Theater Reviews

Susan Granger’s review of “You’re Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush” (Cort Theater: ’08-’09 season)

Since Will Ferrell does such a convincing George W. Bush imitation, it’s understandable why he’s milking every last drop of lowbrow, tasteless humor out of the retirement of the 43rd President of the United States, who seemingly drops onto the stage from an unseen helicopter. Perched on the lap of a Marine, he couldn’t be more smug.
The Decider, as he’s dubbed himself, is there to amuse us for 90 minutes, dredging up memories, mispronounced words and malapropisms from the past eight years. There’s the big Presidential desk, big leather armchair, ever-present red telephone on a cylindrical stand and glimpses of the folks who comprised his Cabinet.
“I feel as free as balls in boxes,” he marvels, projecting a photograph of his penis on the back wall. “That’s what you call shock and awe.”
As written by Ferrell and directed by his longtime collaborator Adam McKay (“Step Brothers”), raunchy is a key descriptive word as Bush reveals his past sexual exploits, including how he once lived with a man in Vermont, and derides everyone including his mother (Barbara Bush). But he makes it quite clear that he bears no animosity toward his successor, noting, “I’m a fan of the Tiger Woods guy.”
Having honed this satirical impression in various sketches on “Saturday Night Live,” Will Ferrell’s Dubya is perfection, from the Texas twang to the cocky, strutting gait. Shimmying Pia Glenn performs a torrid, show-stopping number as Condoleezza Rice and Ferrell’s brother Patrick gives surly support as a strapping, ever-present Secret Service agent. There’s even an amusing interlude of spontaneous interaction with the audience, revolving around Bush’s penchant for bestowing instant nicknames on strangers. And thanks to Eugene Lee (sets) and Brian MacDevitt (lighting), it’s a slick production. So if you like your humor crude, rude and raw, it’s a Ferrell of laughs.

Susan Granger’s review of “Cirque du Soliel: Kooza” (Randall’s Island)

Could it be that the most awesome, amazing show in New York this spring is on Randall’s Island in the East River? That’s where Cirque du Soliel has set up its distinctive bright blue-and-yellow striped tent known as Le Grand Chapiteau.
The name “koza” is derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘box’ or ‘treasure.’ Written and directed by David Shiner (“Fool Moon”) with original music by Jean-Francoise Cote and dazzling costumes by Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt. Often in mime, it relates the story of the Innocent (Stephan Landry), a clown searching for his place in the world. As he naively tries to fly his kite, he’s given a mysterious jack-in-the-box out of which jumps the mischief-making Trickster (Adam Mike Tyus), who whisks the Innocent into a magical, dreamlike world of wonder that’s ruled by an imperious Clown King (Gordon White).
There’s a slithering trio of contortionists (Julie Bergez, Natasha Patterson, Dasha Sovik), nimble acrobats (Diana Aleschenko, Yuri Shavro) who execute a complicated ‘pas de deux’ on a unicycle, a graceful trapeze soloist (Yulia Korosteleva), and a daring, heart-stopping, double-decker quartet of highwire artists (Angel Quiros Dominguez, Vincente Quiros Dominguez, Flouber Sanchez). And that’s just Act One.
Act Two is dominated by the gravity-defying aerial artistry of Jimmy Ibarra and Carlos Marin Loaiza on the “Wheel of Death.” They dash, dance and cavort in a perpetual motion on two rotating wheels that are attached to one another and suspended above the stage. Thrilling! That’s followed by more energetic acrobatics, more clowning, including a bawdy pickpocket, and general merry-making with audience members. Astounding!
Priced on a par with Broadway with an extra charge for the extravagant, surprisingly delicious Tapis Rouge buffet/bar, tickets for the astounding, inspiring, fast-paced 2 ½-hour Cirque du Soliel’s “Kouza” are a great value for the money and can be found discounted on several websites, including TheaterMania.

