Tag Archives: John Doyle

THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI

Raúl Esparza stars as title character in Classic Stage revival of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (photo by Joan Marcus)

Classic Stage Company
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 22, $82-$127
www.classicstage.org

As twenty-first-century Fascism takes root around the world — and, arguably, to some extent, here in America — it is an appropriate time for a revival of Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 parable, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, and John Doyle and Classic Stage Company have done just that, using the 1964 English translation by George Tabori. The play does not have the most illustrious history; because of its content, it was never produced in Brecht’s lifetime (he died in 1956 at the age of fifty-eight), and two Broadway productions, one starring Christopher Plummer as the title character in 1963, the other with Robin Gammell in 1968, ran for a grand total of twenty-three performances, including previews. Tony Randall’s National Actors Theatre staged the allegory in 2002, with an all-star cast that included Al Pacino (as Ui, which rhymes with “phooey”), Steve Buscemi, Dominic Chianese, Billy Crudup, Charles Durning, Paul Giamatti, Sterling K. Brown, John Goodman, Chazz Palminteri, Tony Randall, and Linda Emond; among the others to try their hand at Ui are Peter Falk, Leonard Rossiter, Antony Sher, Nicol Williamson, and Hugo Weaving. Classic Stage previously put it on in 1991, with John Turturro in the lead.

For his uneven version, Tony winner Doyle (Sweeney Todd, The Color Purple) has turned to four-time Tony nominee Raúl Esparza, who starred in Doyle’s 2006 Tony-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, to play Arturo Ui, a Chicago gangster intent on taking over the cauliflower market. “But truth will come to life, fraud can’t be hid too long! / To put it bluntly: Chaos reigns supreme / If everybody does as he damn pleases, / Prompted by egoism, which is a grievous fault,” Ui declares, and chaos does reign supreme in this adaptation. Ui is based on Adolf Hitler during the 1930s; the cast also features Christopher Gurr as Dogsborough (Paul von Hindenburg), Elizabeth A. Davis as Giri (Hermann Göring), Eddie Cooper as Roma (Ernst Röhm), Thom Sesma as Givola (Joseph Goebbels), and George Abud as Clark (Franz von Papen). The two-act, 130-minute play begins with all eight actors behind a floor-to-ceiling chain-link fence, as if in prison. (Doyle designed the set as well, a warehouse representative of the Reichstag.) They exit and return through a door monitored by a guard; the central area is an open space with tables and chairs. The audience sits on three sides, and the characters often speak to them directly.

Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui tackles the Chicago cauliflower market (photo by Joan Marcus)

The play features many long speeches in iambic pentameter, including excerpts from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, amid power grabs, corruption, threats, scandal, and deception. “He guarantees to double our grosses, / Because the grocers, Mr. Ui says, / Would rather buy a cabbage than a coffin,” Flake (Mahira Kakkar) tells Clark. But for all his bluster, Ui is also a pathetic figure at odds with his ambition. “Nobody cares enough to bump you off,” Roma, his right-hand man, advises him. Ui responds, “They don’t? You see? That’s what I mean, Ernesto. / They’re giving more respect to horse-manure. . . . I’m gonna take him for a ride, Ernesto, / As soon as I get credit for a car.” The absurdity continues when Ui declares, “It’s cauliflower now! Or bust. One day / The vegetable business shall be mine!” But in the Trump era, it also is all-too-believable that a leader can be so petty and ridiculous — and comparing the Trump administration to a gang of criminals is not unfamiliar to this audience. Thus, as a cautionary tale, Ui feels too late. Combined with inconsistent acting and pacing and too many scattershot elements that don’t come together, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui turns out to be not irresistible.

