this week in theater

BERNARDA’S DAUGHTERS

Sisters gather at the family home in Flatbush to figure out what happens next (photo by Monique Carboni)

BERNARDA’S DAUGHTERS
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West Forty-Second St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 4, $37-$87
thenewgroup.org
www.nationalblacktheatre.org

Carlos J. Soto’s set is a harbinger of what is to come in the world premiere of Diane Exavier’s Bernarda’s Daughters, a powerful and moving coproduction from the New Group and National Black Theatre that opened at the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center this week. The audience sits on three sides of the staging area, a sparse room with several painted wooden boxes on the floor and the skeleton of a house, with only the frames of doors and windows, occasionally illuminated in a string of LED lights. While it appears that the five protagonists in the title can leave at any moment, just walk through the empty doors or even climb through the windows, they are trapped by both fear and legacy. For ninety minutes the characters discuss their futures, but it always ends up with them back in the house, their life at a standstill.

Bernarda’s Daughters was inspired by Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca’s last completed play, The House of Bernarda Alba, which he wrote in 1936, the year he died at the age of thirty-eight. First produced in 1945, the story has been adapted into a musical, an opera, a dance, and several films, with the location changing from Spain to Iran, India, Australia, the American south, and other places around the world, proving the universality of the themes.

Exavier’s version is set in modern-day Flatbush, Brooklyn (my hometown), where five sisters have gathered in the family home: Louise (Pascale Armand), Harriet (Alana Raquel Bowers), Lena (Kristin Dodson), Maryse (Malika Samuel), and Adela (Taji Senior). Their mother is in Haiti, attending the funeral of their father. The play begins with each sister delivering a brief introduction. For example, Louise, a city nurse who has a different mother but the same father as the other four, explains, “Each of us sisters is a room in our mother’s house, our grandmother a countryside. Intimate and immense. If you were to, say . . . put on a play about us, there would be no center-staged couch, no staircase, no fabrication of a gentrifying city just outside the windows, no nod to some ancestral land. Our city is dying and our city is inside of us. There are countries that are dying and those countries are inside of us. We are at the edge of living. We are the world we live in.”

Florence Delva (Tamara Tunie) is concerned about Adela (Taji Senior) in Bernarda’s Daughters (photo by Monique Carboni)

Outside, the noise of construction and protest pierces through their conversations; amid gentrification, there’s been another police shooting of a young, mentally ill, unarmed Black man. “They don’t see the people in the neighborhood. They live in those castles with the police as their front desk,” Adela says of the influx of white people flooding into the neighborhood. “They dial 911 like they’re out of toilet paper. ‘Excuse me, can you just?’ ‘Would you mind?’ It’s sick. I’m so tired of it.” Adela wants to join the march but can’t take action, instead watching it through the window, her face only a few feet from the audience, implicating us in what is happening to their community.

Louise and Harriet have a plan to use land their father left Louise in Jacmel, Haiti, to build a small vacation villa. They all discuss whether they will be moving out of the house — which their parents might have acquired under suspicious circumstances — or staying there with their grandmother, Florence Delva (Tamara Tunie), once their mother returns from her mourning period. When they find out what havoc their parents’ decisions have wrought, however, their lives are suddenly turned upside down.

“Louise, you know you can’t buy, you can’t rent, you can’t be dead here. Shit’s insane,” Adela says. Louise replies, “It’s ridiculous. Whatever happens, just don’t put me in Long Island.”

But as Adela says, “I feel like the house is killing us slowly. . . . You guys have to get out.”

Exavier fills the dialogue with poetic interludes and quotes based on writings and statements by James Baldwin, Louise Glück, Mary Ruefle, Trumbull Stickney, Morgan Parker, Kamau Brathwaite, Toni Morrison, and Florence Miller, whose husband was choked to death in Crown Heights by the police in 1978. In a compelling monologue about sex, sun, cats, and the dead, Maryse, who is a school librarian, says, “I love watching the sun on graves, illuminating names, how bright the light is, blazing the stone, and the sky so blue above recalling the color of bone.”

Later, Harriet says, “You really think I love love so much? You don’t know anything. I’m mourning it! I’m so far past love I never even stood a chance. I was born beyond it. We all were. Love — in this fucking country? My womb was full of rocks. That’s what bodies like ours think of love: babies made of stone. . . . I really think we are the end of it all. And I think that’s what makes us so goddamn American. Because this stupid country is like the waking end of a crazy-ass fever dream. And you trying to out-America everyone you lay down with because the only way to have a little power is to step on somebody else’s back is just wrong! But even worse than that, it’s useless.” Meanwhile, the words free and freedom appear seven times in the play, ideals that seem to be just out of the characters’ reach.

The actors portraying the sisters are outstanding, with native Brooklynite Dodson standing out as the boisterous Lena. The women believably argue and share personal intimacies like real sisters; however, Obie winner Tunie (Building the Wall, Familiar) has her hands full as the over-the-top Florence, who hearkens back to the old days in Haiti but is overdrawn here. The curtain at the rear of the stage feels unnecessary, but Rodrigo Muñoz’s costumes meld Brooklyn with Port-au-Prince, and Marika Kent’s lighting and Kathy Ruvuna’s sound are effective, particularly the never-ending commotion going on outside.