Susan Granger’s review of “Impressionism” (G. Schoenfeld Theater ’08-’09 season)

On paper, Michael Jacobs’ contemporary drama must have read well – or it wouldn’t have been produced on Broadway. But, on-stage, it fails to hold the attention of the audience.
Set in an expensive Manhattan art gallery, it revolves primarily around the uneasy, enigmatic relationship between Katharine Keenan (Joan Allen), the sophisticated gallery owner, and Thomas Buckle (Jeremy Irons), her obviously devoted assistant. Katherine has a very peculiar, not to mention self-defeating, habit of not wanting to sell her beloved paintings to customers, while Thomas, who was once a National Geographic photojournalist, no longer chooses to use his camera. These quirks are revealed in snippets of stilted conversation during their morning ritual of coffee and muffins. But we know little else about either of these timid, obviously wounded souls except what is revealed in traumatic memory flashbacks inspired by the various works of art on display, which include a Mary Cassatt mother-and-child portrait, a Modigliani nude, a Renoir and a ‘study’ by a present-day painter for whom Katharine once posed.
Flitting in and out of the gallery – and their memories – are various characters played by Marsha Mason, Michael T. Weiss, Aaron Lazar, Margarita Levieva, Hadley Delany and, most memorably, Andre De Shields, who plays a shrewd, old African fisherman and a folksy Upper East Side baker.
Director Jack O’Brien (“The Coast of Utopia”) not only paces the proceedings as briskly as possible but also elicits solid, if somewhat stoic performances from both Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. He just doesn’t have enough dramatic ‘meat’ to work with, despite the creativity of scenic designer Scott Pask, projection coordinator Elaine J. McCarthy and costumer Catherine Zuber. Like Katharine’s paintings, “Impressionism” seems to be frozen within the framework of the stage.

Susan Granger’s review of “Our Town” (Barrow Street Theater ’08-’09 season)

This tough, timely Off-Broadway production is about as far from Paul Newman’s warm, avuncular interpretation of “Our Town” as one can get – but that’s what makes Thornton Wilder’s 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning play a homespun classic. There are so many different ways once can construe it.
In this intimate, bare-bones production, imported from Chicago and directed by actor David Cromer, 21st century Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, looks more than a bit forbidding. The audience sits on three sides of the tiny Barrow Street Theater stage in the West Village, and the house lights stay up for most of the time, thereby turning spectators into neighbors, some of whom are enlisted to read questions directed at the town’s historian (Wilbur Edwin Henry). And the cast members wear contemporary street clothes, which further blurs the theatrical separation of actors and audience.
With a yellow-pad and cellphone in hand, the Stage Manager (David Cromer) describes the villagers, focusing primarily on the Gibbs and Webb families, the principal players whose children, ball-playing George (James McMenamin) and brainy Emily (Jennifer Grace), are headed toward marriage.
But it’s in the third act, set in the town’s cemetery – where some characters sit in chairs representing their graves – that this production is at its most insightful and relevant. In the pivotal scene, where Emily Webb, who has joined her late mother-in-law, is given a chance to re-live a single day in her childhood, she philosophically asks, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”
“No,” the Stage Manager replies. “The saints and poets, maybe – they do some.”
And that sums up this provocative evening of theater. It’s all about the urgency of living each ordinary day fully and completely, for the here and now.

Susan Granger’s review of “Pal Joey” (Roundabout Theater at Studio 54)

What’s the most disapponting Broadway show this season? “Pal Joey,” no contest. So the question surfaces: Why the producers didn’t pull the plug on this debacle when its star, Christian Hoff (Tony Award-winner for“Jersey Boys”), either quit or was fired, depending on what backstage gossip you believe?
“Pal Joey” is a revival of the racy 1940 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical which launched Gene Kelly’s career and was played on-screen in 1957 by Frank Sinatra.
Set in seedy, Depression-era Chicago, it pivots around a charismatic, ambitious cad, cabaret crooner/dancer, Joey Evans, who is determined to open his own nightclub. To that end, he woos a wealthy socialite, lonely Vera Simpson, who bankrolls him while, at the same time, he’s smitten with an innocent ingénue. So much for the decadent plot.
Catapulted from understudy into the titular role, inexperienced Matthew Risch (“Legally Blonde,” “Chicago”) looks distressed, distraught, even desperate, as he mops flop sweat from his brow. Why would he make Stockard Channing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”? He doesn’t. So her risqué, supposedly show-stopping song falls flat. But it’s not her fault. Many of the other numbers, including Risch’s duet with Jenny Fellner, “I Could Write a Book,” and tough-talking Martha Plimpton’s satirical “Zip,” lack zip under Joe Mantello’s muted, distractingly inconsistent direction of Richard Greenberg’s recently rewritten book. Curiously, Joey’s thematic “Happy Hunting Song” is staged on a staircase like a funeral dirge, complete with black-shrouded chorus girls.
What works are Scott Plask’s seamless set design, Paul Gallo’s shady lighting, Graciela Daniele’s slinky choreography and William Ivey Long’s sparkly costumes.
So why wasn’t the troubled show tabled until a bankable star like Harry Connick Jr. or, better yet, Hugh Jackman was available? That’s the question investors must be asking themselves.

