Oscar E Moore

In the opening moments of this disjointed, noiresque, bummer of a production the question is asked, “Where is she?” referring to the heroine of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S – Holly Golightly – the self created, self centered, stylish, phony party girl whose favors for men pay her rent in 1940’s New York City. 

It’s a good question as the actress chosen to portray Holly in this sluggish new adaptation by Richard Greenberg of Truman Capote’s poetic ode to the odd Holly – namely Emilia Clarke – the character of Ms. Golightly is missing in action. 

It appears that Ms. Clarke has also been unsuccessfully trying to find Ms. Golightly in this darker new take on Holly.  Coming up with a combination of Veronica Lake, Katherine Hepburn not Audrey and Lea Michele.  It’s an odd and annoying performance which I hereby nominate for “The Elena Roger (Evita) Miscast Person of The Year Award.”   We simply don’t care enough about her to invest our time. 

Watching a very unstylish (despite some nice period costumes by Colleen Atwood) and listening to the bizarre and grating mixture of accents emanating from Ms. Clarke for two and a half hours is akin to hearing cats howling in the alleyway.

And speaking of cats, the adorable ginger tabby named Vito Vincent, rescued by Holly looks as bewildered as we do in trying to figure what is going on up there on the Cort Theatre’s stage and practically steals the show.

A show which features the Narrator (an excellent Cory Michael Smith) almost more than its heroine.  She has named him Fred after her beloved brother and he is infatuated with her antics while attempting to become a published writer and come to grips with his sexuality.   However, his speeches lifted directly from Capote’s novella seem to be at odds with Mr. Greenwood’s new dialogue.  There are two different styles going on here and never the twain shall meet.

George Wendt comes up professional as Joe the Bartender, dispensing martinis and listening to Fred’s sad tale of the missing in action Holly as we watch her downward spiral into self destruction as absently and awkwardly directed by Sean Mathias.

There are a bevy of fine supporting characters that enliven the proceedings but not enough to make this a must see event.  Included are:  Suzanne Bertish, Lee Wilkof, Kate Cullen Roberts and Pedro Carmo.

There is a naked bathtub scene between Fred and Holly that seems out of place in this endless production that just gets worse as it goes on and on and on giving us a case of “The Mean Reds” an  anxiety ailment that Holly suffers from.  To cure them she goes off to Tiffany’s.  See you there.

www.BreakfastAtTiffanysonBroadway.com     Photo:  Nathan Johnson

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It’s not diamonds that are a girl’s best friend but booze in this admirable but creaky revival of HAPPY BIRTHDAY by Anita Loos who is most famous for writing “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”.  It is produced by The Actors Company Theater celebrating its 20^th Anniversary “dedicated to presenting neglected or rarely produced plays”. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY was written especially for Helen Hayes who was tired of portraying serious, stuffy characters.  She desired to do something different.  Something fun.  She wanted to cut loose up on stage.  Anita Loos obliged and gave her the opportunity to get sloshed every night for 600 performances and winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in 1947.

It truly is a star vehicle with a slew of colorful supporting players – 14 to be exact.  The play is presented without intermission and follows the exploits of one Addie Bermis (Mary Bacon) a shy tea-totaling librarian who is trying to break away from her abusive and drunken father Homer (Anderson Matthews). 

Wearing her finest footwear to attract the attention of her favorite bank clerk Paul Bishop (Todd Gearhart) who is engaged to Maude Carson (Victoria Mack) – the Lorelei Lee type stand in – Addie arrives on a rainy night in April at the Mecca Cocktail Bar, Newark, New Jersey 1946, Mecca for all the local drinkers.  Sort of like CHEERS.  Addie has her very first Pink Lady and imbibes many more which gives her enough gumption to cut loose and to pursue her dream man banker.

She even gets to sing “I Haven’t Got a Worry in the World” written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, producers of the original production.  She dances a tango, imagines bottles of liquor talking to her and that the dreary bar has become some kind of wonderland.

As much as I admire the talent of Mary Bacon who makes a gallant and admirable effort she doesn’t quite fill the shoes of Miss Helen Hayes who must have been sensational.

