Tag Archives: Terrence McNally

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: AFTER THE SCREENING

Antonio Banderas will be at the Tribeca Film Festival to discuss his portrayal of Pablo Picasso in Genius: Picasso

Tribeca Film Festival
Multiple locations
April 18-29, $33.15 – $43.45
www.tribecafilm.com/festival

The Tribeca Film Festival’s “After the Screening” series features conversations, panel discussions, live performances, and Q&As following screenings of more than two dozen films and television episodes, not including the special shows at the Beacon Theatre. Most of the events, held at the SVA Theater, BMCC Tribeca PAC, Cinépolis Chelsea, and the festival hub at Spring Studios, cost between $25.94 and $43.45, except on April 27, when they’re free. Among the guests appearing “After the Screening” are Viola Davis, Sam Rockwell, Paris Hilton, André Leon Talley, Jennifer Beals, Steve Buscemi, Sandra Bernhard, Alexandre Rockwell, Brian Grazer, Joy Reid, Terrence McNally, Christine Baranski, F. Murray Abraham, Chita Rivera, Matthew Broderick, Antonio Banderas, Katie Couric, Tom Sturridge, Natalie Dormer, Paul Sparks, Kathleen Cleaver, Alex Gibney, Emily Mortimer, Alessandro Nivola, Ron Perlman, Kyle Abraham, Ralph Macchio, DJ Jahi Sundance, the Last Poets, Jason Reitman, and Tamara Jenkins. Tickets are still available for most of the presentations, although some are already at rush and limited status.

Thursday, April 19
Tribeca Talks: Director’s Series: Tully (Jason Reitman, 2018), conversation with Jason Reitman and Tamara Jenkins, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 5:15

Westworld, discussion with Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, and James Marsden, BMCC Tribeca PAC, rush, 8:30

Friday, April 20
Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story (Julia Willoughby Nason & Jenner Furst, 2018), conversation with codirectors Julia Willoughby Nason and Jenner Furst, the parents of Trayvon Martin, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, executive producers Mike Gasparro and Chachi Senior, and special guests, moderated by Joy Reid, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $33.15, 5:45

Genius: Picasso, conversation with showrunner Ken Biller, executive producers Brian Grazer and Francie Calfo, and cast members Antonio Banderas, Alex Rich, Clémence Poésy, Poppy Delevingne, and Samantha Colley, moderated by Cynthia Littleton, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $33.15, 8:30

Saturday, April 21
Bathtubs over Broadway (Dava Whisenant, 2018), conversation with members of the cast and a special performance inspired by the film with surprise guests, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $33.15, 2:00

Freaks & Geeks: The Documentary (Brent Hodge, 2018), conversation with director Brent Hodge and Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig, Tribeca Festival Hub, $33.15, 8:00

Sunday, April 22
Netizens (Cynthia Lowen, 2018), conversation with director Cynthia Lowen and subjects Tina Reine, Carrie Goldberg, and Anita Sarkeesian, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, rush, 2:00

To Dust (Shawn Snyder, 2018), followed by Tribeca Film Institute conversation with writer/director Shawn Snyder, producers Emily Mortimer, Alessandro Nivola, and Ron Perlman, cast members Geza Rohrig and Matthew Broderick, and biologist Dawnie Steadman, hosted by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, SVA Theater 1 Silas, rush, 6:00

Mr. Soul (Melissa Haizlip & Samuel Pollard, 2018), followed by #SOUL50: A 50th Anniversary Tribute to SOUL! hosted by Blair Underwood and featuring performances from Robert Glasper, Lalah Hathaway, Kyle Abraham, DJ Jahi Sundance, Sade Lythcott, Kathleen Cleaver, and the Last Poets: Abiodun Oyewole, Umar Bin Hassan and Felipe Luciano, Tribeca Festival Hub, $33.15, 8:00

Monday, April 23
Every Act of Life (Jeff Kaufman, 2018), conversation with director Jeff Kaufman, playwright Terrence McNally, actor/director Joe Mantello, and actors F. Murray Abraham, Christine Baranski, and Chita Rivera, moderated by Frank Rich, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, rush, 8:00