Susan Granger’s review of “33 Variations” (Eugene O’Neill Theater ’08-’09 season)

When willowy Jane Fonda strides onto the Broadway stage – after a 46-year absence – she leaves no doubt that a confident, elegant actress is back in command and more than ready for the challenge of carrying a star vehicle.
“I’m attracted to people with passionate obsessions which override things like age or illness,” 71 year-old Fonda explains. “I found this play really visionary – the interplay between the past and present, between life and death.”
In Moises Kaufman’s “33 Variations,” Fonda plays Katherine Brandt, a university musicologist who is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative neurological condition better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Before she dies, she’s determined to travel to Bonn, Germany, to solve one last mystery: why Ludwig van Beethoven spent his final years composing the Diabelli Variations, which consists of 33 different perspectives on a trivial pedestrian theme from “a little beer hall waltz,” written by his Viennese music publisher, Anton Diabelli.
While Beethoven (Zach Grenier) is a character in the talky, often slow-moving play, along with his beleaguered assistant Anton Schindler (Erik Steele), Anton Diabelli (Don Amendolia) and a compassionate German librarian (Susan Kellermann), the poignant, even sentimental narrative revolves around the assertive, patrician, emotionally elusive Katherine, her good-humored male nurse (Colin Hanks) and her fractured relationship with her independent, if somewhat insecure daughter (Samantha Mathis).
With its four movable screens containing musical sheets of handwritten compositions, Derek McLane’s archival set is imaginative and impressive, unobtrusively placing ‘live’ pianist Diane Walsh on stage left to accompany what amounts to an annotated music lesson, orchestrated in tune with Jeff Sugg’s visual projections.
Led by fascinating Jane Fonda, “33 Variations” is an intelligent, compelling evening of theater.

Susan Granger: “God of Carnage” (Bernard Jacobs Theater: ‘08-‘09 season)

Now this is what Broadway’s all about: a new, gleefully nasty dramatic, emotionally supercharged comedy by French playwright/novelist Yasmina Reza, translated and Americanized by Christopher Hampton and interpreted by four incredibly talented and superbly cast stage-and-screen thespians: Jeff Daniels (“The Squid and the Whale”), Hope Davis (“Synecdoche, New York”), James Gandolfini (“The Sopranos”) and Marcia Gay Harden (“Mystic River”).
When the curtain goes up, Alan (Jeff Daniels) and Annette (Hope Davis) have been summoned to the apartment of Michael (James Gandolfini) and Veronica (Marcia Gay Harden) because, on a playground in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, Alan and Annette’s 11 year-old son hit Michael and Veronica’s son with a stick, permanently damaging two of his teeth. While arrogant Alan and anxious Annette are, at first, conciliatory and apologetic, sipping espresso and devouring artsy Veronica’s apple-and-pear clafouti with grumpy Michael’s Caribbean rum, soon verbal barbs soon start flying. Sharply shifting allegiances subtly emerge, along with the airing of dirty marital laundry. Soon polite civility is discarded for hostility as open warfare is declared.
As she did in the Tony-winning “Art,” Yasmina Reza cleverly dissects smug, upper-middle-class superficiality and hypocrisy in a savage world, including Alan’s unrelenting cellphone addiction, while London director Matthew Warchus (“Boeing-Boeing”) deftly balances the farcical ensemble to perfection. Each actor/actress in the quartet has his/her moment of glory and of dismay, artfully augmented by set/costume designer Mark Thompson and Hugh Vanstone’s lighting. Contemporary comedy just doesn’t get any better than this.

Susan Granger: “A Man For All Seasons” (Roundabout Theater Co. ‘08-‘09 season)

In the first Broadway revival of Robert Bolt’s historical drama, Frank Langella dominates the stage as Sir Thomas More, the erudite 16th century humanist and royal chancellor who refused to acknowledge Henry VIII’s right to divorce his first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, in order to marry Anne Boleyn, to jettison the Pope’s domination of the Catholic Church from Rome and to become the titular head of the Church of England. You saw all this on PBS’s “The Tudors,” right?
In this season of too much political expediency and too little moral character, More’s virtuosity and courageous intransigence – his uncompromising conscience and utter belief in his convictions – is not only admirable but also timely. He speaks his truth with grandiosity and wit and accepts the fatal consequences of martyrdom, albeit with understandable terror.
For three-time Tony winner Frank Langella, it’s a bravura performance, but the rest of the production is less memorable. Admittedly, director Doug Hughes, who helmed the taut brilliant battle-of-wits in “Doubt,” has less to work with here. It’s all caricatures, not characters, and the verbal sparring stretches to a tedious two hours and 40 minutes. Quite frankly, it’s boring. And Santo Loquasto’s spare, all-purpose, wooden-frame set gives little sense of time or place.
While Patrick Page’s exuberance is ingratiating as young King Henry, who yearns for a male heir, Zach Grenier is all-too-obvious as his wily ally, the astute politician Thomas Cromwell.
Considering the high Broadway ticket prices these days, I recommend renting the dvd of the 1966 Oscar-winning film, starring the urbane Paul Scofield, who first played the role on Broadway instead – or, if you’re really intrigued, lining up at the new TKTS booth to pay half-price.

