this week in theater

THE MUSIC MAN

Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster turn up the glitz in Music Man revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

THE MUSIC MAN
Winter Garden Theatre
1634 Broadway between 50th & 51st Sts.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 15, $99-$599
musicmanonbroadway.com

In my decidedly unfavorable review of the 2017 revival of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler, I wrote, “The new production of Hello, Dolly!, which is breaking house records at the Shubert Theatre, is everything that is wrong with Broadway. . . . Through it all, there’s Bette, who never really inhabits the role but plays herself playing the character while basking in the unending attention, the love bursting forth from the audience at her every knowing smirk; the Shubert practically explodes when she emerges in her glittering red dress for the title song, but it’s Bette who’s being celebrated, not Dolly.”

Unfortunately, the same can be said about the third Broadway revival of Meredith Willson’s 1957 smash The Music Man, continuing through November 6 at the Winter Garden. The star attraction is the beloved Hugh Jackman, but he is trapped as Hugh Jackman playing Professor Harold Hill, a con artist who has arrived in River City, Iowa, to sell the townspeople costumes and instruments for a band that will never be. The Grammy-, Emmy-, and Tony-winning Jackman, who follows such previous Hills as Robert Preston, Eddie Albert, Forrest Tucker, Bert Parks, Van Johnson, Dick Van Dyke, Craig Bierko, and Matthew Broderick, is as charming as ever, but he never fully embodies the character, and the fault lies in part with the audience, who won’t allow him to, and four-time Tony-winning director Jerry Zaks and Tony-winning choreographer Warren Carlyle, the duo who performed the same tasks on Midler’s Hello, Dolly! As with that production, which won four Tonys, many of the scenes don’t move the narrative along but instead are excuses to meander off track with showy, too long set pieces that are only fun for a while before we need to get back to the story.

The cast of The Music Man jumps for joy in Broadway revival at the Winter Garden (photo by Joan Marcus)

Tony winner Sutton Foster fares better as Marian Paroo, whose previous portrayers range from Barbara Cook and Shirley Jones to Rebecca Luker and Meg Bussert, but since we all know what is going to happen between Hill the snake oil salesman and Marian the adorable librarian, Zaks and Carlyle don’t focus properly on the chemistry between them that is necessary to propel the plot, even as basic as it is. Meanwhile, the cast features a slew of Tony winners in small roles, including Shuler Hensley as Marcellus Washburn, Jefferson Mays as Mayor Shinn, Jayne Houdyshell as Mrs. Shinn, and Marie Mullen as Mrs. Paroo, but it’s yet more window dressing; for example, Mays, one of New York City’s most consistently entertaining actors, can’t rise above the more dated material, as nearly all of the mayor’s jokes fall flatter than an out-of-tune trombone.

All the songs are here — “Rock Island,” “(Ya Got) Trouble,” “Seventy-Six Trombones,” “Pickalittle (Talk-a-Little),” “Marian the Librarian,” “Shipoopi,” “Till There Was You” — but the only one you’re likely to be humming on your way out is “Seventy-Six Trombones,” and only because it seems that it never ends. Santo Loquasto’s ever-changing set and colorful costumes get lost in the razzle-dazzle.

Born and raised in Iowa, Willson also wrote the musicals The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Here’s Love, and 1491, the holiday classic “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” several symphonies, and three memoirs. If he were alive to write a fourth book, maybe even he would agree that there’s big-time trouble in River City.

PLAZA SUITE

The Nashes (Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick) try to celebrate their anniversary in Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite (photo by Joan Marcus)

PLAZA SUITE
Hudson Theatre
141 West Forty-Fourth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 26, $99-$559
plazasuitebroadway.com

Some playwrights age better than others. It’s been more than ten years since the last Neil Simon revival on Broadway, and if the current production of Plaza Suite at the Hudson Theatre is any indication, at least part of the reason why is evident.