Director Scott Alan Evans does his best to perk up the proceedings with a couple of surprising effects which I won’t spoil by giving them away.  He has cast the play exceptionally well.

Standouts include:  Darrie Lawrence (Tot) and Nora Chester (Emma) two friends who have arrived after seeing Jane Russell in a movie and egg Addie on, Anderson Matthews as a drunken Judge and Addie’s dad Homer, Tom Berklund as Don Hosmer dancing a mean tango – the son of Gail Hosmer owner of the bar – a magnificent Karen Ziemba, an excellent Todd Gearhart as the banker Paul Bishop who gives warmth and charm to his character and the lonely Myrtle (Margot White) whose actual birthday it is.  

Unfortunately her boyfriend’s wife and she share the same birthday.  Most men come up short here especially Mr. Nanino (Joseph Masi) who promises with a most exaggerated  accent not heard for some time in this here town to meet with Maude (gal of Paul) after he returns from the hospital where his wife just gave birth.  Bottoms up!

www.Tactnyc.org  Through April 13^th 

Talk-Backs with the cast after every Sunday Matinee

Visit www.TalkEntertainment.com  Photos:  Hunter Canning

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Is this really how the Me-Generation, the I-Generation, the I-Pod, I-Pad Generation thinks and acts to survive and get ahead to achieve what they think they want? 

The answer from young playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo making his New York debut with REALLY REALLY, an MCC production that has been extended through March 30^th at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, is a depressing and resounding yes. 

You won’t soon forget this group of friends, and I use the term loosely nor will you leave the theatre elated.  As the expression goes, “With friends like these who needs enemies?”

The producers have pulled out all the stops and added bells and whistles to help this effort (it’s part of a trilogy “Want, Give, Get”) succeed by hiring ace and hot director of the moment David Cromer and Zosia Mamet (dad is David Mamet) to portray Leigh (the ruthless catalyst) and set designer David Korins who has supplied a dizzying set that is reformatted for each scene to show the two apartments with different perspectives (plus other locations) that allow the audience not a moment to be bored.   

Added into the mixture are the rest of the attractive young cast with a couple of guys with enviable well defined muscles and abs on display throughout.

After a night of wild partying where everyone was drunk it’s questionable what really went on as Leigh – who wants it all (an excellent Zosia Mamet) accuses rich and studly Davis (Matt Lauria) of taking advantage of her (read rape).  She’s had the hots for him forever and her boyfriend Jimmy (Evan Jonigkeit) is away for the weekend.   He said.  She said.  With unexpected surprises and revelations.  Really.

Cooper (David Hull) Davis’ roommate dispenses his theories on how to succeed in today’s world as does Grace (Lauren Culpepper) Leigh’s roommate (who Jimmy detests) with her speeches to her fellow Future Leaders of America.

Johnson (Kobi Libii) is not as well off as the others and so he treads more carefully with his allegiances.  Haley (Aleque Reid) arrives in Act II – to help her sister Leigh with her insane manipulation of her friends and evil machinations in tones so soft most of her words are lost (Mr. Cromer please take note).

Well that’s the lot off them.  Act I holds our interest but comes to a jarring close that leaves the audience in stunned silence wondering what happened.  Act II fares less well and perhaps the play would benefit with some cuts that make it into a one act with no intermission.  Really?  Honestly.

www.mcctheater.org  Photos:  Janna Giacoppo

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June 28, 1969.  It’s a hot and muggy night and the gays and lesbians of Greenwich Village New York City have been shattered by the death of their beloved icon Judy Garland – Patron Saint of all those who are searching for love and sex and drugs and a good time to blow off steam in a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. 

They have been under the thumb of the cops and the mob and are discriminated against and taunted and brutally beaten and embarrassed by having their names printed in the paper if they get arrested during one of the raids on the bar by the local pigs.

That night they finally had had enough and fought back thus starting the gay revolution.  We’ve come a long way but people are still committing suicide when their sexual orientation is discovered or they are dismissed by their families and bullying is on the rise for those who would just be themselves.

In Ike Holter’s uneven yet emotionally grabbing new play, HIT THE WALL, he puts us right in the middle of it all at the small, intimate Barrow Street Theatre that somehow manages to present the facts with a cross section of the gay community capturing the essence and mythology of that infamous night.

