theater Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Weird; Godspell; The 39 Steps

Day By Day

Here’s a roundup of some entertainment I’ve seen recently.

The first and only thing I’ve gotten around to seeing on my newish Roku set is the movie Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring the unlikely but oddly convincing Daniel Radcliff. I’m a big Weird Al fan, owning at least 90% of his work on LP or CD.

I imagine that familiarity with not only the music but the backstory of the creation of the songs and the launching of this career would enhance the appreciation of the storyline. The movie was written by Al and director Eric Appel, and it is a parody of biopic films about musicians.

It’s often funny, definitely silly, and inevitably excessive, especially in the second half, featuring Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood), when the pace sags for me.

The pool scene featuring Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson), Wolfman Jack (Jack Black), and several well-known icons is my favorite. I also liked the resolution involving Al’s father (Toby Huss). And Al is convincing s the record producer who wants to have nothing to do with Weird Al.

The film sometimes seems rushed, probably because of its 18-day shooting schedule, but I’m glad I saw it.

Theater!

My wife and I had said in the spring that we might see three or four shows at Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, NY, over the summer. Suddenly, it was Sunday, August 13, and the final day of the third or fourth show. She said, do you want to go see Godspell?

I love Godspell. In 1976, I was in a production in New Paltz. I’ve seen the movie starring Victor Garber.

But this Godspell was sublime. Check out this review: ” This Godspell, this gospel according to [director Trey] Compton, is an edgy, piercing, gritty, brilliant piece of theatre… “

This is how the show starts: “Cue the Gospel. As the ensemble cast of eight enters, each clutches a cell phone in his or her hand as if they are the last lifelines to their very existence. The soon-to-be disciples are quite literally separated one from another by virtue of Compton’s sharp and intentional staging, scattered about the theatre like the wandering souls they are at this moment.

“Looking for all the world like a world-weary crowd gathered on a dark subway track awaiting the last train of the day, they begin to deliver the Prologue/Tower of Babble, a number not always included in every production, but thankfully included here…

“[It] is a truly unique, brilliant, thought-provoking, cutting-edge work of theater art.” That says it all.

Hitchcock

My wife wanted to know if I wanted to go to the Spectrum Theatre to see the film The 39 Steps (1935). I had never seen it, so absolutely.

What I liked is that the protagonist, Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a Canadian vacationing in London, didn’t believe the mysterious agent Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) and her fanciful tale about an international spy ring involving something called the “39 steps.”

That is, until Smith ends up dead in Hannay’s apartment, with him as the only suspect. Hannay has to elude those chasing him while trying to figure out the truth behind the secret. His life becomes entangled with Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), his unwilling accomplice, who doesn’t believe Richard any more than Richard initially believed Annabella.

The chase is a bit improbable, as the pursuers are mainly inept. It’s also a very humorous and early rom-com.

Incidentally, I did see The 39 Steps before, but it involved shadow puppets.

The theater and other diversions

Some Like It Hot; Hadestown; Gordon Parks

While filling out one of those quizzes, I realized I must be missing some other diversions. I’m not watching much television. The movies I see (primarily) get reviewed here. So what else have I been doing?

My wife and I went to the Albany Institute of History and Art and saw “Gordon Park: I, too, am America” in early February, just before the exhibit closed. I loved his work, which I remember from the pages of LIFE magazines in the 1960s. He exposed the disparity of American life with his camera. A reviewer called the installation “incomplete but still rewarding.” The description of the works in one medium-sized room and a tiny annex seems accurate.

I realized that I related to Parks as a singular figure, the only black photographer I knew of, just as Arthur Ashe was the sole black male tennis player in my awareness.

Theater

My wife and I have season tickets to musicals at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady. The first one scheduled was Aladdin in October 2022. Unfortunately, that was the timeframe when my spouse was experiencing her leg injury.

I could have gotten the money credited to our theater account, but at that late date, Proctors wouldn’t fill those seats. Instead, I posted my issue on Facebook; I got a taker – a guy and his very enthusiastic mom – and our digital tickets could be used, which made me happy.

Thus, the first show we saw was Hairspray in January. I’d seen the original 1988 movie, written and directed by John Waters. The iteration we saw was more moving than a previous production I had seen, especially when Motormouth sings I Know Where I’ve Been.

