Tag Archives: Chuck Cooper

PRINCE OF BROADWAY

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 22, $89-$165
princeofbway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Less is certainly not more in Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of the surprisingly slight Prince of Broadway. Continuing at the Samuel J. Friedman through October 22, the show is a tribute to legendary icon Hal Prince, who has won twenty-one Tony Awards during a grand career going back to his days as an assistant stage manager in 1950 through directing and/or producing many of the greatest musicals in Broadway history. Prince himself directs the talented cast of nine — Chuck Cooper, Janet Dacal, Bryonha Marie Parham, Emily Skinner, Brandon Uranowitz, Kaley Ann Voorhees, Michael Xavier, Tony Yazbeck, and Karen Ziemba — who all portray him, glasses on top of their heads, as he discusses brief, mostly unilluminating snippets from his history, many of them self-aggrandizing platitudes that serve as introductions to some of the numbers, although there are a few choice tidbits, including his meeting Stephen Sondheim. The crew is just about as good as it gets, with a book by two-time Tony nominee David Thompson, arrangements and orchestrations by two-time Tony winner Jason Robert Brown, sets and projections by Tony winner Beowulf Boritt, costumes by six-time Tony winner William Ivey Long, lighting by two-time Tony winner Howell Binkley, and codirection and choreography by five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman. And the show has several memorable moments, including Cooper bringing the house down with “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof, Parham belting out the theme song from Cabaret, Xavier and Dacal camping it up on “You’ve Got Possibilities” from It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman, and Skinner delivering a moving “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music. But as Ziemba sings as Fräulein Schneider from Cabaret, “So what?”

Too many of the production numbers are not introduced by name; how many people are likely to know that “This Is Not Over Yet” is from Parade? Prince’s specific contributions, whether director or producer, are not indicated onstage (only in the program), so it is often difficult to grasp how much we’re seeing is from the man himself. With limited or no background information, most of the songs exist in a kind of vacuum, where the audience doesn’t know enough about the characters to get involved in their tales, except for the numbers that have more exposition in them. Even such beloved songs as “Something’s Coming” and “Tonight” from West Side Story feel lost amid the other hits and non-hits; it’s not fair for Stroman and Prince to assume the crowd is already familiar with the songs, a disservice particularly to younger generations or newcomers of any age to musical theater. And although Prince worked on nearly sixty shows, a mere sixteen are represented here, with three or four songs from certain musicals; it would have been fascinating to see tunes from such less-well-known works as Zorba, A Family Affair, Flora, the Red Menace, or even A Doll’s Life, which closed after five performances, instead of multiple numbers from Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. An earlier version did have other songs, including “All I Need Is One Good Break” from Flora, but numerous delays and financial issues led to many changes. (For example, in March 2012 it was announced that the Broadway production would open that November with Sebastian Arcelus, Linda Lavin, Richard Kind, LaChanze, Shuler Hensley, Sierra Boggess, Josh Grisetti, Amanda Kloots-Larsen, Daniel Breaker, Caroline O’Connor, David Pittu, and Skinner.) In a program note, Prince writes, “I doubt if anyone today can duplicate the life I’ve been lucky enough to live.” That’s very likely true, but the eighty-nine-year-old master deserves better than Prince of Broadway.

THE CHERRY ORCHARD

John Glover, Joel Grey, Diane Lane, and Chuck Cooper squeeze into new Broadway adaptation of THE CHERRY ORCHARD (photo by Joan Marcus 2016)

American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 4, $59-$149
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

