this week in theater

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL

The cast of SpongeBob SquarePants jumps for joy as disaster threatens in Broadway extravaganza (photo by Joan Marcus)

Palace Theatre
1564 Broadway at 47th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 2, $49-$145
spongebobbroadway.com

When a volcano threatens to destroy the undersea community of Bikini Bottom, the motley crew of residents must come together in order to survive in the tons-of-fun Broadway extravaganza SpongeBob SquarePants. Conceived and directed by Tina Landau based on Stephen Hillenburg’s long-running tongue-in-cheek cartoon series, which debuted on Nickelodeon in 2003, the musical version is a delight for both kids and adults. Tony-winning scenic designer David Zinn (The Humans, Fun Home) has transformed the Palace Theatre into a fanciful wonderland of undersea detritus hanging from the walls and ceiling and extending off the stage, complete with two huge Rube Goldberg-like machines on either side. Zinn also designed the costumes, keeping them relatively simple, primarily humans with playful elements: SpongeBob portrayer Ethan Slater, in his stirring Broadway debut, is dressed in a yellow shirt, red tie, plaid pants, and knee-length socks, speaking and singing in the cartoon character’s squeaky high-pitched voice; Danny Skinner wears a Hawaiian shirt over a purple tee, bright shorts, and slicked-up hair as SpongeBob’s BFF, the dimwitted but lovable Patrick Star; as crooning octopus Squidward Q. Tentacles, Gavin Lee has an extra pair of legs; Brian Ray Norris as money-loving Krusty Krab owner Eugene Krabs has two giant red claws for hands; Jai’len Christine Li Josey as sperm whale Pearl is dressed like a high school cheerleader; and Lilli Cooper as the squirrel scientist Sandy Cheeks is an astronaut with an Afro. The main cast is rounded out by Wesley Taylor as the evil, eye-patch-wearing villain Sheldon J. Plankton, who wants everyone to eat at his awful Chum Bucket restaurant instead of the Krusty Krab; Stephanie Hsu as his wife, the futuristic-looking Karen the Computer; Gaelen Gilliland as the mayor, who tweets in nonsensical political double talk; Kelvin Moon Loh as television reporter Perch Perkins, who is tracking the volcano’s progress as doomsday beckons; Gary, the mewing snail, who is not played by a person; and Jon Rua as Patchy the Pirate, the president of the SpongeBob SquarePants Fan Club, whose memorabilia is on view in front of the stage on the left side. With the countdown clock ticking down, SpongeBob, Patrick, and the rest of the benthic town desperately try to come up with a plan to save Bikini Bottom before it is laid to waste.

The devious Sheldon J. Plankton (Wesley Taylor) is up to no good in SpongeBob SquarePants (photo by Joan Marcus)

Obie-winning book writer Kyle Jarrow (The Wildness, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant) tosses in a plethora of puns and looming darkness, never passing up the chance for a good laugh, even if it’s aimed at the show itself. “A fry cook is all you’ll ever be. You’re just a simple sponge, boy,” Mr. Krabs says to his employee-of-the-month, SpongeBob, continuing, “And yet somehow you don’t seem to absorb very much.” Later, Squidward tells SpongeBob, “The world is a horrible place filled with fear, suffering, and despair. Also dashed hopes, shattered dreams, broken promises, and abject misery.” But ever the positive trooper, the Aplysina fistularis known as SpongeBob replies, “But it’s our horrible place . . . with the best abject misery.” The narrative breaks down significantly in the second act, but Christopher Gattelli’s (The King and I, War Paint) jubilant choreography keeps everything bouncy, and the music sparkles throughout, with songs written by a diverse superstar lineup that soars far above standard Broadway fare, including David Bowie and Brian Eno, Panic! at the Disco, Yolanda Adams, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, They Might Be Giants, T.I., Lady Antebellum, John Legend, the Plain White T’s, Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, and the Flaming Lips. Show up early to get a good look at all the crazy items around the theater — what’s with all the 1980s boomboxes? — and to get in the mood as the small band plays tropical music. Landau (Big Love, Old Hats) keeps everyone on their toes — watch out as some characters go running up and down the aisles — and smiling for more than two hours. And just to reiterate, the show is not aimed only at kids; the night we went, there were not that many children at all, the audience peppered instead with grown-ups of all ages, rolling around laughing in their seats. Like the Nickelodeon show, the Broadway musical is downright silly, but as Patrick says, “There’s nothing more fun than mindless entertainment.” Amen to that.