Director Eric Hoff has made great use of the small space and with the help of his fight director J. David Brimmer has staged the play beautifully and brutally.  The dance sequence in the bar with its loud music and strobe lights is particularly affecting as the half naked men go wild when the raid commences and flows out onto the streets of Greenwich Village igniting what was to become the beginning of the movement for gays and lesbians to be treated equally as human beings and not as outcasts.

It was a time where you could be arrested for wearing inappropriate clothing – women dressed as men and drag queens were the favorite targets of the cops.  One of the most terrifying scenes has the cop (Matthew Greer) interrogating a butch dyke, Peg (a terrific Rania Salem Manganaro) and Carson (the outstanding Nathan Lee Graham) who has been mourning the death of Garland in full drag and physically assaulting them.  It truly is frightening and in your face theatre.

One might argue that the characters are stereotypes.   There is the Newbie (Nick Bailey) an innocent youth who manages to be picked up by the guy in a suit A-Gay (Sean Allan Krill), loose his virginity, take cocaine and run naked through the streets brandishing a garbage can all in one day.

There is the butch dyke, her straight laced sister Madeline (Jessica Dickey) who attempts to talk Peg out of being who she is, offering money and therapy to cure her while she avoids those two friends sitting on the stoop Tano (Arturo Soria) and Mika (Gregory Haney) who are very territorial with sharp tongues and fingers that snap.  We have Roberta (Carolyn Michelle Smith) trying to rally all for her cause of women’s rights.  And finally the drag queen Carson who is at the center of this docu-drama holding forth with humor, toughness, eloquence and elegance who captures the heart of Cliff (Ben Diskant) a back pack traveling hippie with a stash of weed.

A trio of Hippie musicians Jonathan Mastro, Ray Rizzo and Indigo Street add guitar, bongo beats and tambourine accompaniment to composer Dan Lipton’s original music.

It is a true ensemble piece filled with passion and quite unsettling and exciting to witness.  HIT THE WALL demands to be seen.  Ninety minutes straight through.

www.BarrowStreetTheatre.com  Photos:  Matthew Murphy

OFF-BROADWAY’S NEW PLAY

“H I T   T H E   W A L L”

LAUNCHES TALKBACK SERIES

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20^TH

AT BARROW STREET THEATRE

FIRST TALKBACK TO BE MODERATED BY

WBAI RADIO HOST

DAVID ROTHENBERG

PANEL INCLUDES ORIGINAL JUNE 28, 1969 STONEWALL ACTIVISTS

DANNY GARVIN & MARTIN BOYCE, WITH COMPLETE CAST & DIRECTOR ERIC HOFF

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There’s a ball, a banquet, a bachelor looking for a friend, a newly empowered Ella, a flying fairy godmother, Venetian glass slippers, dancing trees, a fox, a raccoon, an election, a wedding and of course a happily ever after ending in this magical makeover of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s originally made for television special CINDERELLA.

There has been a refreshing major magic wand at work here in this newly revamped, sweet and lovely and funny Broadway production appearing at the massive Broadway Theatre with a new book by master humorist Douglas Carter Beane and the vintage, very tuneful score by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.  There is a lot to be said for reprising a memorable melody so many times that one actually leaves the theatre humming a tune.

There’s a bit of “Into the Woods”, “Shrek”, “Spamalot”, Sleeping Beauty (the Ballet), “The Bachelor” and  “Once Upon a Mattress” as niftily directed by Mark Brokaw and choreographed by Josh Rhodes resulting in a brand new up to the minute interpretation of this age old story that is now an enchanting musical for all ages.

The lovely Laura Osnes is the optimistic and kind lass with dreams of a better life and Kingdom and some newfound sass who puts up with her harridan of a stepmother (Harriet Harris) and her step-sisters Charlotte (Ann Harada) and the nicer of the two Gabrielle (Marla Mindelle) who has her sights on the rebellious firebrand Jean-Michel (Greg Hildreth) joining forces to open a soup kitchen for the poor.