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes (Sophie Huber, 2018), followed by special guest performance by Blue Note artists Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, and Kendrick Scott, Tribeca Festival Hub, rush, 8:00

Steve Buscemi will take part in twenty-fifth anniversary screening of In the Soup with Jennifer Beals, Sam Rockwell, and others

Tuesday, April 24
In the Soup (Alexandre Rockwell, 1992), conversation with director Alexandre Rockwell, actors Steve Buscemi, Jennifer Beals, and Sam Rockwell, and cinematographer Phil Parmet, SVA Theater 1 Silas, $25.94, 7:30

Cobra Kai, conversation with writers, directors, and executive producers Hayden Schlossberg, John Hurwitz, and Josh Heald and series stars and executive producers Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, rush, 7:45

Wednesday, April 25
Bobby Kennedy for President (Dawn Porter, 2018), conversation with director Dawn Porter and Ambassador William vanden Heuvel, SVA Theater 1 Silas, $33.15, 5:00

Woman Walks Ahead (Susanna White, 2017), conversation with director Susanna White, actor Sam Rockwell, and others, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $25.94, 5:45

Phenoms, conversation with executive producers David Brooks and Mario Melchiot, producer Arbi Pedrossian, creative director Chris Perkel, producer and editor Thomas Verette, and directors Jane Hicks, Jeff Zimbalist, and Michael Zimbalist, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, $33.15, 8:30

The Gospel According to André (Kate Novack, 2018), conversation with director Kate Novack, subject André Leon Talley, producers Andrew Rossi and Josh Braun, and executive producer Roger Ross Williams, moderated by Sandra Bernhard, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $33.15, 8:30

Ella Purnell and Paul Sparks will talk about their new series, Sweetbitter, at Tribeca

Thursday, April 26
Sweetbitter, conversation with creator, executive producer, and writer Stephanie Danler, showrunner Stuart Zicherman, and cast members Ella Purnell, Caitlin FitzGerald, Tom Sturridge, and Paul Sparks, moderated by Katie Couric, SVA Theater 1 Silas, rush, 5:00

Enhanced, conversation with executive producer Alex Gibney and directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jesse Sweet, moderated by Marisa Guthrie, Cinépolis Chelsea 7, $33.15, 6:00

RX: Early Detection a Cancer Journey with Sandra Lee (Cathy Chermol Schrijver, 2018), conversation with director Cathy Chermol Schrijver and subjects Sandra Lee and Kimber Lee, SVA Theater 1 Silas, $25.94, 7:45

Drunk History, conversation with cocreator, director, and host Derek Waters, cocreator and director Jeremy Konner, and special guests (and two complimentary drink tickets), Tribeca Festival Hub, $33.15, 8:30

Friday, April 27
Little Women (Vanessa Caswill, 2017), conversation with executive producers Colin Callender and Rebecca Eaton and cast member Maya Hawke, SVA Theater 1 Silas, free with advance ticket, 5:00

The Last Defense, conversation with executive producers Viola Davis and Julius Tennon, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, free with advance ticket, 6:00

The American Meme (Bert Marcus, 2018), conversation with director Bert Marcus and subjects Paris Hilton, Kirill Bichutsky, Brittany Furlan, the Fat Jew, and Hailey Baldwin, Tribeca Festival Hub, limited, 8:00

Saturday, April 28
The Staircase, conversation with creator and director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and producers Matthieu Belghiti and Allyson Luchak, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, $33.15, 6:00

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Larysa Kondracki, 2018), conversation with director Larysa Kondracki, executive producer Jo Porter, and cast member Natalie Dormer, SVA Theater 1 Silas, $33.15, 8:00

ANASTASIA

A young woman (Christy Altomare) searches for her true identity in ANASTASIA (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Broadhurst Theatre
235 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 7, $69-$189
www.anastasiabroadway.com