Directed by Dominique Rider with a clear connection to the characters, Bernarda’s Daughters is a potent look at what the Haitian community in New York City has, what it’s lost, and where it might be heading. Like Adela proclaims, “I keep telling you guys. It’s a different Brooklyn out there.” She’s not just talking about Flatbush.

KHAN!!! THE MUSICAL! A PARODY TREK-TACULAR

Khan (Zachary Kropp) is flanked by two of his minions (Crystal Marie Stewart and Laura Whittenberger) in Star Trek parody (photo by Carol Rosegg)

KHAN!!! THE MUSICAL! A PARODY TREK-TACULAR
Players Theatre
115 MacDougal St.
Thursday – Sunday through June 4, $25-$65
www.khaniscoming.com

Brent Black’s Khan!!! The Musical! is a series of missed opportunities, unable to pass its own Kobayashi Maru training exercise, trapping itself too often in no-win situations.

In the 1967 Star Trek episode “Space Seed,” Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) of the USS Enterprise exiles Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) and his Botany Bay crew of genetic superhumans to the abandoned planet Ceti Alpha V. Fifteen years later, Khan returns to seek revenge in Nicholas Meyer’s hit 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Khan!!! The Musical!, subtitled “The Parody Trek-Tacular,” running at the Players Theatre through June 4, takes place in 2336, as Lt. Commander Data (Julian Manjerico) is writing a musical about Kirk and Khan’s intense battle, to be performed by a holographic cast of members of Starfleet. The emotionless Data regularly stops the show to inquire how the artificially intelligent audience program is enjoying it and to introduce the next scene.

“Musical theater. Is it merely an archaic four-hundred-year-old art form gone the way of disco, boy bands, and Klingon disco boy bands? Or does musical theater hold insights for all humanoids?” he begins. “As part of my mission to become more human, I wanted to find out. So I forced myself to watch one thousand hours of twentieth-century Earth musicals, then synthesized them all into a playwriting subroutine, and assembled a musical comedy based on one of the most dramatic events in Starfleet history.”

Despite some very clever lines and funny moments, too much of Khan!!! The Musical! ends up feeling like it was written by AI or ChatGPT.

On hand are all the beloved favorites of the starship Enterprise: Mr. Spock (Max Nusbaum), chief medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Lindsey M. E. Newton), chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (Newton), helm officer Hikaru Sulu (Clayton Matthews), communications officer Uhura (Crystal Marie Stewart), and Admiral Kirk (Shyaporn Theerakulstit, who played Sulu on three episodes of Star Trek Phase II); in addition, Pavel Chekov (Matthews) is now the first officer of the USS Reliant, the starship taken over by Khan (Zachary Kropp). New to the cast are Lt. Saavik (Laura Whittenberger), a half-Vulcan cadet who believes in following the rules; Joachim (Manjerico), Khan’s subservient right-hand man; Peter Preston (Manjerico), Scotty’s nephew; Dr. Carol Marcus (Stewart), head of Project Genesis; and her son, David (Manjerico).

Oddly, Captain Terrell, who in the film was played by Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Paul Winfield, has been changed into a redshirt, the term used for extremely minor characters who get killed on away missions; he’s listed in the script as Terrell, but my guess is that since there’s no Black actor in the cast, they opted not to have a person of a different background portray him. (The script requests that productions avoid whitewashing.)

Admiral James T. Kirk (Shyaporn Theerakulstit) leads a song and dance as he battles an old enemy in Khan!!! The Musical! (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Khan!!! The Musical! starts off with a bang as it sets the stage for what is to come. Ivey Jenkins-Long’s ultra-low-budget set features bridge consoles on wheels, a handmade cardboard Genesis missile, and a makeshift engineering room. Jolene Richardson’s costumes evoke those of the television series and films, with Kropp looking particularly fine in his torn, open-shirted warrior getup, although I still can’t figure out why they didn’t make a joke about “fine Corinthian leather,” as Montalbán described the interior of the Chrysler Cordoba in a series of mid-1970s car commercials.

Otherwise, inside jokes, pop-culture references, and shots at numerous Star Trek inconsistencies abound. “You know, Khan . . . you seem to leave a trail of death everywhere you go, but like some kind of Imperial Stormtrooper, you keep missing the target!” Kirk growls at his adversary. “The no-win scenario isn’t really about passing or failing. The point is your character,” Bones tells Saavik, who replies, “I have often wondered what the point of my character is.”

