Oscar E Moore

On an attractive but overpowering shadow box set by Neil Patel that is chock full of collectible memorabilia for “The Language Archive” now playing at the Laura Pels Theatre as part of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s roster of new productions, there are five competent actors who seem to be in search of a play. 

You will be too in this metaphorical mishap directed by Mark Brokaw and written by Julia Cho.  A play that might be better off shelved among the many other items archived.

Thanks to Mr. Patel, at least you’ll have something to look at while you while away the two hours visiting with George (Matt Letscher)  a man of many languages who just can’t seem to come up with the right words to tell his sad and prone to crying wife Mary (Heidi Schreck – who leaves him cryptic notes) how he feels and so she leaves him with his tape recorder and his also prone to crying assistant Emma (Betty Gilpin)  who is in love with said savior of ancient tongues and just can’t find the words to…well, we’ve already been there.

George has imported a foreign couple who are the last ones to speak something I think called Elloway – a language of love.  Alta (the irresistible Jayne Houdyshell) and her husband Resten (John Horton) bicker from the onset in English – the angry language.  If not for this couple the evening might be a total loss.  They are humorous and give some feeling and heart to the otherwise cold and bizarre goings on.  Their love is real in any language.

At a train station Mary with her small suitcase – obviously she isn’t going very far and likes to travel light – meets up with a man who is about to commit suicide and who holds a mysterious package.  Cliffhanger.  End of Act I.

We meet up with Mary in Act II where she has gone back to her previous love.  Not George, but baking and now runs her own bakery.  We also get an audience participation language lesson.  And Ms. Houdyshell doubles as an Esperanto language tutor to Emma so that she can tell George of her love for him.  How this all works out doesn’t really matter and “The Language Archive” might well have been spoken entirely in Esperanto for all the meaning it attempts to convey but doesn’t.   What an unfortunate and annoying waste of resources.

www.roundabouttheatre.org    Through Dec. 19^th.  Photo:  Joan Marcus

Tags:   Jayne Houdyshell · John HortonNo Comments.

Jennifer Van Dyck & Charles Busch

Heaven help us if the wonderfully comedic Charles Busch ever decides not to don a dress or in this case a nun’s habit and stop writing ridiculously plotted comedies with zany over the top characters.  I mean over, over the top.  Beyond over the top as he has in “The Divine Sister” now running amok at the SoHo Playhouse where the laughs are plentiful irreverent and hearty. 

Carl Andress has directed this team of expert comics to not pull back any punches and to punctuate each punch line with a gesture or a grimace just in case we missed it the first time around.  It’s great fun and the audience laps it all up like a milk starved pussycat enjoying the cast enjoying performing this insanity.

The beleaguered, guitar strumming, bicycle riding Mother Superior (Charles Busch) of St. Veronica’s is trying to save the Parrish from closing, while having to deal with a tight lipped Germanic Sister Walburga (Alison Fraser) who is not what she seems to be and has an eye or two on Sister Acacius, the wrestling coach (Julie Halston), while the Novice Agnes (wide eyed Amy Rutberg) has visions and hears voices and has the power to heal and join in a sing-a-long while Jeremy (Jonathan Walker or was that Steve Martin up on that stage?) is trying to meet Agnes to make a film of her life.  He just so happens to be staying with Mrs. Levinson (Jennifer Van Dyck) who has enough money to save the church only she’s an atheist and the plot twists and turns until all the true relationships are exposed.

Alison Fraser does double duty as Mrs. Macduffie.  She is absolutely hysterical in her description of working for Mrs. Levinson with her drooping breasts courtesy of costume designer Fabio Toblini who has done a great job clothing the cast.  Wig design by Katherine Carr should win some sort of an award for quick transitions.

Jennifer Van Dyck will have you checking your program with her unimaginable change from Mrs. Levinson to Timothy – a young boy trying to play baseball despite his being bullied.  She is giving a stand out performance where it is almost impossible to stand out due to the high caliber of talent surrounding and supporting her.

There are references to many of the cinematic nuns of yore.  Flashbacks and flatulence.  A DaVinci like code to decipher.  A description of Jeremy’s larger than life penis. Soiled BVDs.  Visual jokes and jokes about orphans and Jews with much cavorting and kicking and last but not least God.