A kind of cult — er, rather large fan base — has grown up around Anastasia, Don Bluth’s 1997 animated movie about the fall of the Romanovs in Russia and the possible survival of one of the tsar’s daughters. When I went to see the new musical version, which opened last night at the Broadhurst, the theater was packed with big groups of young girls who were giddy with delight at the prospect of seeing their beloved movie brought to life on the stage; they then proceeded to shriek in unison at their favorite romantic scenes, making the experience feel like The Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles appeared. The many twentysomething women in the audience were perhaps less giddy than wistful and teary-eyed as they watched the theatricalization of a film that has meant so much to them since they first saw the animated movie back in the late 1990s, when they were the same age as the shrieking girls are now. Thus, the show appears to have a built-in, review-proof audience. They oohed and aahed during the disappointing first act, set in St. Petersburg in 1906-7, 1917, and 1927, which catered to the younger fans at the expense of the story, but the second act, set in 1927 Paris, was enchanting, taking a far more adult approach, a treat for young and old alike.

Gleb Vaganov (Ramin Karimloo) befriends a poor street sweeper (Christy Altomare) in musical version of classic legend (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Anastasia features a book by four-time Tony winner Terrence McNally (Kiss of the Spider Woman, Love! Valour! Compassion!) and music and lyrics by Tony winners Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, the same trio that turned E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime into a hit musical in 1998; Flaherty and Ahrens wrote the score for the animated film, and six of those songs, including the Oscar-nominated “Journey to the Past,” are in the Broadway show, along with sixteen new tunes. Neither of the Fox films was completely true to the real story of the Romanovs and Anastasia, and McNally has fiddled with the truth as well, but this is not historical fiction as much as romantic fantasy. The Grand Duchess Anastasia (first played by Nicole Scimeca, then Molly Rushing and Christy Altomare as she grows up) is one of four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II (Constantine Germanacos) and Tsarina Alexandra (Lauren Blackman), who live in luxury in the royal palace, shut off from the real world. Old Russia is coming to an end, but the only one who seems to realize that is the tsar’s mother, the Dowager Empress (Mary Beth Peil), who decides to spend her declining years in Paris. The seven-year-old Anastasia wants to go with her beloved grandmother, who gives her a special music box to remember her by until Anastasia can come visit her. Ten years later, the Romanovs are still awash in elegance and finery when they are attacked during the Bolshevik revolution, as the Communists take control of Russia.

Vlad (John Bolton), the Countess Lily (Caroline O’Connor), and others celebrate their home country at a Paris nightclub in ANASTASIA (photo by Matt Murphy)

Amid postrevolutionary poverty and destitution, rumors swirl that Anastasia might still be alive. Seeking a reward, Dmitry (Derek Klena) and Vlad (John Bolton) try to find a girl they can train to be an impostor, then present to the Dowager Empress. Also on the hunt for Anastasia is Czekist Gleb Vaganov (Ramin Karimloo), a rising star in the Communist Party who wants to make sure all of the Romanovs are dead. He meets and offers help to a street sweeper named Anya (Altomare), but she refuses. Dmitry and Vlad soon believe that Anya, suffering from amnesia, is the right girl for their plan. As they scheme to escape to Paris in 1927 and bring Anya to the Dowager Empress, little memories come back to Anya that hint that she might actually be the real Anastasia. In creating a new telling of the true story, McNally has replaced the evil, villainous Rasputin with the significantly more human, heartthrob-handsome Gleb, while also creating the energetic and fun-loving Countess Lily (Caroline O’Connor), the Dowager Empress’s lady-in-waiting and a potential love interest for Vlad. Choreographer Peggy Hickey offers numerous dances as the action moves from 1906 Russia to 1927 France, including a troika, a waltz, the Charleston, and even ballet, making excellent use of Linda Cho’s costumes, which range from spectacular ball gowns to peasant drab. Meanwhile, Aaron Rhyne’s projections, which often evoke travel, get more creative once the maps go away, enhancing Alexander Dodge’s cleverly functional set. Tony-winning director Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, The Killer) can’t save the dreary sentimentality of the first act but really opens things up in the vastly more entertaining second act, which begins with “Paris Holds the Key (to Your Heart),” immediately letting us know that things are going to get better. All the while, the shrieking continues, culminating in a rafters-shaking noise at the finale. Spoiler alert: Ten years ago, the real Anastasia’s bones were found, with DNA evidence confirming that she died with the rest of her family in the Bolshevik attack. Of course, McNally, et al. opt for a different ending for the musical, and you’ll be very glad they did.

