this week in theater

HEATHER CHRISTIAN: ORATORIO FOR LIVING THINGS

Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things is an exhilarating journey through time, space, and shared human experience (photo by Ben Arons)

HEATHER CHRISTIAN’S ORATORIO FOR LIVING THINGS
Ars Nova at Greenwich House
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. South
Tuesday – Sunday through May 15, $35-$65
arsnovanyc.com/oratorio

Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things is a gloriously exhilarating ninety-minute celebration of life, art, and nature, an immersive journey through the complex quantum, human, and cosmic time and space of our daily existence.

Oratorio is Obie winner Christian’s follow-up to Animal Wisdom, a confessional of music and storytelling dealing with the personal and communal aspects of ritual and superstition, grief and loss, ghosts and the fear of death, and I Am Sending You the Sacred Face, a solo virtual musical about Mother Teresa, performed in drag in a closet by Theater in Quarantine’s Joshua William Gelb.

The Ars Nova production takes place in a reconfigured, in-the-round Greenwich House, where the audience sits in a few steeped rows of rafters, each section separated by a dozen steps; it’s such a small group that you feel specially privileged to be there. Twelve lovely performers (Sean Donovan, Carla Duren, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Brian Flores, Quentin Oliver Lee, Angel Lozada, Barrie Lobo McLain, Ben Moss, Onyie Nwachukwu, Dito Van Reigersberg, Kirstyn Cae Ballard, and Divya Maus) in casual, carefully considered dress move up and down the stairs and through the tiny center stage area, over which dangles a glowing orb that evokes an unstructured, abstract globe or meteor. At the top of either side is the outstanding band: Johnny Butler on woodwinds, Jane Cardona on piano, Clérida Eltimé on cello, Odetta Hartman on violin, John Murchison on upright and electric bass, and Peter Wise on percussion.

Greenwich House has been transformed into a unique communal space for Oratorio for Living Things (photo by Ben Arons)

Throughout, the singers make warm, intimate direct eye contact with the audience, signaling we are all on this planet together and need to live in unison with one another and nature. Christian’s libretto, which is handed out to each audience member as they’re seated, is in English and Latin; the lights are usually dimmed just enough to still allow you to follow along, but you certainly don’t have to.

As Christian notes in a program letter, “Don’t worry! You do not need a degree in astrophysics, antique languages, or microbiology to ‘get’ this piece. In fact, one would argue that Oratorio for Living Things could function as a Rorschach test. It’s made to engage with you at whatever level you’d like to do so.”

However, it can become a bit distracting when a lot of heads are buried in the white libretto instead of watching the performers, particularly when they’re right in front of them. But this is a judgment-free zone. (The comforting set is by Kristen Robinson, with costumes by Márion Talán de la Rosa, lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, and sound by Nick Kourtides.)

The score morphs from classical oratorio to jazz, gospel, blues, and a burst of Godspell-like musical theater as Christian guides us through canticles, hymns, choruses, and poems with such titles as “Beginning (Infinite Fractal),” “Alligatum (membranes),” “Dust to Dust (water),” “Hydrogen and Helium: History of Violence,” and “Vesuvius,” which contains the warning: “Now we have arrived at something truly Frightening.”

In “Memory Harvest,” individual singers recall major and minor moments from their past, one example of which is: “I’m five years old and my cousin is seven years old and we jump from one foot to the other standing on the side of the road across from the train tracks. Our excitement builds as the train approaches, our arms flailing, pump up and down, we want the engineer to pull the chain to blow the train whistle. And he does.”

In “Carbon/DNA Iteration 4: Building DNA via Ticker Tape on Time Spent,” the performers use numbers to quantify life, including such observations as “Three and a half hours throwing away unopened mail / Forty minutes putting lids on Tupperware / Eighteen days looking for a bathroom / One year in the ‘Bag Drop’ line / Eleven days trying to remember why you came into the room / Four hours changing pants / Two and a half years being too cold / Four years and eleven days being too hot.” It’s a gorgeous, often very funny look at the little things that add up, equating a wide range of items that we all have in common and which feel particularly meaningful as we emerge from a pandemic lockdown that severely limited our presence in society and has led to so much grief and loss.

Twelve singers and six musicians envelop the audience in Heather Christian’s glorious Oratorio for Living Things (photo by Ben Arons)

Obie-winning director Lee Sunday Evans (Dance Nation, Intractable Woman: A Theatrical Memo on Anna Politkovskaya) has just the right touch to make it all flow seemingly effortlessly, like a babbling brook where you rest and casually reflect on the beauty of everything. Evans also makes sure we don’t feel like we’re trapped in science class amid mentions of entropy, energy, evolution, chloroplasts, mitochondria, diatoms, and covalent bonds.