Ms. Osnes looks and sings beautifully and goes from rags to riches literally in seconds before our eyes – twice – thanks to the gorgeous and inventive costumes of William Ivey Long who has outdone himself in this his 65^th design for the Broadway stage.

He, along with Anna Louizos who has supplied the elaborate storybook sets with the aforementioned traveling trees, make CINDERELLA a wonder to behold.

As Topher – short for Christopher – Santino Fontana as the Prince under the droll and sarcastic thumb of Sebastian (Peter Bartlett) has carved himself a new category of actor – character leading man – and has done so with flying colors – giving this Prince equal weight with that of his co-star Laura Osnes.  At times goofy and sincere he has a strong singing voice, finally finding his way in life and standing tall.  They make captivating modern day partners.

CINDERELLA wouldn’t be CINDERELLA without a fairy godmother and the wonderful Victoria Clark imbues her character with a soaring voice and a quick and quirky humor instilling in Ella the belief that she can be all that she wants to be while being kind, a very good thing to liberate and empower little girls.  And boys.

This CINDERELLA is a sure fire crowd pleaser.

www.cinderellaonbroadway.com Photos:  Carol Rosegg

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In this splendid revival of Lanford Wilson’s 1980 Pulitzer award winning play TALLEY’S FOLLY the language of love reigns supreme.  It’s July 4^th 1944.

As beautifully directed by Michael Wilson this romantic tale of two unlikely people falling in love with each other is a Valentine to the theatre going public delivered by the Roundabout Theatre Company in 97 minutes.  97 minutes in real time and theatrical time.

The wonderful production is playing Off Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre and should not be missed.  Even if you are not a romantic you will succumb to the spell cast by its two leading actors who couldn’t be a better match for each other.

A sensational Danny Burstein is Matt Friedman.  He is forty something, an accountant and Jewish and had fallen hard the previous summer where he became smitten with Sally Talley (a spellbinding Sarah Paulson) who is a nurse’s aide and thirty something and not Jewish.

In fact, her wealthy family considers her well on the way to becoming an eccentric old maid in the land of Missouri as they reconnect in the dilapidated old boathouse where they first met.

She, with her refined elegance, is attracted to him in a certain way but holds back, thinking that their continuing on in a relationship would never work.  He is a grand storyteller and sets us up in a most delightful theatrical manner trying his best with humor and restrained flirtation to ease her into moving on with him even though he is considered “a commie infidel” by her family.

They have more in common than meets the eye and it is delightful to see them baiting each other, arguing and eventually opening enough about their pasts to have us swooning and rooting for their being together.

These two may be different but they are smart.  Along the way is a very amusing scene that has Matt donning ice skates.  Danny Burstein is a most accomplished actor, with expert comic timing and an agility that has him giving his all for love.

A love that Ms. Paulson tries her best to deter and derail.  Luckily for everyone involved there is a happy ending.  How romantic is that?

The exceptional lighting design is by Rui Rita which adds to the magical mystery of what constitutes love on the Laura Pels stage in this very satisfying production that has been extended through May 12^th.

www.RoundaboutTheatre.org  Photos:  Joan Marcus

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Texas is noteworthy for two things – the Alamo and Ann Richards who became the 45^th Governor of the Lone Star State quite by accident, a twist of fate, her tenacity and hard work ethic instilled in her by her dad who was a master story teller as is Holland Taylor who has written this wonderfully theatrical piece, ANN, which examines the highs and lows, warts and all, of this feisty Texan who overcame the bigotry of her being a woman, a divorced woman at that, an alcoholic and a Democrat to become one of the most well known, controversial, outspoken and opinionated Governors of these United States.

Holland Taylor, eerily looking every inch a replica of Ann Richards – in her trademark white suit, pile of hair and diamond star pin and speaking her mind with a Texas drawl to the students in a school auditorium – the Vivian Beaumont Theater – addressing us, the audience, giving the commencement address for the graduating class reflects on her life, past and present with transitions as smooth as silk. 

Surprising sets (Michael Fagin) and projections (Zachary Borovay) keep the show flowing nicely aided by the detailed direction of Benjamin Endsley Klein – right down to the massaging of her sore feet.

