Carousel
Carnegie Hall

Possibly the most-anticipated event of the Richard Rodgers centennial year was the gala concert performance of the composer's favorite show, Carousel. It was great to hear a big orchestra playing this rich score, to see the original Billy Bigelow, John Raitt, introduce the evening and share a bow with Hugh Jackman at the end, and to enjoy fine performances by an all-star cast. There was, however, some disappointment. Leonard Slatkin led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a brisk reading, with few expressive ritards.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Clue: The Musical
Derby Dinner Playhouse

Many a murder mystery in book, play, or TV form has baffled me pleasurably up to the point where the guilty party is finally exposed.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Cocktail Hour, The
Bunbury Theater

WASPS -- the derisive acronym pinned on white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in our diverse society -- may, as some contend, be a dying breed, but playwright A. R. Gurney has found them to be fertile ground for canny observations throughout his career. The Cocktail Hour, in Bunbury Theatre's hugely enjoyable production, crisply directed by Juergen K. Tossmann, is classic Gurney, in which he gently kids but also uncovers certain values in the culture that produced him.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Crowns
McCarter Theater

Holy Bible: Corinthians (1.11.5) "But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved." Who's to deny that demonstrating one's flair for flamboyant style in the service of a spiritual activity, is a good thing? And who's to deny these are ingredients for a musical? We all know about dressing for success.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Dirty Blonde
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

I made myself platinum, but I was born a dirty blonde.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

Soon after the overly-miked opening number, "A Hundred Million Miracles," Flower Drum Song settles into its quieter storyline, and we soon agree with heroine Mei-Li in thinking, "I'm going to like it here." That we're never really bowled over by this Rodgers & Hammerstein revival has as much to do with the pleasurable but not extraordinary score ("You Are Beautiful" excepted), and the rather mild romantic conflict in the original book as it does with David Henry Hwang's occasionally too-revisionist, too-spoofy, yet still contrived new version.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

Get used to it. This is not the fragile little Flower of the past; this is a brand-new version, and any comparisons with the lightweight production of 1958 and its subsequent Hollywood version will only confuse the issue. Purists may object to the revamped version, but there was little heft in the original, which was less honest than this production about the assimilation of the Chinese into American culture.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

There's only one Flower Drum Song now playing on Broadway. Somehow, the reviewer for the New York Times seems more concerned with a production 40 years ago than the one now on the boards. Maybe he has a time machine, and that's why he persists in advising us to see a show that no longer exists. The new production is a terrific show about a Chinese girl's try at becoming an American, with spectacular staging by Robert Longbottom and flashy, inventive, humorous costuming by Gregg Barnes.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Exonerated, The
45 Bleecker

No matter how good the writing, shows that have actors reading scripts from lecterns require an extra level of patience from audiences and start to wear out their welcome quickly after the first hour, mainly because of the lack of design elements and movement. Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's The Exonerated is no different, even though Tom Ontiveros's varied spotlighting is nicely done, and the play offers gripping, real-life, in-their-own-words stories of wrongly-convicted people who spent years on death row until DNA or other new evidence cleared their names.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, The
John Golden Theater

What can you say about a play that makes you feel sympathy with a goatfucker? If you're offended by that word, don't go to the Golden and watch a brilliantly funny, deadly serious play that so provokes the audience to genuine moral reflection that, night after night, much of the crowd lingers under the marquee for a long, long time -- just talking it over. The Goat is that good.

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Jackie Mason: Prune Danish
Royale Theater

To say there's nothing new here isn't exactly fair. Yes, there's stuff about Jews-versus-Gentiles in restaurants, but there's no Starbucks, no Ed Sullivan, and a just a little less Bill Clinton. About 50 percent of the material this time around deals with post-9/11 airport security, low-fat foods, and George Bush and Ariel Sharon.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Harlem Song
Apollo Theater

Harlem Song at The Apollo on 125th Street, written and directed by George C. Wolfe, mixes a fascinating photographic history of Harlem with narrative (by older long-time residents) and musical numbers, some of which are splashy and some balladic, all derivative. The show is uneven -- another clear example that a writer generally shouldn't direct his own show. The first two numbers are bland; the fun starts about ten minutes in when David St. Louis, dressed in white, comes down the steps, and tap dancers enter and lift our spirits.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

