this week in theater

THE 39 STEPS

Richard Hannay (Robert Petkoff) is wrongly fingered for murder in THE 39 STEPS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Union Square Theatre
100 East 17th St. at Park Ave.
Wednesday – Monday, $20-$105
877-250-2929
www.39stepsny.com

What are the 39 Steps? A thoroughly entertaining and endlessly inventive theatrical production, based on John Buchan’s 1915 novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1935 film, that has been on quite an adventure itself, just like its protagonist. The play began life in 1996 in a minimalist version written by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon and a cast of four actors playing more than one hundred roles; it debuted at the small Georgia Theatre Royal, then went on a tour of English village halls and schools. In 2004, National Theatre of Brent cofounder Patrick Barlow rewrote the script, and in 2007 the updated edition won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy, then transferred to Broadway, where it played three theaters, was nominated for six Tonys, including Best Play (winning two, for Kevin Adams’s lighting and Mic Pool’s sound design), and won the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. It’s also made its way to more than a dozen other countries, from Israel, South Africa, and Turkey to South Korea, the Czech Republic, and Italy. It was last seen in New York City in 2010 at New World Stages, but it’s back now for an extended run at the Union Square Theatre, and just as one can watch the Hitchcock film over and over, the play is a blast even if you’ve seen it before. After dapper London bachelor Richard Hannay (Robert Petkoff) is falsely accused of murder, he goes out on the run, escaping the clutches of authorities as he heads for a Scottish castle. Along the way he gets caught up with the suspicious Pamela and the lonely farm wife Margaret (both played by Brittany Vicars, who also portrays ill-fated femme fatale Margaret), adding a sexy charm to the festivities.

Dapper Richard Hannay (Robert Petkoff) is determined to prove his innocence in stage version of Hitchcock classic (photo by Joan Marcus)

Petkoff (All the Way, Spamalot) is dashing and elegant as the dashing and elegant Hannay, a self-assured man with a wry sense of humor despite his challenging circumstances, and recent Juilliard graduate Vicars makes a solid New York stage debut. But it’s Arnie Burton (Peter and the Starcatcher, The Lives of the Saints) and Billy Carter (All That Fall, Port Authority) who do most of the heavy lifting, playing some hundred and fifty roles, from spies and bobbies to train conductors and farmers as well as Mr. Memory and the man missing part of his finger. In one riotous scene, they literally switch hats at a furious pace, going from character to character in a mad comic frenzy that leaves everyone breathless. Director Maria Aitken makes spectacular use of Peter McKintosh’s playfully spare set, involving miniature trains, windowless frames, shadow puppetry, and a lamppost, turning stagecraft inside out and upside down while winking knowingly at the audience. Barlow’s script makes reference to numerous Hitchcock films, and yes, Sir Alfie does indeed make an appearance. Because Burton, who was in the original Broadway cast, and Carter are identified as “Clowns” in the program, everyone is given a spongy red nose upon entering the theater; it’s an odd marketing conceit, but it’s all in good fun, and there’s plenty of good fun to be had in this extremely clever romp.

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO

Doctor Zhivago (Tam Mutu) and Lara (Kelli Barrett) are reunited during the war in musical version of epic historical romance (photo by Matthew Murphy)

The Broadway Theatre
1681 Broadway at 53rd St.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 3, $19.17 – $157
doctorzhivagobroadway.com

The first act of Doctor Zhivago is a near disaster, filled with way too much spit and sweat (and intestines), ill-defined characters, jaw-droppingly inane and insulting projections, and a cantilevered stage that looks as if the actors might slide right into the audience. The most exciting moment came when a gentleman near the front of the orchestra let loose a series of rafter-rattling snores that got everyone’s attention. But after intermission, this long-in-the-works musical based on Boris Pasternak’s epic 1957 novel and David Lean’s Oscar-nominated 1965 historical romance turned into a much more thrilling tale, finally finding its own voice instead of trying to be a clumsy mash-up of Fiddler on the Roof and Les Misérables. The first act traps itself between overexplication and general confusion as two-time Tony-winning director Des McAnuff (The Who’s Tommy, Jersey Boys) and book writer Michael Weller (who has written such plays as Loose Ends and Spoils of War and such screenplays as Hair and Ragtime) try to narrow the focus of the wide-ranging story down to a dangerous love triangle while also including elements of the sweeping social, political, and economic changes tearing through Russia between 1903 and 1930, as Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin, and Stalin face the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Revolution, WWI, and the rise of Fascism. And they get little help from lyricists Amy Powers and Michael Korie and composer Lucy Simon (The Secret Garden), who consistently cater to the lowest common denominator, leaving little to the imagination, especially amid all the explosions and gunfire. In “Two Worlds,” a group of Muscovites declare, “Ever since the ancient riders / Crossed the great divide, / Russia is a land where / Rich and poor live side by side. / Two worlds, / Of the plough and the sword. Two worlds, / Of the serf and the lord. / Two worlds, the oppressed, the elite, / And never the two shall meet.” Just as the theme of two worlds pervades the plot, the two acts are like two different worlds as well.