THE SOAP MYTH WITH ED ASNER

the soap myth

Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Tuesday, January 30, $25 (use code SOAP7 for $18 tickets), 7:00
866-811-4111
mjhnyc.org

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place every January 27, an impressive cast is performing seven staged readings of Jeff Cohen’s The Soap Myth in four East Coast states, from January 22 to February 1. The poignant drama was inspired by the true story of concentration camp survivor Morris Spitzer, whose one-man crusade to get Holocaust museums to include exhibits on soap made by Nazis from murdered humans was detailed in a 2000 article in Moment magazine. Reviewing the 2012 National Jewish Theater production at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, I wrote that it “offers an intriguing look into the speculative nature of history and one man’s furious dedication to setting the record straight.” The touring show is directed by Pam Berlin and stars seven-time Emmy winner Ed Asner as Milton Saltzman, two-time Tony nominee Johanna Day as Holocaust scholar Esther Feinman and Holocaust denier Brenda Goodsen, Naked Angels cofounder Ned Eisenberg as museum curator Daniel Silver, and Missing Bolts co-artistic director Blair Baker as journalist Annie Blumberg. The production will have two area performances, January 30 ($25) at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and February 1 ($36) at Hofstra Hillel at Hofstra University in Hempstead, followed by a talkback with members of the company.

JOHN LITHGOW: STORIES BY HEART

John Lithgow celebrates the power of storytelling in one-man Broadway show (photo by Joan Marcus)

American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 4, $49-$149
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

“So what the hell is this?!” John Lithgow proclaims at the beginning of his one-man Broadway show, John Lithgow: Stories by Heart, a Roundabout production that opened earlier this month at the American Airlines Theatre and continues through March 4. The two-act, two-hour presentation is a celebration of family, the art and power of storytelling, and the art of acting itself, but it’s too slight to feel like a full-fledged play. A Harvard grad and Mayflower descendant who was born in Rochester and raised in Ohio, Lithgow is one of our greatest actors, supremely accomplished on stage, screen, and television, as well as being a bestselling memoirist and children’s book author. Nominated for two Oscars, four Grammys, six Tonys (winning two), and twelve Emmys (taking home six awards), the seventy-one-year-old Lithgow (The World According to Garp, Third Rock from the Sun) has been a warming figure for five decades, a kind of thoughtful everyman who is charming even when he portrays wickedly evil villains. He’s been workshopping Stories by Heart on and off for ten years around the country, a kind of intimate, whistle-stop trunk show that combines personal memories with tour-de-force performances of a pair of classic short stories, one in each act. The format is clear and concise: Lithgow wanders around John Lee Beatty’s erudite, literary set, consisting of just a few chairs, a stool, and a small table in an elegant study, first sharing moving tales about his father, Arthur, a regional theater producer, director, and actor who operated several Shakespeare festivals, and his mother, Sarah, whom John says “was like some cheerful, unflappable road manager who always made everything turn out just fine.” Every night, Arthur would robustly read John and his siblings, David, Robin, and Sarah Jane, a story from the 1939 book Tellers of Tales, which contained one hundred short stories collected by W. Somerset Maugham. Lithgow proudly displays the treasured, beaten up, and humorously repaired copy his father used.

In John Lithgow: Stories by Heart, the master thespian pays tribute to his beloved father (photo by Joan Marcus)

In the first act, Lithgow (The Crown, Sweet Smell of Success) performs, from memory, Ring Lardner’s “Haircut,” as he remembers first picturing it in his head when his father read it to the kids in 1954. In dazzling style, Lithgow mimics every detail of giving a customer a shave and a haircut in a small town while relating the story of Jim Kendall, a troublemaker with a nasty sense of humor. In the second act, Lithgow talks poignantly about trying to take care of his aging father in the summer of 2002, turning the tables when he suddenly decides to offer to read his parents a story, and they chose P. G. Wodehouse’s wildly funny “Uncle Fred Flits By,” which Lithgow then performs onstage, playing every character, from Pongo Twistleton and Wilberforce Robinson to Mr. Walkinshaw and, of course, Uncle Fred. Lithgow is so skillful in telling the tale that, as with “Haircut,” you’ll think you are seeing all of the action happen before your eyes, even though it’s just one man with no props. But as good as each section of the play, expertly directed by Daniel Sullivan, is, and as sweetly captivating as Lithgow is, Stories by Heart does not quite come together as a Broadway production. As a play, it needs more of Lithgow talking about himself, his family, and his love of storytelling and less showing off his impressive acting abilities. Perhaps if I had seen it in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Austin, or Boulder or it ran at an off-Broadway house, I’d have a different reaction. But I found myself far more interested in Lithgow’s personal memories as they related to “Haircut” and “Uncle Fred Flits By” than by those short stories themselves, which take up the vast majority of Lithgow’s time onstage. Early on, Lithgow excitedly says to the audience, “I mean, look at you! You all look so eager and hopeful. What exactly are you hoping for? What do you hope will happen here tonight? What are you looking for? What do you want?” Stories by Heart is a grand and graceful public thank-you to Lithgow’s father, but I have to admit I was looking for something else, although there’s no doubt his father would have loved every second of it.