Giving speeches was Ann Richard’s forte.  She loved to talk.  And boy was she funny and fun by her own admission.  Holland Taylor is Ann Richards and has written this illuminating bio/drama with total passion and obvious love.

There is some live footage of the Democratic National Convention Atlanta 1988 where Ann Richards gave her now famous Keynote Speech.  And then Holland Taylor takes over, literally filling the stage with her larger than life portrayal of a woman who was herself larger than life.  It’s a marvel to see her re-enact the most interesting life of Ann Richards as she plays off the audience as if telling her story for the first time.

As Governor in her opulent office she orders her assistant (the offstage voice of Julie White) via intercom while multi tasking – signing documents, talking to Bill Clinton, a couple of her four children (arranging for Thanksgiving), mending the fringe of a flag, dealing with nuclear waste, buying boots for her staff and trying to decide about granting clemency of a young man on Death Row.  All with her trademark humor.  Although this could be trimmed a bit making the two hour two act show tighter.

There are so many terrific quotable lines but Ann Richards will be most remembered for her devotion to her family, her devotion to minorities and the rights of women, gun control (she had a very amusing way of dealing with it) and for the last great speech that she never got to give that Holland Taylor has cleverly found a way of presenting that almost has the audience cheering in its seats.

It’s a fantastic embodiment of a larger than life personality who had some mighty fine things to say that we should all listen closely to, most importantly to have a conscience.  We have the power.  We must use it well and please stop whining and VOTE.

www.theannrichardsplay.com  Photos:  Ave Bonar

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At the couldn’t-come-fast-enough conclusion of Amy Herzog’s newest foray into drama BELLEVILLE being presented by The New York Theatre Workshop, Amina (Pascale Armand) the French/Senegalese wife of Alioune (Phillip James Brannon) is on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor as her husband collects items in the recently vacated apartment of their rather strange tenants – a young married American couple with multiple problems Zack (Greg Keller) and Abby (Maria Dizzia) – exclaiming under her breath “incroyable” with the intended translation of “unbelievable”.

I couldn’t agree more.  Heralded at Yale in 2011 – this commissioned piece has gone through multiple revisions and drafts.  The resulting BELLEVILLE is unconvincing and unsatisfying, hardly the psychological nail-biting thriller promised with characters that are unlikable, medicated and reliant upon pot and sex to solve their many tribulations.

It’s Christmas time in Paris and a disturbed and jumpy Abby unexpectedly returns home with her Yoga mat (she teaches) and an armful of gifts for her family back in the States where her sister is awaiting the imminent birth of a baby only to discover Zack watching some porn on his laptop in the adjoining bedroom and well doing what comes naturally when watching porn. 

He has stayed home from work and thus starts the at-home with Zack and Abby story complete with carving knife, locked bathroom door, stubbed toe, red herrings, pot smoking, problems with their work visas, naked butt, blood and a lot of blank stage time with the obviously impatient audience waiting to see how all this will turn out., which really isn’t worth the time or energy exerted.

The landlord gives them an ultimatum as they are four months in arrears with the rent.  I don’t think any French landlord would wait four months before speaking up – anyway he shares in the pot smoking with Zack.

Zack and Abby hold back truths from one another and they slowly share them with us in one of the most agonizing afternoons I’ve spent at the theatre.

Of the four, Pascale Armand stands out as the level headed feisty wife of the landlord giving an interesting bi-lingual performance that at least holds our interest for the short time she spends on stage.

The set (Julia C. Lee) costumes (Mark Nagle) and lighting (Ben Stanton) do not help at all under the lackadaisical direction of Anne Kauffman.  BELLEVILLE is hardly up to the high standards and past productions of The New York Theatre Workshop. 

Through March 31^st.

Photos Joan Marcus

www.NYTW.org

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Why?  Why resurrect the most notorious flop in Broadway history?  In 1983 MOOSE MURDERS opened and closed in a heartbeat – murdered by the critics.  This production presented by The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective certainly lives up to its reputation.  It is an excruciating mess on all accounts.  So, why bother?

From the opening sounds of crickets chirping, sounding as if they are on steroids to the closing moments that do not come soon enough we wonder what possessed Arthur Bicknell to write this so-called “farce” in the first place – a farce with only a single door that is a closet.  Mr. Bicknell has reworked and rewritten and the results are ridiculous.