Zhivago (Tam Mutu) and Lara (Kelli Barrett) hide in the dark as their jilted spouses (Paul Alexander Nolan and Lora Lee Gayer) consider what they’ve lost (photo by Matthew Murphy)

The second act is everything the first is not: Exiting, romantic, and involving, with moments worthy of an epic Broadway musical, even if there is still plenty of clunky dialogue and melodramatic lyrics. “Nothing comes before your verse,” Zhivago’s wife, Tonia (Lora Lee Gayer), tells her husband. “We fled Moscow for peace of mind. No one’s troubling us here. It’s time to be selfish and follow your heart.” To which Zhivago responds, “My heart is here . . . with my family.” Later, the partisans sing, “Wherever you run, / There’s nowhere to hide. / The mountain is steep. / The river is wide.” The cast won’t make anyone forget about Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Courtenay, and Ralph Richardson, the stars of the film, but they work hard through the mostly middling material. Tam Mutu (City of Angels, Les Misérables) is a resolute Yurii Andreyevich Zhivago, a very serious doctor, poet, and aristocrat desperate to save his family while also impossibly drawn to his true love, Lara (a heartfelt Kelli Barrett), who is beholden to well-connected local magistrate Viktor Komarovsky (a bold Tom Hewitt) but married to revolution leader Pasha (Paul Alexander Nolan). Costume designer Paul Tazewell dresses Barrett in blue throughout, separating her from the masses, stressing her individuality. Nolan’s performance is representative of the show as a whole; he is jumpy and annoying in the first act, strong and undaunted in the second. Barrett and Gayer excel with their voices, particularly in the duet “It Comes as No Surprise.” And yes, “Somewhere My Love (Lara’s Theme)” makes an appearance. The show started life as Zhivago in 2006 at the La Jolla Playhouse, then was resurrected as Doctor Zhivago five years later in Australia. Although it clearly was not ready for Broadway yet, there’s much to admire in the second act — if you can survive the first, which deserves being banished to Siberia forever.

SHAKESPEARE BIRTHDAY BASH

Jonathan Slaff reads from HENRY VI at 2014 birthday bash for the Bard in Bryant Park (photo by Claire Taddei)

Jonathan Slaff reads from HENRY V at 2014 birthday bash for the Bard in Bryant Park (photo by Claire Taddei)

Who: The Drilling Company, with artistic director Jonathan Eric Foster, managing director Sarah George, and more than fifty actors, including company members Kyle Acheson, Sam De Roest, Nyssa Duchow, and Corley Pillsbury
What: Second annual Shakespeare Birthday Bash
Where: Bryant Park, 40th to 42nd Sts. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
When: Wednesday, April 23, free, 12:30 – 2:30
Why: The Drilling Company, those creative folks behind Shakespeare in the Parking Lot and who brought Hamlet to Bryant Park last year, will celebrate the Bard’s 451st birthday with a free party in the park on Thursday afternoon. At 12:30, a flash mob of actors will be roaming the area, presenting “Wonderful Words,” consisting of famous speeches, sonnets, and lines. At 1:00, folk band Thicket & Thistle will perform original music based on Shakespeare sonnets on the Fountain Terrace. At 1:30, anyone can join the festivities by reading a speech from a Bard play to win a T-shirt. Finally, at 2:00, banners will be raised, filled with quotations that people have been adding to all afternoon. The Drilling Company will be back in the park later this spring and summer, presenting Two Gentlemen of Verona May 15-31, followed by Romeo and Juliet July 10-26 and The Taming of the Shrew September 4-20; they will also perform As You Like It July 9-26 and Macbeth July 30 to August 15 in their new parking lot home on Norfolk St. behind the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center.

