LA BETE, SANS BEAUTY

Having admired John Lahr, critic for the New Yorker, more than any theatre critic since Kenneth Tynan, reading his hat-in-the-air, excitedly laudatory review of 'La Bete', I could not wait to get to the Music Box theatre. To begin with, Mr. Lahr and I share a piece of affectionate history, both of us having had an association with E.Y. Harburg, one of the great American wordsmitha--writing lyrics to 'Finian's Rainbow' and 'The Wizard of Oz,'-- in which his father, Bert Lahr played the Cowardly Lion, and the young Lahr had readied a book of Yip's(as he was known) wonderful words which, sadly, never saw the light(s) due to an unfortunate legal wrangle; while I, as a young would-be songwriter, had been nurtured under Yip's encouraging, inspiring wing. Secondly, the prose in which John Lahr wraps his opinions is, in itself, artful. So it was with my eyes and my ears and my heart all at the attentive anticipatory max I went to the Sunday performance, imagining, what with the critic's praise, it would serve as a spiritual observation, my church being English, the language, not the religion. In addition, I had been enchanted by Mark Rylance, the leading actor as Valere, in 'La Bete', when he played the baffled centerpiece of the farce Boeing, Boeing, not to mention his other credits as producer, Shakespearean player, writer and obvious man of many parts.

I wished that one of them had not been Valere. This Moliere manque, this grossly non-preening cockatoo who burps and farts his hour upon the stage and then, God help us, is heard some more, is clearly one of the great tour-de-farce roles of my lifetime. But to what end? --other than the toilet he actually sits on onstage, expelling what gas doesn't come from his mouth, using the paper torn from nearby obviously precious books to wipe himself. All clearly intended to be repellent, and, sadly, achieving its aim, in what seemed-- as it was meant to be-- an endless barrage of persiflage, bad poetry, and egotism, in which I, like the character played with immaculate restraint by David Hyde Pierce, cringed and prayed for flight.

Valere is meant to be a street player lifted to societal acclaim by a deluded royal(Joanna Lumley,) who mistakes his endless persiflage for true poetry, and makes him the writer de jour, entertained and adored by high society. (The best scene, visually, and probably because of its lack of words, is the feast that preceeds the encounter between Valere and Elomire, where a line of gorgeously costumed players or ghosts, one could not tell for sure, sit at a festive board bathed in luscious light and grapes, setting the period with ingenious grace.)

Then begins the onslaught, in verse, no doubt brilliantly conceived and bravely executed by the author of the piece, David Hirson. But the endless flow of meaninglessness, the unimpeded cascade of emptiness that at first paralyzes Elomire and, not long after, various members of the audience, including me, serves only to make one pray for a better play for Mr. Rylance, emancipation for Mr. Pierce, and a quick exit for those trapped in the theater. The ultimate effect of endless palaver by a bore cannot help but be boring, and the fact that Rylance so deftly communicates the boorish makes his character clearly a boor.

Ms. Lumley, well-known among Brits (and those who watch BBC comedies) is as charming as she can possibly be, being so deluded, portraying the Princess who found this popinjay. Preceeded as her entrance is by a wash of golden sparkle, is residue pops up from time to time during the rest of the play lending the rest of it unexpected darts of light. One wishes one could say the same about the play.

Alas, poor Rylance. I knew him (I thought) well. A fellow of infinite jest. But clearly one who wants to work, regardless.

NEXT FALL

(At the Helen Hayes Theater)


‘Next Fall’ is a good play. Not a great one—though it tries to address a few great issues: Life, Death, and Love, to name a couple. The most powerful scene in the work is one that doesn’t take place—the “next fall” that one of two central gay lovers talks of casually in passing that never takes place, because he will be dead, an effect foreshadowed and tenderly illustrated by the transparent curtain that cloaks the other scenes, the lush colors of autumn leaves, painted on trees in a desolare park.
Several of the scenes take place in a hospital waiting room that we don’t really know is a hospital waiting room at first, just characters waiting for something that we’re not really sure about, anymore than we know exactly who the characters are. But one, it will turn out, is the lover of a man we have not yet met, who has been critically injured in a fall. One is his mother, long absent and an apparent addict, a thick-skinned Southern(only a little, Florida, this is not Williams territory)father who has never really acknowledged or wanted to see his son’s homosexuality, an old male friend who was not a love and whose interactions with the other characters seems specious, and a pleasant, unimportant but funny(not toooooooo) blonde who was, apparently, the owner of a candle shop where one of the gay couple worked, who then apparently became a close friend, but not so close that she logically belonged in that waiting room. This, for me, was the part of the play that was most puzzling, and the audience is invited to put it all together as the pieces fall into place, not in chronological order,like a jigsaw of time.
The big question here is not why we love who we love, but why people don’t give each other more of a break,and prize each interaction more, since life is so evanescent. That crystal sentiment echoes and references a far better play, ‘Our Town’, in which the powerfully handsome and energetic Luke, (Patrick Heusinger) making his first entrance in an apparently flashbacked cocktail party tells his soon-to-be partner (Patrick Breen) that he is playing the Stage Manager, when not working as a waiter.
As appealing as the two partners are, and as okay(which is all they are really) as the other characters are, especially Maddie Corman who milks laughs from non-fat lines as the absent mother returned, Cotter Smith as the beef-brained father, and Connie Ray as the delightful blonde candleshop lady that you don’t know what she’s doing in that waiting room, the mention of the other play churns up a yearning for the real drama and sweetness that is life, that too often eludes us. Especially in the theater.
Good enough for a pallid season, but not good enough if Thornton Wilder were still here. If Only.