The three-act play, which opened on Broadway on Valentine’s Day, 1968, is a slapstick love letter to marriage written with a poison pen. In each act, a couple, portrayed by the same actors, flirt and argue as they evaluate their relationships and their lot in life as they flit about in room 719 at the Plaza Hotel in midtown Manhattan. The original featured George C. Scott and Tony nominee Maureen Stapleton and was directed by Tony winner Mike Nichols; the current revival stars Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, who are married in real life, with John Benjamin Hickey directing the fusty festivities. The play might be set in 1968–69, but it feels a whole lot older than that, especially in its Neanderthal portrayal of women.

“Visitor from Mamaroneck” takes place on a late winter afternoon at the Plaza, where Karen Nash (Parker) has planned a romantic getaway with her workaholic husband, Sam (Broderick), to celebrate their anniversary in the same room where they spent their wedding night more than twenty years earlier. Karen orders Champagne and hors d’oeuvres, but when Sam arrives, he is overwhelmed with business issues.

While he is a wiz with figures, she has trouble with any kind of number, which slides right into gender stereotypes. After she claims that it’s their twenty-fourth anniversary, Sam responds, “Tomorrow is our anniversary and we’re married twenty-three years.” She asks, “Are you sure?” Sam: “I go through this with you every year. When it comes to money or dates or ages, you are absolutely unbelievable. We were married December fifteenth, nineteen forty-five.” Karen: “Then I’m right. Twenty-four years.” Sam: “Forty-five from sixty-eight is twenty-three!” Karen: “Then I’m wrong. Math isn’t one of my best subjects.”

When Sam’s devoted, and devilishly sexy, secretary, Jean McCormack (Molly Ranson), shows up, things take a turn for the worse, although not at all unexpectedly. In fact, we can see what’s coming from the proverbial mile away as occasionally funny banter transforms into a terrible, unfair weight on Karen (and Sarah).

A New Jersey housewife (Sarah Jessica Parker) and a Hollywood producer (Matthew Broderick) have a clandestine meeting in Neil Simon revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

“Visitor from Hollywood” is set the following spring, with hotshot Hollywood producer Jesse Kiplinger (Broderick) meeting his high school flame, Muriel Tate (Parker), in room 719. She’s an uptight New Jersey suburban housewife and mother obsessed with his success; she dreams of the glamorous life he’s leading, but he just wants to get into her pants. As he plies her with vodka stingers, she grows friendlier and friendlier even as she protests that she has to get home and take care of her family, although she’s pretty shifty about the details. It’s evident her “I never do things like this!” housewife shtick is . . . just shtick. She knows what she wants: proximity to fame. He wants proximity to her. Close proximity.

The play reveals its age in this act with its outdated references, from Bonwit and Lee Marvin to Elke Sommer and Marge and Gower Champion, which will leave younger audiences scratching their heads (or desperately wanting to Google the names right there and then). “Will you stop with the celebrity routine. Aside from a couple of extra pounds, I’m still the same boy who ran anchor on the Tenafly track team,” Jesse says. Muriel replies, “And is living in the old Humphrey Bogart house in Beverly Hills.” In 2022 — if not in 1968 — it’s tremendously uncomfortable watching a single male Hollywood producer trying to take advantage of a woman in a hotel room, regardless of how happy or not she is.

The play concludes in June 1969 with “Visitor from Forest Hills,” in which Roy and Norma Hubley (Broderick and Parker) are in room 719 at the Plaza, preparing for the wedding of their daughter, Mimsey (Ranson); the only problem is that Mimsey has locked herself in the bathroom and refuses to come out and marry Borden Eisler (Eric Wiegand). Roy and Norma try just about everything to get Mimsey to open the door, as Roy trots out jokes so old they have cobwebs about fathers and wedding costs.

