THE BEST AND WORST OF 1993 ON AND OFF BROADWAY
((c)1993 David Lefkowitz. This article was first published as the cover story for the December 23, 1993 issue of Performing Arts Insider.)
THE BEST
1. Angels in America
It took both parts of this epic to convince me, but so much of Tony Kushner's fantasia is fantastic, Angels dwarfs nearly everything else around, not because of the scope, but because of its power. And Ron Leibman's Roy Cohn is the kind of miracle we'll tell our kids about.
2. The Lights
Howard Korder shines a blinding light on urban decay, in both human and metaphorical terms. It's the tragedy of a society that's lost its moral center -- and where no one can find the way home. Sensational doesn't begin to describe the Atlantic Theater Company staging.
3. Fool Moon
This one's kind of a cheat because David Shiner/Bill Irwin's gig at Lincoln Center made #3 on this same list last year. Why include them again? Because, thanks to judicious cutting, the show actually improved in its commercial run. Oddball rules (which have since been amended) kept Fool Moon from winning a Tony. Hope this serves as a consolation prize for two great clowns.
4. Carnival
Listening to the original cast CD of Carnival, I was struck by how short most of the songs are. They say their piece, finish, and then it's on to the next. Put those appealing songs on stage, add acrobatic stunts, cabaret perennial Karen Mason as the incomparable Rosalie, and a story that jerks buckets of tears, and you've got just about everything you could ask from a musical. Still, the glory of this York Theater Company revival was its Glory -- Glory Crampton, that is, for she was its captivating, beguiling ingénue, Lili. It was always, always she.
5. She Loves Me
If Crazy for You reminds us what Broadway was like when the songs were great, She Loves Me helps us recall what it was like when libretti were their equal. Directed by Scott Ellis, this is a revival that never lets precision interfere with spunk.
6. The Sisters Rosensweig
It's only fair. The Heidi Chronicles was overrated by just about everyone, so why shouldn't The Sisters Rosensweig be underrated by the same parties? Wendy Wasserstein's canvas may be smaller this time, but her weaving is far more intricate; she's finally learned to knit her witty, wistful characters into a satisfying plot
7. Common Ground
As perfect a one-act play as you're likely to see: funny, moving, insightful as hell. Staged as part of 29th Street Repertory's One-Act Festival (and published in Performing Arts Insider magazine, 11/5/93), Richard Harland Smith's tale of a sad psychic and a cynical detective featured a deeply affecting performance by Elizabeth Elkins as a woman for whom the slightest human contact causes unbearable pain.
8. All in the Timing
Yes, and it's also in the language, especially when your playwright is David Ives and his six one-act comedies are as buoyantly performed as they are by the Primary Stages cast. Seeing Sure Thing yet one more time never hurt anybody, and Ives's newest, Universal Language, alone is worth the price of admission. Then again, so is Variations on the Death of Trotsky. And so is Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread.
9. Laughter on the 23rd Floor
For all the critics' carping, you'll find few more enjoyable places to spend 2 ½ hours this winter than the Richard Rodgers Theater. If Doc Simon lets his darker themes lie under-developed (and then overstates his other themes), he also unleashes half a dozen glib lunatics, among them the priceless Lewis J. Stadlen and the boundless Nathan Lane. Whatever the shortcomings, this one -- unlike The Goodbye Girl and Jake's Women - has more than the Simon touch. It has the Simon magic.
10. The Kentucky Cycle
Like The Lights, The Kentucky Cycle is a depiction in story and symbol of our national tragedy Stacy Keach is volcanic as a brute who murders for a fertile patch of land, thus setting off four generations of vengeance until the ruined earth can yield but one fruit -- a baby's coffin. Again, the critics bitched; again, they missed the boat. Though marred by overwriting and the occasional feel-good tableau (notably the "union" sequence), to call The Kentucky Cycle a TV mini-series is to short-change its momentous themes and generally mercurial pace. It's the fastest six hours I've ever spent in a theater -- and this from a man who detests stage gunshots (and there are many).