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.

IT’S ONLY A PLAY

Producer Julia Budder (Megan Mullally) and Hollywood star James Wicker (Nathan Lane) are positively giddy at opening-night party for THE GOLDEN EGG (photo by Joan Marcus)

Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 7, $72-$147
www.itsonlyaplay.com

Terrence McNally’s latest Broadway show might be titled It’s Only a Play, but oh, what a play it is. In 2012’s Golden Age, the four-time Tony winner (Master Class, Love! Valour! Compassion!) took us behind the scenes of the world premiere of Vincenzo Bellini’s I puritani, and in 2013’s And Away We Go he took us backstage at six different shows in six different time periods. And now, in the Broadway debut of this uproarious comic farce, the inside-joke-laden It’s Only a Play, McNally invites everyone to the opening-night party of The Golden Egg. The festivities take place in the bright and airy bedroom of first-time producer Julia Budder’s (Megan Mullally) luxurious Manhattan townhouse. Designer Scott Pask (The Book of Mormon, The Coast of Utopia) has put the door to the bedroom at the top center of the stage, allowing each character to make a grand entrance — and exit. A who’s who of the New York scene is at “the party of the year for the play of the season,” all ripe for skewering, which McNally and three-time Tony-winning director Jack O’Brien (Hairspray, Henry IV) handle with outrageous grace, leaving no one unscathed, including the audience itself. As the play opens, former Broadway actor and current television star James Wicker (Nathan Lane) enters the bedroom seeking privacy as he calls California to find out the status of his series, Out on a Limb. He encounters Gus P. Head (Micah Stock), a wannabe “actor-slash-singer-slash-dancer-slash-comedian-slash-performance artist-slash-mime” who is taking care of the coats for the evening, which are being collected on Julia’s bed. The endless stream of rapid-fire jokes rat-a-tat right from the start. “What did you think?” Gus asks James about the play. “Wonderful, just wonderful,” James responds, not really meaning it. Gus: “Too bad you’re not a critic.” James: “Tonight everyone’s a critic. You haven’t seen the play?” Gus: “I’m temporary help. This is a one-night stand.” James: “Tonight is a one-night stand for a lot of people.” They are soon joined by aging doyenne Virginia Noyes (Stockard Channing), the drug-addled star of The Golden Egg; Sir Frank Finger (Rupert Grint), its avant-garde director who is tiring of being called a genius; Julia, who is eagerly waiting for the good reviews to roll in so she can add big-time quotes to the marquee; smarmy theater critic Ira Drew (F. Murray Abraham), who has his own agenda; and anxious playwright Peter Austin (Matthew Broderick), who believes in the continuing legacy of the theater. “We have a lot to live up to tonight,” he says ever so earnestly. “It depends on us to remind this city that there is more to Broadway than guest appearances or special effects and revivals or another play from London or another Disney movie made live. We are an original American play. We must make that count for something.”

Cast, crew, and friends anxiously await the opening-night reviews for new Broadway show, THE GOLDEN EGG (photo by Joan Marcus)