The best part of going to a Thursday matinee at Proctors is that a few actors will come to a smaller theater and talk to the audience. They told their stories of putting on a production in the midst of COVID. One performer was cast two years earlier, while another auditioned online on a Thursday in Mississippi and was in NYC the following Monday. That first rehearsal involved practicing the exhausting finale. You Can’t Stop The Beat.

Hell, you say

In March, we saw Hadestown. The Tony winner still plays on Broadway but also has a touring show. The musical by Anaïs Mitchell tells a variation of an ancient Greek myth about Eurydice, a young woman desperate for something to eat. She ends up in “a hellish industrial version of the underworld. Her poor singer-songwriter lover Orpheus comes to attempt to rescue her.” The tour will continue through May of 2024. Well worth your time.

My wife and I saw Rent at UAlbany in March; some great performances. Ditto Sister Act at the newly refurbished Albany High School, where our daughter, home from college, joined us. Some difficulties with the sound marred both shows.

Norma Jeane

My wife and I also saw the movie Some Like It Hot (1959) at the Spectrum in Albany. While I had seen a movie ABOUT Marilyn Monroe, this was the first film I saw that she starred in.

The movie was very good. Indeed, it has been “voted one of the best films ever made in polls by the BBC, the American Film Institute, and Sight & Sound.”

Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play two musicians on the run from the Chicago mob in 1929 who dress up as women and join an all-female band heading to Miami. Marilyn as Sugar Kane is more than another “dumb blonde,” even though the band’s singer describes herself that way.

I had heard about her clashes with director/producer/co-writer Billy Wilder, with her demanding many retakes. Ultimately, Wilder acknowledged: “Anyone can remember lines, but it takes a real artist to come on the set and not know her lines and yet give the performance she did!” She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress.

My wife and I thought that the lighting made Marilyn seem to be topless in a couple of nightclub scenes, though she was wearing clothing.

There is a bit of mob violence in Some Like It Hot. But fortunately, it wasn’t like seeing a Scorcese or Coppola film.

Also, I imagine that they should ban the movie in Kentucky. Lemmon and Curtis are in drag. And Joe E. Brown’s famous last line just nails that down.

Mac-Haydn: Next To Normal, The Full Monty

THEATRE!

Mac-Haydn In this review of Next To Normal, Marc Savitt of Broadway World describes the wonder that is a local theater that he’s been to.

“Tucked away in the town of Chatham, NY, The Mac-Haydn Theatre has been producing regional productions of Broadway Musicals for over 50 years. The theatre was founded in part to preserve musical theatre as the one individually American theatre form…

“Mac-Haydn truly is a ‘hidden-gem’ that presents a series of 8-10 productions each summer. Strolling between the wooden buildings on the campus, I have often thought of it as a sort of hybrid that would occur if you combined summer camp with summer-stock. They do great work, and the program attracts seasoned professionals, and up-and-coming performers, along with newbies often young and from the local area. Readers may be slightly aware of one such youngster named Joe then. He is now better known as Nathan Lane.”

My family has been attending shows there for over a dozen years, though not during the worst of COVID. This summer, we saw four shows, A Chorus Line in June, Urinetown in July (mentioned here), Next To Normal, and The Full Monty in August.

What IS normal, anyway?

I knew next to nothing about Next To Normal, which was likely true of the theater-going public in the area where this was the regional premiere. The audience was about 40% smaller than most shows I have seen there.

I had heard about Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt’s work because I tend to watch the Tonys. “It is considered a ‘rock musical’ the likes of Superstar or RENT.” Per Wikipedia, “The musical addresses grief, depression, suicide, drug abuse, ethics in modern psychiatry, and the underbelly of suburban life.”

The cast of six includes Beth Kirkpatrick is Diana, the “mother who struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effects that managing her illness has on her family.” Eric Van Tielen is her husband, Dan, trying to be supportive. They’ve both appeared on Broadway and are making their M-H debuts. They are excellent.

So is the rest of the cast, who are returning performers. Amber Mawande-Spytek as daughter Natalie, Kylan Ross as son Gabe, Andrew Burton Kelley as Natalie’s friend Henry, and Gabe Belyeu as Dr. Madden; he’s been at M-H off and on for at least a decade.

Next to Normal won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The reviewer noted: “Prepare yourself to be overwhelmed by the raw and exhilarating reality of what it means to care for yourself and one another.”