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND

Once on This Island revival should have been dead in the water (photo © Joan Marcus 2017)

Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Friday – Wednesday through December 30, $89.50 – $189.50
onceonthisisla nd.com

Michael Arden’s revival of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s 1990 hit musical, Once on This Island, is a critical and popular success, blowing away audiences with a stellar cast, superb staging, lively music, and a fantastic set that takes full advantage of the small Circle in the Square Theatre. There’s only one problem, and it’s more than a minor quibble: The story is culturally insensitive, racist, colonialist, and, as far as subject matter goes, tone deaf. Nominated for eight Tonys during its 1990-91 Broadway run and winner of the 1994 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, the show takes place in the “Jewel of the Antilles,” the former French colony known as Saint-Domingue before becoming Haiti. In the prologue, various characters describe their home as “an island where the poorest of peasants labor” and “the wealthiest of grands hommes play.” One woman says, “The grands hommes, with their pale brown skins and their French ways, owners of the land and masters of their own fates,” after which a man adds, “And the peasants, black as night, eternally at the mercy of the wind and the sea.” Thus, the central dilemma is set up, class warfare based on skin shade. The poor side of the island is overseen by a quartet of gods: Papa Ge, the sly Demon of Death (Merle Dandridge), Erzulie, the beautiful Goddess of Love (Lea Salonga), Agwe, God of Water (Quentin Earl Darrington), and Asaka, Mother of the Earth (Kenita R. Miller). Following a flood, little Ti Moune (Emerson Davis) is protected by a tree near a small, close-knit village, where she is taken in and raised by Mama Euralie (Kenita R. Miller) and Tonton Julian (Phillip Boykin). Grown into a lovely young woman, Ti Moune (Hailey Kilgore) sees an exciting stranger in a white car racing past and asks the gods for a glimpse of the man. When he later gets into a car accident and is saved by Ti Moune, she learns that he is Daniel Beauxhomme (Isaac Powell), the scion of the wealthy family that lives behind the gate on the other side of the island. As she nurses him back to health, she falls in love with him, but his family is against his having any kind of relationship with a peasant girl, ultimately leading to tragedy.

Papa Ge (Merle Dandridge) has a surprise for Daniel Beauxhomme (Isaac Powell) in Once on This Island (photo © Joan Marcus 2017)

In Once Upon This Island, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet meets Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, with bits of Cinderella and Maid in Manhattan, only without any kind of legitimately believable romance and conflict. The narrative is told like a children’s bedtime story despite its adult themes of sex, power, class, and race. Kilgore is valiant as the older Ti Moune, Darrington is bold and strong as Agwe, and Dandridge is deliciously devilish as Papa Ge, while Dane Laffrey’s set boasts a mystical pond, a live goat, an overturned rowboat, plants, a large truck, drying clothes, and lots of sand, home to a close-knit community, the villagers dressed in Clint Ramos’s colorful costumes and moving to Camille A. Brown’s choreography. (Some of the characters also make their way into the audience.) The small band consists of Alvin Hough Jr. and Javier Diaz on percussion, Irio O’Farrill Jr. on bass, Hidayat Honari on guitar and mandolin, and Cassondra James on flute, performing Flaherty’s Caribbean-tinged music, but it’s the book and lyrics by Ahrens that are befuddling. Ti Moune is portrayed as some kind of legendary heroic figure willing to do anything for true love, but instead she’s just another victim of colonialism and racism, in this case celebrated for all the wrong reasons. Arden (Spring Awakening) and the creative team visited Haiti to get a better feel for its people and culture, even taking part in a Vodou ceremony, but what he’s delivered onstage is more like a knife in the back, particularly now that the president of the United States has offered his own take on the country. (Just wait till you see the shadow-puppet tale and the party dancing scene.) In his director’s note, Arden writes, “It is my hope that the story of Ti Moune might inspire any person, regardless of age, gender, race, ability, sexuality, or circumstance, to become a catalyst for change.” It’s my hope that more theatergoers see this sordid tale for what it really is, a perpetuation of stereotypes and genre clichés that prevent us all from moving forward and achieving real equality and sensitivity.

