doors between two well-known figures are always a gamble, running the gamut from Frost/Nixon and The Audience, both by Peter Morgan, to Mike Bencivenga’s Billy & Ray, about the Hollywood collaboration between Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and Gino DiIorio’s Sam and Dede, or My Dinner with Andre the Giant, which turns a real meeting between Samuel Beckett and the adolescent Andre the Giant into a lifelong friendship. (In addition, Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout’s Billy and Me, also about Williams and Inge, opened in Palm Beach in December.) But Dawkins (Charm, The Burn) and director Tony Speciale (The Dork Knight, Unnatural Acts) are unable to balance the truth with poetic license, resulting in a choppy narrative with questionable plot developments, although Zach Blane’s lighting is exceptional. “Accuracy is overrated, don’t you think? I’m much more fascinated by honesty,” Williams says. “Is there a difference?” Inge responds. Williams (The Rose Tattoo, The Night of the Iguana) would go on to win two Pulitzer Prizes, for A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, while Inge (Bus Stop; Come Back, Little Sheba) would win a Pulitzer for Picnic. However deliriously fun a bit of “what if” speculation about theater giants may be, The Gentleman Caller doesn’t add much insight into how the relationship between these two great playwrights might have influenced their lives and careers.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A LETTER TO HARVEY MILK

Retired kosher butcher Harry Weinberg (Adam Heller) remembers an old friend in A Letter to Harvey Milk (photo by Russ Rowland)

The Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 30, $79
212-560-2183
www.lettertoharveymilk.com
www.theatrerow.org

On May 22, Harvey Milk would have turned eighty-eight. Instead, the San Francisco city supervisor and outspoken gay activist was assassinated on November 27, 1978, at the age of forty-eight. His moving life story has been turned into a nonfiction book (Randy Shilts’s The Mayor of Castro Street), an Oscar-winning documentary (Rob Epstein’s The Times of Harvey Milk), an opera (Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie’s Harvey Milk), a two-time Oscar-winning film (Gus Van Sant’s Milk, starring Sean Penn), a cantata by Jack Curtis Dubowsky, and several children’s books. And now comes A Letter to Harvey Milk, a stage musical about Milk’s legacy. It’s 1986, and Harry, a retired kosher butcher, has been given an assignment by Barbara, his senior center writing teacher: He has to write a letter to a deceased person from his past, and he chooses Harvey Milk. Based on the short story by Lesléa Newman, A Letter to Harvey Milk features a book by Jerry James, Cheryl Stern, the late Ellen M. Schwartz, and Laura I. Kramer, with music by Kramer, lyrics by Schwartz, and additional lyrics by Stern. Adam Heller stars as kosher butcher Harry Weinberg, Stern is his deceased wife, Julia Knitel plays Barbara, Michael Bartoli is Milk, and Jeremy Greenbaum, Aury Krebs, and CJ Pawlikowski play multiple ensemble roles. The ninety-minute show is directed by Evan Pappas, with sets by David Arsenault, costumes by Debbi Hobson, lighting by Christopher Akerlind, sound by David M. Lawson, and music direction by Jeffrey Lodin.

A Letter to Harvey Milk honors the legacy of the San Francisco city supervisor and outspoken gay activist (photo by Russ Rowland)

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A Letter to Harvey Milk runs through June 30 at the Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free for performances June 1-23. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite play or movie about an activist to contest@twi-ny.com by Tuesday, May 22, at 3:00 pm to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.