this week in theater

CABARET

Michelle Williams and Alan Cumming star in return of CABARET to Studio 54 (photo by Joan Marcus)

Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 4, $47-$352
212-719-1300
www.cabaretmusical.com

The Roundabout has brought back its exciting 1998 Tony-winning revival of Cabaret, once again turning Studio 54 into the lasciviously decadent Kit Kat Klub in pre-WWII Berlin, where a debauched Emcee (Alan Cumming) hosts an evening of naughty nightclub fun during the rise of the Third Reich. The audience sits at small, round tables in the orchestra section (and regular seats in the mezzanine) as the Emcee introduces music and dance and hovers in the background as the narrative plays out onstage. Michelle Williams makes a strong Broadway debut as Sally Bowles, a British ex-pat who performs at the Kit Kat Klub and takes an instant liking to American writer Cliff Bradshaw (Bill Heck). In order to make money, Cliff teaches English to Ernst (Aaron Krohn) and others and also does favors for him. Meanwhile, Sally moves in with Cliff, who lives in a boardinghouse run by the spinsterish Fraulein Schneider (Linda Emond), who is being subtly courted by successful fruitier Herr Schultz (Danny Burstein). When Ernst proudly reveals he is a member of the Nazi party, the relationships among the characters go through a swift and sudden change, setting in motion one of the greatest second acts in Broadway history.

Herr Schultz (Danny Burstein) and Fraulein Schneider (Linda Emond) consider a dangerous love in CABARET (photo by Joan Marcus)

Adapted from John van Druten’s 1951 play, I Am a Camera, which itself was based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, this version of Cabaret, directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, the Bridge Project) and codirected and choreographed by Rob Marshall (Chicago, Into the Woods), uses elements of both Harold Prince’s original 1966 show as well as Bob Fosse’s Oscar-nominated 1972 film to craft a new way to experience this ultimately heart-wrenching sociopolitical tale, which features a marvelous score by John Kander and Fred Ebb and a powerful book by Joe Masteroff. Robert Brill’s two-level set features the scantily clad Kit Kat Girls, Kit Kat Boys (the daring costumes are by William Ivey Long), and musical director (Patrick Vaccariello) upstairs, often seen behind a large, tilted frame that hangs from the ceiling, surrounded by bulbs that slowly go out over the course of the evening. Meanwhile, the story plays out on the main floor, as relationships develop and fall apart. Heck (The Orphans’ Home Cycle) is relatively bland as Cliff, but the rest of the cast is excellent: Williams (Brokeback Mountain, Blue Valentine) more than holds her own in a role made famous by Liza Minnelli and also played by such stars as Miranda Richardson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Deborah Gibson, and Brooke Shields, among others, nailing such familiar songs as “Mein Herr,” “Maybe This Time,” and the title song. Burstein (Talley’s Folly, Golden Boy) and Emond (Death of a Salesman, 1776) give added depth to their touching characters, who are caught in the middle of what is happening in Germany, while Cumming (Macbeth, The Good Wife) has a blast reprising his Tony-winning role, offering a very different take from Oscar and Tony winner Joel Grey as he makes his playfully raunchy way through such classics as “Willkommen,” “Money,” and “If You Could See Her.” It all leads to one of the most striking and harrowing final images you’ll ever see onstage.

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY

Robert (Steven Pasquale) and Francesca (Kelli O’Hara) contemplate just what they’re getting themselves into in stage adaptation of hit book and movie (photo by Joan Marcus)

Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Through May 18, $59-$141
www.bridgesofmadisoncountymusical.com

During the first act of the musical version of The Bridges of Madison County, it looks like this sentimental story of a married woman who has a brief tryst with a traveling photographer in 1965 will successfully pull off the triple play, going from wildly successful book to hit movie to smash Broadway musical. But then comes the second act. The mushy melodrama was first told in Robert James Waller’s critically maligned 1992 novel, which has sold more than fifty millions copies worldwide, then in Clint Eastwood’s 1995 film, starring an Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep and Eastwood, which earned more than $180 million at the box office. For the Broadway musical, which has just posted its early closing notice of May 18, director Bartlett Sher (The Light in the Piazza, Awake and Sing!), Pulitzer Prize-winning book writer Marsha Norman (’Night, Mother; The Color Purple), and composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years) have significantly tweaked the narrative, abandoning any framing story and lowering the ages of the protagonists, making things that much hotter — even throwing in a surprise flash of nudity. But none of that can help change the seriously flawed main focus, a suburban wife’s pie-in-the-sky fantasy, the same kind of thing that has brought Fifty Shades of Grey mainstream success.

