this week in theater

THE KING AND I

Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe get to know each other in Bartlett Sher’s wonderful revival at Lincoln Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through January 3, $97-$172
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

In December 1977, my parents took the whole family to Broadway to see a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I, with Yul Brynner returning as King Mongkut of Siam and Constance Towers playing Anna Leonowens, a British schoolteacher hired by the royal leader to teach English and Western culture to his children as he tries to modernize his country, later known as Thailand. It was my introduction to the Broadway musical in person, not a bad way to begin. So it was with fond memories that I entered Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater recently to see this latest revival, and I’m happy to report that everything you’ve heard about it is correct; it’s a memorable experience from start to finish, a delightful staging loaded with charm and elegance. Based on Margaret Landon’s 1944 novel, Anna and the King of Siam, a fictionalized version of actual events, the musical gets under way with a lovely overture; the small orchestra, under the direction of Ted Sperling, is in the pit, visible below long wooden slats stretching out in front of the stage. But at the end of the fanfare, the stage floor extends over the musicians, the curtain opens, and a nearly impossibly large, spectacular ship approaches the audience, carrying Anna (six-time Tony nominee Kelli O’Hara) and her young son, Louis (Jake Lucas), as they pull into Bangkok. Captain Orton (Murphy Guyer) warns Anna not to anger Kralahome (Paul Nakauchi), the king’s prime minister, but the widow immediately shows that she is not afraid of anything, speaking her mind when she learns that she and Louis will be staying at the palace instead of the separate house she was promised. And upon meeting the king (Ken Watanabe), who has a vast number of wives and children, she quickly demonstrates that she is a strong, fearless woman, not about to tolerate treatment as a second-class citizen. In addition to giving lessons to the kids, including the crown prince, Chulalongkorn (Jon Viktor Corpuz), Anna is soon teaching the king a thing or two as well as he seeks to make tiny Siam a major player in the modern world. Meanwhile, the newest member of his harem, Tuptim (Ashley Park), a gift from the king of Burma, is secretly in love with Lun Tha (Conrad Ricamora), a clandestine romance that could get them both killed.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s THE KING AND I dazzles in every way at the Vivian Beaumont (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Director Bartlett Sher, who helmed Lincoln Center’s celebrated 2008 production of South Pacific — which earned seven Tonys, including Best Director of a Musical and Best Revival of a Musical, as well as a nomination for O’Hara’s featured performance as Nellie Forbush — has done another sparkling job with The King and I, inviting the audience to bask in the glow of Richard Rodgers’s glorious music and Oscar Hammerstein III’s exquisite book and lyrics. Once the ship departs, Michael Yeargan’s sets are much more spare yet graceful, allowing Catherine Zuber’s sumptuous costumes to shine. The songs are, well, as wonderful as ever, from “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” “Hello, Young Lovers,” and “Shall We Dance?” to “Getting to Know You,” “A Puzzlement,” and, natch, “Something Wonderful.” “The March of Siamese Children,” in which the king’s progeny from his favorite wives bow to him, one at a time, then greet Anna, as their mothers watch closely, hoping their children don’t do anything to hurt their status, is particularly effective, not only in its stellar execution but in displaying the old-fashioned ways of the king, which he must overcome if Siam is to thrive internationally. The issue of slavery is raised quite specifically in the second-act ballet “The Small House of Uncle Thomas,” a special presentation, based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for an important British diplomat (Edward Baker-Duly) who is interested in Anna. The show manages to sidestep issues of colonialism and ethnocentricity as Anna criticizes many of Siam’s traditions and her relationship with the king grows more intimate.