Inspired by Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time, American astronomer Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, and German composer Carl Orff’s cantata “Carmina Burana,” Christian imbues Oratorio with an existential hope that fuels who we are as individuals and as a harmonic unit. In the libretto, she describes “Fields” as “a brief indulgence in an environment (now established). A reminder that because something is devoid of human consciousness or observation does not mean that it is empty.” In “Vesuvius: Dormancy,” we are told, “Do not mistake dying for stopping,” and in “Vesuvius: Eruption” that “we are in the middle / we aren’t at the end / of a loop.”

Do whatever you can to see Oratorio for Living Things, which has been extended through May 15; this extraordinary shared pilgrimage is sold out, but standby and rush tickets might be available. As Christian writes in the libretto, “A very smart person once said that given the choice between living in a universe where only some things are known and knowable and living in a universe where either everything or nothing was known, they’d take the former. Because out of mystery evolves curiosity, and out of confoundment evolves wonder.” And that is exactly what Oratorio delivers.

HARMONY: A NEW MUSICAL

Barry Manilow musical tells real-life story of the Comedian Harmonists (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

HARMONY: A NEW MUSICAL
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Hall, 36 Battery Pl.
Through May 15, $79-$129
nytf.org/harmony

“A Bulgarian singing waiter, a doctor, a bass from the Comic Opera, a musical prodigy, a whorehouse pianist . . . and a Polish Rabbi walk into a bar,” Josef Roman “Rabbi” Cykowski (Chip Zien) says near the beginning of Harmony, the biographical musical that opened tonight at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.

Throughout his nearly sixty-year career, Brooklyn-born songster Barry Manilow has won a Tony, two Emmys, a Grammy, and an honorary Clio for his classic jingles and has released more than three dozen albums (including eight gold and eight platinum records) that have sold more than eighty-five million copies. But his favorite creative endeavor is Harmony, the twenty-five-plus-years-in-the-making musical about the Comedian Harmonists, the real-life a cappella German singing group whose international success was ultimately thwarted by the Nazis; composer Manilow and his longtime collaborator, Queens native Bruce Sussman, who wrote the book and lyrics, seek to restore the Harmonists’ legacy in this glittering show.

The story is told in flashback by the older Rabbi, who details how the group formed and became a sensation despite some initial stumbles; he pontificates on many of the choices they made, especially those by his younger self (Danny Kornfeld), while sometimes joining them in song. Originally known as the Melody Makers, the ensemble was put together by actor and composer Harry Frommerman (Zal Owen) and consisted of Rabbi, Comic Opera bass Robert “Bobby” Biberti (Sean Bell), medical student Erich Collin (Eric Peters), piano player Erwin “Chopin” Bootz (Blake Roman), and singing waiter Ari “Lesh” Leshnikoff (Steven Telsey). In addition to their glorious harmonies and goofy charm, they used their voices as instruments, making it sound like they were performing with a band.

Ruth (Jessie Davidson) is ready to fight what’s coming in Germany in Harmony (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

As their fame spreads, Rabbi falls in love with Mary (Sierra Boggess), a Christian who considers converting to Judaism but is also worried about the growing anti-Semitism emerging from the National Socialists, and Chopin marries Ruth (Jessie Davidson), a staunch Jewish activist who is ready to fight against the rise of the far right. As Nazi officers start showing up at their concerts, including a standartenführer (Andrew O’Shanick) and his wife, Ingrid (Kayleen Seidl), who are huge fans, the Comedian Harmonists realize they are caught in the middle of something a lot bigger than themselves and have to take a long, hard look at their personal and professional futures.

Harmony premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 1997, with Danny Burstein as Rabbi and Rebecca Luker as Mary. (The two got married in 2000 and remained so until Luker’s tragic death in 2020.) Manilow and Sussman, writing partners for more than forty years, have continued to tweak the show since then; today it feels oddly prescient as dictators and the far right gain power around the world and so many oppressed people become refugees as they try to escape bad situations that are only getting worse. It is also an excellent way to celebrate the little-known a cappella group, as there are only limited archival footage and audio recordings available online, in addition to a 1991 German documentary, a 1997 German biopic, and a 2010 English-language book.

The six actors portraying the Comedian Harmonists are terrific, forming a cohesive unit in, well, perfect harmony. Director and choreographer Warren Carlyle (After Midnight, On the Twentieth Century) has fun with the sextet, particularly in a scene in which they have no pants. Characters often enter and leave through the aisles, approximating the feel of watching the Comedian Harmonists in a 1920-’30s theater rather than a contemporary venue. And the Museum of Jewish Heritage is just the right place to stage this show, an institution dedicated to preserving the Jewish experience before, during, and after the Holocaust.