Bud (Hunter Foster) notices something different about his wife in THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (photo by Joan Marcus)

Just after her husband (Hunter Foster) and teenage kids (Caitlin Kinnunen and Derek Klena) take off for a few days to present their prize steer at a state fair, bored Italian housewife Francesca Johnson (Kelli O’Hara) is instantly drawn to National Geographic photographer and crunchy loner Robert Kincaid (Steven Pasquale), who has come to Winterset, Iowa, to shoot a series on the covered bridges in Madison County. Francesca and Robert consider pursuing their magnetic attraction even as nosy neighbor Marge (Cass Morgan) can’t stop sharing gossip with her unconcerned husband, Charlie (Michael X. Martin), and soon find themselves caught in the searing heat of the moment, consequences be damned. But then comes the second act, when everything that had been built up so well — from the supporting characters to the simmering passion of the protagonists to Michael Yeargan’s imaginative moving sets (the minimalist bridge design was inspired by Lars von Trier’s Dogville) — starts falling apart in a flurry of sappy, maudlin scenes that trap the creative team, resulting in a long, needless tacked-on ending that goes on and on (and on). O’Hara and Pasquale are excellent in their roles, singing with sweet operetta-like flourishes, but the later material, which ranges from the repetitive to the nonsensical, fails them as the story gets mired in its rather insulting fantasia, which really is a shame, because with a bit more tweaking, this might not be closing on Broadway so quickly and hitting the road for a national tour in 2015, which is likely to be a bigger success away from the Great White Way.

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH

Hedwig (Neil Patrick Harris) leads his band, the Angry Inch, in confessional performance at the Belasco

Belasco Theatre
111 West 44th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday (and some Tuesday nights) through August 17, $49 – $162
www.hedwigbroadway.com

A decidedly downtown aesthetic explodes on the Great White Way with the Broadway debut of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s wicked and wild musical comedy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Neil Patrick Harris (Assassins, How I Met My Mother) stars as German singer Hedwig, formerly known as Hansel Schmidt before a botched sex-change operation left her caught in the middle of a confusing, unrelenting world. In this updated version, Hedwig is giving a one-night-only confessional performance at the Belasco Theatre, vacant because the previous production, Hurt Locker: The Musical, closed at intermission. (Be on the lookout for a limited number of Hurt Locker Playbills that are scattered throughout the theater.) The set from that disaster is still in place, a blown-up car with shattered pieces making a visually stunning backdrop; in addition, there are cement remnants that recall the Berlin Wall. “Ladies and gentlemen, Hedwig is like that wall,” her lover, roadie, and onstage foil, Yitzhak (Lena Hall), announces at the beginning. Meanwhile, out the back door, Hedwig’s former lover and musical partner, rock star Tommy Gnosis, is in the midst of a massive Times Square concert kicking off his Tour of Atonement following a horrific traffic accident, something that rattles Hedwig, who refers to herself as “the internationally ignored song stylist.” Through self-deprecating stream-of-consciousness stage patter littered with double entendres and such hard-hitting, punk-inflected tunes as “Tear Me Down,” “The Origin of Love,” “Sugar Daddy,” and “Wicked Little Town” — Hedwig claims such “cryptohomo rockers” as Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie as influences — she shares her tragic story, growing up with a mother who never touched him in Berlin, being whisked away to America by an army sergeant with Gummi Bears, then falling in love with the son of a general, Tommy Speck. “I’m sorry. I’m wide open tonight,” she says. “You’re lookin’ at a locker full of hurt.”

Hedwig knows just how to use his mouth in Broadway debut of 1990s downtown classic

The one-act rock opera premiered in 1998 at the Jane Street Theatre with Mitchell in the lead role; among the others who have donned the fabulous wigs are Michael Cerveris, Ally Sheedy, Matt McGrath, and Donovan Leitch. (Mitchell played the character in the 2001 film, which he also directed.) Harris is spectacular as the first Broadway Hedwig, lovingly licking the floor, spitting at the audience, and emerging from a car engine in a glorious new costume. Book writer Mitchell has added contemporary references to keep things fresh, with playfully naughty jabs at Broadway audiences and even Bob Wankel, the real president of the Shubert Organization, and Harris throws in a handful of on-target ad libs that apparently know no bounds. Michael Mayer’s (Spring Awakening, American Idiot) enthusiastic direction actually reveals some flaws in the story, particularly involving Hedwig’s search for identity through her alter ego, Tommy, but this Hedwig is still an intense, spirited experience that is an absolute blast to see at the Belasco. Just past the halfway point, Hedwig says, “Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’re becoming fans of Hedwig. Because I find that I am growing deeply accustomed to you.” Yes, we are fans indeed.