Susan Granger’s review of “Billy Elliot” (Imperial Theater)

It’s taken almost four years for this smash hit from London’s West End to make its debut on the Great White Way – but it’s worth the wait.
Set in 1984 against the cultural backdrop of the devastating, year-long coal miners’ strike in Northern England during Margaret Thatcher’s conservative era, it’s about a lonely, motherless boy who discovers he has a passion and talent for dancing. While he’s supposed to be taking boxing lessons after school, 11 year-old Billy (Trent Kowalik) stumbles into a ballet class perfunctorily conducted by tart-tongued, chain-smoking Mrs. Wilkinson (Haydn Gwynne). That’s where he finds happiness in the wretched world around him. Dancing becomes Billy’s sanctuary, particularly when his teacher encourages him to audition for the Royal Ballet School. But artistic ambition s considered “un-manly” by Billy’s hard-drinking, macho father (Gregory Jbara) and older brother (Santino Fontana).
As so often happens when a movie is adapted into a full-blown Broadway musical, the emphasis changes. This is more about the social melodrama and less about the boy. There’s something lost and something gained by the cultural choices made by writer/lyricist Lee Hall, director Stephen Daldry and composer Elton John. While one yearns for more Billy and less blustering by the miners, considering our current economic turmoil, it’s certainly timely – and remarkably uplifting – when Billy’s family and friends eventually realize that there’s no future in coal-mining and that in his defiance, Billy, alone, may have found a way out of their collective desperation and despair.
As Billy, Trent Kowalik is irresistible. (David Alvarez and Kiril Kulish also rotate in this title role.) But as his “poof” chum, Michael (Frank Dolce) steals the show with an unabashed penchant for cross-dressing – along with Peter Darling’s soaring, exuberant choreography. “Billy Elliot” is a must-see!

Susan Granger’s review of “Hot ‘n Cole” (Westport Country Playhouse ’08)

Musical revues are a staple of summer theater and director James Naughton hits many of the right notes with this tribute to Cole Porter, who wrote the music and lyrics for many top Broadway shows, like “Kiss Me Kate,” “Can-Can,” “Silk Stockings,” “Red, Hot and Blue,” “Du Barry Was a Lady” and “Gay Divorcee.”
While there’s no prevailing theme, Hugh Landwehr’s elegant set resemble a giddy party at a chic Manhattan loft. Grouped around two pianists (Mark Berman, Steven F. Silverstein), six singers, separately and together, warble a variety of ditties, often indicating their relationships.
Vocally, the men seem more deft than the women, particularly Lewis Cleale, whose Broadway credits include “Spamalot,” “Once Upon a Mattress” and “Swinging on a Star.” His rendition of “Let’s Do It” is compelling, along with the lesser-known “Tale of the Oyster” Shonn Wiley scores with “I’m a Gigolo” as does Peter Reardon with “Miss Otis Regrets.” Their combined rendition of “I Happen to Like New York” is magnificent.
Most memorable on the distaff side, there’s Whitney Bashor’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” Donna Lynne Champlin’s “Get Out of Town and Andrea Dora’s “Let’s Not Talk About Love.”
While James Naughton obviously has a great affinity for the material, his cast seems to feign the requisite sophistication and world-weary nonchalance of Porter’s lyrics – and they’re stretched beyond their comfort zones by Lisa Shriver’s overly complicated choreography augmenting the 42 numbers. Purists will note that arrangers David Armstrong, Mark Waldrop and Bruce W. Coyle have changed Porter’s musical structure, often introducing dissonant jazz harmonies that are not always to the song’s advantage.
Despite these reservations, there’s no doubt that “Hot ‘n Cole” is a charming crowd-pleaser, offering diverting entertainment for a warm summer evening.