Norma (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Roy (Matthew Broderick) are facing a wedding crisis in Plaza Suite at the Hudson (photo by Joan Marcus)

“All right, what did you say to her?” Roy demands to know. Muriel answers, “I knew it! I knew you’d blame me. You took an oath. God’ll punish you.” Roy explains, “I’m not blaming you. I just want to know what stupid thing you said to her that made her do this.” As they attempt to lure their daughter out of the bathroom, Roy ratchets up the blaming of the women while Norma keeps the truth from the ever-more-worried Eislers downstairs.

The best parts of this Plaza Suite, which runs slightly more than two and a half hours with an intermission and a brief pause, are John Lee Beatty’s gorgeous set, which gets its own well-deserved round of applause; Jane Greenwood’s costumes, especially the glorious outfits worn by Parker; and the stars’ undeniable chemistry and gift for physical comedy. There is some potent slapstick from Broderick (Evening at the Talk House, Shining City), who has appeared in three previous Simon plays, and Parker (The Commons of Pensacola, The Substance of Fire), who last worked with Broderick onstage in the 1995 Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying; at one point in the second act, after Parker pulled off a hilarious move, both actors tried unsuccessfully to suppress their own laughter. The third act is highlighted by an outrageously funny stunt by a nearly unrecognizable Broderick, in gray wig and mustache and elegant tux. [Note: Both Broderick and Parker have contracted Covid-19 so the show has been temporarily shut down as of April 7.]

But standout moments here and there do not make up for the misogyny that is on view in all three acts, filling the theater with a dense cloud of midcentury woman hating. It’s also hard to get too excited about watching the foibles of wealthy white people in a fancy schmancy hotel room. The first of a trilogy that was followed by California Suite in 1976 and London Suite in 1995, Plaza Suite feels old, crusty, and unnecessary today, unless they’re going to redefine some of the characters or experiment more with the staging. Playing it straight in 2022 is just not viable, and it has nothing to do with political correctness.

Simon — who was nominated for four Oscars and four Emmys, won four Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize (for 1991’s Lost in Yonkers), and had a Broadway theater named after him in 1983 — was ultimately married five times to four women (three actresses and a dancer); this is the first revival of one of his plays since his death in 2018 at the age of ninety-one. Hopefully the next one will do more to burnish his legacy.

SEVEN SINS: RETURN ENGAGEMENT

Seven Sins is another hot and sexy night with Company XIV (photo by Mark Shelby Perry)

SEVEN SINS
Théâtre XIV
383 Troutman St., Bushwick
Thursday – Sunday through June 26, $95 – $640
companyxiv.com/sevensins

[Ed. note: Following a two-year pandemic break, Company XIV’s Seven Sins has returned to Bushwick; the below review is from March 2020.]

Company XIV founder and artistic director Austin McCormick outdoes himself with his latest baroque burlesque sensation, the decadently delightful Seven Sins. It’s so tailor-made for the extremely talented troupe that the only question is, what took them so long?

The company has previously staged outré cabaret adaptations of such fairy tales as Pinocchio, Cinderella, Snow White, and Queen of Hearts in addition to Paris! and the seasonal favorite Nutcracker Rouge. They now turn their attention to the original fairy tale itself, the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Serving as host for the evening is the Devil (a fab Amy Jo Jackson), all glammed out in horns, sequins, and heels. Shortly after Adam (portrayed alternately by Scott Schneider or Cemiyon Barber; I saw the former) arrives on Earth, he is joined by Eve (Danielle Gordon or Emily Stockwell; I saw Gordon) through a bit of magic, leading to a lovely duet that incorporates contemporary dance and classical ballet to Dean Martin’s rendition of “If You Were the Only Girl in the World.” Temptation threatens in the form of a long snake carried aloft by several performers; Adam and Eve are offered a glittering red apple, feel shame in their (near-)nakedness, and cover their naughty bits with fig leaves to Paul Anka singing “Adam and Eve.”