It’s a ninety minute miracle of unadulterated, uncensored craziness.  

www.DivineSisterOnStage.com   Photo:  David Rodgers

Tags:   Alison Fraser · Amy Rutberg · Carl Andress · Jennifer Van Dyck · Jonathan Walker · Julie HalstonNo Comments.

Tackling a production of John Osborne’s 1956 “angry young man” play – Look Back in Anger – is a daunting task.  It’s a classic and the play’s main character, lower class Jimmy Porter (Brandon Walker) is so self absorbed, egotistical, selfish, offensive and demanding that you care little for him. 

He uses his intelligence to manipulate and complains about almost everything.  He is mentally abusive towards his upper middle class wife of three years Alison (Anna Marie Sell), and is constantly teasing their Welsh boarder Cliff Lewis (Adam Reich) who lolls around the flat reading newspapers and doing little else besides comforting the distraught and pent up Alison who irons dutifully away ignoring them both while Jimmy endlessly taunts her – pointing out all her faults. 

And it is long.  Clocking in at almost three hours.  Ressa Graham is responsible for the slow paced production with her sometimes dainty and fussy direction.

The Seeing Place Theater has to be commended for bravery for almost pulling off this difficult feat.  Once again, the acting is excellent.  Brandon Walker, who is also the Artistic Director, does a commendable job and just falls short of a fully charismatic performance.  One that is needed to keep an audience riveted.  He shines, however in the final scene with his wife, letting down his guard so that we actually feel empathy towards him. 

Anna Marie Sell as Alison is just about perfect, living and breathing her agonized feelings of love for him and desire to leave. 

As her dad, Colonel Redfern, Rick Delaney is stately and cold as he ought to be.  Adam Reich, as the lodger is just as annoying as Jimmy but has some deep rooted affection that he very nicely shows towards Alison.  But the real discovery is Adrian Wyatt as Alison’s actress friend Helena Charles – the other woman in Jimmy’s life.

Unknowingly I rode up in the elevator with Ms Wyatt.  Another man asked if she was in the show.  She responded that she was but that she isn’t an actress but a poetess and that she was a replacement three days before opening and that she would have her script in hand during the performance.  Well, Adrian Wyatt is an actress.  An extraordinary actress.  Despite the fact that she had her script (that she rarely referred to) she somehow managed all of her stage business without it interfering with anything or anyone on stage all the while keeping in character.  You can’t take your eyes off of her.  She’s a natural.  A revelation.   Go see for yourself.

Through Oct 30^th.  Tickets $18.00 314 West 54^th Street, 4^th Floor

www.seeingplacetheater.com

Tags:   Adam Reich · Adrian Wyatt · Anna Marie Sell · Brandon Walker · Rick Delaney · Seeing Place TheaterNo Comments.

Taking its cue from your typical 1930’s musical where boy meets girl, boy loses girl and boy gets girl the skillful creators of Trav’lin (score by J.C. Johnson & Friends) and (book by Gary Holmes & Allan Shapiro) have crafted an almost turn the tables version of this perennial plot into girl meets boy, girl loses boy and using her female wiles and wits to finally girl gets boy using three couples of different ages to depict how love can excite, confuse, anger and eventually lead to a happy ending with a great jazzy, honky-tonk infused score that is totally delightful, romantic and true to the period while leaving enough room to connect with our present day feelings about the subject.

Love is not neat and tidy as the unofficial Mayor of 132 Street and former Pullman Porter Deacon George Walker who has a smile that lights up the room (a robust and charming Doug Eskew) instructs.  It’s messy.  Especially for him when he befriends a new girl in town, Ethel (a sensational Brenda Braxton) who reminds him of a long ago love he had in Basin Street.   Once you accept the fact that he doesn’t immediately recognize her you can go along on this inspired musical journey of love, betrayal and forgiveness.  It’s one hell of an enjoyable trip.  Of course Ethel turns out to be Billie of Basin Street famous for her Fried Pies who is hired as cook to begin her new undercover life.  Not before she brings down the house with the third number in the show “Empty Bed Blues”.