Rising Roundabout scribe Stephen Karam takes a curious pause in his soaring career with a misbegotten adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s classic comic drama, The Cherry Orchard. Karam’s two previous plays, 2011’s Sons of the Prophet and 2014’s The Humans, were both finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and the latter won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play when it was off Broadway and then the Tony for Best Play after transferring to the Great White Way. But his new version of The Cherry Orchard, in an exasperating production helmed by National Theatre associate director Simon Goodwin (The Beaux’ Stratagem, Routes), is sour from the very start. Chekhov’s plot is familiar to most theatergoers: After living in Paris for five years following the death of her husband and the tragic drowning of her seven-year-old-son, Grisha, Madame Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya (Diane Lane) returns to the family home with her entourage, only to find that the entire estate, including her beloved cherry orchard, is going to be sold at auction because of failure to pay off massive debts. Yermolai Alekseyevich Lopakhin (Harold Perrineau), a successful businessman whose father and grandfather worked as serfs on the estate, offers a plan to save the house by cutting down the orchard and replacing it with vacation villas, but Lyubov and her arrogant brother, Leonid Andreyevich Gaev (John Glover), will have none of it, acting like spoiled children, refusing to face the direness of their situation. Also refusing to accept reality is Lyubov’s daughter, Anya (Tavi Gevinson), and her adopted daughter, Varya (Celia Keenan-Bolger). The family circle is filled out by governess and magician Charlotta Ivanovna (Tina Benko), family friend and landowner Boris Borisovich Simeonov-Pischik (Chuck Cooper), local clerk Semyon Panteleyevich Yepikhodov (Quinn Mattfeld), Grisha’s former teacher and current student Pyotr Sergeyevich Trofimov (Kyle Beltran), maid (Dunyasha), young servant Yasha (Maurice Jones), and doddering old servant Firs (Joel Grey). In addition, violinist Bryan Hernandez-Luch, clarinetist Liam Burke, and percussionist Chihiro Shibayama add cinematic music first from the sidelines, then from the back of the stage. But it’s all for naught.

Lopakhin (Harold Perrineau) tries to convince Madame Lyubov (Diane Lane) of the fate of the cherry orchard in Roundabout revival (photo by Joan Marcus 2016)

Chekhov’s plays are ripe for reinterpretation. This year alone has brought the Pearl’s Stupid Fucking Bird and Peter Pan Theatre’s The Seagull and Other Birds, two wildly inventive reimaginings of The Seagull, while the Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg’s production of The Cherry Orchard at BAM was a brilliant, immersive take on the tragicomedy. But Karam and Godwin throw too much into the mix, getting trapped in a no-man’s land between traditional and experimental, classical and contemporary, realistic and metaphorical. Michael Krass’s costumes are all over the place, from sharp, modern-day suits to old-fashioned Eastern European garb, as is Karam’s dialogue. “What is it you’d say . . . ?” Madame Lyubov asks Gaev early on. “What’s the lingo?” And stage directions such as “Varya and Anya share a moment of ‘What the hell was that?!’” certainly don’t help. Karam also shifts the idea of serfdom into slavery, which Godwin overdoes by casting black actors as Lopakhin, Trofimov, and Pischik. Most of the play takes place in the nursery, which set designer Scott Pask has outfitted with tiny chairs and tables, Alexander Calder-like mobiles hanging from the ceiling, a toy village, and a mobile of small hot-air balloons hovering over a child’s bed. Yes, we get it; virtually all of the characters are acting like children. And it turns out to be more cringe-worthy than funny when the rather large Cooper wiggles into one of the chairs. The floor is an enormous trunk of a tree that has been chopped down, its myriad rings representing the changing times and generations, evoking the eventual fate of the cherry orchard and the Russian aristocracy — as well as this production itself.

AMAZING GRACE

Mary (Erin Mackey) and John (Josh Young) try to find love in turbulent times in new Broadway musical (photo by Joan Marcus)

Nederlander Theatre
208 West 41st St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 20, $65-$139
877-250-2929
amazinggracemusical.com