Nicholas Kaminski’s music direction and Angel Reed’s choreography pay homage to such classics as Chicago, Les Misérables, Grease, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show in such songs as “Young,” “The Needs of the Many,” and “Buried Alive,” but they quickly become repetitive, and too many numbers are unnecessary, particularly “When the Chickens Come Home,” with giant mutant fowl laying an egg kicking off the second act. Constant mentions of the game Battleship and Joachim’s desire to go bowling are tedious, as are Kirk and Spock calling each other by fan-fiction-inspired lover nicknames, “Frosty-buns” and “Jim-jam”; the concept is good, but it would have been better if they changed the nicknames each time. The show was co-conceived by Black with Alinca Morgan, who contributed “additional materials,” and is directed by John Lampe, who will have to take the Kobayashi Maru again.

It also gets confusing as some actors closely impersonate their characters’ voice and movement while others don’t; Theerakulstit’s embodiment of William Shatner is fun at first but slows down the pace as it continues, and the decision to have David talk like Shatner peters out immediately. And the amount of time spent on Preston is inexplicable.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of my favorite movies, so maybe I was expecting too much from Khan!!! The Musical! There were a lot of Trekkies in the audience the night I went, many of whom were off to the Trek Long Island convention that weekend, and they were having a great time.

The most famous moment in the film is when an angry Kirk clenches his fist and screams out, “Khan!”

After the show, I wanted to scream out, “Khan!!! The Musical!”

THE REBECCA LUKER SONGBOOK: A BENEFIT CONCERT

Who: Julie Benko, Andréa Burns, Carolee Carmello, Nikki Renée Daniels, Laura Darrell, Ali Ewoldt, Marina Kondo, Emilie Kouatchou, Bryce Pinkham, Scarlett Strallen, Jessica Vosk, Sally Wilfert, more
What: Tribute to Broadway favorite Rebecca Luker
Where: Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at Ninety-Fifth St.
When: Monday, May 22, $35-$250, 8:00
Why: On May 10, 2018, Alabama-born Broadway star Rebecca Luker presented “Project Broadway: The Rebecca Luker Songbook” at Symphony Space, a concert featuring the world premiere of eighteen songs written specifically for her by such composers as Deborah Abramson, Sam Davis, Stephen Flaherty, Jenny Giering, Sheldon Harnick, Henry Krieger, Andrew Lippa, Matthew Sklar, and Joseph Thalken. The three-time Tony nominee (Show Boat, The Music Man, Mary Poppins) announced in 2020 that she had ALS, and she died on December 23 of that year, survived by her husband, Tony winner Danny Burstein, and his two sons.

On May 22, a wonderful collection of Broadway stars will honor Luker and the fifth anniversary of “The Rebecca Luker Songbook” when they gather at Symphony Space and debut twenty-four different songs written for Luker, by Carmel Dean, Scott Eyerly, Giering, Mike Heitzman and Ilene Reid, Krieger, Lippa, David Loud, Martin Lowe, Joshua Rosenblum, Sam Willmott, and others. (The project included more than eighty original numbers.) Among those performing will be Julie Benko, Andréa Burns, Carolee Carmello, Nikki Renée Daniels, Laura Darrell, Ali Ewoldt, Marina Kondo, Emilie Kouatchou, Bryce Pinkham, Scarlett Strallen, Jessica Vosk, and Sally Wilfert; Thalken will serve as music director, with Deborah Avery on clarinet, Katherine Cherbas on cello, Craig Magnano on guitar and ukulele, and Benny Koonyevsky on percussion. The concert will raise funds for Project ALS, which “identifies and funds the most promising scientific research that will lead to the first effective treatments and a cure for ALS. We recruit the world’s best scientists and doctors to work together — rationally and aggressively — to develop a better understanding of the ALS disease process and, in parallel, better therapeutic strategies.” Tickets range from $35 to $250; the concert, directed by producer Annette Jolles, will also be livestreamed for $35.

A TALE OF TWO SHAKESPEARE ADAPTATIONS: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS / ROMEO AND JULIET

A fab cast sings and dances its way through exuberant production of The Comedy of Errors (photo by Peter Cooper)

PUBLIC THEATER MOBILE UNIT: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Multiple locations in all five boroughs
Through May 21, free (no RSVP necessary)
Shiva Theater, May 25 – June 11, free with RSVP
publictheater.org

Last Saturday, I did a Shakespeare doubleheader. In the afternoon, I saw the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit touring production of The Comedy of Errors, followed in the evening by NAATCO’s off-Broadway premiere of Hansol Jung’s Romeo and Juliet. The former turned out to be the most fun I’ve ever had at a Shakespeare play. The latter, by a writer whose previous show was wildly exhilarating and utterly unforgettable, started strong but couldn’t quite sustain it, ending up being not so much fun.

The Mobile Unit is now in its twelfth year of bringing free Shakespeare to all five boroughs, presenting works in prisons, shelters, and underserved community centers as well as city parks. On May 13, it pulled into the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, where part of the audience sat on the stage, on all four sides of a small, intimate square area where the action takes place; attendees could also sit in the regular seats, long concrete benches under the open sky.

