this week in theater

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A QUEEN FOR A DAY

SOPRANOS vet David Proval (Richie Aprile) stars in new play, A QUEEN FOR A DAY

SOPRANOS vet David Proval, who played Richie Aprile, stars in new mob play, A QUEEN FOR A DAY

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

When made man Giovanni (David Proval) is caught by the feds, he is given a chance to become queen for a day, offered a proffer agreement that can grant him immunity for any squealing — er, information he shares about illegal activities he and his cohorts might be involved in. In this case, Sanford (David Deblinger) wants him to give up crime boss Pasquale (Vincent Pastore), but it’s not that easy to sing — and survive. Written by lawyer and film and theater producer Michael Ricigliano Jr. (Lily of the Feast) and directed by John Gould Rubin (Hedda Gabler, The Cherry Orchard, The Predators’ Ball), A Queen for a Day features Sopranos veterans Pastore (Big Pussy) and Proval (Richie Aprile) along with Labyrinth Theatre cofounder Deblinger (who appeared in one Sopranos episode) and theater and television actress Portia (Johnson). The warehouse set is by Andreea Mincic, with costumes by Bobby Frederick Tilley II and lighting by Isabella F. Byrd.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A Queen for a Day opened May 3 at Theatre at St. Clement’s, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite play about gangsters to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, May 8, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION

monologue competition helps keep August Wilsons legacy alive

Annual monologue competition helps keep August Wilson’s tremendous legacy alive

Who: High school students from Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, Portland, and Seattle
What: Seventh annual August Wilson Monologue Competition
Where: August Wilson Theatre, 245 West 52nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
When: Monday, May 4, free, 7:00
Why: The finals for the 2015 August Wilson Monologue Competition will take the stage May 4 at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, honoring the late, legendary playwright by performing two-to-three-minute excerpts from his works, the ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle that includes such modern classics as The Piano Lesson, Fences, Two Trains Running, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and Gem of the Ocean. The finalists, two from each city, will work with longtime Wilson collaborators Kenny Leon and Todd Kreidler on their monologue and also get the opportunity to take in Something Rotten! The judges for the annual event, which began in 2007, are Crystal Dickinson, Brandon J. Dirden, David Gallo, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Pauletta Washington. The winner receives $1,500, with $1,000 for the runner-up and $500 for honorable mention. The evening will also include a live performance by musician Guy Davis.

AIRLINE HIGHWAY

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 14, $50-$130
airlinehighwaybroadway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Pulitzer Prize finalist Lisa D’Amour (Detroit) channels her inner Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill in Airline Highway, a rapturous tale about a group of lovable luckless losers coexisting in the run-down, dilapidated Hummingbird Motel on a slowly gentrifying Airline Highway in modern-day, post-Katrina New Orleans. It’s the spring of 2014, and the sad-sack denizens of the seedy motel are preparing for a funeral party in honor of their matriarch, Miss Ruby (Judith Roberts), a local burlesque legend who is on her deathbed but wants a big send-off while she’s still alive. Tanya (Julie White), an aging hooker with a heart of gold, is organizing the festivities, getting help from the loud, fun-loving transgender Sissy Na Na (K. Todd Freeman), moody stripper Krista (Caroline Neff), hippie leftover Francis (Ken Marks), jack of all trades, master of none Terry (Tim Edward Rhoze), and longtime motel manager and primary ne’er-do-well Wayne (Scott Jaeck). They all share a familial sense of camaraderie, ribbing one another about their sorry-ass lives, but only to show they really do care. “Why do we gotta wait until we’re in the coffin for people to say nice things about us?” Francis asks. “Yeah, like maybe if those people said those things earlier, we’d live longer,” Wayne adds, to which Krista responds, “Who wants to live longer.” Trouble soon shows up in the form of Bait Boy (Joe Tippett), an old Hummingbird resident who got out three years earlier and is trying to make a new life for himself, moving in with a cougar and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Zoe (Carolyn Braver), in Atlanta. Bait Boy — whose nickname has numerous debated derivations — had been in a long-term relationship with Krista, who is none too happy to see him again, especially since he has brought his stepdaughter; Zoe keeps asking everyone personal questions as part of a sociology paper she is doing for school. “I’m supposed to interview at least three people from the same subculture,” she explains. “Meaning, you live in a ‘culture,’ and you are coming down to us,” Sissy Na Na points out. Bait Boy’s return and Zoe’s presence set things in motion as the past comes back to haunt them all.