Chip Zien gives a bravura performance as Rabbi Josef Roman Cykowski and others in Harmony (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The musical is about a tight-knit ensemble, but it’s worth seeing for Zien (Into the Woods; Caroline, or Change) alone; a New York City theater treasure, Zien is spectacular as Rabbi, who can’t help but get emotional as he watches mistakes his younger self and the troupe make. Zien also dazzles by taking on a number of minor roles, changing costumes — and wigs — lightning fast as he transforms himself into Marlene Dietrich, Richard Strauss, and Albert Einstein. (The costumes, which range from humble street clothes to pristine tuxedos to Nazi uniforms, are by Linda Cho and Ricky Lurie, with hair and wigs by Tom Watson.) Zien leaves Ana Hoffman to regale us as Josephine Baker, who did in fact perform with the Harmonists.

Three-time Tony winner Beowulf Boritt’s set is anchored by a wall of mirrors that reflects the performers — and the conductor, who leads the orchestra from a pit in the right side of the audience — and also on which are projected archival photographs, text identifying the time and place, and Nazi symbols. Among the locations are various nightclubs in Berlin, Tivoli Park in Copenhagen, a movie set in Cologne, a night train to Munich, the tailor shop where Mary works, and Carnegie Hall, where the Comedian Harmonists headlined in 1933.

Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman rehearse with the cast of Harmony (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

At 165 minutes (with intermission), the show, featuring music direction and additional arrangements by John O’Neill, is at least a half hour too long, dragging primarily during the romantic numbers; there’s much more life when the German boy band is performing and when the political tension increases — to a point where the characters are making potential life-or-death decisions.

And as much as Harmony is specifically about the Comedian Harmonists, it also reminds us how we all should be with others, particularly in times of strife. As the cast sings in the title song: “Oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah, / Oom-pah oom-pah oom-pah, / Harmony, / We sing in harmony / Like the robins in Herald Square. / Harmony, / The thing is harmony, / Always knowing there’s someone there. / In this joint / All encounters with counterpoint / End in harmony. / And it’s clear / No man’s a solo here. / Not even me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! / No solo mio! / Just harmony.”

TAKE ME OUT

Much of Take Me Out happens in the locker room — with and without uniforms (photo by Joan Marcus)

TAKE ME OUT
Helen Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 11, $79-$199
2st.com/shows

Scott Ellis’s hit Broadway revival of Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning Take Me Out is well on its way to the playoffs (Tony nominations) and the World Series (Tony wins), but you don’t have to know anything about baseball to root for this compelling tale of ego, homophobia, and winning and losing.

It all starts with the brilliant title itself, which refers to: the traditional 1908 tune “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” sung by fans during the seventh-inning stretch of every contest; a reverse riff on the chorus of John Fogerty’s 1985 hit, “Centerfield,” in which the former CCR leader declares, “Put me in, coach / I’m ready to play, today”; going out on a date; the public revelation that someone is gay; and the slang for a mob hit, as in “take him out.”

It’s 2002, and the world champion Empires, a stand-in for the Yankees — one backdrop features a silhouette of the Yankee Stadium wooden facade — are off to another good season. The story is narrated in flashback by shortstop Kippy Sunderstrom (Patrick J. Adams), a good friend of superstar Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams), a five-tool centerfielder who comes out of the closet with a sudden, unexpected announcement that he is gay. Darren did not do it to become a role model, to fight for gay rights, or to make a sociocultural statement; throughout the play, Darren’s motivations are private, driven primarily by ego and self-importance.

“Now, I’m not a personal sort of guy, really, and that’s not gonna be any different,” Darren, a handsome mixed-race player reminiscent of Bronx Bomber legend Derek Jeter, tells his teammates. “I mean, don’t expect the free flow of information. Don’t expect the daily update. I’m just here to play ball. I’m just here to have a good time. That’s no different. . . . And if, incidentally, there’s any kid out there who’s struggling with his identity, I hope this sends a message that it’s okay. They can follow their dream, no matter what. Any young man, creed, whatever, can go out there and become a ballplayer. Or an interior decorator.”

But he also tells Kippy, “You think you know me? You think you know my secret? Shit, that wasn’t a secret — that was an omission. I’ve got a secret — but that’s not it.” Even his last name, Lemming, is a warning for others not to follow him.