Emmie Finckel’s spare set features a wooden platform and a bright yellow stepladder that serves several purposes. Lux Haac’s attractive, colorful costumes hang on racks at the back, where the actors perform quick changes. Music director and musician Jacinta Clusellas and guitarist Sara Ornelas sit on folding chairs, performing Julián Mesri’s Latin American–inspired score; Ornelas is fabulous as a troubadour and musical narrator, often wandering around the space and leading the cast in song. The lyrics, by Mesri and director and choreographer Rebecca Martínez, who collaborated on the adaptation, are in English and Spanish and are not necessarily translated word for word, but you will understand what is going on regardless of your primary tongue. As the troubadour explains, “I should mention that most of / this show will be performed in English / though it’s supposed to / take place in two states in Ancient Greece. / But don’t be surprised / if these actors switch their language.”

Trimmed down to a smooth-flowing ninety minutes, the show tells the story of a pair of twins, Dromio (Gían Pérez) and Antipholus (Joel Perez), who were separated at birth. In Ephesus, Dromio serves Antipholus, a wealthy man married to the devoted Adriana (Danaya Esperanza) but cheating on her with a lusty, demanding courtesan (Desireé Rodriguez). The other Dromio and Antipholus arrive in Ephesus and soon have everyone running around in circles as the mistaken identity slapstick ramps up.

Adriana (Danaya Esperanza) and Dromio (Gían Pérez) are all mixed up in The Comedy of Errors (photo by Peter Cooper)

Meanwhile, the merchant Egeon (Varín Ayala) is facing execution because he is from Syracuse, whose citizens are barred from Ephesus, per a decree from the Duchess Solina (Rodriguez); the goldsmith Angelo (Ayala) has made a fancy gold rope necklace for Antipholus but gives it to the wrong one; the Syracuse Dromio is confounded when Adriana’s kitchen maid claims to be his wife; the Syracuse Antipholus falls madly in love with Luciana (Keren Lugo), Adriana’s sister; and an abbess (Rodriguez) is determined to protect anyone who seeks sanctuary.

In case any or all of that is confusing, the troubadour clears things up in a series of songs that explain some, but not all, of the details, and the Public also provides everyone with a cheat sheet. Again, the troubadour: “In case you missed it / or took a little nap / Here’s what’s been happening / since we last had a chat / We’ll do our best / but we confess / this plot is really putting our skills to the test.”

It all comes together sensationally at the conclusion, as true identities are revealed, conflicts are resolved, and love wins out.

Martínez (Sancocho, Living and Breathing) fills the amphitheater with an infectious and supremely delightful exuberance. The terrific cast interacts with the audience, as if we are the townspeople of Ephesus. Gían Pérez (Sing Street) and Joel Perez (Sweet Charity, Fun Home) are hilarious as the two sets of twins, who switch hat colors to identify which brother they are at any given time. Esperanza (Mary Jane, for colored girls . . .) shines as the ever-confused, ultradramatic Adriana, Lugo (Privacy, At the Wedding) is lovely as Luciana and the duchess, Rodriguez is engaging as Emilia and the courtesan, and Ayala (The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew) excels as Angelo, Egeon, and Dr. Pinch.

But Ornelas (A Ribbon About a Bomb, American Mariachi) all but steals the show, switching between leather and denim jackets as she portrays minor characters and plays her guitar with a huge smile on her face, words and music lifting into the air. Charles Coes’s sound design melds with the wind blowing through the trees and other people enjoying themselves in the park on a Saturday afternoon. There are no errors in this comedy.

The Mobile Unit continues on the road with stops at A.R.R.O.W. Field House and Corona Plaza in Queens and Johnny Hartman Plaza in Manhattan before heading home to the Shiva Theater at the Public for a free run May 25 through June 11.

Romeo (Major Curda) and Juliet (Dorcas Leung) have a tough time of it at Lynn F. Angelson Theater (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

ROMEO AND JULIET
Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East Thirteenth St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Monday – Saturday through June 3, $40
naatco.org

In February, I called Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play at MCC “the most exhilarating hundred minutes you will spend in a theater right now.” Alas, her follow-up, a profoundly perplexing adaptation of Romeo and Juliet making its off-Broadway premiere at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater through June 3, is unable to decide whether it is a wacky farce or a serious drama, ending up as its own kind of comedy of errors.

The confusion starts as the audience enters the space, where a handmade sign says to pick one side; the stage is a circular platform cut in half by a muslin curtain. Every person stops to consider which of the two sides might be better, asking the usher and looking back and forth at the possibilities. I watched as one woman, after selecting one side, got up several times to question whether she had chosen correctly. In this case, assigned seating might have been better, or instead dividing the sections into “Montague” and “Capulet.”

The play, a collaboration between the National Asian American Theatre Company and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On Shakespeare Project that debuted at Red Bank’s Two River Theater, begins with some funny slapstick as Daniel Liu fumbles with opening the curtains, which are tied by thick white rope to opposing scaffolds. Liu provides comic relief throughout the two-and-a-half-hour show, portraying multiple characters, including Lady Capulet in a white gown. (She’s later played by a coatrack.)