NYC PLAYERS: PARADISO

The New York City Players are performing Paradiso for free at Greene Naftali in Chelsea through February 10

Greene Naftali Gallery
508 West 26th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., ground floor
Wednesday – Saturday through February 10, free with advance RSVP, 718-622-0330, 7:00
www.greenenaftaligallery.com
www.nycplayers.org

Richard Maxwell’s New York City Players don’t just put on plays; the Brooklyn-based experimental company creates innovative works of art that defy convention. In such recent presentations as Isolde, The Evening, Samara, and their first-ever revival, Good Samaritans, they challenge theatrical standards in the way they tell stories, from basic narrative flow to the use of props and sets to how the actors deliver their lines. So it is fitting that their new show, Paradiso, is taking place at the Greene Naftali Gallery in Chelsea, which just copublished the first monograph of Maxwell’s plays, The Theater Years. Maxwell’s final response to Dante’s Divine Comedy — following The Evening and Samara — the sixty-minute Paradiso explores family, god, and country. The cast consists of Elaine Davis, Jessica Gallucci, Carina Goebelbecker, and Charles Reina, with production design by Sascha van Riel and costumes by Kaye Voyce. Admission is free, but you have to act fast to snag a reservation; there will also be a waitlist at every show.

THE CHILDREN

Old friends Rose (Francesca Annis) and Hazel (Deborah Findlay) reunite in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children (photo © Joan Marcus 2017)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 4, $60-$149
www.manhattantheatreclub.com
thechildrenbroadway.com

Amid all the splashy musicals, wacky comedies, and star-driven vehicles currently on Broadway, the British import The Children stands apart, a breath of fresh air in this winter season. Well, maybe that’s not the best way to classify this fiercely taut drama, which takes place shortly after a devastating nuclear accident on the East Coast of Britain. The fictional event appears to have even rattled the stage at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, which is severely tilted, creating a bit of an uphill or downhill climb when the characters move to the right or left. The play opens as Rose (Francesca Annis) pays a surprise afternoon visit to her old friend and colleague, Hazel (Deborah Findlay), who is living with her husband, Robin (Ron Cook), in a small cottage just outside the contaminated exclusion zone. “We heard you’d died!” Hazel announces; it’s been thirty-eight years since the two women, both nuclear engineers, last saw each other. While Hazel has settled into the domestic life of a retiree, with four children and four grandchildren, Rose has been gallivanting around the world, never settling down or getting married. When Rose asks Hazel why they haven’t moved farther away from the radiation, Hazel responds, “It’s just that little bit extra but it makes a world of difference to our peace of mind. . . . I would’ve felt like a traitor. Besides, retired people are like nuclear power stations. We like to live by the sea.” They are soon joined by Robin, who goes to their old farm every day, tending to the cows, even though it’s in the exclusion area. Where Hazel is very direct and to the point, Robin is more rambunctious and freewheeling, cracking jokes, asking Rose for a squeeze, and offering her some of his homemade wine. But when Rose reveals the reason she has returned — and secrets emerge — the trio has to reexamine their purpose in life and their future.

Robin (Ron Cook), Hazel (Deborah Findlay), and Rose (Francesca Annis) remember the good old days in U.S. premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway house (photo © Joan Marcus 2017)

Originally produced at the Royal Court Theatre, The Children is brilliantly written by Olivier Award winner Lucy Kirkwood (Chimerica, Mosquitoes), who has created three complex characters who are genuine and unpredictable. The play takes a hard look at ageing and death, examining the responsibility the old have to the young. “How can anybody consciously moving towards death, I mean by their own design, possibly be happy? People of our age have to resist — you have to resist, Rose,” Hazel says. “If you’re not going to grow: don’t live.” It is also about blood, both literally and figuratively. When Rose first enters the house, a shocked Hazel turns defensively and hits Rose, giving her a bloody nose. One of Hazel and Robin’s children suffers from mental illness, thinking she is a bloodsucking vampire. And, of course, radiation poisons the blood. James Macdonald, who has directed numerous works by Caryl Churchill (Escaped Alone, Top Girls) and Sarah Kane (4.48 Psychosis, Blasted), among others, keeps things balanced even as the actors have to deal with Miriam Buether’s angled set, which is framed as if a tilted picture on a wall come to life. Olivier nominee Annis (Cranford, Troilus and Cressida), Olivier winner Findlay (Stanley, Coriolanus), and Olivier nominee Cook (Juno and the Paycock, Faith Healer) reprise their roles from the London production, all three delivering warm, heartfelt performances, with a special nod to Cook for having to ride a tricycle uphill despite a bad back. And Max Pappenheim’s sound design stands out as well, from a Geiger counter to church bells. Despite its title, The Children is the most adult show in New York City right now, a marvelously resonant, intelligent, and engaging play that continually defies expectations as the plot twists and turns while something threatening hangs just past the horizon.