CASA VALENTINA

Jonathon (Gabriel Ebert) contemplates becoming Miranda in front of other people in CASA VALENTINA (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 15, $67-$125
www.manhattantheatreclub.com
www.casavalentinabroadway.com

“Welcome to the Chevalier d’Eon Resort. Welcome to the world of self-made women,” Valentina (Patrick Page) announces in Harvey Fierstein’s sensitive and engaging, if occasionally didactic, new play, Casa Valentina. Fierstein’s first drama in more than a quarter century, following such hit musicals as Kinky Boots, Newsies, and La Cage aux Folles, Casa Valentina was inspired by the true story of a husband and wife who ran a Catskills bungalow in the 1960s where men would spends weekends cross-dressing and acting like women, a safe haven where they could celebrate their feminine side. The show takes place in June 1962 as Valentina, who spends her weekdays as George, and his wife, Rita (a wonderfully sensitive Mare Winningham), prepare for their latest arrivals. Among the attendees are Jonathon (Gabriel Ebert), a shy, nervous young man who will be making his first-ever appearance as Miranda; Bessie (Tom McGowan), a military veteran with a wife and kids who glories in the freedom Casa Valentina gives him; Gloria (Nick Westrate), a stylish woman who looks like she stepped out of an episode of Mad Men; Terry (John Cullum), a septuagenarian who tells Miranda, “You don’t get cleavage. You earn it”; and a respected judge (Larry Pine) who revels in becoming Amy away from his stressful regular life. The guest of honor for the weekend is Charlotte (Reed Birney), a radical cross-dresser who wants the others to join the Sorority, an organization that is attempting to change the public perception of and laws against transvestitism. “I firmly believe that once the world sees who we truly are, there will be no need for deception,” she says. However, membership includes signing an oath against homosexuality, something that makes the rest of the women more than a little uncomfortable.

Charlotte (Reed Birney) gets political at a Catskills bungalow in new Harvey Fierstein play (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Lovingly directed by two-time Tony winner Joe Mantello (Assassins, Take Me Out), Casa Valentina is at its best when it celebrates the joy these men experience by being accepted as women for a few treasured days. The show gets bogged down a bit when dealing with the oath, although it does bring up the critical point that the vast majority of cross-dressers — recent studies put the number around eighty percent — are heterosexual. Even with the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage in America, there are still gross misconceptions of homosexuality, transvestitism, and other so-called deviant or non-normative behavior, and Casa Valentina beautifully reveals how absurd it is for society to restrict and judge the predilections of others. The actors clearly have a blast in Rita Ryack’s lavish costumes and Jason P. Hayes’s glorious wigs and makeup (except for poor Winningham, allotted a frumpy pair of sensible pedal-pushers while the men get to wear fabulous dresses), while Scott Pask’s airy set immediately welcomes the audience into this little-known world. Cross-dressing might be somewhat de rigueur these days on Broadway (Kinky Boots, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Cabaret, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), but Fierstein, Mantello, and an extremely talented and beautiful cast offer a very different take on this misunderstood culture, treating it with humor, intelligence, honor, courage, and, perhaps most important, dignity.

KEEP YOUR ELECTRIC EYE ON ME

KEEP YOUR ELECTRIC EYE ON ME is a mind-numbing conceptual multimedia work running at HERE May 7-10 (photo by Paula Court)

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
May 7-10, $20, 8:30
212-647-0202
www.here.org

Originally presented at CultureMart 2013 as part of HARP (the Here Artist Residency Program), Keep Your Electric Eye on Me is a mind-numbingly dull multimedia foray into the making of a tuna melt (or something like that). Conceived, created, and directed by Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty, the seventy-minute, two-character show features Madeline Best as a woman who can’t keep her top on and Carlton Ward as a bald voyeur who assists her, collecting the meth-like green candies her body creates after drinking something like absinthe and cleaning up her white throw-up (or something like that). Brad Kisicki’s interesting set includes three large screens in the back, numerous monitors, and a table covered with Amy Mascena’s unusual props, a grouping of glass elements that evoke a lab. To the right of the audience, Irons and Petty mix live and prerecorded sounds and images, ranging from the beautiful (shots of the sea) to the confounding (just about everything else). The music is by the Chocolate Factory’s Brian Rogers, featuring such songs as “Moon (Sitting in the Room Every Day Like a Mustard)” and “I’m Sorry My Face.” According to an Artists’ Note in the program, Keep Your Electric Eye on Me is meant to “conjure notions of transformation, liminality, hysteria, and the desire for the unattainable.” Maybe the cast and crew can explain how in a talkback following the May 7 show, although we won’t be there to find out.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: THE ANTHEM