As the new Broadway musical Amazing Grace opens, a man (Tony winner Chuck Cooper) stands at the side of the stage and announces, “There are moments when the waves of history converge. When the transformation of one man can change the world,” declaring, “It is a story that must be told.” There may indeed be a fascinating tale behind John Newton, the writer of the title song, a beloved Protestant hymn, but this is not necessarily it. Tony nominee Josh Young (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita) stars as Newton, the ne’er-do-well son of the regal Captain Newton (Tony nominee Tom Hewitt), an important businessman and slave trader in the port town of Chatham, England. John has just returned from a stint on the high seas, where he meets up on the docks with Mary Catlett (Erin Mackey), his “dearest friend in the world,” and is chastised by his father, who takes away his son’s mariner’s license and demands he return to England, the family business of slaving, and his studies. Against his father’s orders, John runs a slave auction that turns disastrous when abolitionists intercede, leading to bloodshed and an escape. It doesn’t take long for John to find himself at odds with everyone else as Mary starts meeting secretly with the abolitionists, the dandy Major Gray (Chris Hoch) begins wooing Mary, and his father demands that he find the missing slave. John then sets off on a dangerous journey that only gets worse because of his haughty attitude and love of the drink, heading toward rock bottom at full speed.

John Newton (Josh Young) battles with his father (Tom Hewitt) in AMAZING GRACE (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Playbill points out that Amazing Grace is Christopher Smith’s “first work of professional writing,” and it shows as the musical continues, bogged down by clichés and obvious plot twists. Smith, who wrote the music and lyrics and cowrote the book with Arthur Giron (Moving Bodies, A Dream of Wealth), strives to take us deep into the heart and soul of John Newton, exploring the travails that resulted in his composing one of the most famous songs ever written, but it turns out that Newton’s story is not nearly as compelling as the song itself. The cast is terrific — Hewitt (The Rocky Horror Show, Another Medea) and Cooper (The Life, Memphis), as the Newtons’ slave and John’s closest friend, are particularly impressive, and Mackey (Chaplin, Wicked) is in fine voice. But director Gabriel Barre (Summer of ’42, The Wild Party) never finds a consistent rhythm as the production attempts to navigate racism and white privilege but cannot escape mundane sentimentality and political correctness, especially in a banal finale. Part of the problem is that slavery is a one-sided conflict, and it is difficult to have sympathy for Newton even as he is being redeemed. The producers tried hard to avoid major religious overtones, given the title song’s association with the concept of redemption, and they achieve that in the first act, but the second act turns out to be far more preachy, complete with religious implications. Still, Amazing Grace, which has been in the works for eighteen years, has its moments, concluding with a sing-along of the complete eighteenth-century hymn that continues to have such an emotional impact, sung recently by President Obama at the funeral for shooting victim Rev. Clementa Pinckney in Charleston, South Carolina.

ROMEO AND JULIET

Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad star as ill-fated young lovers in new Broadway version of ROMEO AND JULIET (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Richard Rodgers Theatre
226 West 46th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 8, $87-$142
877-250-2929
www.romeoandjulietbroadway.com

The first Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in more than a quarter century might have fire, but it lacks sizzle. On Jesse Poleshuck’s relatively stark stage, which includes a large bell (hanging through the entire show), sand on either side, and a three-piece fresco that serves as a climbing wall, an artistic backdrop, and a doorway, the slick Romeo Montague (Orlando Bloom, in his Broadway debut) arrives on a motorcycle, making it clear from the start that this will not necessarily be a traditional version of the play. It’s love at first sight when he comes upon Juliet Capulet (Condola Rashad) at a party, but their families are sort of like the Hatfields and the McCoys, with a long history of not exactly getting along with each other. A fight ensues between the white Montagues and the black Capulets involving switchblades and chains, more West Side Story than Shakespeare, leaving several dead and Romeo in a heap of trouble. Meanwhile, Juliet flies high on a swing and later declares her love for Romeo on a balcony that juts out from the right like a deus ex machina. In addition, two horizontal poles occasionally show up, spitting out flames.