Two-time Tony winner Joe Mantello (Assassins, Take Me Out) directs this Steppenwolf production, presented by Manhattan Theatre Club, with an infectious giddiness that is echoed in David Zinn’s spot-on costumes and Scott Pask’s fab set, which turns the drab parking lot of the dilapidated, depressing Hummingbird into a space bursting with life despite the universal lack of hope displayed by the characters, all damaged goods who seem resigned to their fate. But that’s not going to stop them from dressing up and throwing one helluva party. The ensemble is superb, led by Tony winner White (The Little Dog Laughed,), who has been nominated for a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for her lovely, understated performance as Tanya, a street-smart woman who expected more out of life but is making due with the lot she’s been cast. Tony nominee Freeman (The Song of Jacob Zulu) is up for a Tony and Drama Desk Award for his poignant portrayal of Sissy, a caring soul who speaks her mind and loves to have a good time. In her Broadway debut, Neff (A Brief History of Helen of Troy) gives a beautiful, heartbreaking edge to Krista, who is ashamed of what’s become of her, while Rhoze is a riot as Terry, a layabout who should have done more with his life. The play is alive with the energy of New Orleans, as well as its music, highlighted by Fitz Patton’s original score, a fiery take on Nina Simone’s “Be My Husband,” and overlapping dialogue bursting with an intoxicating rhythm. Two late soliloquies are entirely unnecessary, overemphasizing what the story has already shown us about these very believable forgotten men and women living by their wits on the fringes of society. The play takes place during Jazz Fest, but only Francis has ever been to the annual New Orleans celebration, and he doesn’t even go to the main part. “The real fest is on the edges,” he says, just like their existence. There are various Native American legends about the hummingbird, a positive symbol that can represent peace, love, and happiness as well as beauty, harmony, and integrity. Airline Highway has all that and more.

THE VISIT

Chita Rivera returns to Broadway with a Tony-nominated performance in Kander and Ebb’s THE VISIT (photo by Thom Kaine)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 6, $29 – $149
thevisitmusical.com

On April 28 at the Lyceum Theatre, an enormous ovation greeted Chita Rivera as she took the stage, front and center, from an adoring Broadway crowd. Her character arrived in tow with a coffin, but this was a joyous celebration of life. Rivera most likely is justly lauded every night at this moment, but there was something extra in the air this time, as the eighty-two-year-old actress had been nominated for her tenth Tony Award earlier that day. (She won in 1984 for The Rink and in 2006 for Chita Rivera — A Dancer’s Life.) In John Kander and the late Fred Ebb’s The Visit, Rivera is resplendent as Claire Zachanassian, an oft-widowed billionaire who has returned to her hometown, a rotting European corpse known as Brachen. Dressed in a dazzling white gown, she shines among the gray, dank villagers who have gathered to welcome her in a dilapidated railway station overgrown with tree branches (splendidly designed by Scott Pask). They think she has come back to rescue them from their hell —her former lover, Anton Schell (a fine Roger Rees), has particularly high hopes — but they are sadly mistaken, as she has returned for revenge and justice. It’s too bad that the rest of this musical, really more of a play with songs, does not do her similar justice. “Justice, madam?” Mayor Peter Dummermut (David Garrison) asks. “I wish to buy justice,” Claire says. “But justice cannot be bought, madam,” the mayor points out. “Everything can be bought,” Claire responds, then proves it.