Lady Thiang (Ruthie Ann Miles) and Anna Leonewens (Kelli O’Hara) come together despite living very different lives (photo by Paul Kolnik)

O’Hara (The Light in the Piazza, Nice Work If You Can Get It) is enchanting as Anna, a role previously played by the likes of Celeste Holm, Hayley Mills, Faith Prince, Maureen McGovern, and Marie Osmond, giving her a fierce, determined edge while letting her vocal cords soar. (Irene Dunne played Anna in John Cromwell’s 1946 film, Anna and the King of Siam, which also starred Rex Harrison as the king and Lee J. Cobb as Kralahome.) Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima, Inception) is a certifiable triumph in a role that might be associated with one actor more than any other role — Brynner played the part more than 4,600 times onstage over the course of thirty-four years, winning two Tonys, while also earning an Oscar for the 1956 film and starring in the 1972 television series Anna and the King with Samantha Eggar. Bare-chested and with a shaven head, Watanabe is utterly engaging as the king, his choppy English adding a nice touch to his depiction of the complex ruler, whether declaring that life is a puzzlement, gleefully exclaiming, “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” or sweeping across the floor with Anna. (Just for the record, among the other actors who have portrayed the king in various incarnations, both musical and not, are Farley Granger, Lou Diamond Phillips, Zachary Scott, Herbert Lom, Darren McGavin, and Rudolf Nureyev.) Christopher Gattelli’s choreography, based on Jerome Robbins’s original, keeps things flowing beautifully, accompanying Robert Russell Bennett’s lush orchestrations. The original production won all five of the Tony Awards it was nominated for back in 1952 — Brynner as Best Featured Actor, Gertrude Lawrence for Best Leading Actress as Anna, Best Costume Design, Best Scenic Design, and Best Musical — while the revival I saw as a kid earned Drama Desk nominations for Brynner, Angela Lansbury as Anna, and Outstanding Musical. Lincoln Center’s revival is another runaway hit, garnering nine Tony nominations and two Drama Desk nods. It’s an absolute treat getting to know The King and I all over again.

FINDING NEVERLAND

Lord Cannan (Tyley Ross), Charles Frohman (Kelsey Grammer), and Mary Barrie (Teal Wicks) toast J. M. Barrie (Michael Morrison) in FINDING NEVERLAND (photo © Carol Rosegg)

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
205 West 46th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Through December 20, $72-$147
findingneverlandthemusical.com

After nearly four years of heavy out-of-town tinkering, Finding Neverland has at last landed on Broadway, but it’s still lost, in desperate need of finding itself. Produced by a very hands-on Harvey Weinstein, whose Miramax company released the 2004 Oscar-nominated film starring Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman, and Julie Christie, the stage musical has gone through major cast, director, and composer changes before settling on the current Great White Way team: director Diane Paulus, Matthew Morrison as J. M. Barrie, music and lyrics by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy, book by Jerry Graham, and choreography by Mia Michaels. Based on Allan Knee’s play The Man Who Was Peter Pan, the show follows Barrie, a successful playwright dealing with his first flop, as he teeters between two worlds: the high-society lifestyle preferred by his wife, Mary (Teal Wicks), and the more down-home, simple existence lived by the widowed Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Laura Michelle Kelly) and her four sons, Peter, Jack, George, and Michael (played in various configurations by Alex Dreier, Hayden Signoretti, Noah Hinsdale, Aidan Gemme, Christopher Paul Richards, Sawyer Nunes, and Jackson Demott Hill). His producer, Charles Frohman (Kelsey Grammer), an American, needs him to write a hit, and ideas start percolating as Barrie spends more time with the Davies clan, discovering his inner child with an infectious glee. Little events become fodder for his work, the eventual Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. But while Peter Pan is built around magic, Finding Neverland lacks any real spark.