Benvolio (Conrad Kemp) offers advice to Romeo (Orlando Bloom) (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Benvolio (Conrad Kemp) offers advice to Romeo (Orlando Bloom) as rope for bell hangs down ominously (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Directed by David Leveaux, who specializes in Broadway revivals (Nine, The Real Thing, Fiddler on the Roof), this version of Romeo and Juliet ends up falling flat, with only flashes of excitement, even if it does include one of the longest kisses in Broadway history. Rashad, who was nominated for Tonys for her first two performances on the Great White Way, in Stick Fly and The Trip to Bountiful, is too innocent and wide-eyed as Juliet, and the chemistry between her and Bloom, who is fine if not exceptional, never quite ignites. The always reliable Jayne Houdyshell is a powerhouse as Juliet’s nurse, Brent Carver makes for a caring Friar Laurence, and Christian Camargo has a blast as the wisecracking Mercutio, dry-humping everything in sight. The cast also includes Corey Hawkins as Tybalt, Conrad Kemp as Benvolio, Chuck Cooper as Lord Capulet, Roslyn Ruff as Lady Capulet, Michael Rudko as Lord Montague, and Tracy Sallows as Lady Montague. Leveaux wisely avoids turning this into a story about race, even casting Justin Guarini, the son of an African American father and an Italian American mother, as Paris, Romeo’s rival for Juliet’s hand in marriage. (The previous Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet in 1986 had a multicultural cast led by Rene Moreno and Regina Taylor as the star-crossed lovers.) But the inconsistent and often confusing staging, along with little or no spark from the leads, leaves this Romeo and Juliet sadly lacking.

THE PIANO LESSON

August Wilson’s THE PIANO LESSON is back in a sparkling revival at the Signature Theatre (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Irene Diamond Stage
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Extended through January 13, $75
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Inspired by a 1983 painting by Romare Bearden, August Wilson brought the canvas to life in his masterful 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, The Piano Lesson, currently in the midst of a sparkling revival at the Signature Theatre through December 23. After three years away, Boy Willie (Brandon J. Dirden) returns to the home of his uncle, Doaker Charles (James A. Williams), and sister, Berniece (Roslyn Ruff), in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1936, bringing with him his best friend and cohort, Lymon (Jason Dirden), a flatbed loaded with watermelons, and a plan to buy back ancestral land by selling a treasured family piano. But the piano is more than just a valuable musical instrument; it represents the history of the Charles clan, in both how it came to be in their possession and the intricate carvings of their forebears that line the front and side. The already taut drama then kicks into high gear as generations and siblings clash, a ghost does or does not appear, and brash, fast-talking Boy Willie faces down hard-won traditions.

Brandon J. Dirden comes on like a speeding train in brilliant revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

The fourth play in Wilson’s ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle that features one work set in each decade of the twentieth century (and also includes Fences, Two Trains Running, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Seven Guitars), The Piano Lesson is stunning in its language, every line like an expertly crafted piece of music, the tempo rising and falling and rising again, a talking blues that examines the black experience in America in captivating ways. Brandon J. Dirden, taking on the iconic role previously performed by Samuel L. Jackson and, most famously, by a Tony-nominated Charles S. Dutton, is a whirlwind as Boy Willie, an explosive character unable to say or do anything in a small way, charging across the stage like a train speeding through a station, on an unstoppable path to somewhere better. His brother Jason is endearing as the much simpler Lymon, who seems happy enough with a cheap suit and night on the town. Williams, who earlier this year played Mr. M in the Signature revival of Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa!, provides the voice of reason as Doaker, along with Eric Lenox Abrams as Avery, a minister who would like to settle down with Berniece. Chuck Cooper adds plenty of humor as the big and blustery Wining Boy, an engaging gambler and bluesman who shows just what the piano can do. The story takes place in set designer Michael Carnahan’s tear-away house, which looks like a tornado tore through it, ripping it in half, like the lives of the characters, each of whom is searching for their own personal completeness. Director Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who has both acted in and directed other works by Wilson, winning a Tony in 1996 as Canewell in Seven Guitars, clearly understands the playwright’s brilliant skill, balancing the action and words with a steady hand. One of the best production of the year on or off Broadway, The Piano Lesson is a magical night of unforgettable theater by one of America’s true masters.