Merrily We Roll Along
City Center
Wednesday, Feb 15, 7pm performance
I won't get into the whole "is it a brilliantly flawed show" or just a "great score with an impossible book" debate. I think I'm just too biased a Sondheim fan. Besides, they've re-worked, updated and revised the book and score so many times, I don't think there'll ever be a definitive version.
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My second cast album? Les Mis, also on LP. remember how cool and innovative that damn turntable staging was at the time. Seems kinda' quaint in hindsight. Now the audience's over-stimulated brains need constant stage motion or they fall dead asleep. Or worse, get on their cell phones to see that their friends are "at the mall having Auntie Anne's. Yum!" Damn you, facebook. Oh well, I digress.
Though Encores! is officially a staged-reading, the cast was off book (though still holding those damn black binders - I know, it's a requirement of the Equity staged reading contract, but if the actors are off book, why make them lug 'em around the stage?) and the production was fully staged and choreographed. It was also swell to hear a full orchestra rather than the wheezy, tinny, carnival-sounding pit bands that are now de rigueur on The Broadway these days.
From our nosebleed seats, we - I took my friend, Dan, since Trish was in Jersey and Dan's partner was out of town - were basically treated to shiny foreheads and bald spots. But it was still wonderful to finally hear the score within the context of the play. I'm not sure if the show works, but I was never bored and the classic-filled score ("Not A Day Goes By", "Our Time", "Now You Know" etc) only makes me cry at the thought of having to sit through the next inevitably over-produced, over-amplified, all-the-ballads-are-interchangeable Frank Wildhorn score.
The cast was good, if bland, though that could likely be blamed on the shortened Encores! rehearsal period. For me, Elizabeth Stanley's Gussie was the standout with the most fully developed (reverse?) character arc. The ensemble sounded wonderful, but why do African-American singers always have to "sass-up" their solos? Because they can? I mean, classically trained singers don't add high C's or "Queen of the Night" runs to their solos.
The physical production was simple but appropriate. Projections were used cleverly to evoke period and location and didn't distract except for the occasional unfortunate photo-shopping of the leads into some classic period photos. Costumes were authentic, but only served to remind me that everyone was on drugs in the 70s. I love the leg room in the renovated City Center. It's nice not to have the person in front of you rest their head on your knees.
On a side note, Telly Leung (Glee, Godspell) was sitting behind us in the cheap seats. He was there with a friend of Dan's who seemed to want to impress us with his star connection. That bubble burst when Telly interrupted and blurted out, "I know Fausto!" Telly's an Asian, male, musical theatre actor based in NYC. I'm an Asian, male, musical theatre actor (well, former) based in NYC. Of course we know each other. There are only, like, six of us.
Actually, Telly and I met doing an ASCAP reading of a new musical based on an Asian (natch) myth. It remains, to this date, the worst piece of shi...er...I mean, theatre, I've ever had the misfortune to be involved with. Nevertheless, we performed it as though Shakespeare himself had written the book and a reincarnated Richard Rodgers had composed the score. Well, at least the parts of the score that were written out. I shit you not, there were actually sections of the "score" that weren't fully notated. We winged it! And this was at a presentation being critiqued by Stephen "Wicked" Schwartz and Susan "Working" Birkenhead! I mean, come on. You couldn't pull an all-nighter for Stephen and Susan?
Wit
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Thursday, Feb 23, 8pm performance
Intense is the best way to describe Wit. What else would you expect from a play about a woman dying of cancer? I saw the original off-Broadway production in the late 90s in the intimate Union Square Theatre. Though the Sam Friedman is small by Broadway standards, I do think the play loses some of its emotional wallop when viewed from the back of a large house.
In a tiny theatre, you felt Professor Vivian Bearing lecturing directly at you. When she spoke to the audience, Kathleen Chalfant was able to literally make eye contact with everyone in the theatre. That kind of intimacy natural leads to a fuller connection with the audience. Chalfant moved me to tears. In the current revival, Cynthia Nixon came close, but I was always aware of the balcony's distance from the stage, as if we were watching her on a tiny 10" TV screen. That's not her fault, of course.
The play is a great example of how not to write a Lifetime movie of the week. Instead of pandering to the audience, playwright Margaret Edson gives us a central character that seems emotionally frigid. The beauty of the play is that after 90 intermission-less minutes, the audience is made to feel like surrogate family, hoping that by some medical miracle our eccentric aunt might be saved from the inevitable grim outcome.
For all you pervs, there's also the added bonus(?) of some full frontal Cynthia. Though after Sex and the City, we've basically seen it all before and in close-up.
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