While a chorus delivers the prologue — “Two households, both alike in dignity / (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), / From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. / From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-cross’d lovers” — Capulet servants Sampson and Gregory engage in a conversation that makes sure we realize that this is not going to be a traditional production. “Gregory, I swear, man, we can’t be no one’s suckers,” Sampson says. “There’s some people I’d be happy to suck on,” Gregory responds. “Well, they can suck my cum and then succumb to my sword,” Sampson adds. The wordplay may be in the spirit of ribald Elizabethan theater, but it can feel like a pretty harsh divergence from the actual text. Jung and codirector Dustin Wills aren’t able to balance the juxtapositions as the story meanders; this adaptation assumes that the audience essentially knows what’s going to happen so necessary plot development can be skipped.

Juliet’s father has picked Count Paris (Rob Kellogg) to be her husband, but she has fallen head-over-heels for Romeo (Major Curda), scion of the Capulets’ sworn enemy, the Montagues. A swordfight between Romeo’s cousin, Mercutio (Jose Gamo), and Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt (Kellogg), lays the groundwork for more blood to follow, along with heartbreak and a classic finale that has never made complete sense.

But Jung (Wild Goose Dreams, Cardboard Piano, Human Resources) and Wills (Montag, Plano) get so caught up in theatrical hijinks — the actors climb the scaffold to operate spotlights, random props that had been tucked under the circular platform are suddenly crowding the stage, a soundboard spits out digital beats (the music is by Brian Quijada), the fourth wall is inconsistently broken — that it is hard for the audience to maintain focus and care about the characters. Junghyun Georgia Lee’s set also echoes NAATCO’s recent production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, in which rows of hundreds of glasses and books were visible underneath the stage but were not used in the play.

Peter (Daniel Liu), Potboy (Jose Gamo), and Servingman (Purva Bedi) engage in some silliness in Hansol Jung’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The mood goes from an irreverent send-up with contemporary language to a serious interpretation using Shakespeare’s original words; it’s like Jung is unable to decide which way to go, much like the audience entering the theater. It’s a shame, because the show has its clever moments of inspiration. Mariko Ohigashi’s random costumes include Juliet’s sweatshirt that says “Abbondanza” on two lines, while Romeo’s T-shirt proclaims, “Count Your Fucking Rainbows”; Juliet wears cute and fluffy animal slippers; Friar Laurence (Purva Bedi) is dressed in oversized pants with suspenders; and Mercutio is styled like a boy band star. (However, the Groucho glasses are confounding.) Two trapdoors allow Romeo and Juliet to escape from everyone else. When things get tense, Romeo often strums a few notes on his guitar, which elicits laughter.

Even with a makeout scene, Leung (Miss Saigon, Snow in Midsummer) and Curda (KPOP!) never catch fire. Kellogg (Red Light Winter, Twelfth Night) is stalwart as Paris, Bedi (Dance Nation, India Pale Ale) is an adorable Friar Laurence, and Lee Huynh (War Horse, A Clockwork Orange) is fine as Capulet, but NAATCO cofounder Mia Katigbak (Awake and Sing, A Delicate Balance) seems to be in an alternate version of the play, Gamo (The Great Leap, The Heart of Robin Hood) overdoes it as Mercutio and Potboy, and Zion Jang is too goofy as Benvolio, while poor Liu’s (You Will Get Sick, GIRLS) shtick grows repetitive by the second act as he alternates between Lady Capulet and Peter and screams in agony a lot.

The play completely loses its already tenuous focus when Peter inexplicably insists that the musicians play “Purple Rain,” which is more than just head-scratchingly bizarre but downright annoying. It’s as if Jung and Wills were so phenomenally successful with Wolf Play that nobody wanted to just tell them no, that the Prince song makes no sense in the context of this Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, it’s all too representative of what ends up being a lost opportunity, a would-be comedy of too many errors.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Beowulf Boritt’s New York, New York set is best thing about new musical (photo by Paul Kolnik)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK
St. James Theatre
246 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 30, $49-$259
newyorknewyorkbroadway.com

Start spreading the news: You’re not going to want to be a part of this.

The new Broadway musical New York, New York is a mostly tone-deaf tale inspired by Martin Scorsese’s 1977 flop, in which Robert De Niro starred as troubled sax man Jimmy Doyle and Liza Minnelli played the object of his affections, singer and actress Francine Evans. David Thompson and Sharon Washington’s book for the musical is built on the mere shell of that plot, and they proceed to craft a supremely dull love story as the two protagonists seek success in the big city, with or without each other. The whole mess feels like one giant excuse to feature the massively popular title song in a show, teasing the tune early before blasting it out in a fantastical grand finale.

World War II has just ended, and Colton Ryan is Jimmy, an Irish piano player known as Kid Wonder who keeps losing jobs because he can’t control himself (or his drinking). Anna Uzele is Francine, a Black singer from Philadelphia who was a USO star during the war, now looking to make a brand-new start of it in old New York. It’s love at first sight for Jimmy but not for Francine, who wants to prove herself on her own. Jimmy’s best friend is Tommy Caggiano (Clyde Alves), who provides comic relief as a tough-talking Italian with a heart of gold. “Listen, New York City is the greatest social experiment ever,” Tommy tells Francine upon meeting her. “Everybody lives here. And everybody’s natural enemy lives here. And we manage not to kill each other. For the most part.”