Pretty Lamé delivers an aria in latest bawdy baroque burlesque cabaret from Austin McCormick (photo by Mark Shelby Perry)

In the next two acts, they encounter Vanity, Wrath, Lust, Jealousy, Sloth, Greed, and ultimately Gluttony, each sin getting its own scene involving dance, acrobatics, and/or song, all bursting with an intense sexuality and a wicked sense of humor. The music includes original songs by Lexxe along with classical instrumentals, opera, and tunes by Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Nancy Sinatra, Cab Calloway, Florence and the Machine, Cardi B, the Beatles, and others. Pretty Lamé lets loose with a pair of gorgeous arias, while the awe-inspiring Marcy Richardson struts her stuff in an aerial cage and on a swinging pole and Troy Lingelbach and Nolan McKew dangle over the audience on a double lyra.

There are multiple ways to see the show, which is staged in Théâtre XIV in Bushwick, where the sexy baroque motif extends to the two bars and every nook and cranny. There are bar chairs, petite chairs, couches, small tables, and deluxe tables where patrons are served food and drink by the performers within the narrative. The set and costumes are by the awesomely inventive Zane Pihlström, with sensual lighting by Jeanette Yew and mischievous makeup by Sarah Cimino. Conceived, choreographed, and directed by McCormick, who also curated the special cocktail menu, Seven Sins encompasses all the best parts of Company XIV, immersing the audience in a lush and lascivious fantasy world where anything can happen. It does lose a bit of its momentum with two intermissions — the total running time is about two hours and fifteen minutes — and there are no bawdy vaudeville-like acts during the breaks, as there have been at previous shows of theirs. But let him/her/them who is without sin cast the first stone. And don’t be surprised if you experience all seven sins yourself during this fantabulous evening.

THE FOLKS AT HOME: A BALTIMORE SITCOM

Baltimore Center Stage world premiere of R. Eric Thomas’s The Folks at Home will be livestreamed April 6-10 (photo by J Fannon)

Who: Baltimore Center Stage
What: Hybrid production of R. Eric Thomas play
Where: Baltimore Center Stage online
When: April 6-10, $30
Why: During the pandemic lockdown, I watched hundreds of plays from around the world online; one of my favorite discoveries was Baltimore Center Stage, which presented such shows as The Glorious World of Crowns, Kinks and Curls and The Garden, filmed in the company’s theater and broadcast virtually. Founded in 1963 and located in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon Cultural District since 1975, BCS is currently staging the world premiere of R. Eric Thomas’s comedy The Folks at Home, a 1970s-sitcom-style work about an interracial couple facing various problems, from money and parents to a possible ghost. While it might seem autobiographical, Thomas, who now lives in Baltimore, wrote in 2017, “Okay, first of all, this play is not my life. So, yes, it’s about an interracial gay couple and I am one-half of an interracial gay couple. And yes, it takes place in South Philly, where I also live. But in The Folks at Home, the central couple, Brandon and Roger, own their house, whereas I rent. So there.”

Directed by Obie winner Stevie Walker-Webb (one in two, Ain’t No Mo’), the play stars Alexis Bronkovic, Brandon E. Burton, E. Faye Butler, Jane Kaczmarek, Eugene Lee, and Christopher Sears. Thomas has previously written the national bestseller Here for It, or, How to Save Your Soul in America as well as such plays as Backing Track, Crying on Television, and Mrs. Harrison and episodes of the television series Dickinson and Better Things; Bronkovic, Butler, Lee, and Sears have appeared on many TV series, while seven-time Emmy nominee Kaczmarek has starred on such shows as Malcolm in the Middle, Felicity, Equal Justice, and The Paper Chase. Five of the performances of The Folks at Home — which, of course, has its own theme song — will be livestreamed from April 6 to 10, with a Q&A following the April 7 show.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Award-winning production of Cyrano de Bergerac swashbuckles into BAM April 5 to May 22 (photo by Marc Brenner)