THE ANTHEM
Culture Project, Lynn Redgrave Theater
49 Bleecker St. near Lafayette St.
Thursday – Tuesday, May 20 – July 5, $33-$99
866-811-4111
www.anthemthemusical.com

“It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil,” begins Ayn Rand’s 1938 novella about a bleak dystopian future following the Great Rebirth. “It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws.” It’s hardly the stuff of musical theater, but who ever thought Les Misérables would keep packing them in on Broadway? Indeed, The Anthem is headed to the stage in a “radical new musical,” complete with circus acrobatics, at the Lynn Redgrave Theater. In a near future overrun with social media, Prometheus fights the system, headed by Tiberius, battling for individuality. The Anthem features a book by Gary Morgenstein (Right on Target, Ponzi Man), music by Jonnie Rockwell (Brave New World and grandson of Leoš Janáček), and lyrics by Erik Ransom (Coming: A Rock Musical of Biblical Proportions), with Rachel Klein (Symphony of Shadows, The Tragedy of Maria Macabre) serving as director, designer, and choreographer. Jason Gotay (Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark) stars as Prometheus, with the Village People’s Randy Jones playing Tiberius.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: The Anthem — not to be confused with Drew Robert Puzia and Katherine Toussaint’s Anthem the Musical, which was also inspired by Rand’s novella — begins previews May 20 at the Lynn Redgrave Theater at the Culture Project on Bleecker St. prior to a May 29 opening, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite play or book about a dystopian future to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, May 9, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

THE REALISTIC JONESES

John Jones (Michael C. Hall) says farewell to a dead squirrel as Jennifer (Toni Collette) and Bob Jones (Tracy Letts) look on (photo by Joan Marcus)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through July 13, $29- $135
www.therealisticjoneses.com

In his first Broadway play, The Realistic Joneses, Will Eno is as much choreographer as writer, his words twirling, spinning, lifting, throwing, bouncing, and ricocheting among the four characters, performing an intoxicating dance of language. As in his previous two works, Title and Deed and The Open House, a kind of existential absurdity hovers over the proceedings, which delve into the deeply psychological natures of home and family. The Joneses live a rather isolated life up in the mountains, Bob (Tracy Letts) a curmudgeon suffering from a mysterious disease, Jennifer (Toni Collette) taking care of him while trying to deal with his sudden mood shifts. Their peaceful tranquility is somewhat shattered when a cheerful, energetic couple also named the Joneses move into the house down the way, John (Michael C. Hall) a repairman, Pony (Marisa Tomei) a sort of ditzy ingénue. Over the course of a few days, the four characters interact in different groupings, sharing their views on love and marriage, home and health while debating the meaning of language and communication in general and certain words and phrases specifically. “Nature was definitely one of the big selling points of here. Plus, the school system’s supposed to be good,” Pony says. “Oh, do you have kids?” Jennifer asks. “No, it’s just that John hates stupid children,” Pony responds. “We communicate pretty well, even without words,” Jennifer says about Bob, then later tells John, “I think you have a nice way with words.”

Pony (Marisa Tomei) and John Jones (Michael C. Hall) are looking forward to a new life in the mountains, but little do they know what awaits them (photo by Joan Marcus)

Eno, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for 2004’s Thom Pain (based on nothing), stealthily riffs on the old saw “keeping up with the Joneses” by equating the two couples in clever, understated ways, tantalizingly making one wonder whether they are actually different manifestations or younger and older versions of the same people. (Even though John and Pony appear more youthful than Bob and Jennifer, all four actors are in their forties, Tomei eight years older than Collette, Letts five years senior to Hall.) “We’re not so different, you and me,” John says to Bob, who responds, “I think we’re probably very different,” to which John adds, “Yeah, me too, actually.” And later, Pony tells John, “I don’t want to turn into those guys, next door.” Director Sam Gold (Fun Home, Seminar, Picnic) maintains a quick pace throughout the play’s fast-moving ninety minutes, another Eno specialty, with most scenes working well, although a meeting between John and Jennifer at the local market feels unsure of itself and falls flat. Otherwise, The Realistic Joneses is a smart, engaging comedy boasting an outstanding cast having a whole lot of deliciously infectious fun with the crazy English language.