It must be a thankless task for an actor to impersonate another performer. Yet Frank Gorshin has been doing it for years, imitating everybody from Ed Sullivan to Marlon Brando. And if you're unlucky, you may remember him as The Riddler in the Batman TV series. His latest work is the one-man show Say Goodnight, Gracie (subtitled, believe it or not, "The life, laughter, and love of George Burns") a monologue by Rupert Holmes, which I saw in previews.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

Sweet, lightly amusing and ephemeral, Say Goodnight, Gracie brings George Burns - via the capable im-personage of Frank Gorshin - back to the stage one more time. Bracketed by a needlessly hokey set-up that catches Burns on the night before he goes to meet his maker (the "Oh God!" actor faces God himself; get it?), the rest is Burns telling his life story, interspersed with jokes, film clips, a passel of winning anecdotes, and a hats-off to Gracie Allen and Jack Benny that gives the evening just a little more emotional tug than a Vegas impression act.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

If you want to see a show with a moving, heart-warming story, great jokes performed by a master comedian with the rare sense of timing only a few of the greatest have, a show without a moment that isn't entertaining, go see Say Goodnight, Gracie, written by Rupert Holmes and starring the incomparable Frank Gorshin. Aided by the wonderful Didi Conn as the voice of Gracie, this show, about 100 year old comedian George Burns and his adventures in romance and show business, directed by John Tillinger, is captivating, joyous, brilliant comedy. What more can I say?

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Boys From Syracuse, The
American Airlines Theater

Encouraged by the success of the appropriately-lauded Encores! 1997 concert version of Rogers & Hart's 1938 musical comedy, The Boys From Syracuse, the Roundabout understandably chose to re-mount it. But the concert version scrapped the book and concentrated on the music, which is, as has been once again proven, indestructible.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Burn This
Union Square Theater

Watchable but not especially rewarding revival of Lanford Wilson's tale of a grieving woman finding solace in hot nookie with a vaguely dangerous asshole.

I was lucky enough to see the original production, with John Malkovich torching the stage indelibly, albeit to the detriment of the love story's credibility—i.e., what did Joan Allen's Anna see in him? With Edward Norton's funnier, greasier turn, Pale's tantrums are more childlike and less overtly threatening, though there's still an oil-and-vinaigrette taste to their twosome.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Burn This
Union Square Theater

There's a little deja-vu in Signature Theater's revival of Lanford Wilson's 1987 play, Burn This, for those who have recently seen Broadway's Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune, another romance between two diametrically opposite characters. Anna (Catherine Keener) is soft, naive, introspective and sensitive. Her unlikely paramour, Pale (Edward Norton), is bombastic—a cursing, drinking, drug-taking emotional bulldozer.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Burn This
Union Square Theater

This review of the current revival of Lanford Wilson's Burn This comes in two parts: What it is and what it could (and perhaps should) be. First, the opening half hour of expositional chatter among a former dancer, her gay roommate and her boyfriend as they relive the funeral of a third roommate who, with his boyfriend, perished in a boating accident, is static, boring, without style or energy, poorly cast and directed (by James Houghton).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Ben Franklin: Unplugged
Saint Cecilla's Playhouse

Do not miss Josh Kornbluth's Red Diaper Trilogy! Kornbluth writes with wit, delivers with gusto. His monologues demand your constant attention. The delivery moves from rapid fire to deliberate, well-placed pauses that allow the audience time to absorb this huge talent's output. The trilogy includes Red Diaper Baby, The Mathematics of Change and Ben Franklin: Unplugged. Red Diaper Baby is a coming-of-age tale of Josh's experiences growing up as a child of Communist parents in New York City.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Delicate Balance, A
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

A shoo-in for any Milwaukee critic's Top 10 list is the current Milwaukee Repertory Theater production of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. In a production that borders on perfection, director Edward Morgan slices through the gauze of a seemingly well-ordered suburban lifestyle. Though the play won a Pulitzer Prize in 1966, it remains remarkably fresh and funny. (Clearly, Albee was ahead of his time.)