There is the innocent niece of George, Ella (Karla Mosley) and her beau Nelson (Michael Jean Dozier) who is a trav’lin salesman of Bibles and is as shy as they come, reveling in his first date and first kiss.  Remember your first kiss?  This couple will bring the memories flooding back with their courting and date at the Renaissance Ballroom.

Nelson is instructed in the hows and dos of love by the skirt chasing, trav’lin and adorable Archie (Randy Donaldson) who can’t seem to keep the ladies away from his bubbling personality.  The fact that he gives away a one of a kind scarf to each helps the attraction.  His main conquest is the excitable and jealous Ros (the magnetic Soara-Joye Ross) owner of the local beauty salon. 

There are so many highlights to the score that is unnecessary to point them all out but it is important to cite the musical director and song arranger John DiPinto whose orchestrations for the small on stage combo include a mood enhancing clarinet, saxophone and flute that allow each cast member to shine in their individual and group numbers, particularly “When You Fall in Love”.  It’s such a treat to hear such fine musicianship directed with finesse by Paul Stancato who seamlessly keeps the action flowing, the characters alive, the humor crackling and the dancing dreamlike.

Now that you’ve been introduced please do yourself a favor and go with someone dear to you and be entertained by their romantic and conniving adventures in song and dance.  You’ll be entranced.  Hopefully there will be a great future for this production.  Intact.

www.travlinthemusical.com   at TBG Theatre

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One of the most magical nights of musical theatre is to be had not on Broadway but at The Metropolitan Room where Marilyn Maye, looking oh so chic in a sparkling black pants suit, is performing her new show “Her Kind of Broadway” through October 17^th. 

Yes, it’s that same Marilyn Maye who has been singing non stop for seventy years with her own distinctive engaging style.  A major recording artist for RCA where she first introduced some of these Broadway standards prior to their shows opening.

One Broadway hit after another sung with a completely new and fresh spin, with Tedd Firth on piano – a musician who makes his eighty eight keys sound like a symphonic orchestra gently accompanying Ms. Maye through her exquisite program of jazz inspired interpretations of Jerry Herman, Lerner and Loewe, Kander & Ebb, Bacharach & David, Kern & DeSylva, Adams & Strouse, Frank Loesser and Stephen Sondheim with Tom Hubbard on bass and Jim Eklof on drums.

If you are at all interested in hearing one of the finest singers around who knows how to act a lyric, enthrall an audience, be slyly seductive and naturally humorous you absolutely must make every effort to see Marilyn Maye.  She is the master of her art, singing songs by the masters of Broadway songwriting.  Listen and learn.  And enjoy.  Her performance is a master class in both acting and singing delivered with consummate class.

The love of the lyric, the love of the music and the love of performing sums up Marilyn Maye’s salute to these Broadway tunesmiths.  With more energy than someone half her age she shares her gifts in this ninety minute show with those that she loves most – her audience.   You will be enthralled and exhausted from cheering.

She tops herself song after song from “Cabaret” to “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” (“that that Warwick girl made famous”) to “Step to the Rear” (which gave her four years of Lincoln Mercury car commercial residuals) “If I Were a Bell” (no one can ding dang dong her bell like Ms. Maye) to her sublime “Look For the Silver Lining” culminating in Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind” and “I’m Still Here” from Follies.  Yes, Marilyn Maye is still here and giving and sharing with those of us lucky enough to see her one of the best, most fabulous performances in town.

Declaring herself to be too old to be humble she sells her CD’s post performance so that you can take her home and play.  You can’t help but love her.

www.metropolitanroom.com   The music charge is $32.00 with a two drink minimum.

For reservations call 212 206 0440

Tags:   Jim Eklof · Marilyn Maye · Tedd Firth · Tom HubbardNo Comments.

You might think that “Fingers and Toes” a new musical by triple threat Logan Medland (Book, Lyrics and Music) is about some crazed serial killer and his collection of body part souvenirs (which might have proved more interesting) but it is about two show business type guys – Dustin “Toes” McGrath (Leo Ash Evens) a dancer who has a string of girl friends and Tristan “Fingers” St. Claire (Jonathan Monro) a romantic piano player contemplating suicide over his failed relationship with his wife Tina and his inability to finish his symphony who according to the ridiculous plot have to write a musical in two weeks and audition it for a producer that “Toes” met in a diner.