11. Family Secrets / Blown Sideways Through Life
Two seemingly antithetical one-woman shows, both yielding equally delightful results. In Family Secrets, Sherry Glaser creates five hilarious (and lovingly stereotypical) members of a dysfunctional Jewish family. For a textbook example of a scene both funny and gripping, check out Glaser as New-Ager "Fern," undergoing the joys of natural childbirth. This year's most empowering solo, though, had to be Blown Sideways Through Life, in which Claudia Shear, blessed with a gift for phraseology, shared the details of her work resume. With 65 jobs to choose from, Shear spun a fascinating, all-too-brief kaleidoscope of horrors and godsends.
12. Wilder Wilder Wilder
There are people who hate Our Town - and as long as they stay off my continent, I'll let them live. For those who wanted to see where America's most profoundly human play came from, Willow Cabin offered up three Thornton Wilder one-acts: The Long Christmas Dinner, The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden and Pullman Car Hiawatha. Dinner gave us life and death realistically portrayed through non-realistic staging; Journey showed the love of a happy family, and Hiawatha simply condensed the whole universe into a train compartment. This production started at the Harold Clurman Theater, moved off-Broadway to the McGinn/Cazale and then salvaged Circle in the Square's Broadway season. Woulda been icing on the cake if WWW became a Broadway hit, but who am I to look a gift miracle in the mouth?
13. Wings
For some artists, the hardest part of crafting a musical is knowing when material is simply not suited for musicalization. Leave it to Jeffrey Lunden and Arthur Perlman to adapt Arthur Kopit's absolutely undoable story -- about a woman who can't talk, let alone sing -- and make it soar. Linda Stephens was no less than amazing as the aphasic heroine. And blessedly, most of the time, Wings's modern score actually sounded like music.
14. Three Hotels
Even more so than Tony Kushner, Jon Robin Baitz stands as our most precise craftsman of dialogue. Every phrase provides both a revelation of character and a clue to what lies ahead. No histrionics, no self-flagellations. Out of three quiet monologues, Baitz and actors Ron Rifkin and Christine Lahti sculpted a poignant drama.
15. Later Life
A.R. Gurney may be slick and obvious, but he can push my buttons all day without my feeling manipulated. He has one theme in Later Life - people can change if they want to -- and hammers it home a half-dozen different ways. But he also evokes big laughs and lumps in the throat. If A.R. Gurney is a G.B. Shaw for non-intellectuals, that's O.K. by me.
16. Buya Africa
Thrilling concert performance by South African vocalist Thuli Dumakude and her amazing two-person band: Emma (a man) on guitars and marimbas, Valerie Naranjo (a woman, with flying hair) on drums. Added to the mix were autobiographical stories and some cutesy audience participation, but oh, the music -- gorgeous, electrifying, unforgettable.
17. The Loman Family Picnic
Donald Margulies offers an object lesson on the domestic comedy of dread. Just watch the way Margulies's father/son Bar Mitzvah scene slides from joyful to uneasy to tender to ugly to devastating, yet still maintains empathy for the disgraceful dad. Although I question the playwright's decision to include a quartet of different endings (save that stuff for director's cuts of Hollywood bombs), by then he's earned the right to have it both ways -- or even four ways.
18. The Invisible Circus
I'll quote my own review: "Two hours of sheer enchantment -- like Cirque du Soleil on low-fi. With the goggle eyes and impish grin of a silent Benny Hill, Jean Baptiste Thierree provides comedy so gentle, so insouciant, we grin with delight." Add to that James Thierree's acrobatics and Victoria Chaplin's objects-into-animals magic, and the charm was nearly overwhelming.
19. You Can't Take it With You
I remember an old playwriting teacher telling me how he was always terribly moved by the prayer scene in You Can't Take it With You. Though insanity and fireworks (literally) fill the play's two hours, it's the brief moment when grandpa gives his simple thanks for the family making it through another day that crystallizes the play into something beautiful. Knowing that, oh, how I wanted to be moved by the St. Bart's Players revival! And with James Mullins simply perfect as gramps, I was.
HONORABLE MENTION
Set designs (costumes and lighting hereby included) just keep getting closer and closer to the perfect marriage of economy and beauty. Look at Cyrano, Tommy, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Ain't Broadway Grand, Wings, Three Hotels, Loman Family Picnic's highrise, El Galan de la Telenovela's mirrored living room -- and these are just off the top of my head.
Paul Rudnick's sophomore effort, Jeffrey, was no jinx. A quippy, zippy, randy comedy with sad undertones, Jeffrey already has people pegging its author as the gay Neil Simon.