Who: Jamie Lloyd Company
What: US premiere of award-winning production of Edmond Rostand play
Where: Harvey Theater at the BAM Strong, 651 Fulton St.
When: April 5 – May 22, $45-$310
Why: It’s not always clear why an old classic suddenly becomes sizzling hot; this time around, it’s Edmond Rostand’s 1897 favorite, Cyrano de Bergerac, about a relatively unattractive soldier in love with a beautiful woman who falls for a not-too-bright handsome gent who gets his poetic, romantic words from Cyrano. In 2012, the Roundabout staged a version at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Douglas Hodge as the title character. In Theresa Rebeck’s 2018 Bernhardt/Hamlet, at the same theater, Rostand is a minor character who is rewriting Hamlet for Sarah Bernhardt but turns his attentions instead to Cyrano. Franco-British actor, writer, and director Alexis Michalik made Cyrano, My Love, in 2018, following his stage version of Edmond in 2016. In 2019, the New Group presented a musical version at the Daryl Roth Theatre starring Peter Dinklage as Cyrano, adapted and directed by his wife, Erica Schmidt, that was turned into a 2021 film directed by Joe Wright. Also in 2021, Andrey Cheggi Chegodaev performed My Cyrano, a melding of Cyrano de Bergerac and Tanya Lebedinskaya’s poem “My Cyrano,” at the Center at West Park.

Now the Dorset-born Lloyd, whose other acclaimed works include Betrayal, Macbeth, Three Days of Rain, Passion, and Evita, comes to BAM for the first time for the US premiere of his Olivier-winning production of Cyrano de Bergerac. This new adaptation by Martin Crimp stars Scottish actor James McAvoy (The Ruling Class, The Last King of Scotland) in the role previously performed by Ralph Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Richard Chamberlain, Christopher Plummer, Gérard Depardieu, Steve Martin, and Kevin Kline, among others over the last century-plus. Eben Figueiredo is Christian, with Michele Austin as Ragueneau, Adam Best as Le Bret, Sam Black as Armand, Tom Edden as De Guiche, Adrian Der Gregorian as Montfleury, and Evelyn Miller as Roxane. The set and costumes are by Soutra Gilmour, with lighting by Jon Clark and music and sound by Ben and Max Ringham. The 170-minute show, which won the Olivier Award for Best Revival (in addition to four other nominations), runs April 5 through May 22.

BROKEN BOX MIME THEATER: TAKE SHAPE

BXBX’s Take Shape begins to take shape as company rehearses in masks without makeup

Who: Broken Box Mime Theater
What: New devised physical theater piece
Where: Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T./NY Theatres, 502 West Fifty-Third St.
When: Thursday – Monday, April 1 – May 1, $25 in advance, $30 at door
Why: Founded in 2011, Broken Box Mime Theater, known as BXBX, focuses on simple storytelling by contemporizing mime as a theatrical art form. In such shows as Skin, See Reverse, Above Below, and Topography, the NYC-based company explore relationship issues, political protest, gender roles, and racial identity, among other topics, using light, sound, and body movement. The troupe’s latest presentation, Take Shape, opens April 1 at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T./NY Theatres on the far West Side.

The eighty-minute work comprises ten short pieces that involve heists, cooking, isolation, transformation, the apocalypse, and other nonverbal narratives. It was devised by cast members Nick Abeel, Becky Baumwoll, Ismael Castillo, Julia Cavagna, Géraldine Dulex, Blake Habermann, David Jenkins, Tasha Milkman, Marissa Molnar, Kristin McCarthy Parker, Regan Sims, and Jae Woo and will feature live music by Jack McGuire. The lighting is by Jamie Roderick, with projections by Gregg Bellón; other collaborators include Dinah Berkeley, Duane Cooper, Joél Pérez, Leah Wagner, Joshua Wynter, and Matt Zambrano. There will be special relaxed performances in addition to an educator night, parents night, industry night, global night, and deaf night.