Jimmy cuts in, “Tommy, Tommy, let me. New York is a major chord! Not like Philly. That’s a minor chord. A major chord is when everything in your life works out perfectly. When you have everything in the right order. One is music. Two is money. And three is love.” Unfortunately, that weak metaphor comes back to haunt us later.

Francine Evans (Anna Uzele) and Jimmy Doyle (Colton Ryan) search for love in Broadway musical inspired by film (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Thompson and Washington populate this social experiment with a diverse mix of minor characters attempting to build, or rebuild, their lives in postwar 1946 New York City. Mateo Diaz (Angel Sigala) is a gay Cuban bongo player whose mother, Sofia (Janet Dacal), is abused by her always-angry husband, Luis (Leo Moctezuma), who carries a baseball bat with him wherever he goes. Jesse Webb (John Clay III) is a Black soldier and trumpet player who can’t find a music gig because of his race. Alex Mann (Oliver Prose) is a young Polish violinist desperate to study with master teacher Madame Veltri (Emily Skinner), whose son is missing in action. And Gordon Kendrick (Ben Davis) is a wealthy British producer who is interested in Francine, but not just for her vocal talent.

“Little dreams, little life. Big dreams, big life,” Francine tells Jimmy, speaking for all the people pouring into the melting pot that is New York, trying to better their lives but too often trapped by racism, classism, and misogyny.

New York, New York has big dreams itself, but it meanders all over the place. Lexington, Kentucky, native Ryan (Girl from the North Country, Dear Evan Hansen) is unconvincing as a New York jazzman and has no chemistry with Uzele (Six, Once on This Island), who lights up the stage when she sings, belting out “But the World Goes ’Round” and reminding us that Minnelli’s version of the title track is far superior to Frank Sinatra’s. An exceptional Jim Borstelmann (Chicago, The Producers) wins the hearts of the audience in multiple roles, from newspaper vendor to bassist. Tony nominee Skinner (Side Show, Billy Elliot) beautifully portrays the heartbroken violin virtuoso, but the other characters are lost in stereotypical, uninteresting plot devices.

Dance scene atop construction I-beam is highlight of New York, New York (photo by Paul Kolnik)

However, the show looks fantastic; Beowulf Boritt’s set ranges from clubs, Times Square, and a radio station to streets and alleyways laden with low-rent apartments and fire escapes; a highlight is a dance performed on a construction I-beam that references the famous photo “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” in which eleven construction workers enjoy a break sitting on a beam that appears to be floating above the city.

Susan Stroman’s (POTUS, Crazy for You) direction and choreography are surprisingly inconsistent, either lackluster or over the top. That lack of consistency extends to Sam Davis’s arrangements, Davis and Daryl Waters’s orchestrations, and Alvin Hough Jr.’s music direction, which is not surprising given how many hands stirred this melting pot, with songs by John Kander, Kander and Fred Ebb (who passed away in 2004), Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Kander, Ebb, and Miranda.

Ken Billington’s lighting and Kai Harada’s sound make sure we stay awake, while Boritt and Christopher Ash’s projections add to the metropolitan vibe, although a scene involving what is now known as Manhattanhenge feels anachronistic.

In the film, “Happy Endings” is a fantasy sequence, but in the show it is a tired trope; the actual ending onstage is a different kind of fantasy, meant to melt away those little town blues, but, like too much of this musical, it just burns credulity.

CAMELOT

Guenevere (Phillipa Soo) and Arthur (Andrew Burnap) contemplate their future in Camelot (photo by Joan Marcus)

CAMELOT
Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through July 23, $58-$298
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

You know there’s a problem when you cringe every time the conductor at a musical signals to the orchestra that the next song is going to begin. That was my experience at the current revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Camelot, running at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater through July 23.

To make matters worse, director Bartlett Sher, who has given us delightful stagings of South Pacific, The King and I, and My Fair Lady in recent years, and book adapter Aaron Sorkin, the author of A Few Good Men and a contemporary rereading of To Kill a Mockingbird, have drained all of the magic out of the show, literally and figuratively, leaving us with the ghost of a beloved musical journey.

Based on T. H. White’s 1958 best-selling novel The Once and Future King, Camelot is the story of young King Arthur (Andrew Burnap), his promised bride, French princess Guenevere (Phillipa Soo), and the brave knight Lancelot Du Lac (Jordan Donica), who swears to defend Arthur while coveting Guenevere. In the opening scene, the king’s three closest knights, Sir Dinadan (Anthony Michael Lopez), Sir Sagramore (Fergie Philippe), and Sir Lionel (Danny Wolohan), are furious when the carriage carrying Guenevere breaks protocol and stops at the bottom of a hill, the princess escaping into the woods.