THE COLOR PURPLE

Sisters Celie (Cynthia Erivo) and Nettie (Joaquina Kalukango) enjoy a beautiful moment before being separated in THE COLOR PURPLE (photo by Matthew Murphy, 2015)

Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 1, $75 – $195
colorpurple.com

The Color Purple achieves the extremely rare, elusive grand slam with its stirring new Broadway revival. Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her 1982 novel about a horribly abused and mistreated girl in the Depression-era American South. Stephen Spielberg’s 1985 film, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah Winfrey, was nominated for eleven Oscars (but won none). In 2005, the book and film were turned into a Broadway musical, earning ten Tony nominations and winning one (LaChanze for Best Performance by a Leading Actress). And now the revival is poised for yet more awards in a streamlined version at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. London native Cynthia Erivo makes a rousing Broadway debut as Celie, a fourteen-year-old Georgia girl whose pa (Kevyn Morrow) has gotten rid of her two children and is trying to pawn her off on a nasty farmer known as Mister (Isaiah Johnson), who would prefer to marry Celie’s younger sister, Nettie (Joaquina Kalukango). “She worse than I thought,” Mister complains. “Don’t even look like kin to Nettie. Maybe I —” Pa cuts him off by saying, “Maybe you’ll put Celie in charge of yo chirren fore they git big enough to kill you in the night.” Mister’s son, Harpo (Kyle Scatliffe), has married the bold, strong Sofia (Danielle Brooks), who isn’t going to tolerate any disrespect. “Wives is like chirren,” Mister tells his son. “Nothing better for ’em than a good sound beating,” to which Sofia responds with “Hell No!,” a defiant number delivered with power and grace by Brooks, singing out for women everywhere. “Why you so scared / I’ll never know / But if a man / raise his hand, / Hell no!” she declares. The town is soon sent into a furor when Shug Avery (Jennifer Hudson) returns, a popular singer whom all the men, including Mister, one of her many former lovers, melt over. “Drinkin’ all the gin / Lovin’ all the mens / Strumpet in a short skirt / Got no pride!” the women sing, while the men proclaim, “Oh Lord, let me cross / into her promised land.” Shug takes a liking to Celie while also still desiring Mister, setting up a conflict in which Celie must decide whether she can have a better life.

Director and set designer John Doyle turns the Jacobs Theatre into a juke joint in streamlined, intimate revival (photo by Matthew Murphy, 2015)

Written by Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman (’night, Mother; The Secret Garden) and with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, The Color Purple is a beautifully rendered revival, evoking the book and film while also standing on its own. Two-time Tony-winning director John Doyle (Sweeney Todd, Company) keeps things relatively simple. His folksy set features ramshackle wooden walls on which dozens of chairs hang, essentially the only props used in the production; the characters take the chairs off the walls, sit on them, then put them back; the many extra chairs serve as a kind of invitation to the audience to be part of this close-knit community. Norman carefully navigates the characters’ religious faith, avoiding preachy moments; Celie tells Shug at one point, “I prayed to God my whole life and what he done. Nuthin’.” Shug replies, “Celie, you better hush. God might hear you,” to which Celie responds, “Let ’im hear me. If God ever listened to a poor colored woman, the world would be a different place.” Rising British star Erivo (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Sister Act) and Brooks (Taystee on Orange Is the New Black) are smashing in their Broadway debuts, the former bringing down the house with the legitimate showstopper “I’m Here,” the latter a force all her own as Sofia, who represents so much of the pain and suffering experienced by African Americans, as well as the determination to ultimately fight back. Carrie Compere, Bre Jackson, and Rema Webb are delightful as the three gossiping church ladies who form a kind of Greek chorus, commenting on the proceedings with a clever sense of humor; Compere in particular has an impressive presence and theater-rattling voice that should lead to bigger roles. Surprisingly, the weakest part of the show are the songs given to Hudson (Dreamgirls, The Secret Life of Bees) in her Broadway debut; Hudson is laden with standard, syrupy ballads that don’t fit in with the rest of the Gospel and R&B numbers, although her costumes, by Ann Hould-Ward, are divine. The Color Purple has turned the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre into a thrilling, inspirational juke joint, bringing yet another life to Walker’s remarkable story.