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST DRUG

The happiest place to be on Broadway these less-than-cheerful days is the Lyceum theater. Laughter litera;lly roars through the audience, almost, but not quite, drowning out the growls and rants and slurs of the crazily luminous Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead in 'Looped.' This tour-de-force of wit, smut, and brilliant characterization by a television favorite who bursts out of her box, takes place in a sound studio where the notoriously unreliable Bankhead is to re-record one unintelligible line for a film. Unsurprisingly, she is late, contemptuous, alcoholic, irreverent, and, as drawn in this seemingly incidental play, amazingly touching, and, although at the end of her career rope, irresistible.
The action, such as it is, takes place in real time, as the sound engineer, Steve, played by Michael Mulheren, waits in a booth above the set for the notorious diva to arrive and record the line, to be directed by Danny, Brian Hutchinson. Although the two men in the cast appear to be merely pawns for the star to play off, as one suspects actual men were in the star's life, at least one of them has his own story, which she will gainfully and painfully pull out of him.("Everyone has a story," Bankhead insists, and she is right.)
But the evening is really about Tallulah, and, more gloriously, Valerie Harper herself, who infuses every line with an actress-y bravado that makes you wish Bankhead was floating about the premises able to give it her imprimatur. What is most amazing about the fiercely comedic performance is the picture that emerges of a brilliant personality who threw her life away, most especially her chance to prove herself a genuine actress in 'Streetcar Named Desire,' which Tennessee Williams apparently wrote for her, but she turned down. The moment when she speaks a few lines she might have spoken as Blanche DuBois shows a sensitivity and fragility that no one suspected, except perhaps Williams himself. By this time, the spell that Harper has cast over the audience is so complete that yan ou could almost feel them grieving over Bankhead's lost opportunity, the great actress she might have become, instead of the caricature. The wonder of the evening is that Harper's interpretation never seems to descend into caricature, but is instead a wildly comedic re-interpretation of a legendary actress, that, leaving the theater, you feel, in between the happy ache of belly-laughs, you actually spent the evening with.