McNally, O’Brien, and the outstanding cast make that count for a lot in It’s Only a Play, a tongue-in-cheek, and out-of-cheek, riotous evening of theater about theater. The play has been seen in various off-Broadway productions since its 1982 Manhattan Theatre Club premiere, with all-star lineups that have included Christine Baranski, Dana Ivey, Joanna Gleason, and Eileen Brennan as Julia, James Coco and Charles Nelson Reilly as James, David Hyde Pierce and Paul Guilfoyle as Sir Frank, Paul Benedict as Ira, and Željko Ivanek and Mark Blum as Peter. McNally continues to tailor the dialogue to fit his brilliant actors, such as this stinger from the end of James’s early soliloquy: “What’s the word for a mercy killing? Euthanasia? They do it for people, why not plays? But what do I know? What do any of us old gypsies know? I liked The Addams Family.” Lane, of course, played Gomez in that show, a musical adaptation of the television hit, so McNally will likely change that line when Martin Short replaces Lane beginning January 7. (In addition, Katie Finneran will take over the role of Julia, and Maulik Pancholy will play Sir Frank.) It’s a blast to see Lane and Broderick together again, having last lit up the Great White Way as a duo as Bialystock and Bloom, respectively, back in 2001 in The Producers. (As an added bonus, even Lane’s Harvey Fierstein references relate to Broderick too, as Broderick appeared as Fierstein’s adopted son in Torch Song Trilogy.) Abraham (Teibele and Her Demon, A Life in the Theatre) is deliciously droll as the none-too-beloved critic, Mullally (Grease, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying) is charming as the ditzy, wide-eyed producer, Channing (Grease, Other Desert Cities) is a joy as the bitter former star, Grint (Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films) is a barrel of energy as the crazed director, Broderick (How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Brighton Beach Memoirs) is dryly effective as the serious playwright, up-and-comer Stock (The Capables, McNally’s And Away We Go) is appropriately quirky as the newbie on the scene, and Lane (The Nance, The Iceman Cometh at BAM next month) is, well, Lane as the Broadway actor who sold out to make it in Hollywood. “We need new faces in the theater. New voices, new visions,” Ira says. It’s Only a Play, which is rife with sensational double-takes at all the inside references and hysterical self-needling by its actors (it even pokes fun at The Elephant Man, which is at the Booth next door), might not exactly be filled with new faces and new voices, but its vision is more than welcome in its spectacular Broadway debut.

AND AWAY WE GO

The cast of Terrence McNally’s new play at the Pearl go through multiple time periods in a celebration of live theater (photo by Al Foote III)

The Pearl Theatre
555 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Extended through December 21, $35-$65
212-563-9261
www.pearltheatre.org

Last year, four-time Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally (Master Class, Love! Valour! Compassion!) took audiences behind the scenes of the 1835 world premiere of Vincenzo Bellini’s I puritani in Golden Age. Now he’s backstage again, time traveling through six productions in six different time periods in the utterly delightful And Away We Go. Written specifically for the Pearl Theatre Company for its fortieth anniversary season, the one-hundred-minute intermissionless play begins as each of the six actors, four of whom are part of the regular Pearl ensemble, kiss the stage and introduce themselves on Sandra Goldmark’s set, which is littered with theatrical paraphernalia, from multiple chairs and lamps hanging from the ceiling to clothing and posters to a phrenology head and a skeleton in a bathtub. The play then moves to 458 BCE Athens, where a troupe is backstage, putting on Aeschylus’s The Oresteia as part of a theater-festival contest. “One day, Hector, an actor is going to tear his mask off and say to the audience, ‘This is what human suffering looks like,’” Pallas (Micah Stock) says to Hector (Dominic Cuskern) while Dimitris (Sean McNall) desperately awaits his handcrafted mask since it’s nearly time for him to make his entrance as Agamemnon. As in Golden Age, the action remains backstage as the six actors, staying in contemporary costume, shift to the Globe in 1610 London for The Tempest, the Royal Theatre in Versailles in 1789 for a new play by Christophe Durant (Stock), the Moscow Art Theatre in 1896 for the first reading of The Seagull, and finally the Coconut Grove Playhouse in South Florida in 1956 for closing night of the U.S. premiere of Waiting for Godot.