Unemployed in Buffalo

I saw the 1997 movie The Full Monty in a movie theater. “The film is set in Sheffield, England, during the 1990s and tells the story of six unemployed men, four of them former steel workers, who decide to form a male striptease act (à la the Chippendale dancers) to make some money.” The Rotten Tomatoes consensus reads, “Cheeky and infectiously good-natured, The Full Monty bares its big beating heart with a sly dose of ribald comedy.”

The 2000 musical Full Monty is a musical with the book by Terrence McNally and score by David Yazbek. “In this Americanized musical stage version…six unemployed Buffalo steelworkers” are in similar straits and decide on the same solution.

Jerry, who initiates the plan, is played by Xander James, who was back at M-H last year after a decade hiatus. Gabe Belyeu (Harold, the former factory foreman), Kylan Ross (Malcolm), and Andrew Burton Kelley (Ethan) also appear here. Tezz Yancey (Noah “Horse” Simmons) and Dean Marino (Jerry’s best friend Dave) are making their M-H debuts.

Holly Lauren Dayton (Pam, Jerry’s ex), Julia Hajjar (Georgie, Dave’s wife), and Erin Spears Ledford (Vicki, Harold’s wife) are strong, as are many of the other women.

Back in the spotlight

But the highlight is Monica Wemitt, who returns to the Mac-Haydn stage for the first time in three years, though working there behind the scenes as COVID compliance officer. Her Jeanette is “a perhaps second-rate, over-the-hill pianist who happens into the rehearsals and accompanies the gentlemen on their journey to show time. Jeanette is a no holds barred, tell ‘em what you think out loud, funny, self-deprecating bleach blonde with hair that is too big, even for the times, character.”

Despite being a ribald comedy, The Full Monty “also touches on serious subjects such as unemployment, fathers’ rights, depression, impotence, homosexuality, body image, working-class culture, and suicide.”

The Full Monty runs through September 4.

Musicals: Seussical and Urinetown

Blackfriars Theatre in Rochester, NY

My wife and I continue on our parade of attending musicals. On July 24, we went to Rochester to see Seussical, the Musical at the Blackfriars Theatre.

The program, one of those online-only items that are increasingly common in venues (and also restaurants), notes the massive initial failure of Seussical. “After an initial run in Boston to solidify the evolving script, Seussical premiered on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on November 30, 2000, and received almost universally negative reviews… As a result, Seussical closed after 198 performances, and its estimated financial losses of eleven million dollars make it one of the worst financial flops in Broadway history.”

As a Seuss fan and casual follower of Broadway goings-on, I remember much of this. “And yet, in the most Seuss-like of developments, Seussical, over the past few decades, has developed a long life in frequent productions in schools and theatres throughout the country since the rights became available in 2004… The story of Seussical could easily be one of Seuss’ own titles. His books are replete with characters that refuse to give up on their goals and remain steadfast in the presence of enduring obstacles.”

We really enjoyed this production of high school and college kids. Now, we drove 230 miles because our niece Alexa was in it as part of a trio who would have given The Shangri-Las pop group a run for their money. Ireland Fernandez-Cosgrove starred as The Cat In The Hat, and she was very good, as was the whole ensemble. But I must mention Mason Morrison, who played Jojo. If he chooses to pursue theater or music, he’s likely to be a star by 2037; he turned ten the week after we saw him.

Also, set designer Abigail Manard painted not just the set but about 95% of the Seussian walls. The photo does not do it justice.

Water shortage

In many ways, Urinetown, which my family saw at the Mac-Hadyn Theatre in Chatham, NY in mid-July, is the opposite of Seussical. It’s a comedic musical that “satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics.” It also takes on the musical as a form. In 2002, it won three Tonys, including Best Book Of A Musical (Greg Kotis) and Best Original Musical Score (Mark Hollmann and Kotis), and was nominated seven times.

The story isn’t as far-fetched as it might have been a couple of decades ago. “A twenty-year drought has caused a terrible water shortage, making private toilets unthinkable. All restroom activities are done in public toilets controlled by a megacorporation called ‘Urine Good Company’ (or UGC). To control water consumption, people have to pay to use the amenities.”

On one hand, it is quite funny, occasionally corny. This review is dead-on. “Audiences will relish the return of favorite Gabe Belyeu in a vocal role as Officer Lockstock, the narrator of the piece and Keeper of the Pee-ce in ‘Urinetown, the musical…not Urinetown, the place’, as he repeatedly takes pains to distinguish between the two.” The rest of the cast of young adults is excellent as well.