RACE

I have long been an admirer of David Mamet, as most people would be who admire rapid-fire dialogue, twists and turns and the ultimate realization that most people have their own agendas, are weighted down with self=interest, and no reluctance to betray. Good is not a given in Mr. Mamet's world, and was nowhere visible at the star-studded opening of Race the other evening, including the after-party.
The play itself concerns a would-be client accused of rape(a believable Richard Thomas, though it's hard to imagine him as violent, or, for that matter overly sexual) of a very small law firm with a very big office-- too large for the play, really, not to mention its two lead-lawyers, James Spader and David Alan Grier, and a young associate, Kerry Washington. The set, stretches the full width of the stage, ostensibly because they had all those law books to show off,) literally overpowers the actors, quietly feral fierce as Mr. Spader always is, and as reasonable a foil for him as the vocally controlled Mr. Grier is. Miss Washington, as the young black associate is uninspired and ultimately disappointing, but perhaps that is the fault of this member of the audience, who was on the alert for perfidy, the bad-faith twist that usually ignites a Mamet piece.
Mr. Thomas, accused of raping a black woman(in a red sequin dress, an important factor in the indictment)comes to them after having exited another law firm, probably one with even more law books and a heavier staff, insisting he is innocent, that it was consentual, that they were lovers. Future sworn testimony in the upcoming trial includes overheard(by a white preacher in the hotel room next door)racist threats to the woman. The outcome of the trial will hinge on the surprise the cagey Mr. Spader-- not too far, if indeed only a tiptoe away from his role on Boston Legal-- has ready for the jury.
A little pat, perhaps, but still highly intelligent as Mr. Mamet usually is and Spader always seems.
But there is a worm in the apple. I will not spoil this for those of you who read reviews before going to the theater and tell you who and how, but it is, unfortunately, not hard to see coming, which is, in itself, a departure for Mamet, who can usually outmaneuver anyone in his plotting. Suffice it to say the play is not up to his customary par.
I was particularly disappointed as I am a longtime fan of Mr. Spader's, having watched his growth from the creepily pretty boy he was to the seductive and vulnerable young widower in 'White Castle,' my particular favorite in his film career, to the authorative, highly sexed and patently brilliant member of TVs most addictive law firm. I would also like to include, among my personal recollections, a time I opened my door in Beverly Glen on Halloween, to reveal his trick or treating for his children, which seemed so out of character for who I thought he was that I had more of a shock than was supplied by Mr. Mamet. So I was sorry that in this, his much-awaited Broadway debut, that he was not given more opportunity to show new facets, besides being allowed to shout. I do not know whether to blame the narrow confines of this appearance on Mamet the playwright or Mamet the director.
Later at the party, I moved among Broadway investors and acolytes and was awarded a close-up view of what seemed a non-stop hustle, as no matter how much money anyone had or seemed to have, they were looking for someone else's. Tt began to appear that maybe Mamet is not so much inventive as a careful observer, in a world where everybody is on the make,you better not trust anyone or you'll get a terrible surprise, and it won't just be in the theater.

In the Next Room, or the vibrator play

Arguably the worst, most over-rated new play of the season(which is not too young, but there's time for a worse one) is the Lincoln Center production of 'In the Next Room.' Set in the 1880s in the living room (and the next room) of a Victorian furnished home in a spa town, where electrcity has just hit the lamps, behind a beautifully painted curtain that gives us suburbia, this allegedly breakthrough comedy about the big O for women was nothing short of discomfiting. As raucous laughter permeated the theater at the diagnosed hysteric, Mrs. Daldry, being electronically(and very quickly) helped to orgasm, some of us in the audience wondered what diagnosis might be given for the people who found it... well, hysterically funny. A woman I met at the bus stop on Sixth Avenue after the performance, going home, was personally offended that anyone found a woman's orgasm funny.
Pleasure in women has long been a source of uneasiness in men,and to have bruited this amateurish and ultimately overlong and tedious play as some kind of breakthrough is to me, a woman writer who has written openly and, I hope, well, about women's sexuality, ridiculous. Thick pamphlets, well-designed, passed out in the lobby before the play began chronicling the literary and medical history of orgasm, to give the thesis of the play heft and moment, could not make up for the truth that the fabric of the play had neither. And not a real plot, either, yet.
None of the characters is particularly sympathetic, including the wife of the doctor performing the electronic massage under the sheet that induces a 'paroxysm' in the patient, and paroxysms of laughter from (from the sound of it) men in the audience. The wife, played by an indisputably attractive but in my opinion unmoving Laura Benanti, Tony award winner for her performance in Patti LuPone's Gypsy, which I had left at intermission, so frightened was I by Miss Lupone's aggressive attack on the songs(and Herbie) in the first act that I was fearful her Rose's Turn might kill me, so missed Benanti's star turn in the second act, something I rued until last night. Her at once swift and almost catatonic recitation of her lines was characterized by the woman at the bus stop as shallow, to which I shall add 'jejune', a word I have never fully appreciated (or used) till now. Her husband the doctor, played by an unassuming Michael Cerveris who is given the opportunity to strip naked for the final scene, which takes place on a moving stage filled with snow, which must have cost a cold bundle,and is gratuitous, to put it mildly. If they were finally going to have a good fuck, they could have done it on the couch. The black wet nurse, played by Quincy Tyler Bernstine, is given more weight than made any sense, though she looked solemn and sad enough, but certainly gave no clue why she might inspire the overwrought passion of the painter Leo irving, whose hysteria is a mental block, unloosed by electric anal penetration. There was a picture of John Barrymore in the very old, dankly colorful Lyceum theater, so I was hoping his ghost might be fluttering about so he could see someone could finally out-ham him. Mrs. Daldry's husband, played by Thomas Jay Ryan is a cipher. And last, but least, is Annie, the assistant to the doctor who inexplicably erupts with lesbian longings at the good piano playing of Mrs. Daldry. And it is good, to give the poor woman her due.
This was allegedly directed by Lee Waters, but I could detect no sign of a guiding hand, and felt the play, such as it was, would have better benefited from Basil Beckett Burwell, who directed the Christmas pageant at the Cherry Lawn School our sophmore year. I have nothing but admiration for Lincoln Center, and the good things it does. This is not one of them.