J. M. Barrie (Michael Morrison) turns his experiences with the Davies family into PETER PAN in Broadway musical (photo © Carol Rosegg)

Whenever you see a show, you want to be completely invested in it, lured in by its magic, whether a comedy, a drama, or a glitzy musical. Early in the second act, when Frohman’s acting troupe is drinking together in a pub, its crabby erstwhile star, Mr. Henshaw (Paul Slade Smith), turns to Frohman and asks, “Do they say ‘cheers’ where you come from, mate?” The completely unnecessary reference to the television series that made Grammer famous brings Finding Neverland to a screeching halt; sure, many people in the audience explode in laughter — much as they do when Larry David throws in a gratuitous catchphrase from Curb Your Enthusiasm into the disappointing Fish in the Dark — but it takes you right out of the fantasy, which is what Peter Pan is all about, and the show never recovers. The ballads are drippy, the acting often goes too far over the top — Smith, Josh Lamon as his cohort Mr. Cromer, Tyley Ross as Lord Cannan, and Carolee Carmello as Mary’s mother are particularly annoying — and the way Paulus (Pippin, Hair) and Michaels (So You Think You Can Dance) depict flying is a supreme letdown. It does have its moments — there is a sweet energy between Morrison (The Light in the Piazza, Glee) and Kelly (Mary Poppins, Peter Pan), Grammer has several funny bits, and some of the staging is clever — but it’s all frustratingly inconsistent. Finding Neverland tries way too hard to be a feel-good experience but instead never takes flight.

DONN PEARCE’S COOL HAND LUKE

Boss Godfrey (Nick Paglino) tries to keep Luke Jackson (Lawrence Jansen) in line in COOL HAND LUKE (photo by Jason Woodruff)

59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 31, $30
www.59e59.org
www.godlighttheatrecompany.org

The Godlight Theatre Company follows up its spare, Drama Desk–nominated staging of James Dickey’s Deliverance with another testosterone-fueled tale, Donn Pearce’s Cool Hand Luke. As with all of Godlight’s productions — which also include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, In the Heat of the Night, Slaughterhouse-Five, Fahrenheit 451, and The Third Man — this latest work is based on the original novel, not the popular film, in this case Pearce’s 1965 book rather than Stuart Rosenberg’s 1967 movie, which starred Paul Newman and an all-star ensemble and earned four Oscar nominations. (Warning: The classic line “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” is from the movie, so it is not in the play.) Lawrence Jansen stars as Luke Jackson, a smartass war hero with what would now be called PTSD who is serving time for having cut the heads off of parking meters. “Luke had the devil in him,” fellow inmate Dragline (Mike Jansen) explains in a short prologue. “Luke done some kinda deal somewheres along the line. Don’t know what. Thar’s no telling. But Luke was jes’ natcherly mad at God.” Luke becomes part of a roadside chain gang with Dragline, Curly (Lars Drew), Society Red (Brett Warnke), and Rabbit (Jarrod Zayas), who are closely watched by Boss Kean (Jason Bragg Stanley), collaborator Carr (Ken King), and the evil Boss Godfrey (Nick Paglino), who has it in for Luke from the start. But through it all, Luke keeps on smiling, as he faces off against Boss Godfrey, tries to eat fifty hard-boiled eggs in one hour, and won’t take the advice of his mother (Kristina Doelling) to put his faith in the lord. “Ain’t you scared a’ dyin’ and goin’ to hell?” Dragline asks him. “Dyin’? It’s livin’ I’m scared of,” Luke responds.

Lawrence Jansen plays a Jesus-like prisoner in Godlight Theatre adaptation of COOL HAND LUKE (photo by Jason Woodruff)

Once again, the staging is the star in this Godlight production. The story, adapted by Emma Reeves (Anne of Green Gables, Little Women), unfolds with no props or scenery in a tiny black box at 59E59, where the characters are cordoned off on the right and left by an angled row of lights on the floor, with Luke and Boss Godfrey almost always in the center, Luke in the front, Godfrey in the back, the latter watching everything from behind his dark sunglasses. Director Joe Tantalo (A Clockwork Orange, 1984), the artistic director of Godlight for more than twenty years, announces scene changes with sharp flashes of light, courtesy of set and lighting designer Maruti Evans, accompanied by the crack of a rifle loading. (The sound design is by Ien Denio.) Cool Hand Luke is filled with religious imagery, with Luke envisioned as a Christ-like figure and a saint, Boss Godfrey as the devil, the other prisoners potential disciples. In a scene from Luke’s past, he seeks help from a woman named Mary (Julia Torres, who also curiously sings a spiritual at the beginning and end of the play), while Doelling portrays a prostitute in addition to Luke’s mother, furthering biblical references. The show lacks the dramatic conflict inherent in previous Godlight shows; it is significantly more slight, a series of episodes in search of a fluent narrative as a whole. But the strong acting and expert, unique staging will keep you chained to your seats.