THE VISIT

Chita Rivera returns to Broadway with a Tony-nominated performance in Kander and Ebb’s THE VISIT (photo by Thom Kaine)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 6, $29 – $149
thevisitmusical.com

On April 28 at the Lyceum Theatre, an enormous ovation greeted Chita Rivera as she took the stage, front and center, from an adoring Broadway crowd. Her character arrived in tow with a coffin, but this was a joyous celebration of life. Rivera most likely is justly lauded every night at this moment, but there was something extra in the air this time, as the eighty-two-year-old actress had been nominated for her tenth Tony Award earlier that day. (She won in 1984 for The Rink and in 2006 for Chita Rivera — A Dancer’s Life.) In John Kander and the late Fred Ebb’s The Visit, Rivera is resplendent as Claire Zachanassian, an oft-widowed billionaire who has returned to her hometown, a rotting European corpse known as Brachen. Dressed in a dazzling white gown, she shines among the gray, dank villagers who have gathered to welcome her in a dilapidated railway station overgrown with tree branches (splendidly designed by Scott Pask). They think she has come back to rescue them from their hell —her former lover, Anton Schell (a fine Roger Rees), has particularly high hopes — but they are sadly mistaken, as she has returned for revenge and justice. It’s too bad that the rest of this musical, really more of a play with songs, does not do her similar justice. “Justice, madam?” Mayor Peter Dummermut (David Garrison) asks. “I wish to buy justice,” Claire says. “But justice cannot be bought, madam,” the mayor points out. “Everything can be bought,” Claire responds, then proves it.

Ghostly lovers from the past (John Riddle and Michelle Veintimilla) hover over the dastardly dealings in THE VISIT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Adapted by Tony winner Terrence McNally (It’s Only a Play, Master Class) from the 1956 play by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit, featuring music by Kander and lyrics by Ebb, the masterminds behind Cabaret and Chicago, has had a long journey to Broadway, gestating since 2001, always with Rivera The Mystery of Edwin Drood, West Side Story) as the star. For its Great White Way debut, director John Doyle (Sweeney Todd, Company) has assembled quality parts, but he never fully commits to any of the show’s numerous concepts, resulting in a baffling tale that is more like an overextended short story than a one-hundred-minute musical. When Claire explains that several of her body parts are artificial, Anton asks, “Is there anything left that’s real?” Touching her heart, Claire replies, “Here, Anton, as you shall see.” But The Visit doesn’t have an emotional core, instead ranging among ideas that are left hanging, remaining unexplained. As the townsfolk, including police chief Otto Hahnke (Aaron Ramey), schoolmaster Frederich Kuhn (Jason Danieley), hospital head Hans Nusselin (Timothy Shew), Father Josef (Rick Holmes), and Anton’s wife, Matilde (Mary Beth Peil), and children, Karl (George Abud) and Ottilie (Elena Shaddow), consider the future of Brachen, the past is ever-present, in the ghostly form of young lovers Anton (John Riddle) and Claire (Michelle Veintimilla), who are always onstage, but they go from an intriguing and beautiful motif to an overused device. Claire is accompanied by her strange butler (Tom Nelis) and a pair of oddly named and made-up blind eunuchs, Jacob Chicken (Chris Newcomer) and Louis Perch (Matthew Deming), whose existence and purpose don’t make complete sense. The only color comes from bold splashes of yellow; although a dance number choreographed by Graciela Daniele (Ragtime, The Rink), in which the characters, wearing bright yellow shoes, sit on Claire’s luggage, moving their legs and feet, is charming and funny, the tincture comes out of nowhere, color for color’s sake; if it is supposed to represent the town’s cowardice, it doesn’t come off that way. It’s the staging that ultimately lets down a bravura performance by Rivera, a quality book by McNally, and a game cast, left to wander through Doyle’s perplexing choices much as the characters wander through the remains of a once-prosperous town, making this Visit not worth a visit.