Ghostly lovers from the past (John Riddle and Michelle Veintimilla) hover over the dastardly dealings in THE VISIT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Adapted by Tony winner Terrence McNally (It’s Only a Play, Master Class) from the 1956 play by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit, featuring music by Kander and lyrics by Ebb, the masterminds behind Cabaret and Chicago, has had a long journey to Broadway, gestating since 2001, always with Rivera The Mystery of Edwin Drood, West Side Story) as the star. For its Great White Way debut, director John Doyle (Sweeney Todd, Company) has assembled quality parts, but he never fully commits to any of the show’s numerous concepts, resulting in a baffling tale that is more like an overextended short story than a one-hundred-minute musical. When Claire explains that several of her body parts are artificial, Anton asks, “Is there anything left that’s real?” Touching her heart, Claire replies, “Here, Anton, as you shall see.” But The Visit doesn’t have an emotional core, instead ranging among ideas that are left hanging, remaining unexplained. As the townsfolk, including police chief Otto Hahnke (Aaron Ramey), schoolmaster Frederich Kuhn (Jason Danieley), hospital head Hans Nusselin (Timothy Shew), Father Josef (Rick Holmes), and Anton’s wife, Matilde (Mary Beth Peil), and children, Karl (George Abud) and Ottilie (Elena Shaddow), consider the future of Brachen, the past is ever-present, in the ghostly form of young lovers Anton (John Riddle) and Claire (Michelle Veintimilla), who are always onstage, but they go from an intriguing and beautiful motif to an overused device. Claire is accompanied by her strange butler (Tom Nelis) and a pair of oddly named and made-up blind eunuchs, Jacob Chicken (Chris Newcomer) and Louis Perch (Matthew Deming), whose existence and purpose don’t make complete sense. The only color comes from bold splashes of yellow; although a dance number choreographed by Graciela Daniele (Ragtime, The Rink), in which the characters, wearing bright yellow shoes, sit on Claire’s luggage, moving their legs and feet, is charming and funny, the tincture comes out of nowhere, color for color’s sake; if it is supposed to represent the town’s cowardice, it doesn’t come off that way. It’s the staging that ultimately lets down a bravura performance by Rivera, a quality book by McNally, and a game cast, left to wander through Doyle’s perplexing choices much as the characters wander through the remains of a once-prosperous town, making this Visit not worth a visit.

‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE

Annabella (Amelia Pedlow) and Giovanni (Matthew Amendt) share forbidden love in ‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE (photo by Richard Termine)

Red Bull Theater
The Duke on 42nd Street
229 West 42nd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through May 16, $60-$80
646-223-3010
www.tispityshesawhore.com
www.dukeon42.org

John Ford doesn’t beat around the bush in his seldom-performed 1630s classic, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, currently being revived by the Red Bull Theater in a glorious new production at the Duke on 42nd Street. The Jacobean drama is a bold, brash, violent, and very funny riff on Romeo and Juliet, but in this case the young lovers just happen to be extremely close siblings. “Shall a peevish sound, / A customary form, from man to man, / Of brother and of sister, be a bar / ’Twixt my perpetual happiness and me?” Giovanni (Matthew Amendt) confesses to Friar Bonaventura (Christopher Innvar), continuing, “Say that we had one father, say one womb / (Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth: / Are we not therefore each to other bound / So much the more by nature, by the links / Of blood, of reason (nay, if you will have it, / Even of religion), to be ever one, / One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?” Prepared to die for his unholy desire, Giovanni is surprised, and delighted, to find out that his sister, Annabella (Amelia Pedlow), feels the same way about him. Meanwhile, a trio of suitors battles for her hand: the nobleman Lord Soranzo (Clifton Duncan), the soldier Grimaldi (Tramell Tillmann), and the over-the-top dandy Bergetto (Ryan Garbayo). Annabella’s trusted and rather bawdy tutoress, Putana (Franchelle Stewart Dorn), thinks the best choice for her lady is Soranzo, explaining, “Commend a man for his qualities, but take a husband as he is a plain, sufficient, naked man: such a one is for your bed, and such a one is Signior Soranzo, my life for’t.” But the scheming, venomous Hippolita (Kelley Curran), Soranzo’s former mistress, is not about to let him go without a fight. Also getting in on all the fun is the Cardinal (Rocco Sisto), who arrives for the wedding feast; Vasques (Derek Smith), Soranzo’s crafty and cunning Spanish servant; and Florio (Philip Goodwin), Annabella and Giovanni’s father, who explains early on, “I would not for my wealth my daughter’s love / Should cause the spilling of one drop of blood.” But alas, there will be blood spilled, and lots o’ it.