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Enrico IV
F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater

Don't ask me why the plays of Luigi Pirandello, Italy's most revered 20th century playwright and one of the world's great dramatists, aren't given half the stage time of those of Chekhov, Ibsen and Shaw, those other deservedly-exalted titans of modern dramatic literature. Never mind, just grab this opportunity to go to The New Jersey Shakespeare Theater's production of Enrico IV, and see one of the Italian master's most challenging and complex plays.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Enrico IV
F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater

Madness, masks, mirrors, and portraits symbolize the shifting and inter-penetrating theatricalities of Luigi Pirandello's Enrico IV -- the third production of the 2002 New Jersey Shakespeare Festival season. The play constitutes a long philosophical and poetic diatribe on the fact that to be human is to be mad. Pirandello's dark view was influenced by a variety of sources: his wife's insanity, his own paranoia, existentialism, theater of the grotesque, Einstein's theories of relativity, and, most importantly, the ideas of nineteenth-century philosopher Henri Bergson.

Kathryn Wylie-Marques
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Hairspray
Neil Simon Theater

Cute and cartoon-y, a campy, cardboard comedy with heart, this bouncy, bubble-gum bauble is already a favorite among those whose entertainment requirements are non-cerebral. Marissa Jaret Winokur as Tracy is every tubby teen's heroine as she blithely blitzes through weight-related insults and stereotypical barriers to achieve her dreams in remarkably short succession: to dance on the local TV's "The Corny Collins Show" (Clarke Thorell) and steal the beauty queen's (pouty Laura Bell Bundy) hunky beau (Mathew Morrison).

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Guys, The
Flea Theater

The Guys employs a simple but very effective premise: a woman penning eulogies for firemen killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks asks their captain for details about his lost men. Also, to break up the solemn q&a, the interviewer breaks into the occasional poignant, personal solilquy. Even a year after the bombings, Anne Nelson's chamber drama has the feeling of theater-as-therapy, an act not of political questioning or outrage (as was Reno's recent solo), but of communal mourning.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Boys from Syracuse, The
American Airlines Theater

Though forever overshadowed by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rogers and Hart were as delightful a duo as ever concocted musicals for the Broadway stage. Where the later team dealt in lushness, epic themes, and emotional upheavals, the earlier duo found greatness in zest, cheery wit, and melodies so easy, only a muse could have penned them. If the Roundabout’s revival of The Boys from Syracuse looks a little slapdash, it sounds nifty, thanks to a cast of Broadway pros who can play goofy characters and still sing—formidably—for their supper.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Boys From Syracuse, The
American Airlines Theater

If your main reason for enjoying musical theater is the performance of the music, then The Boys From Syracuse is a must-see. The 1938 Rodgers & Hart score is attractively sung and played in this new Roundabout production. David Loud conducts a tasteful orchestration by Don Sebesky that keeps the flavor of the original. Jonathan Dokuchitz, Tom Hewitt and Erin Dilly are particularly good vocally, while Lauren Mitchell sings her big number, "Falling in Love With Love," in a lower key than we're used to, making it more conversational but less thrilling.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune
Belasco Theater

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune takes one of the oldest staples of playwriting - the first date - and grills up two hours of negotiations, neuroses, desires, and regrets. Familiar territory, but the humor is relatively fresh, from F & J's convincingly frank sexual jousting to Johnny's emotional neediness that swings between endearing and borderline scary.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
Hairspray
Neil Simon Theater

Harvey Fierstein in a jumbo housedress and croaking his trademark "Hellaaaooh" is already enough reason to see any show he's in, so it's a hair-hopping pleasure to report that his current vehicle, Hairspray, adapted from John Waters' break-out commercial film, boasts a half-dozen other reasons for its instant hit-dom. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's punchline-filled lyrics hit the mark often enough to keep our ears on ever-perk, matched as they are to Shaiman's intentionally-derivative but buoyant tunes ("Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now" being the catchiest).

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
I'm Not Rappaport
Booth Theater

Pundits have sniped at the number of 1980s re-runs taking up prime Broadway real estate lately—Into the Woods, Morning's at Seven, Noises Off—but the truth is that all these revivals have proved worthy and highly entertaining. The hot streak continues with I'm not Rappaport, Herb Gardner's 1985 Tony winner about two old men fending off muggers, senescence and obsolescence in Central Park.