For a randy and downright disgusting comedy, look no further than the Ridiculous Theater's Linda, a political satire with ca-ca jokes, served fresh n' steaming with Everett Quinton & Co.'s usual aplomb.
As long as we're on the subject, the Ridiculous troupe's revival of Charles Ludlam's How to Write a Play is a zany joy. Act one truly approaches the level of Marx Brothers madness. (And I'll sneak in a plug here for Gary Kimble's outrageously funny, Brother Theodore-meets-Uncle Fester turn as Satan's servant in Theater for the New City's uneven Master and Margarita.)
My Favorite Year (which belonged on 1992's list but opened too late for me to include by deadline), was certainly last season's most underrated musical, a damn sight finer than those inexplicable Tony nominees, The Goodbye Girl and Anna Karenina.
The year's second-most underrated musical was Ain't Broadway Grand, which hit the rocks when dealing with Mike Todd's romantic life but elsewhere delivered lively tunes and boffo laughs. Many memorable moments: the hilarious avant-garde spoof in act one, the Lindy's song, Gabriel Barre and Bill Kux prissing their way through the choruses of "The Theater, The Theater!". Broadway would be grand if shows like this had a chance.
I'll keep mum on Pets!, the serendipitous musical revue about our 0-to-8-legged friends, because this year's workshop will surely land a commercial mounting at some point. Already set to return next year is Jewish Rep's Theda Bara and the Frontier Rabbi, the kind of musical that gives silly a good name.
There's something calculated about Kiss of the Spider Woman's downbeat story, but take nothing away from Kander, Ebb and McNally's craft, song sense, or staging.
Kudos to two ensembles for two indelible revivals: Renegade Theater Company proving that On the Waterfront is still a gripper, and the American Globe troupe for showing that Hot l Baltimore is still a heart-tugger. Nice teamwork, too, from Repertorio Espanol on La Candida Erendida, which continues to dazzle and depress, and Theater for a New Audience's Henry V, with Mark Rylance and Miriam Healy Louie every bit as captivating as Kevin and Emma.
Brilliantly conceived, Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III turned Christmas Carol-ish and thus missed being profound by just a hair; Mark O'Donnell's ensemble comedy, Strangers on Earth, proved him to be a bright new theater voice.
A gentle "brava" to Lynn Redgrave -- more for her reminiscences than her recitals -- in Shakespeare for My Father.
I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone the Harlem Boys Choir didn't bring up on stage in their Broadway outing, but I'm glad they found room for Carmen DeLavallade's breathtaking dance, "Creation."
Carter L. Bays's knee-slapping satire, Five Visits from Mr. Whitcomb, continues the Young Playwrights Festival tradition of finding amazingly funny one-acts.
THE WORST
1. Enter the Night
Rules are important. I think we have to abide by rules or else chaos will ensue. It's an unwritten rule that this round-up column devotes itself solely to New York theater. But what if an out-of-town show is so pretentious, so monotonous, so nauseatingly p.c., it screams not only to make the worst list but leap into the coveted #1 slot? Such a show is Maria Irene Fornes's Enter the Night (from Seattle's aptly named "Theater Zero") about a trio of bores who navel gaze and re-enact scenes from Romeo and Juliet and D.W. Griffith's film, Broken Blossoms. You don't want to know why.
2. Bargains
From the author of Vanities(!), this wretched comedy about Texas shopgirls might as well have been a vanity production. Bargains marked a landmark in my career, though: it was the first time I've ever left a show before it was over. I know it was an evil thing to do, but so many other people were lining up at the door, I couldn't resist.
3. Small Time Gals with Big Problems
From Larry Myers, not one but two miserable one-act comedies about jabbering Southern women. This stuff wouldn't even come out of Beth Henley's ass.
4. The Bathtub
Russia has enough problems, so why dredge up a 60-year-old Mayakovsky satire and then stage it as if it were a Nike commercial for cretins? It took months for Russian director Gennadi Bogdanov to teach the Phoenix Ensemble Ivan Popovski's technique of Biomechanics. My God, how long before they can unlearn it?