Red Bull revival features fab costumes and an elegantly austere set (photo by Richard Termine)

In late 2012, the Red Bull Theater did a splendid job reviving Ben Jonson’s 1606 Renaissance comedy, Volpone, helmed by company artistic director Jesse Berger. Berger is equally adept holding the reins for ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, balancing love and lust, humor and tragedy with a sweetly chaotic grace. David M. Barber’s elegant set features a balcony from which various characters watch the proceedings, in addition to a bed that magically, and ominously, appears through a center doorway. Sara Jean Tosetti’s costumes are an absolute riot, melding early sixteenth-century style with a steampunk sensibility and stiletto heels. The cast is uniformly excellent, having a ball with Ford’s sparkling language, with particular kudos due Pedlow (The Heir Apparent, You Never Can Tell) as the sexy Annabella, Tony nominee Smith (The Green Bird, Sylvia) as the conniving yet realistic Vasques, Garbayo (Loot, Final Analysis) as the flitting Bergetto, and Curran (Angels in America, Henry V) as the “lusty widow,” who proclaims, “How foolishly this beast condemns his fate, / And shuns his former love! But let him go: / My vengeance shall give comfort to his woe.” In this Red Bull revival at the Duke on 42nd Street, there is plenty of lovely vengeance and woe to go around. (The May 3 & 10 matinees will be followed by a discussion with Columbia professors James Shapiro and Jean E. Howard and members of the company. And on May 4 at 7:30 at Playwrights Horizon, the Red Bull Theater will be staging a “Revelation Reading” of Ford’s Love’s Sacrifice with live music.)

LIVING ON LOVE

Robert Samson (Jerry O’Connell), Raquel De Angelis (Renée Fleming), Vito De Angelis (Douglas Sills), and Iris Peabody (Anna Chlumsky) get caught up in some crazy shenanigans in LIVING ON LOVE (photo by Joan Marcus)

Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 3, $25-$145
www.livingonlovebroadway.com

Opera diva Renée Fleming makes her Broadway debut playing opera diva Raquel De Angelis in Joe DiPietro’s underwhelming, over-the-top romantic farce Living on Love. Based on Garson Kanin’s last play, Peccadillo, Living on Love is set in 1957 in the elegant Manhattan living room of the Diva and her husband, Vito De Angelis (Douglas Sills), a conductor who insists on being called the Maestro. The Diva is a fading star jealous of Maria Callas’s success, while the Maestro never wants to hear anyone mention the name of his archrival, Leonard Bernstein. Robert Samson (Jerry O’Connell) is the latest in a succession of ghost writers — which the Italian Maestro calls “spooky helpers” in his broken English — attempting to work with De Angelis on his memoirs. One afternoon Iris Peabody (Anna Chlumsky) shows up, a mousey editor who is there to either make sure the manuscript is finished or take back the large advance of $50,000 — which the Diva has already spent. Desperate for the money, and suspicious of each other’s motives, soon the Diva is writing her own autobiography with Robert, a huge fan of hers, while Iris is doing the same with the Maestro, who, naturally, loves the ladies. Plenty of high jinks ensue, but you won’t be calling out “Bravo! Brava!”

There’s not much to toast to in tepid romantic farce (photo by Joan Marcus)

Living on Love is a tepid tale of music and jealousy, with stale jokes and clichéd situations that the audience can see coming from as far as La Scala. Sills (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Little Shop of Horrors) is excellent as the wild, unpredictable Lothario, chewing up and spitting out Derek McLane’s lovely scenery with a furious panache. Unfortunately, Met Opera star Fleming, O’Connell (Seminar, Stand by Me), and Chlumsky (You Can’t Take It with You, Unconditional) can’t keep up with him, their characters flat and obvious. Blake Hammond and Scott Robertson provide some comic relief — yes, you know you have a problem when a comedy needs comic relief — as the family servants, cleaning up and making minor set changes with aplomb, but their shtick, which also includes singing, grows repetitive fast and, as the latter repeats over and over, “There’s nothing you can do about it.” Tony winner DiPietro (Memphis, Nice Work If You Can Get It) doesn’t give director Kathleen Marshall (Nice Work, Wonderful Town) much of a chance with the musty material. The only saving grace is Sills’s performance, but it’s not enough to salvage the proceedings. Fleming displays occasional flare in her Broadway debut, but her snippets of songs are more of a tease than a treat. You’ll be looking for the fat lady to sing long before the silly finale.