Friends and rivals Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams) and Davey Battle (Brandon J. Dirden) sit down for a chat in Take Me Out (photo by Joan Marcus)

As one would expect, his declaration creates significant problems in the locker room. Emerging from the shower to find a naked Darren, Toddy Koovitz (Carl Lundstedt) complains, “So now I gotta go around worrying that every time I’m naked or dressed or whatever you’re checking out my ass.” Because, of course, every gay man immediately wants to sleep with every male he sees. But Darren always gives better than he gets, telling Toddy, “Why’re ya lookin’ at it’s the question.” As the quippy Kippy noted earlier, after Darren confirmed, “I don’t want to fuck any of you,” he responded, “It’s not about that, Darren. It’s about us wanting to fuck you.”

When their ace pitcher, Takeshi Kawabata (Julian Cihi), slumps, they call up hard-throwing closer Shane Mungitt (Michael Oberholtzer) from Double A, who leads them back on track until he opens his mouth one day and spews forth bigoted remarks that would make even former Braves reliever John Rocker wince.

The tension in the locker room grows to epic proportions as no one can have a civil conversation, exacerbated by Kawabata’s, Martinez’s (Hiram Delgado), and Rodriguez’s (Eduardo Ramos) inability to speak English, a sports trope that enrages more conservative fans who believe that if you play ball in America, you need to speak the language — and the same fans are likely to have problems with a gay player.

“We were Men,” Kippy slyly philosophizes to his teammates. “This meant we could be girlish. We could pat fannies, snap towels; hug. Now . . . What do we do with our stray homosexual impulses?” After not-too-bright new catcher Jason Chenier (Tyler Lansing Weaks) asks if he was talking specifically to him and then turns red out of embarrassment because of the topic, Kippy adds, “We’ve lost a kind of paradise. We see that we are naked.” It’s as if they have taken a bite out of that apple and are being cast out of the garden.

Meanwhile, Darren keeps meeting with his new business manager, Mason Marzac (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a gay accountant who at first knows nothing about baseball except that Darren is also gay, which makes him fall in love with the sport and worship his client. “A couple of weeks earlier I would have barely recognized the name! Then the announcement — that incredible act of elective heroism — and it was as if I’d known him my whole life — as if he’d been something latent in my subconscious.”

As the Empires prepare for a big game against the club that Darren’s best friend, Davey Battle (Brandon J. Dirden), is on, the world around Darren and the Empires turns into a lot more than just “the mess” Kippy alluded to at the start of the show.

Shane Mungitt (Michael Oberholtzer) has a rude awakening in store in Broadway revival of Richard Greenberg play (photo by Joan Marcus)

Take Me Out is an exceptional drama that uses baseball as an apt analogy for the state of the country. “I have come (with no little excitement) to understand that baseball is a perfect metaphor for hope in a Democratic society,” Mason says. “It has to do with the rules of play. It has to do with the mode of enforcement of these rules. It has to do with certain nuances and grace notes of the game. . . . Everyone is given exactly the same chance. . . . And baseball is better than Democracy — or at least than Democracy as it’s practiced in this country — because unlike Democracy, baseball acknowledges loss.”

In the history of the four major sports leagues, only one NBA player and one NFL player have revealed they were gay and kept playing: Brooklyn Nets center Jason Paul Collins in 2013 and current LA Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib in 2021. The revelation that a baseball superstar in his prime is gay would be a major deal today, but in the twenty years since Take Me Out premiered at the Public, no MLB player and only one umpire, Dale Scott, has come out and stayed on the diamond. Greenberg’s (The Assembled Parties, Three Days of Rain, The Perplexed) play feels fresh and alive in 2022, like it could have been written yesterday, save for the lack of cellphones onstage (and, thanks to strict rules, in the audience as well).

The two-hour play (plus intermission) moves much faster and more smoothly than baseball games. Ellis (On the 20th Century, The Elephant Man) is a superb manager, guiding the actors through David Rockwell’s splendid sets, which range from the ballpark and the locker room to a lounge and actual showers. Linda Cho’s costumes, primarily baseball uniforms, spend nearly as much time off the actors as on. (The nudity is the reason audience members must have their phones sealed in a Yondr pouch that the staff will open for you during intermission and then upon exiting.)

In their Broadway debuts, Adams (Suits, Equivocation) displays an easygoing, likable charm as Kippy, earning the audience’s devoted attention from his very first words, while Williams (Grey’s Anatomy, The Sandbox) shows off his numerous tools as the secretive hotshot Darren. (He will reprise the role in an upcoming television series, according to Deadline.) Dirden (Skeleton Crew, Jitney) excels in his supporting role, like a solid, dependable DH who always gets good wood on the ball and comes through in the clutch.

But the MVP might just be Ferguson (Modern Family, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), who knocks it out of the park every chance he gets. Mason is the glue that holds it all together, the only one who seems to really understand Darren as both a wealthy athlete and a gay man. Ferguson’s growing enthusiasm is infectious, spreading throughout the theater; he’s just the kind of person every locker room needs.

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.