FOREVER

Dael Orlandersmith shares intimate details of her dysfunctional childhood in FOREVER (photo by Joan Marcus)

New York Theatre Workshop
79 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 31, $75
nytw.org

Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith returns to New York Theatre Workshop with the searing Forever, a harrowing, deeply intimate one-woman show about the severely dysfunctional relationship between a daughter and her alcoholic mother. In the semiautobiographical work, Orlandersmith (Yellowman, Monster, The Gimmick) spends a gripping eighty minutes discussing her artistic influences while looking back at damaging scenes from her past as she walks through Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, paying tribute to Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Richard Wright, and other writers and musicians who helped her survive a brutal childhood in Harlem. “All of us have come / All of us who are seeking / have come to be with these people here in Pere Lachaise — who beyond our parents helped us give birth to ourselves,” she says. Statuesque and elegant in a long black dress, her braided hair falling over her shoulders and reaching toward her hips, she recalls a broken friendship with a local tomboy, being beaten by her mother over math homework, and how she felt when her mother tells her she is “fat / hateful / disgusting.” She shares her physical and psychological pain with the audience, making direct, lingering eye contact that is both soothing and uncomfortable. “I can’t believe I still can feel her slap. She’s been gone / dead / over twenty years but I can still see / feel / hear her laughing,” she says. Orlandersmith tells the story with a lyrical, poetic rhythm that is captivating and unique. She describes her Caesarian birth thusly: “October 29, 1959 / I was torn from blood/guts/water / Spanked into consciousness / Spanked into living.” Later she adds, “A scar I made a long time ago coming through you / I stare at it / Wondering how I could have been born from it / How I could have been born from you.”

Dael Orlandersmith’s tale of her relationship with her mother is both harrowing and uplifting (photo by Joan Marcus)

About midway through Forever, which is calmly directed by Neel Keller, with excellent lighting by Mary Louise Geiger and sound by Adam Phalen, Orlandersmith relates a long, agonizing episode from her childhood in nerve-racking detail, one of the most powerful and frightening things you’re ever likely to experience from a show; it’s difficult to watch, but you won’t be able to avert your eyes from hers, finalizing an unbreakable bond between performer and audience that will stay with you long after you leave the theater. Ultimately, she tries to find closure as she revisits her mother’s death. Forever is both heartbreaking and uplifting, a shocking, poetic exploration of family, memory, and the ties that bind; it was particularly poignant the night we saw it, on the eve of Mother’s Day. Before and after the show, people are invited to write their own tributes to those they’ve lost on notecards they can tape to the long, narrow bulletin boards lining the side walls, and following the show, attendees can walk around Takeshi Kata’s central staging area and check out dozens of Orlandersmith’s family photographs on similar boards around the set. The notecards and photographs are a brilliant touch, a physical evocation of how the past embraces and surrounds both the audience and the performer’s emotional experience, providing yet more intimacy and reminding you of your own relationships. (The May 20 show will be followed by a discussion with photographers James and Karla Murray and NYU adjunct professor Cynthia Copeland, moderated by Alexander Santiago-Jirau, who will also lead a Shop Talk after the May 27 show.)