I went as I was tempted to see if MOOSE MURDERS could be as bad as everyone seems to have thought.  It is worse.  The cast is amateurish at best.  The direction: absent.  And the creative elements: not even laughable.  The audience (and there were a lot more than I expected at Saturday’s matinee at the Connelly Theatre way over on East 4^th Street) sat stone faced throughout and dumbfounded.

Briefly here is the plot:  The Holloways have bought an old Hunting Lodge that has a creepy legend attached – an axe wielding Moose on the loose.

Mama, Hedda the family Holloway arrives with her brood of misfits – Gay, a precocious tap dancing brat, her stoned out brother Stinky who has an odd attraction for his mom, Lauraine who is married to Nelson Fay and her wheel chair bound, paralyzed and silent husband Sidney who is attended by Nurse Dagmar – and English improve actress.

There is an effeminate caretaker dressed as a Native American Indian – Joe Buffalo Dance – and two of the most annoying so-called entertainers Snooks Keene and Howie Keene.  He is blind and she is tone deaf.

One wonders when the murders will start after the first half hour of waiting for something to happen.  Act II – there is an Act II which happens to be worse than Act I mostly occurs off stage and in the dark.  You will either be looking at an empty stage for long stretches of a time or sitting in the dark wondering why you are sitting in the dark.

Quotes from the dialogue:  “You’re embarrassing us all” – “A huge mistake” – “Even the phone is dead” and “Got no pulse” could all be used to describe how I felt about MOOSE MURDERS. 

May it finally “rest in peace”.   Through February 10^th 

Note:  Bring back Bullwinkle!

Photo:  Samantha Mercado Tudda

www.beautifulsouptheatercollective.org

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Hamish Linklater is one of our most promising A-list young actors.  He is clever, concise and quirky.  He did a brilliant job in David Ives’s “The School for Lies” at the Classic Stage Company, shone in “Seminar” and might be better known to most for his role on the television show “The New Adventures of Old Christine”.

He is now a most promising playwright.  His ninety minute enigma, THE VANDAL, has just opened at The Flea Theater on White Street, Off-Off Broadway and it is a refreshing and most welcome relief from the many sorry revivals being produced on Broadway.

Believability is foremost.  Believability in the characters, their actions and relationships make for a sharp and intriguing production helmed by Jim Simpson who with his creative team (David M. Barber, set – Brian Aidous, lighting and Claudia Brown, costumes) keeps the audience on its toes for the ninety minutes running time as the story detours here and there, twisting and turning and being most original.  Keeping us wondering who is being truthful.  Who is really who?.  And having us devour every crisp word of dialogue.

The cast is exceptional.

Deirdre O’Connell gives a mesmerizing and multi-textured performance as Woman – as she waits on a cold bench for a bus on a cold night in Kingston, New York – a place that one wishes never to have to be waiting for a bus – a bus that never seems to be on time or arrive, somewhat akin to waiting for Godot, going from anxious to out of control to acceptance.

Boy (Noah Robbins giving another most memorable performance) enters and tries to strike up a conversation with this seeming troubled and cold and taciturn woman who doesn’t trust herself to open up to this stranger who tells the most disturbing and curious stories as he attempts to lure her into buying him some beer.

The bus stop is somewhere between the local hospital and cemetery.  The nearby liquor store is where Man (a finely tuned Zach Grenier) sells beer and cigarettes and has his own stories to weave.  We wonder who is telling the truth and you will be swayed back and forth as revelations unfold.

Everyone has a friend who has a problem.  But who is the friend?  Is it you? – as you try to explain your feelings without stating that the problems are really yours?

Marriage, death, sickness, drinking, connecting, lies and honesty are touched upon with a fresh voice and insight in this smart and satisfying and yes, entertaining production that features a couple of odd false endings.

With a fine ear for language Mr. Linklater manipulates with great skill.  One surprise follows another in this dark comedy leading to an emotional, riveting and unexpected ending that you should experience for yourself.   Through February 17^th.

Photos: Joan Marcus

www.theflea.org

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