It all takes place now.  Cell phones included.  Not in that glorious past period that reminds us, all too briefly, of “Singing in the Rain” – Medland’s “You Might as Well Laugh” might very well be a retooling of “Make ‘Em Laugh” – his music is fun, melodic and catchy.  The lyrics, less so.  In fact, they tend to be towards the mundane and the tasteless, as these two Broadway wannabe’s “improvise” the writing of the score in a series of black out scenes on a set that includes an upright piano, a curtain and a chaise.  I wish I could forget about the book that relies on stale humor and a silly plot which in one scene literally has a “bag of laughs” that has one groaning and yawning.

The dancing, of which there is plenty, is excellent.  Choreography by Shea Sullivan that features ballet, jazz, gymnastics and tap is very entertaining and clever.  Somehow director Matt Lenz pulls as much of the show together as he can.

Of course they can only get so far without the all important girl/love interest.  And she is the main reason for seeing this show.  Stephanie Gibson as Molly Molloy is the real triple threat here – she is beautiful with her hair down or up, an excellent singer/actress with great comic timing and a terrific dancer.  Casting agents take note, check her out and find her another show.

Yes, they both fall for her despite her being engaged.  To whom would let the proverbial cat out of that old bag of laughs.  Fingers who has a truly great tenor voice and glib sense of humor thinks of her as his “muse” and Toes “the girl of his dreams.”  Love is spoken about and sung about but somehow you don’t fall in love with the show as a whole. 

But you might have to duel it out with Fingers and Toes as you fall head over heals for the wonderfully talented Stephanie Gibson aka Molly Molloy.

At Urban Stages.  www.fingersandtoesthemusical.com

Tags:   Jonathan Monro · Leo Ash Evens · Logan Medland · Matt Lenz · Shea Sullivan · Stephanie GibsonNo Comments.

Jillian Louis

All the smiling in the world, all the jumping around on stage, all the key changes in the score, all the energy of the talented cast singing at ear bursting levels can’t disguise the fact the “POPart – the musical” has a bad book, pedestrian lyrics and music that sounds as though it has been recycled from some vintage wedding reception.

Daryl Lisa Fazio is responsible for the lame book and lyrics.  Aaron McAllister the music.  DJ Gray for the bouncy dances.   Chad Larabee for the misdirection.  Sorry guys but this show needs tons of work.  How it got this far is a mystery that even Agatha Christie couldn’t supply an acceptable answer for.

“POPart – the musical” somehow seems a very bad cross pollination of The Wizard of Oz, Grease, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Pittman Painters and Moose Murders.

Kitty Katz (the wonderfully talented Jillian Louis whose talent is wasted here – she deserves so much better) is an artist searching for her inner talent to emerge.  She has left her alcoholic mother (Adinah Alexander) and her newly outed homosexual dad (Timothy Warmen) to attend – on scholarship – the Ghetto Art School where she meets an odd array of over the top characters and given an instructional manual and a blank canvas.

There is the paint eating Edward (Jason Michael Snow) the very likable Latino Toni-O (Zachary Clause) a Dr. Bore (Cyrilla Baer) who is a bore with a fixation on vaginas and a host of weird teachers trying to unleash Kitty’s inner artist whose aspirations are so vapid that one doesn’t really care.

One number stands out and it starts off with a mousey Miss St. Helen (Marla Mindelle) and you can see the gospel revival ending on the horizon as she slowly gains momentum in “Art is Your Rock” which is followed soon after with the Act I finale aptly titled “Meltdown”.

Kitty learns that when someone views a painting that they really don’t like they say it is “interesting”.  The same word can be used to describe “POPart the musical”.

At ATA – CHERNUCHIN.                  www.popartthemusical.com

Photo:  Peter James Zielinski

NOTE:  In the middle of Act II the young lady (for want of a better word) seated next to me started texting.  Was she bored or just rude?  Or a little bit of both?  No one should have to ask three times for someone to stop such behavior as I had to do.

Tags:   Adinah Alexander · Jillian Louis · Marla Mindelle · Zachary ClauseNo Comments.

A trio of one act plays:  “Folded Hands”, “Love Divided By” and “Tango Finish” by gifted playwright Susan Charlotte make up the evening entitled “Love Divided by Times Three that has recently opened at the Kirk Theatre on Theatre Row.