Guenevere (Phillipa Soo), Arthur (Andrew Burnap), and Lancelot (Jordan Donica) are involved in a dangerous love triangle in Lincoln Center revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

“A thousand-year-old tradition, Merlyn — royal brides are greeted at the top of the hill,” Lionel says. Merlyn (Dakin Matthews), Arthur’s mentor, answers, “Alright, well, in the name of Arthur, King of all England, it is decreed that royal brides will henceforth be met at the bottom of the hill. A new tradition. Does that do it?” It is as if Sher and Sorkin are announcing that they are creating a new tradition with this updated interpretation of the old-fashioned musical, but they are unable to inject life into this venerable warhorse.

Songs such as “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood,” “The Lusty Month of May,” “If Ever I Would Leave You,” and “Fie on Goodness” are flat and lifeless, corpses dug up from the past. Merlyn is not a mage but a wise adviser; as in the 1993 Broadway revival, the same actor also portrays Pellinore, a ratty, doddering old man who takes Merlyn’s place in Arthur’s life.

Arthur’s former lover, Morgan Le Fey (Marilee Talkington), is not a witch or an enchantress but a brilliant scientist. “In the new century, science is going to crack the world wide open. And I wouldn’t want to see your face when you realize it didn’t make a difference,” Morgan tells Arthur, as if trying to convince him to follow Dr. Anthony Fauci and not Fox News and get vaccinated. “There’ll be greed and injustice and hate and horror,” she adds.

The words justice and injustice appear about a dozen times throughout this Camelot: “If we’re to care about justice, we have to care more about injustice,” Arthur tells Lancelot and Pellinore. The Sorkinization extends to equality as well: “Equality is a myth made by the less-than-equal,” Sir Lionel says to Dinadan and Sagramore. It’s safe to say that this Camelot is not stuck in the Middle Ages.

Talking to Guenevere about human nature, Arthur espouses, “It has an impulse to be generous and it has a fierce desire for fairness.” But when it comes to a final decision Arthur must make, he instead hews inflexibly to his ethics: No one is above the law, not even a king and his queen.

Sher and Sorkin are so focused on contemporary standards of correct behavior that no electricity ever develops among Tony winner Burnap (The Inheritance, This Day Forward), who is a nice, kind Arthur; Tony nominee Soo (Into the Woods, Hamilton), who is a strong, charming Guenevere; and Donica (My Fair Lady, The Phantom of the Opera), who is a brash, overbearing Lancelot.

Sorkin goes out of his way to make Arthur a regular man of the people; instead of celebrating how he miraculously became king, he invents the following exchange: “You’re talking to a man who pulled a sword out of a stone. I was the ten thousandth person to try. How do you explain that?” Arthur asks Guenevere, who responds, “Nine-thousand, nine-hundred, and ninety-nine people loosened it.” Guenevere then adds, for good measure, “We have greatness in our grasp, humanity does. But for some reason, every time we see it, we assign the responsibility to some supernatural force. Or to God,” as if Sorkin is railing against modern-day belief systems.

Taylor Trensch (Bare the Musical, Matilda the Musical) is miscast as Mordred, Arthur’s miserable son, but Talkington (A Nervous Smile, The Middle Ages) stands out as his mother, even if she’s way ahead of her time. Camden McKinnon (A Raisin in the Sun, Renfield) never has a chance as twelve-year-old Tom of Warwick, who gets caught up in the didactic conclusion as Arthur — or, if you will, Sher and Sorkin — promise a better, more equitable future.

Michael Yeargan’s sets are spare but attractive, with doors, tables, desks, and royal chairs rolled on and off by the cast, although an iron gate used for Arthur’s privacy gets confusing and the “round table” is actually rectangular; the shadowy lighting is by Lap Chi Chu, with effective sound by Marc Salzberg and Beth Lake, uncomplicated choreography by Byron Easley, colorful costumes by Jennifer Moeller, and projections by 59 Productions that identify location and the weather, from the castle to a forest.

At one point, Arthur insists, “This is Camelot. People don’t run from here, they run to here.”

I cannot in good faith recommend that anyone run to Lincoln Center to see this Camelot.

RACE: THE MOVIE: THE PLAY

Wyatt Saveyer (cowriter Bret Raybould) and Gene Yus (producer Dean Edwards) go for quite a ride in Race: The Movie: The Play (photo by Eddie Merino)

RACE: THE MOVIE: THE PLAY
Soho Playhouse
15 Vandam St. between Varick St. & Sixth Ave.
Wednesday – Saturday through May 27, $41 ($31 with code RACISMSOLVED)
www.racethemovietheplay.com
www.sohoplayhouse.com

For more than two years, beginning during the pandemic lockdown, I’ve spent many Tuesday nights watching the livestreamed “This WAS The Uncle Floyd Show,” in which master pianist, puppeteer, and vaudeville-style comedian Floyd Vivino revisits his no-budget television program that ran on various stations from 1974 to 1998. A collection of haphazard, unrehearsed sketches pushing the limits of good taste, performed by a ragtag, close-knit cast and featuring impressive musical guests, it was beloved by a devoted cult that included David Bowie, John Lennon, and Paul Simon.