ALEX EDELMAN: JUST FOR US

Alex Edelman’s one-person Just for Us is a riotously funny exploration of Judaism and whiteness (photo by Monique Carboni)

JUST FOR US
SoHo Playhouse
15 Vandam St. between Varick St. & Sixth Ave.
Monday – Saturday through April 23, sold out
www.sohoplayhouse.com
Greenwich House Theater
27 Barrow St.
Monday – Saturday, June 14 – September 2, $40-$65
www.justforusshow.com

Near the end of Alex Edelman’s hysterical one-person Just for Us, the comedian tells the audience how much he loves doing it and asks them to tell their friends and everyone we know to come check it out so he can keep performing it.

So that’s exactly what I’m doing: Go see this show! It opened in December at the Cherry Lane, then moved to SoHo Playhouse, where I saw it, and will have an encore run at Greenwich House beginning June 14. (It will sell out, so act fast.)

In Just for Us, the New York City–based, Boston-raised Edelman describes an unusual recent adventure; shortly after getting into a Twitter war with hundreds of anti-Semites over an episode of his BBC radio program, Peer Group, he was intrigued by this tweet:

“Hey — if you’re curious about your #whiteness — and you live in New York City — come to [STREET ADDRESS] tomorrow night at 9:15.”

He immediately thought to himself, “I live in New York City. And I’m free tomorrow night at 9:15. And as a Jew I’m curious about my whiteness.” So off he went to what ended up being a meeting of seventeen neo-Nazis in Astoria, one of whom he was instantly attracted to. “You never know,” he says about his chances with her, dreaming that it could make for a great rom-com.

As he tells the riotous story of what happened that night in Queens, involving the alluring Chelsea, the suspicious Cortez, and an elderly racist jigsaw puzzle aficionado, among other white supremacists trying to hold on to their status in the world, he interweaves flashbacks from his past, primarily focusing on the role Judaism has played in his life. “I always feel a little bit weird. I always feel too Jewish,” he admits. “It is a mailing list you can never unsubscribe from.”

Alex Edelman’s Just for Us will be moving from SoHo Playhouse to Greenwich House in June (photo by Monique Carboni)

His full name could not be much more Jewish: David Yosef Shimon ben Elazar Reuven Alex Halevi Edelman. “I’ve got cousins Menachem and Yitzhak,” he says. “You can’t even spell their names right in English ’cause there’s no English letter for phlegm.”

His shirt nerdily buttoned up all the way, he shares the four words that will always help you through a conversation when you don’t know what else to say, points out that he usually doesn’t discuss politics in his act, details his brother’s attempt to make the Olympics as a skeleton racer for Israel, shares his love of Robin Williams (and his friendship with Koko the gorilla), and talks about going to Yeshiva. “I am white, but, like, I grew up in a place where there were different kinds of white people,” he explains when considering his whiteness. “I grew up in Boston. I grew up in this really racist part of Boston called Boston.”

The centerpiece of his memories is an unforgettable story about the time his deeply Jewish family celebrated Christmas. It’s not only funny and poignant but it shines a light on how religion should, in theory, bring people of different faiths together instead of tearing them apart. There’s no need to fear; Edelman never gets preachy. But he does advise, “If you came to the show tonight not wanting to hear a bunch of Jewish material, I am so sorry about this.”

(To paraphrase an old ad campaign for Levy’s rye bread, you don’t have to be Jewish to love Just for Us. But it helps if you’re not a white supremacist.)

In his third solo presentation, Edelman (Everything Handed to You, Millennial) is utterly charming, wonderfully self-deprecating, and downright funny. Directed by Adam Brace, the seventy-five-minute show features no accoutrements, just Edelman walking back and forth across the stage, empty of all but a few stools, holding the microphone as he continues his banter, including interacting with the audience, which the night I went included a group from his school that clearly adores him.

Just for Us might be about divisiveness, but Edelman has created a welcoming space where we all can laugh despite such serious topics. I could relate to so much of his story that all of my nodding in agreement nearly started to hurt my neck.

Early on, when an older gentleman got up from his seat and headed for the aisle, Edelman stopped the show and inquired, “Bathroom or political issue?” When the man returned a few moments later, Edelman asked him if everything went well.

By the end of the show, everyone answered with a resounding yes.