SUPERIOR DONUTS

It is a sign of our times, the end of the world as we knew it, what with vampires besieging the screen, and right wing media guiding our non-course, that the best play on Broadway, the only piece of theater I have seen in eons on the-used-to-be Great White Way, is about to close. I am speaking, sadly, and I am sad about it, of 'Superior DOnuts.'
I was in the minority, (and not on the Pulitzer Committee) about Tracy Letts' much lauded 'Osage County,' considering it Long Days'Journey into Afternoon, Eugene O'Neill turned sideways and upside down, re-shaped into borderline sit-com. So it was with something just short of trepidation, trying for an open mind, that I went to this latest offering of Mr. Letts. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but an actual play, filled with humor and pathos and people you could actually root for, portrayed with admirable restraint by a cast of players who brought their characters to believable life, even if they came from Chicago. Michael McKean infused his role as the pony-tailed,tie-dyed leftover Hippie, Arthur, who'd Canadaed his way out of Vietnam, losing family and pride in the process, with an undercurrent of sorrow that managed to sidestep self-pity, bringing genuine wit to his curtain call. (It is the season of Broadway fights Aids, when performers ask the audience to help, and Mr. McKean said "If you're interested in spending more money, and these days, who isn't?" giving the audience as good a laugh as the playwright.) But there were legitimate laughs a-plenty in the play itself, most of them elicited by the gifted young Jon Micheal Hill, portraying the desperate young black who comes to work in Arthur's old-fashioned coffee shop(Starbucks looms threateningly nearby,) trying to pull himself out of a very deep hole, and lugging a written-by-hand Great American Novel.
Yasen Peyankov is overpowering(the point, I think) as a blowhard Russian who wants to buy Arthur's coffee shop, and the darkly coincidental(one hopes) Robert Maffia(saved by the 'f') plays the bad guy who threatens the sweetly heroic Franco. The supporting cast does just that. All in all, an entertaining and ultimately moving evening.
So it is with a heavy heart, as dentists say when they advise their patients they're retiring, that I hear the play will close. When I leave the theater and look at that once Great White Way, it appears to me with all the overlit dazzle more like an out-take from 'Blade Runner' than an actual place. So maybe what we loved about theater when theater was theater, as this play genuinely is, might be doomed to disappear into lighting effects and comic-strip characters whirling through the air on webs that not only they, but the end of genuine sensibility have spun. Alas.

You're Gonna Love Me

Having missed the original production of Dreamgirls, being at the time a Californian, it was a genuinely galvanizing experience to return from Venice, where the whole city is theater, and be in the audience at the Apollo, and be thrilled to be a New Yorker. Though the production, in previews, has some technical and timing kinks to work out, it is genuinely dazzling,electronic magic being employed to the max,costumes and watching them be changed into before your very eyes a cue for ooos and aahs, and last, but far from least, a couple of performances that are knockout.
Moya Angela, as Effie, the star turn on the distaff side even if (or probably because she's demoted from lead singer, and tossed aside romanrically, is heart-wrenching and ear-amazing, with pipes as impressive as her big eyes are sad. Syesha Mercado as Deena Jones, the (do we have to pretend we don't know?)Diana Ross character is pretty and likeable, not easy to achieve in that part. (I have friends who rented their home in the tropics to Diana Ross, who went out their beachfront and into the ocean at the height of her fame, met a Swede who actually didn't know who she was, and was so astounded she married him.) Adrienne Warren is adorably little and winning as the youngest in the trio, Lorell. Chaz Lamar Shepherd as Curtis Taylor, Jr., the engine and the turncoat of the Dreams' career, is not very appealing, but that might be the part. Trevon Davis as C.C. White seems a little lost, but it is early in the game.
The big discovery is Chester Gregory, as James 'Thunder'Early, who tears his role apart, hoots, hollers, sings, dances, falls to his knees and then falls up again with seeming effortlessness, so many times I stopped counting, and could probably hang by his nose from the ceiling if called upon to do so. Charismatic and so deliciously sweet, that even the outrageous ego of the part he plays is not enough to make you think he might be other than lovable. Talent is too mild a word.
Watching not just the stage, but the audience, I clocked the reactions of Michael Bennett's lawyer, now the producer of this revival. He was a happy man.