SKYLIGHT

Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan star as former lovers in SKYLIGHT revival (photo by John Haynes)

Golden Theatre
252 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 21, $60 – $149
www.skylightbwy.com

David Hare’s Skylight is a fierce battle of wits and wills, pitting former lovers against each other as they argue about class, wealth, privilege, social responsibility, love, and cooking. Carey Mulligan stars as Kyra Hollis, a thirty-year-old teacher living in a drab apartment complex in a not-so-pleasant neighborhood in northwest London. On a snowy night, she is unexpectedly visited by Edward Sergeant (Matthew Beard), the university-age member of a family she used to work for. Edward is concerned about the well-being of his father, Tom (Bill Nighy), a millionaire restaurateur who, according to Edward, is having trouble dealing with the loss of his wife, Alice, a year before. Edward doesn’t know the full story behind the relationship that his father and Kyra had, right under Alice’s nose, but he thinks Kyra can help him out of his funk. “Dad’s got very peculiar,” he says, adding, “You know Dad. He’s not what you might call ‘emotionally available.’” He also expresses his displeasure at how Kyra walked out on the Sergeants. “My mother died. She actually died. Not you. You did something else. You cut yourself off from us without saying anything. And in a way I’m coming to think that’s much worse. Because you just left and said nothing.” Shortly after Edward leaves, Tom arrives, and then the fireworks really begin. Tom is in attack mode, condescending and critical, lacing into Kyra, who is making pasta, for the life she’s chosen, teaching underprivileged children and living in a dive in a bad part of town. He walks determinedly around the apartment, carefully adjusting furniture and even trying to take over the cooking. But Kyra defends the choices she’s made, accusing Tom of being a cold, selfish prig more concerned with money and possessions than people. “You have no right to look down on that life!” Kyra says, to which Tom soon replies, “You’re the only person who has fought so hard to get into it, when everyone else is desperate to get out!” Their intellectual game of cat and mouse keeps getting more fiery — it’s no coincidence that they even argue over her cheap space heater — and eventually explodes when they start getting to the true heart of the matter, whether they ever really were in love, and whether that love still exists.

Tom (Bill Nighy) and Kyra (Carey Mulligan) rehash the past and look to the future in David Hare drama

Skylight premiered in England in 1995, with Lia Williams as Kyra and Michael Gambon as Tom, winning the Olivier Award for Best Play and earning four Tony nominations after moving to Broadway the following year. Nighy replaced Gambon in 1997, and therein lays this revival’s biggest problem: Kyra is supposed to be just past thirty, Tom nearly fifty; Mulligan is actually twenty-nine, but Nighy is sixty-four, so it’s difficult to get past the much bigger age difference now, hard to accept that Kyra was head-over-heels in love with the seemingly unlikable Tom, especially since their relationship is now so vitriolic. In addition, although the bookend scenes with Edward provide a different vantage point, they are dreadfully dull. But if you can get past those drawbacks, there’s much to like about Stephen Daldry’s production, which earned the 2015 Olivier Award for Best Revival. Mulligan, who previously appeared on Broadway in The Seagull and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in An Education, displays a whirlwind of emotions as Kyra, balancing her strength and determination with a heartbreaking vulnerability. She is a more than worthy adversary for Hare regular Nighy (The Vertical Hour, The Worricker Trilogy), who is carefully mannered as the erudite, poignantly nasty Tom. But every time the cerebral, politically tinged duel threatens to be too one-sided — in favor of the far more sympathetic Kyra — Hare (Plenty, The Judas Kiss) and Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Audience), who have previously collaborated on the films The Hours and The Reader, give Tom just the right twist, poking holes in Kyra’s motivations. Bob Crowley’s set opens up the apartment, with no walls or barriers between rooms or to the bleak outside, echoing the obstacles that Tom and Kyra break down as they rip into each other, rehashing their past as they look to the future, wondering if they belong together, or ever did.