If the set-up screams "boulevard," the byplay between Nat (Judd Hirsch) and Midge (Ben Vereen) still musters big laughs, and the writing rarely lapses into cuteness.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
I'm Not Rappaport
Booth Theater

Herb Gardner's I'm Not Rappaport, now revived on Broadway, is a joyful experience. Two alter kockers, one of them an old Red, sit on a park bench in New York and cope with the contemporary world and the frustrations of being old. Performed by the sensational Judd Hirsch in a turn that can only be accomplished by many years of understanding the character (he won a Tony for the same role years ago) and with fine support by Ben Vereen and a very good Anthony Arkin, the delights multiply as the brilliantly written play unfolds.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
All Over
Gramercy Theater

Edward Albee's 1971 play, All Over, about a family and friends waiting for the patriarch to die, is full of exposition, some of it interesting. As directed by Emily Mann, the piece consists mainly of old- fashioned, careful declarations by the highly professional performers, with everybody ACTING, and no real conversations. Emotional risings and occasional laughings are carefully stitched into the proceedings, and good, bright lines do pop up, but even if some of the stories told are engaging, a play that is almost all exposition tends to be static and boring.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Antony and Cleopatra
American Players Theater

Spring Green, WI, lies in a particularly beautiful section of the state. For 23 years, audiences have waited for the summer opening of American Players Theater, which makes its home in Spring Green. APT offers a rotating repertory of plays in its outdoor amphitheater. Most of its season typically consists of Shakespeare's plays. The two initial offerings this season consist of Antony and Cleopatra (see TotalTheater Criticopia review) and The Taming of the Shrew.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Barbara Cook: Mostly Sondheim
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Grant Barbara Cook a little leeway with her titles; "Mostly Sondheim" is really half Stephen Sondheim and half songs this great composer/lyricist wishes he'd written -- and grant her a few minutes to get comfy with the Vivian Beaumont stage (she claims to love the space but spends her opening number swiveling like a sprinkler head), and you'll be treated to an evening of fine, sometimes moving singing.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Bye Bye Birdie
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

Kids. It's one of the best and best-known songs from Bye Bye Birdie. There's "nothing the matter" today with those oh-so-many kids who fill the stage with so much sound, freshness and energy. It even makes me a bit ashamed to feel that the show's outdated. Still, there's something to be said for an era in which a performing idol like Elvis (here fictionalized as Conrad Birdie) wouldn't balk at heeding his country's call to armed service. And there's no lack of publicists today to think up a related stunt, as does Albert Peterson.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Endpapers
Variety Arts Theater

There are 11 different characters in Thomas McCormack's comedy-drama Endpapers, and, most astoundingly, they're played by 11 different actors. And no, it's not a musical. In an age when playwrights daren't pen anything with more than a half-dozen roles in it (because producers won't produce anything with more than a pocketful of Equity salaries attached to it) we're reminded of just how much breathing room a full-size cast gives a dramatist.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Endpapers
Variety Arts Theater

The moment you sit down in the Variety Arts Theater for Endpapers and encounter the marvelous set by Neil Patel, you feel you're going to see something special -- and it all is. Thomas McCormack is a smart writer who really knows his subject: the world of publishing. The play is full of insights, high humor and thoughts that reach the corners of your mind. The premise is that the patriarch of a publishing company is dying. Who will succeed him? We learn a lot about the underpinnings of this world while we are thoroughly entertained.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Aida
Forrest Theater

Disney's Aida is a visually stunning show, and this road production looks almost the same as the Broadway original. The sun-drenched oranges, reds and pinks and the sparkling stars in the dark night sky are beautiful and exotic. If only Elton John's score had as much luster. John clearly is trying to expand his range. "Easy as Life" is a worthy dramatic monologue, "The Gods Love Nubia" is a stirring anthem, and "Like Father Like Son" is a dramatic argument that advances the plot while rousing us. But most of the rest is conventional rock.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Barbra's Wedding
Plays & Players Theater

As Barbra's Wedding begins, a wife prepares an elaborate pie for her husband, who could not possibly care less. It's playwright Daniel Stern's way of letting us know this marriage is in trouble. But it also illustrates the play's flaws. The scene goes on endlessly, as neither the character nor the author knows when to change gears. And the husband never makes an effort to sample his wife's creation, let alone show his appreciation for her effort, thereby losing a chance to reveal shades of gray in his persona and thus losing audience sympathy for his character.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Blown Sideways Through Life
Florida Studio Theater

Everything that made me a misfit in the world made me right for the theater, Claudia Shearer decided. Michelle Gardner, wonderfully genuine as the author, takes us through 64 jobs she was unsuited for. With energetic, compelling force she makes the 65th -- this tour de force--a success, personally and professionally. Simplicity is the key, including the set (a glass-paneled backdrop that changes backlit colors moodily) and props consisting of a large elevated platform with steps and a ladder at one side.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2002

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