The theater: Fly; Dear Evan Hansen; 10X10

three cities, three months

My wife and I went to the Theater! recently, signs of normal-ish.

In February, we went to the new Capital Rep Theatre in Albany, just a few blocks from the previous venue. The production was called Fly. It was a story, written by Trey Ellis and Ricardo Khan, about four black men from different backgrounds trying to become Tuskegee Airmen, despite pushback from the system.

The Wikipedia page describes the potential pilots. ” Chet, from Harlem; W.W., from Chicago; Oscar, from Iowa; and J. Allen, originally from the West Indies—who represent the varied backgrounds of the men who went through Tuskegee’s training, not all graduating and not all surviving the war.” Three “other actors portray white men—instructors and pilots—who questioned the idea that black men could fly in America’s military.”

As the Cap Rep description noted, “You will see and hear the men’s inner conflicts and triumphs through ‘Tap Griot’… in a way that cannot be felt through words alone.” This device worked exceptionally well. Wikipedia: “A dancer who uses tap dance steps to set a mood that is ‘part sublimated anger, part empowerment.’ This character appears numerous times throughout the play, ‘commenting choreographically on events and emotions.'” This device worked quite well, and the dancer, Omar Edwards, was exceptional.

I don’t know where or when Fly will be produced again. The Albany run doesn’t even appear on the Wikipedia page.

Electric City

About three years ago, I bought season tickets for Proctors Theatre in Schenectady for the 2019-2020 season. When the calendar was postponed because of COVID, three of the shows remained. One, Summer, I saw in December. as I noted, the book was weak.

Com From Away, which I was supposed to see in September 2020, came to Schenectady in late January 2021, just as the Omicron variant was surging locally. My wife asked me NOT to go – she didn’t have a ticket – because she feared if I got COVID and gave it to her, she might spread it to her students.

I stayed home, but I’d be lying if I said wasn’t quite disappointed. The story of a Newfoundland town finding a way to take care of people whose planes were grounded after 9/11 was the show I most wanted to see. There is a production of it online on Apple TV, but of course, that’s not the same thing.

Tony winner

My wife and I DID see Dear Evan Hansen in March. I purchased the Broadway cast album a few years ago in anticipation of seeing the musical. And it’s odd that I feel the same about the music and script. Act 1 ends so joyously.

The story is that the title character failed to correct a false impression. He became popular online and in person, makes another family happy, and gets to date his crush. Of course, morally, the story can’t end there, but a very small piece of me wishes it could have. It reminded me a bit of Into The Woods, where the fairytales all end happily ever after. But then the story continues.

I liked the digital motif of the set design. The cast in this show, and also Summer, were excellent, as they almost always are. This show continues to tour into 2023, which you can check out here.

The Shire City

We also saw a production online. Actually, 10 Ten-Minute Plays by 10 Playwrights at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, MA, which we ‘attended” for the second year in a row in April.
Stealing a Kiss By Laurie Allen – “Two elderly citizens meet at a bus stop where raindrops, turn to rain”…- sweet.
Love Me, Love My Work By Glenn Alterman. Misunderstanding about a new play.
Honestly By Steven Korbar. A young man and woman end their short romantic relationship and find they can speak to each other with complete honesty for the first time.” Oddly true.

Gown By Robert Weibezahl. A mother and daughter are shopping for the perfect wedding gown. My favorite; very touching.
An Awkward Conversation in the Shadow of Mount Moriah By John Bavoso. “Things are a little tense between Abraham and Isaac after the almost-sacrifice.” I found it quite funny.
Escape from Faux Pas By Cynthia Faith Arsenault. “Newcomers to a prestigious condo community find themselves in a precarious social situation, having inadvertently opened their neighbor’s Amazon delivery of…” Meh.

Liars Anonymous By Ellen Abrams. “Max and Charlotte clean up after a Liars Anonymous meeting and regale each other with creative renditions of their lives that sound suspiciously familiar.” Too much of a similar schtick.
Misfortune By Mark Harvey Levine. “A couple gets some disturbing news from a fortune cookie.” For what was essentially one joke, enjoyable enough.o
Climax By Chelsea Marcantel “For Sam and Teddy, the long-awaited kiss proves to be the easy part.” It rang very true.
The Voice of the People By Cary Pepper. “Who’ll be HomeHaven’s new mayor — the candidate with impeccable qualifications, or the one with no experience, no platform, and no agenda?” Too many caricatured citizens.