Donna Lynn Champlin is not thrilled that is sharing some inside secrets in AND AWAY WE GO (photo by Al Foote III)

Donna Lynn Champlin is not thrilled that Sean McNall is sharing some inside secrets in AND AWAY WE GO (photo by Al Foote III)

Along the way, McNally and the thirty-six characters skewer theatrical conventions, give away acting tricks and secrets, make inside jokes about donors, subscribers, critics, and open rehearsals, and take plenty of self-referential stabs at themselves as well, having a ball tearing the mask away from Theater with a capital T. “We need new plays. Classics aren’t the answer,” Kenny Tobias (Stock) says in Coconut Grove in an obvious reference to the Pearl itself, which specializes in the classics. “I love the theater,” Gretna (Donna Lynne Champlin) tells Lydia (Carol Schultz) in London, to which Lydia responds, “You attend the theater, which is something altogether different. Everyone loves the theater, very few are of the theater.” Meanwhile, Bert Lahr’s wife, Mildred (Champlin), calls playwriting “a dying profession” and playwrights “miserable sons of bitches.” And back in Moscow, actress Maya Nabokov (Rachel Botchan) tells her lover, set designer Yuri Goldovsky (McNall), “Scenery that frees the actor and doesn’t confine him. I can soar in such a space.” And indeed, the six performers soar in their multiple roles, effortlessly shifting characters under the smooth, fluid direction of the Transport Group’s Jack Cummings III (Queen of the Mist), although there are occasional loud explosions that shake things up a bit and keep the audience on its toes. Another small gem from McNally, And Away We Go, which continues at the Pearl through December 21, is a wonderful treat for people who love the theater, whether they are of the theater or not.

GOLDEN AGE

Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini (Lee Pace) and diva Maria Malibran (Bebe Neuwirth) discuss art and love in Terrence McNally’s GOLDEN AGE (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club
New York City Center Stage 1
Through January 13, $85
www.goldenageplay.com

In It’s Only a Play, Terrence McNally took audiences behind the scenes of a Broadway production’s opening night. In The Lisbon Traviata and Master Class, McNally focused on opera star Maria Callas. He brings those two themes together in the light but charming Golden Age. Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini (Lee Pace) is presenting the world premiere of I puritani on January 24, 1835, at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, the first of his operas to open outside Italy. The composer of such previous triumphs as I Capuleti e i Montecchi, La sonnambula, and Norma is joined by a quartet of popular singers who just might be as famous as he is: baritone Antonio Tamburini (Lorenzo Pisoni), who continually stuffs vegetables down his pants to enhance his manhood; soprano Giulia Grisi (Dierdre Friel), who cannot decide how much jewelry to wear when she takes the stage; bass Luigi Lablache (Ethan Phillips), who laments the always minor roles given to those of his vocal range; and tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini (Eddie Kaye Thomas), who is preparing to hit a high F-natural above high C that has never before been achieved. At Bellini’s side is his biographer and lover, Francesco Florimo (Will Rogers).

Luigi Lablache (Ethan Phillips) and Giulia Grisi (Dierdre Friel) get serious during premiere of Bellini’s I PURITANI (photo by Joan Marcus)

Tony-winning director Walter Bobbie (Venus in Fur, Chicago) has the four Puritans move from individual dressing rooms to backstage area (where Bellini makes use of a piano) and then up steps to the opera hall on Santo Loquasto’s dramatic set, their singing “voices” heard in the background as those still downstairs discuss the French versus the Italians (and the English), egotistically praise their own talents, debate whether the composer or singer is more important, and wonder about who is in the audience, from rival composers such as Donizetti and Rossini (George Morfogen) to such other opera stars as Giovanni Matteo Mario and Maria Malibran (Bebe Neuwirth). When the Malibran does indeed show up, the talk turns to love, romance, and heartbreak as well. Combining factual events with his vivid imagination, four-time Tony winner McNally (Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Love! Valour! Compassion!) investigates the nature of art and its very creation in Golden Age, exploring inspiration, influence, and truth. What is occurring backstage often mimics what is happening in the opera itself, especially as Grisi gets ready for her mad scene and various characters declare their love for others. The acting is exemplary throughout, ranging from appropriately bombastic to somewhat more subdued, with Neuwirth a standout as she poetically recites a song by Bellini. And McNally and Bobbie have crafted Golden Age in such a way that the audience doesn’t need to know anything about opera, or be an opera fan at all, in order to enjoy this inside look at a magical moment in time.