THEATRE FOR ONE: I’M NOT THE STRANGER YOU THINK I AM

Christine Jones’s mobile Theatre for One will present short plays by major playwrights in three locations May 18 – June 6 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, Zuccotti Park, Grace Building
May 18 – June 6, free, 12 noon – 7:00 pm
www.artsbrookfield.com
www.theatreforone.com

Theater can be an intimate experience, and it doesn’t get much more intimate than Christine Jones’s Theatre for One, which is exactly that: performances by one actor for one audience member at a time, inside a mobile four-by-eight-foot theater. TFO will feature new five-minute works by award-winning playwrights Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss), Will Eno (The Realistic Joneses), Lynn Nottage (Ruined), José Rivera (Marisol), Thomas Bradshaw (Intimacy), Zayd Dohrn (Sick), and Emily Schwend (Take Me Back). The mobile theater is a collaboration between the architecture firm LO-TEK and the Tony-nominated Jones, who has designed the sets for such shows as Spring Awakening, American Idiot, and Coraline and is the director of the current immersive hit Queen of the Night. The short plays, which together are being called I’m Not the Stranger You Think I Am, will be performed by six actors and are directed by Jones, Rivera, Jenny Koons, and Brian Mertes; the mobile theater will be at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place May 18-24; Zuccotti Park May 27-31; and the Grace Building June 2-6. Admission is first come, first served, and free, with each person able to see one of the plays, between 12 noon and 7:00 pm.

A QUEEN FOR A DAY

Brothers Pasquale (Vincent Pastore) and Nino (David Proval) are set against each other in mob drama (photo by Russ Rowland)

Theatre at St. Clement’s
423 West 46th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Thursday – Tuesday through July 26, $49-$99
aqueenforadayplay.com

I have to admit that I’m a little hesitant to share my true thoughts about the new mob drama, A Queen for a Day, for fear of, well, unpleasant reprisals like being whacked, as the cast includes three Sopranos veterans. In the play, which was written by lawyer and film and theater producer Michael Ricigliano Jr. (Lily of the Feast) and directed by John Gould Rubin (Hedda Gabler, The Predators’ Ball), there’s a whole lot of unnecessary shouting, the dialogue is choppy, the plot is overcooked, the acting is inconsistent, and the direction is leaden. That said, the audience, highlighted by some loud cheerleading by a well-known Italian American actor, loved it, rising to their feet in unison at the end. Maybe they know what’s good for them. As part of a massive organized crime sweep, made man Giovanni “Nino” Cinquimani (David “Richie Aprile” Proval) and his Jewish lawyer, Sanford Weiss (David Deblinger), are in a Jersey warehouse, secretly meeting with Patricia Cole (Portia), a Fed who is offering Nino a proffer agreement, an arrangement known as “Queen for a Day,” in which he spills his guts on the spot, and the government decides whether the information is valuable enough to grant him immunity and witness protection in exchange for further testimony — or sends him back out on the streets to take his chances. “You see, Nino, if I put you on the stand, it’s warts and all,” Patricia tells him, “and I won’t have any surprises. I’m not naive, so if you hold back from me, we’re done! You understand! No immunity, no plea deals, and you get to roll the dice with the rest of your goombahs. It’s now or never.” But Nino’s caught in quite a pickle, as the man she wants him to give up is his younger brother, mob boss Pasquale Cinquimani (Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore). The title of the play not only pertains to the proffer agreement but also to the popular mid-twentieth-century television game show in which people shared their woes with America, hoping to win prizes, as well as slyly referencing a ridiculous plot twist. (A second, major turn of events works very well, but it’s one of the only things that does.) Over the course of ninety minutes, the characters discuss respect across two kinds of family — from mothers, fathers, brothers, and lovers to capos, made men, and rats — but the two parts never come together in a satisfying way, resulting in a rather abrupt and confusing conclusion. There, I said it. I spilled my guts. I hope I’m not outfitted soon with a pair of concrete shoes.

