Tag Archives: Kimiko Glenn

WAITRESS

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Becky (Keala Settle), Jenna (Jessie Mueller), and Dawn (Kimiko Glenn) serve pies and more in WAITRESS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Brooks Atkinson Theatre
256 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 1, $69-$159
877-250-2929
waitressthemusical.com
www.brooksatkinsontheater.com

Tony-winning star Jessie Mueller has quickly become one of those Broadway sensations you can watch do just about anything, even when she serves up a dish of lukewarm Lifetime schmaltz like Waitress. Mueller, who has risen well above her material in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, does the same in this American Repertory Theater musical, an adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film, which was accepted to Sundance shortly after Shelly was murdered in Greenwich Village at the age of forty. Mueller plays Jenna Hunterson, a waitress in Joe’s Pie Diner, where every morning she makes such delectable, original delights as Marshmallow Mermaid Pie, Fallin’ in Love Chocolate Mousse Pie, and Jenna’s First Kiss Pie. “You want to know what’s inside? Simple question, so then what’s the answer?” she sings. “My whole life is in here, in this kitchen baking.” Desperate to escape an abusive marriage to Earl (Nick Cordero), she is distraught to learn she’s pregnant. When diner owner Joe (Dakin Matthews) suggests she compete in a pie contest with a prize of twenty thousand dollars, she thinks she may have discovered her way out, but her life gets even more complicated when she becomes attracted to her new gynecologist, the married Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling). Her coworkers, the sharp-tongued Becky (Keala Settle) and the wallflower Dawn (Kimiko Glenn, in the role played by Shelly in the movie), provide emotional support and comic relief, while Jenna’s coping skills include memories of baking pies with her late mother and imagining what she’ll make next, creating in her mind such telling desserts as I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie, Betrayed by My Eggs Pie, and I Can’t Have an Affair Because It’s Wrong and I Don’t Want Earl to Kill Me Pie. But Jenna can’t stop spending time with Dr. Pomatter despite knowing better. “It’s a terrible idea me and you,” they sing in a duet. Jenna: “You have a wife.” Dr. Pomatter: “You have a husband.” Jenna: “You’re my doctor!” Dr. Pomatter: “You’ve got a baby coming.” Both: “It’s a bad idea me and you / Let’s keep kissing till we come to.” Unfortunately, by the time they come to, it’s too late.

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling) and Jenna (Jessie Mueller) seek a sweeter life in adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 romantic comedy (photo by Joan Marcus)

Mueller shines once again in Waitress, making the most of what is essentially a hard-to-believe contemporary bodice ripper disguised as a romantic musical comedy. She has a comforting stage presence, blending confidence and vulnerability in charming ways, even as we watch her character make absurdly ridiculous decisions. She, Settle (Hands on a Hardbody, Priscilla Queen of the Desert), and Glenn (Orange Is the New Black, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) share a warm camaraderie, recalling the trio of waitresses from the television series Alice, along with Eric Anderson (Soul Doctor, Kinky Boots) as Cal, the gruff cook. Christopher Fitzgerald (Young Frankenstein, Finian’s Rainbow) nearly steals the show as Ogie, going all out as a stalker-like major nerd who is interested in Dawn and is not afraid to let everyone know about it. His stirring rendition of “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me” is a genuine showstopper. The songs, by five-time Grammy nominee Sara Bareilles, are relatively harmless, mixing in multiple genres, but former waitress Jessie Nelson’s (I Am Sam; Corrina, Corrina) book never really gets cooking, jumping around too much while taking underdeveloped or overdone turns. Director Diane Paulus (The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Hair, Pippin) does what she can with the mediocre material, wisely making sure that Mueller is front and center as much as possible on Scott Pask’s set, which changes from the diner to the doctor’s office to Jenna and Earl’s home. Waitress serves up a few very tasty slices, but it takes more than that to make a wholly satisfying pie.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

(photo by Joan Marcus)

The BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON team of Michael Friedman and Alex Timbers team up to reimagine Shakespeare’s LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST at the Delacorte (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Through August 18, free, 8:30
shakespeareinthepark.org

Michael Friedman and Alex Timbers give the Bard the Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson treatment in the Public Theater’s new Shakespeare in the Park production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. The anything and everything goes kitchen-sink musical is set in the modern day, as four college buds — the King (Daniel Breaker), Berowne (Colin Donnell), Longaville (Bryce Pinkham), and Dumaine (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe) — come together for their fifth reunion, agreeing to lock away their beer, bong, and condoms and dedicate the next three years to their studies. But their plan is sorely tested when a quartet of beautiful babes — Princess (Patti Murin), Rosaline (Maria Thayer), Maria (Kimiko Glenn), and Katherine (Audrey Lynn Weston) — shows up, with the Princess, who has had a previous fling with the King, claiming he owes her money. A wild and wacky battle of the sexes ensues as the men and women can’t seem to stay away from one another. Meanwhile, a bombastic Spanish royal, Armado (Caesar Samayoa), has the hots for barmaid Jaquenetta (Rebecca Naomi Jones); Costard (Charlie Pollock), a Matthew McConaughey-like surfer dude, misdelivers a pair of important messages; and professors Holofernes (Rachel Dratch) and Nathaniel (Jeff Hiller), along with Dull (Kevin del Aguila), a cop on a Segway, provide absurdist comic relief.

(photo by Joan Marcus)

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST continues at the Delacorte through August 18 (photo by Joan Marcus)

Love’s Labour’s Lost is a whole lot of good-time fun, even if it gets overly repetitive and is all over the place. Friedman’s score, which ranges from straight-up Broadway-type standards to riotous riffs on A Chorus Line (in a nod to Joe Papp), boy-band ballads, Grease, and girl-group pop, are well crafted but too often self-referential, repeatedly mentioning the music and lyrics of the songs themselves and adding inside jokes over and over again. Director Timbers, who helmed the masterful Here Lies Love at the Public, also adapted the book, which occasionally gets a little shaky as he tries for too much; while some set pieces are triumphant, others fall flat, although he very cleverly works in some Shakespeare sonnets in the love letters the protagonists compose. Jones (Passing Strange) is dazzling as Jaquenetta, performing the show’s best song, the noir “Love’s a Gun,” with Murin (Lysistrata Jones), Thayer (Necessary Targets), and Donnell (Anything Goes) standing out among the rest of the cast, which also features Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson vets Near-Verbrugghe, Pinkham, bandleader Justin Levine, and Jeff Hiller as Nathaniel; the inspired choreography is by Jacksonian Danny Mefford. Despite its many missteps, Love’s Labour’s Lost goes a long way in further establishing Shakespeare in the Park returnee Friedman (Romeo and Juliet, The Seagull, Cymbeline) and Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant) as the future of American musical theater. Don’t forget that in addition to waiting on line at the Delacorte to get free tickets, you can also enter the daily virtual ticketing lottery online here. And to get in the mood, you can sample some of the songs here.