MUGEN NOH OTHELLO

Desdemona (Micari) tells her sad tale to a traveling pilgrim (Maki Honda) from Venice (photo by Richard Termine)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
January 11-14, $35
Under the Radar continues through January 15
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.publictheater.org

Japan Society concludes its “NOH NOW” series with Satoshi Miyagi’s unique, hypnotic adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello, which is also part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival and Japan Society’s 110th anniversary. In Mugen Noh Othello, Miyagi and his Shizuoka Performing Arts Center apply traditional mugen noh narrative structure and Miyagi’s own innovative techniques to the Bard’s story of jealousy and betrayal, condensing and refocusing the tale so it feels both fresh and contemporary as well as age-old and sadly familiar. Mugen noh stories are often told by a departed spirit in flashback, confessing to a secondary character who is a stand-in for the audience, in the hopes of gaining release to the afterlife. Miyagi’s surprise is to have a single character performed by two actors: One moves on the stage, the other sits along the right side, delivering the dialogue. Miyagi and writer Sukehiro Hirakawa also twist genre conventions by having Desdemona (mover Micari, speaker Haruyo Suzuki) as the storytelling spirit, not Shakespeare’s protagonist, Othello (Kazyniru Abe). The set is a square, slightly raised wooden platform, with an angled walkway where characters enter and exit. In the back are musicians Sachiko Kataoka, Yukio Kato, Yoneji Ouchi, Yu Sakurauchi, Junko Sekine, and Ayako Terauchi, playing traditional noh percussive instruments. (The tense score is by Hiroko Tanakawa.) On the right of the stage are a row of women and a row of men serving as a kind of Greek chorus, chanting and performing many of the lines of the play, which are translated in English surtitles on two screens. When a traveling pilgrim (Maki Honda) from Venice arrives in Cyprus, he meets a trio of Italian women (Ayako Terauchi, Sachiko Kataoka, and Yu Sakurauchi, voiced by Asuka Fuse, Kotoko Kiuchi, and Fuyuko Moriyama, respectively) who tell him how Cyprus fell to the Ottoman Turks.

Iago (Yuya Daidomumon) has some bad news for Othello (Kazyniru Abe) as Desdemona (Micari) looks on in Mugen Noh Othello (photo by Richard Termine)

“But alas, how fickle is the hearts of men,” one says. “Cyprus has turned into an island of pagans.” The pilgrim wants to know the details and is soon joined by Desdemona, who declares, “Upon meeting you, a fellow Venetian, I yearn for the world of the living.” And so she relates what happened between her husband, Othello; his trusted right-hand ensign, Iago (Yuya Daidomumon); his loyal captain, Cassio (Yoneji Ouchi); Desdemona’s father, Brabantio (Soichiro Yoshiue); the Duke of Venice (Keita Mishima); and Iago’s unknowing henchman, Roderigo (Yukio Kato), a story that leads to murder most foul. (The Tokyo-born Miyagi has also directed versions of Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for SPAC.) “I return to tell the tale of a man trapped in a delusion,” she explains. Mugen Noh Othello features very slow, deliberate movement, with relatively sparse dialogue. Facial expressions are often exaggerated, and some characters wear masks and fab hats. Kayo Takahashi’s costumes, which come in a wide range of colors and include long, elegant, and spare lines of Japanese writing, are extraordinary, particularly Desdemona’s elaborate ghostly white and golden kimono. The play has been condensed to eighty minutes, cutting out various characters, instead concentrating on the critical, emotional high points surrounding the commission or omission of sin. It’s a lovely production rich with tender, scary, and funny moments, emphasizing the art of storytelling itself. Shakespeare purists will not find all of their favorite lines here, but there is still much poetry to revel in.