THE PAINTED ROCKS AT REVOLVER CREEK

Leon Addison Brown and Caleb McLaughlin star in what might be Athol Fugard’s final play (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 7, $25-$65
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

In 2011, South African writer-director Athol Fugard won a Tony Award for lifetime achievement the day after his seventy-ninth birthday, but that hasn’t slowed down the now-eighty-three-year-old man responsible for such important plays as Sizwe Bansi Is Dead and “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys. The next year he was the Signature Theatre’s playwright-in-residence, presenting stirring revivals of Blood Knot and My Children! My Africa! as well as the New York debut of The Train Driver. He is now back at the Signature with the world premiere of The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, a potent tale of apartheid and its effects on three people that distills right to the core the policy of racial segregation that dominated South Africa for nearly fifty years, and its legacy today. Inspired by real-life outsider artist Nukain Mabusa, who painted flowers on rocks in a stone garden in Revolver Creek for more than a decade, the play takes place in 1981, as an elderly farm laborer (Leon Addison Brown) and his young helper (Caleb McLaughlin) prepare to paint the Big One, an enormous rock on a hill on land owned by Elmarie Kleynhans (Bianca Amato) and her husband, an Afrikaner couple who employ the man, called Tata (“father”) by the boy, known as Bokkie (“small buck”), and Outa (“old father”) by Elmarie, who uses the generic, derisive Afrikaaner terms for them rather than their names. Bokkie is eager for Tata to paint the Big One, but Outa is hesitant. “He is bigger than me. And I know that he is my last one . . . so I am frightened,” Tata says of the inanimate object. “But he is only a rock,” Bokkie explains. “I have got no more flowers in me, Bokkie,” Tata replies. However, soon Bokkie and Tata are painting the rock together, the old man sharing the story of his hard life, passing it on for future generations. “What do you see standing here? Old Man? Just another old kaffer?” he says to the rock, asserting himself for maybe the first time ever. “No, Big One, I am not old man. I am not kaffer. I am MAN.” When the religious Elmarie arrives, she doesn’t understand what Outa has painted and wants him to replace it with something much prettier. “Next Sunday, why don’t you wipe that all away and make it a big flower, your biggest flower . . . to thank the Lord for all his blessings,” she says. The old man is faced with a choice, a decision that will have great impact not only on himself but on his young friend as well.

Jonathan Sejake (Sahr Ngaujah) and Elmarie Kleynhans (Bianca Amato) argue over the new South Africa in THE PAINTED ROCKS AT REVOLVER CREEK (photo by Joan Marcus)

In the second act, it’s twenty-two years later, and the boy, now a grown teacher (Sahr Ngaujah), returns to Revolver Creek, in a South Africa that has ended apartheid and has a new constitution giving equal rights to blacks. He is met by Elmarie, who does not recognize him at first, holding a gun on him until he explains who he is and tells her why he is there. “So what gives you the right to come here and paint that rock without permission? Let me remind you, this is private property, Bokkie,” she says. “Nobody calls me that anymore, Mrs. Kleynhans. My real name is Jonathan Sejake,” he responds with pride and determination. He also explains that Tata/Outa had a name as well, Nukain Mabusa. Jonathan and Elmarie then engage in a heated verbal battle over the current state of the nation, the way things used to be, and what the future promises, arguing about land ownership, violence, and personal identity. As in the first act, Fugard, who also directed the production, includes long, sharply written monologues that both expand on the characters and serve as a microcosm for the arguments that have plagued South Africa since even before apartheid officially began in 1948. The absorbing dialogue is expertly performed by the outstanding cast, who lend nuance and believability to roles that could have been clichéd and predictable. Christopher H. Barreca’s set features an array of rocks covered in fading painted flowers, centered by the Big One, which embodies the seemingly impenetrable gap that exists between blacks and Afrikaners. Just as Tata and Bokkie gave eyes to the rock, Fugard invites the audience to see the vast intricacies of apartheid rule. He imbues The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek with a captivating sensitivity, avoiding becoming overly treacly or didactic as the well-drawn, multidimensional characters make their cases. And although the play is specifically about South Africa, it also relates to the racial tensions that have gripped America in Baltimore, Ferguson, and elsewhere. The play is part of the Signature’s Legacy Program, and Fugard has stated that it might be his “farewell to the stage.” If that is indeed true, he has left behind quite a legacy himself, concluding with one of his most softly intelligent, illuminating works.