This past Tuesday night, however, I found myself at the Soho Playhouse watching Race: The Movie: The Play, which has a similar comic sensibility as The Uncle Floyd Show and deserves just a devoted following. Taking on the enormous issue of racism in Hollywood, RTMTP spoofs, references, and/or skewers such high-profile films as Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Get Out, The Help, Hidden Figures, Black Panther, Django Unchained, Bamboozled, Moonlight, Driving Miss Daisy, Blazing Saddles, and others.

Written by Cristian Duran and Bret Raybould, directed by Duran, and produced by Ted Alexandro, Dean Edwards, and Raybould, RTMTP began life as an award-winning film script, but when the producers couldn’t get funding to make a movie, they turned to the theater. Edwards stars as the distinguished Gene Yus, a gay Frederick Douglass–like character who is about to embark on a concert tour through the Deep South. Raybould is Wyatt Saveyer, a lanky Italian who is hired by Interracial Cab Company head Don Freeman (Andre D Thompson) to drive the stagecoach, led by the white horse Meta and the black horse Phor. Instead of money, Wyatt will receive a solid gold OOTGO badge, confirming that he is “One of the good ones,” which he recognizes as “a distinction white allies, and me an Italian one, can earn from the Black community.” Don explains, “With this OOTGO badge, you will get lifetime access to any cookout.” Wyatt adds, “And you get to say the N word one time,” to which Don quickly replies, “No the fuck you don’t.” Who gets to use the N word is a running gag throughout the ninety-eight-minute play.

A white-coated narrator (Patrice Battey-Simon) shares fun facts in Race: The Movie: The Play (photo by Eddie Merino)

On the road, Gene and Wyatt meet racist hillbilly repairman Wyatt Devil (David Healy), racist white plantation owner Ray Cist (Nick Whitmer) and his daughter, Jen Trifier (Amanda Van Nostrand), prison guard Tuwoke (Patrice Battey-Simon), Black plantation owner Pyler Terry’s Damea (Thee Suburbia), wannabe rapper Stretch (Eagle Witt), touchy-feely Doctor Bukkake (Healy), strapped Black cowboy D-Jango (Menuhin Hart), Kawanda king T’Challa-Latte (Quan Wiggins), evil villain Thanus (Rhyis Knight), mouth breather Max Hayte (Derek Humphrey, who also portrays the squeaky Mick E. Mouse), and Judge Hughbythecolorofyourskin (R. Alex Murray).

Gene and Wyatt encounter racism in many forms while confusingly shifting between time periods, breaking the fourth wall, and poking fun at themselves as Wyatt learns how to be an ally, proudly proclaiming his growth as a human being. When Gene asks Wyatt for help amid a fight, Wyatt admits, “Oh yeah. Sorry, I got lost in a brief spat of character development.” Early on, Wyatt says to Gene, “Hmm . . . a lot of your accomplishments are making me question my preconceived notions about you.” Later, Gene yells at Wyatt, calling him “quite possibly the most helpless, hapless, shiftless shit-for-brains idiot I’ve ever met! What’s your great struggle, what’s your cross to bear: Learning to be less racist and understand privilege? BOO FUCKING HOO!” And Wyatt tells himself with wonder, “Maybe it is harder to be a Black man in America . . . NAH!”

Throughout the show, musical director Andrew Hink, gleefully sitting at his keyboard stage right, plays an eclectic collection of instrumentals, from Britney Spears’s “Baby One More Time” to Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” (Every episode of The Uncle Floyd Show featured Vivino performing old standards on piano, though with vocals.)

A wacky cast explores racism and white supremacy in fun spoof at Soho Playhouse (photo by Eddie Merino)

Is RTMTP wildly uneven? You betcha. Do they sledgehammer home their points? Sure, but they are pretty important points. Do more jokes miss than hit their targets? Probably — I wasn’t keeping score — but there are a ton of one-liners, and even the very best baseball players reach base only forty percent of the time.

The depiction of what happens when someone gets canceled is pure genius, the danger of telegraphing while driving is made clear, and T-shirts are emblazoned with playful but serious political messages. Throw in some S&M, a bit of blackface, goofy costumes and props, some improvising in response to audience reaction, low-rent projections that show where the action is taking place, and a cast that is ready, willing, and able to laugh at itself and you have the ingredients of a lively, enjoyable evening, though I would skip the chicken cutlet sandwich. (Plus, if you’re white, you’ll feel like you’ve earned another notch toward your own OOTGO badge.)

One of the highlights the night I went was when Edwards was unable to get a line right after trying several times, so he asked Wiggins, as T’Challa-Latte, for help; it was almost too perfect that the sentence he couldn’t get out was “Let me get this straight, so the only way for us to unlock the power of diversity is if we fulfill the white q’uota?”

Race: The Movie: The Play might not run for a quarter-century and four thousand episodes like The Uncle Floyd Show did — it’s scheduled to close May 27 — but Duran and Raybould are still hoping to make that film, which will, of course, be called Race: The Movie: The Play: The Movie.