It’s a strange, intriguing and disquieting evening of theatre.  Dealing with the powerful effects of remembering or forgetting, rather blocking some memories too painful to deal with.  It is something akin to going to a foreign art house film back in the 70’s but focusing on modern day relationships.  Clarification coming only after seeing it in its entirety.

In Act I we meet the ten year old Sheila (Fatima Ptacek) who has obviously gone through something traumatic at home and stays behind with her teacher (Loni Ackerman) while the other students are at recess.  Patiently and with kid gloves her art teacher tries to learn what the problem is.  It’s more like therapy than an art lesson and we hear about her dad and brother and a fable about a bull but little else.  The strangeness of it all kept the audience captivated in silence.

We next see the grown up Sheila (Lisa Bostnar) now a successful but troubled artist and her math genius, cab driving, foul mouthed and prone to violence brother David (Kevin Stapleton) who is visiting after a long estrangement.  The tension is palpable.  He unloads his problems and she grows increasingly wary asking many questions very much like her teacher did when she was a little girl.  Where is all this going one wonders at intermission.

Then we officially meet Rose (Marilyn Sokol) the mother of David and Sheila – who has previously started each playlet speaking of memories.  She is at a Senior Arts Center trying to help Mary (Loni Ackerman) who is having trouble remembering where she is and who she is at times but vividly remembering a dance couple that did a tango – a tango whose steps she cannot forget and dances beautifully to the haunting music of Billy Goldenberg with choreography by Gene Castle – in turn trying to help Rose through her blockage, her painful memories of her family and to come to terms with it all in order to move on.   Or dance on, in this case.  It’s the healing power of dance that comes to the fore in short black-out scenes resulting in an uplifting and emotionally satisfying ending.

Marilyn Sokol, foregoing her zany side delivers a strong, controlled and mesmerizing performance as Rose.  It appears that this is the role that she has been waiting to play all her career.  And she relishes it.  As does Loni Ackerman.  As the teacher she is calm and comforting.  As Mary she can become befuddled and then radiant as she begins her dance.  As young Sheila with a speech pattern that might drive one to impatience Ms. Ptacek is just right as the troubled ten year old.  As her older self Ms. Bostnar gives a truly believable performance.  Mr. Stapleton is fearsome with shades of sanity poking through.  It’s an all around strong cast.  Director Anthony Marsellis has mined all the drama, the humor and the dance in this unusual theatrical piece that defies categorization.  Through Oct. 31st.

www.causecelebre.info

Tags:   Anthony Marsellis · Billy Goldenberg · Fatima Ptacek · Gene Castle · Kevin Stapleton · Lisa Bostnar · Loni Ackerman · Marilyn Sokol · Susan CharlotteNo Comments.

Oral sex isn’t what it used to be.  Today it’s the new kissing.  And free to watch on the internet.  But back in the days of Discos, afros, free love, Nixon, Watergate, Mayor Lindsay, Screw Magazine and strict censorship of “porn flicks”- circa 1972 – it was a topic not to be discussed let alone featured in a landmark “adult film” that director Gerard Damiano (John-Charles Kelly) made, aptly named Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace (a vulnerable Lori Gardner) and Harry Reems (Malcolm Madera) a nice Jewish boy – “a walking hard-on” who was hungry to become an actor with the emphasis on the hung.

And so “The DEEP THROAT sex scandal” has just opened at 45 Bleecker Street holding nothing back and baring all in the name of freedom to enlighten us as to how the film was made and the repercussions that Harry Reems went through when he was arrested for his participation and how such Hollywood stars as Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Tony Bill spoke up in support of Harry and the First Amendment – Freedom of Speech – which playwright David Bertolino would probably call the Freedom of Oral Sex Amendment.

Made for about twenty thousand mob laundered dollars on location in Florida it allegedly made over 600 million.  That profit margin was pretty easy to swallow.  And so it was for Linda Lovelace.  Overcoming her shyness, small bust and gag reflex she became infamous for being able to take Mr. Reems’ large shaft through patient practice and with the insistence of her sadistic, overbearing and abusive husband/manager Chuck Traynor (Zach Wegner).  