5. Classified
We had some great one-person shows this year, but Fred Adler's Classified scraped the bottom of the page. Adler used masks, movement and "funny" voices to demonstrate his job and apartment hunts. To be fair, the physically agile Adler did one enthralling visual bit with cigarette lighters, but the rest was pure puerility.
6. The Beggar's Opera
Is there anything more debilitating than three hours of a bad concept? In white face and all over the place, the Arden Party shouted and gesticulated their way through this no-penny operation. They threw chairs, set John Gay's verses to American folk songs(?!), and made this audience member want to commit seppuku on Mack's knife.
7. Mixed Emotions
A bad review from the New York Times would surely have killed this stinker immediately, but since the Times didn't smash Richard Baer's senescent comedy until the Sunday after it opened, Mixed Emotions actually ran a few weeks. Still, a bad fart can penetrate the most congested of noses, and even the blue-hairs who'd automatically flock to see a still-alluring Katherine Helmond had to admit this romance for juvenile geriatrics was one for the undertaker.
8. Scapin
No mischievous machinations here, just a lot of self-congratulatory clowning by Stanley Tucci (who, it must be admitted, is comedy catnip to some) and hit-or-miss knockabout by the rest. One good gypsy song for Mary Testa and a hint at the sadism behind Moliere's farce do not a fun evening make.
9. And Baby Makes Seven
Sometimes risks fail. Paula Vogel tried to craft a nutty comedy out of two lesbians and their gay roommate forced to kill the imaginary characters they've created (including two foreign children and an orphan raised by wild dogs) because they're about to adopt a real baby. Huh? By the time we realize we'll never figure out the trio's motivations, we've long stopped caring.
10. The Swan
Just your average swan-meets-girl story, told without an ounce of skill. Some critics came to admire the originality of playwright Elizabeth Egloff's vision; some audiences came to gawk at Peter Stormare's impressive penis; I came to see an engaging fantasy and was checked at every turn by hamfisted direction or poor dramaturgy.
DISHONORABLE MENTION
Lanford Wilson never found the balance between gentle humor and elegant metaphor in his Redwood Curtain. Instead, we were force-fed a preposterous relationship between a spell-casting Vietnamese girl and her hobo dad. The clunky rendition of Satie's first "Gymnopedie" by Sung Yun Cho (there's a name you'll never hear again) -- whose character was supposed be to be a concert pianist -- said it all.
There's something to be said about letting dead innovators rest; very often their breakthroughs look a lot less impressive years down the line. George Tsypin's Dali-esque scenery aside, Joanne Akalaitis's weirdly dreary revival of Jane Bowles's In the Summer House was fit only for those who absolutely must see every play Tennessee Williams ever influenced.
Remarkably, the same critics who dismissed Anne-Marie MacDonald's brilliant Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) as college-level pedantry are finding deep levels of meaning in Paula Vogel's Desdemona, which doesn't so much tell the Othello story from the victim's point of view as give us a profile (in annoyingly punctuated blackouts) of Des's sex life. Perhaps if Vogel had (no pun intended) fleshed out her scenes, I wouldn't have thrown in the towel (or hankie) so quickly.
Garry Marshall's hit, Wrong Turn at Lungfish, succeeded on the most modest sitcom terms, but a few moments in this obvious comedy hinted that the author has something much better in him. Let's hope so.
Though not a debacle like last year's Master Builder, National Actor's Theater neared apocalypse again with Three Men on a Horse. A too-old Tony Randall (married to Julie Hagerty(!)), tried hard, but what do you do when the direction is careless and your co-star, recovering from throat cancer, screams through his hoarseness? Not farce, or at least, not this farce.
If anyone bothers to build a Museum of the Unnecessary, the first wing might be devoted to musicalizations of The Little Prince, the most recent of which featured a leaden book by John Schoulier, forgettable music by Rick Cummins, and a poorly sung prince by Ramzi Khalaf.
A pair of ruinous second acts: The Goodbye Girl, with Neil Simon, of all people, sinking to sentimental psychobabble, and the Harlem Boys Choir & Friends, in which part one's good will evaporated in the endless gospel droning of part two.
Finally, a big hiss for the legal spat between landlord Roundabout and tenant American Jewish Theater over the space on 26th Street. Guys, this isn't the proper financial climate for theaters to work against each other. I don't care who did what to whom; shake hands, make up and work it out.
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