MICHIKO GODAI: YOKOHAMA ROSA

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, April 25, 7:30, and Sunday, April 26, 2:30, $35
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s multidisciplinary “Stories from the War” series continues with the one-woman show Yokohama Rosa, about the transformation of a Japanese woman, known as Merii-san, before, during, and after WWII. The play is written and performed by Michiko Godai (Death Note, Pride), who puts on the production every year in Yokohama on the anniversary of the end of the war. The Saturday-night performance will be followed by a Meet-the-Artists reception, while the Sunday matinee includes admission to the exhibition “Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection.” In conjunction with the show, Japan Society will be holding The Life of Yokohama Merii Language Workshops on Saturday and Sunday, taught by Kazue Kurahara ($105, including theater ticket).

GIGI

GIGI is set in the extravagant high-society world of fin de siècle Paris (photo © Margot Schulman)

Neil Simon Theatre
250 West 52nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 21, $67-$147
gigionbroadway.com

In the Oscar-winning title song of Gigi, Gaston Lachaille asks, “When did your sparkle turn to fire / and your warmth become desire?” In the new Broadway revival at the Neil Simon Theatre, there is plenty of sparkle and warmth, but little fire and desire, making for a perfectly pleasant evening that never quite hits the high notes of this story of love and extravagance in fin de siècle Paris. Gigi began life as a 1944 novella by Colette, which was turned into a 1949 French comedy starring Danièle Delorme as the sixteen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood. It then became a Broadway hit written by Anita Loos in 1951 and starring Audrey Hepburn, followed by Vincente Minnelli’s smash 1958 Lerner and Loewe musical, which was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score, and won them all. Twenty-five years later it was turned into a Broadway musical by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music) that won a Tony for Best Score but failed to catch on with the public. Which brings us to the current, first-ever Broadway revival, a modestly entertaining if not exactly illuminating version adapted by British screenwriter and playwright Heidi Thomas (Cranford, Call the Midwife), who has scrubbed clean this tale of accepted high-society prostitution, significantly lessening the age difference between the main characters, Gigi and Gaston, portrayed by former Disney stars Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) and Corey Cott (Newsies), respectively. In fact, Hudgens is fifteen months older than Cott; in comparison, ten years separated Leslie Caron and the older Louis Jourdan in the movie musical. In addition, the signature song, “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” is no longer sung by Gaston’s uncle, Honoré, who was most famously played by Maurice Chevalier, but instead by Gigi’s grandmother, Mme. (Mamita) Alvarez (Victoria Clark), and great-aunt, Alicia (Dee Hoty), completely eliminating any hint of lewdness. As far as the plot goes, Gaston is a very wealthy steampunk bon vivant who dreams of flying. He is experiencing problems with his mistress, Liane d’Exelmans (Steffanie Leigh), and might soon be in search of his next lover, which excites Aunt Alicia, who has been grooming Gigi to prepare her to become a gentleman’s courtesan, one of the class of Parisian women who get rewarded handsomely for their “services.” The idealistic Gigi might not be all about girl power, but she still believes she can make her own choices, setting up the major conflict of the show.

Gigi has a delightful score, featuring such memorable songs as “The Parisians,” “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” and “The Night They Invented Champagne.” Hudgens sings and dances well, although she strains at overpronouncing her “t”s in dialogue. Hoty (Footloose, The Will Rogers Follies) overplays Aunt Alicia; the scenes in which she trains Gigi in the art of being a mistress fall flat. Former Phantom of the Opera McGillin is fine as Honoré, delivering a lovely “I Remember It Well” with Clark (The Light in the Piazza, Cinderella), who is the strongest part of the show. The weakest is Cott, who lacks the charm and elegance necessary for the role of the man every woman in Paris wants; the program lists his only experience other than Newsies as university productions, so he might need more time to blossom. Derek McLane’s flashy set is structured around the base of the Eiffel Tower as it changes from posh nightclub to fashionable beach resort to Mamita’s and Alicia’s very different living quarters. Director Eric Schaeffer (Follies, Million Dollar Quartet) never really achieves a flow to the narrative, resulting in a bumpy progression of set pieces. It might never all quite gel, and the production magnifies the dated nature of the central story, but it still makes for a nice show. It’s not a bore, but you might not remember it very well either.