In one of the highlights of Act I we see them reenacting the Doctor’s Office Scene where Linda is being examined by Reems and told that her clitoris is not in her vagina but in her throat as the actual footage is projected on a screen.  This may seem tacky but hey, it’s the cheesy70’s and it’s vintage porn and it is tacky which is why it is now so amusing.  As are the vintage costumes by Jeffrey Wallach and make-shift scenic design by Josh Iacovelli.

Act II focuses on the trial.  It’s more serious but done totally tongue in cheek.  And despite this not being a musical there is an eleven o’clock number.  It is a show stopping, pull all the stops out description in Court of the oral sex orgasm scene, done to perfection by Frank Blocker.

Despite his not being hairy as is Mr. Reems, Malcolm Madera gives his all as narrator and powerhouse mustached stud but we have trouble believing that he is the stud he is supposed to be even though he fills his jock strap more than adequately.  Ms. Gardner tries to please everyone and despite an unfortunate wig she does.  Rita Rehn in a variety of roles is extremely funny and in good shape as is Graham Stuart Allen.  Stephen Hope rounds out the cast.

“The DEEP THROAT sex scandal” deals with sex, politics and porn and is directed by Jerry Douglas in a cartoon like manner.  Sometimes hitting the G spot and sometimes missing it completely.   www.45bleecker.com  www.deepthroattheplay.com  Photo: Carol Rosegg

Tags:   David Bertolino · Frank Blocker · Graham Stuart Allen · Jerry Douglas · Lori Gardner · Malcolm Madera · Rita Rehn · Stephen Hope · Zach WegnerNo Comments.

Rachel Stern

Write about what you know.  Write about what you’ve experienced.  Embellish to make it entertaining and enlightening.  Karen Bishko has done just that in her new pop, soft rock inspired musical “Therapy Rocks” and she has supplied the music and lyrics to some ironic, touching and memorable songs.  The book has been crafted by Kaethe Fine, Nat Bennett and Karen Bishko.  It has been brilliantly directed by Thomas Caruso aided with some fine choreography by Rachel Bress and excellent musical direction by Boko Suzuki.

It’s basically Ms. Bishko’s story.  Here she is Leah, played with extraordinary feeling by Rachel Stern who is a major discovery.  Ms. Stern is an attractive, smart and wonderfully talented actor.  She brings an emotional wallop to her “romantic” character and we really care for her as she searches for “a happy ending” in her complicated life as songwriter and singer and her inability to have a stable relationship with a man.  Any man.  She seems to attract those that are unattainable or just not right for her and turns to cake for help.

And so her best friend Jess (Dee Roscioli) who is trying her best to get pregnant suggests she seek therapy in the guise of Gabriel (Josh Davis).  Reluctant at first to go, she seems to connect with him, slowly beginning to understand why she still unable to stop thinking about Andy – her ex-boyfriend who she broke off with six years ago and has recently married.  Beginning to understand what is it that is standing in her way of being happy.

Of course she falls for the married therapist.  That’s part of her journey.  How it all gets resolved is the joy that “Therapy Rocks” rocks brings to its audience.  

Thomas Caruso has staged the show so that it flows seamlessly from location to location with a minimum of props, having the cast move a chair, or a scarf or a guitar that is almost dreamlike.  His contribution alone makes the show worth seeing.

Then there are the songs.  What a great score.  Possibly some songs that could make it from the show and onto the charts.  Character driven, atmospheric and rousing every song serves the show’s intentions, leading up to the incredible finale, “Gonna Be”.

Allie Schulz as Beautiful Woman is indeed beautiful.  Playing multiple roles she is also a fine actress with a great flair for comedy.  Adam Halpin as Everyman is perfect as Andy and the other men in Leah’s life.

All in all “Therapy Rocks” should have a nice life in the future.  Karen Bishko has realized her happy ending.  At Urban Stages.  

Kim Vasquez/Gray Lady Entertainment Executive Producer www.nymf.org  

Photo:  Lisa Zinni

Tags:   Adam Halpin · Allie Schulz · Dee Roscioli · Josh Davis · Kaethe Fine · Karen Bishko · Nat Bennett · Rachel Bress · Rachel Stern · Thomas CarusoNo Comments.