FUN HOME

Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 13, $75-$150
funhomebroadway.com

The best off-Broadway musical of last season is now the best Broadway musical of this season. Fun Home hasn’t merely transferred from the Public’s Newman Theater downtown to Circle in the Square on the Great White Way; it has been positively transformed, with returning director Sam Gold and set designer David Zinn making ingenious use of the small, intimate space, the audience surrounding the famed Circle in the Square stage. Nominated for eight Drama Desk Awards last year, Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s magical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s genre-defining graphic memoir is even better the second time around. The deeply personal story delves into the dysfunction of the Bechdel family: father Bruce (Michael Cerveris) is a high school English teacher, a restorer of old houses, and a funeral home director (which leads the kids to call it Fun Home); mother Helen (Judy Kuhn) plays the piano and has a yen for the theater; and younger children Christian (Oscar Williams) and John (Zell Steele Morrow) look up to their older sister, Alison, who is played as an eight-year-old by Sydney Lucas, as an eighteen-year-old by Emily Skeggs, and as a forty-three-year-old adult by Beth Malone. Malone is onstage for the full hundred minutes, watching her character’s life unfold before her. “I don’t trust memory,” she says early on, explaining why she is constantly drawing. When she goes off to college, she finds out something about herself that confuses and scares her — as well as a dark family secret that shakes her already complicated world.

The staging is simply sensational, although there’s nothing simple about it. Furniture, from doors and tables to a console television, a bed, and a casket, rises up and down from beneath the floor as the scenes change, keeping the narrative flowing at a calm, even pace despite the building angst and turmoil. Tesori’s (Violet; Caroline, or Change) music and Kron’s (2.5 Minute Ride, Well) book and lyrics continue to soar, from the outrageously funny “Changing My Major” to the Partridge Family homage “You Are Like a Raincoat,” from the incredibly clever “Ring of Keys” to the mellifluous “Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue,” with the crack band onstage (and enjoying the show as well when they’re not playing). The cast, once again, is outstanding, with Cerveris just the right bit on edge as Bruce; Kuhn splendidly tentative and nervous as Helen; Lucas a powerhouse as the creative small Alison; Skeggs terrific as the wide-eyed, curious middle Alison; Roberta Colindrez delightful as Joan, a lesbian who catches Alison’s eye at Oberlin; and Joel Perez as multiple characters, including Roy, a handyman who helps out around the house. But Gold’s (The Realistic Joneses, The Flick) revamped staging sheds more light on the adult Alison and Malone’s subtly beautiful performance; instead of existing on the periphery as an observer, she is now right in the middle of everything, sometimes sitting down next to one of her younger selves, getting a much more close-up look into her childhood without getting overly sentimental. (The same can practically be said about the audience.) The Broadway version of Fun Home is so extraordinary, it’s made me nearly forget about the marvelous original production.

REUNION READING: HURLYBURLY

Ethan Hawke and Parker Posey are among the New Group actors reuniting for a benefit reading of HURLYBURLY on April 26

Who: Bobby Cannavale, Josh Hamilton, Ethan Hawke, Parker Posey, Wallace Shawn, Scott Elliott
What: Benefit reading for the New Group
Where: The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center, the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre, 480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., 212-244-3380 x308
When: Sunday, April 26, $50-$250, 6:00
Why: As part of its twentieth anniversary celebration, the New Group will be holding a one-night-only benefit reading of David Rabe’s Hurlyburly, reuniting the original cast and director Scott Elliott. The reading will take place in the New Group’s new home at the Signature Center, with Bobby Cannavale as Phil, Josh Hamilton as Mickey, Ethan Hawke as Eddie, Parker Posey as Darlene, and Wallace Shawn as Artie; the parts of Bonnie and Donna are yet to be finalized. The 2005 production was nominated for five Lucille Lortel Awards, with Posey winning as Best Featured Actress. This past fall, the New Group mounted a successful revival of Rabe’s Sticks and Bones, with Elliott at the helm. The New Group is also holding a bonus fundraiser in which the highest bidder will get to be onstage and read the stage directions, in addition to meeting the cast and crew and attending the VIP reception with a guest following the performance. The current bid is $3,000, but it can be all yours for ten grand right now.