David Ives brings the comedy of Molière, with this hilarious “translaptation,” into the 21st century to delight us all. With The School for Lies, Shakespeare Theatre Company presents another gloriously fruitful collaboration between Ives and Director Michael Kahn. Ives worked directly from the original French, and he and Kahn updated it from the 2011 Classic Stage Company production. Ives’ dazzling rhymed couplets, along with the marvelous acting, make it a celebratory occasion. The ingeniously modernized court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, has never been funnier.
The cast of The School for Lies. Photo by Scott Suchman.
Based on The Misanthrope, believed by many to be Molière’s greatest work, the play opens with a monologue by Philinte (Cody Nickell). In his fearfully and wonderfully complicated court costume, he announces that we should pity poor 1666, given that our lives are placid… “and all our ills solved by techno-fix” – unlike in the 17th century, when an assortment of buffoons “actually held positions of great power.” This sally was greeted by hollow laughter.
Our hero, Frank, is played by Gregory Wooddell, with a hairstyle a la Legolas and a disarmingly cheerful dislike of all hypocrisy. He wears solemn black, in contrast to the other characters, who sport elaborate, brightly colored clothing. His friend Philinte is in love with the honest Eliante (Dorea Schmidt) while Frank falls for the witty, worldly Celimene (Victoria Frings). Both Frank and Celimene face lawsuits from people whom they have insulted.
Celimene’s other three suitors are each foolish in their own way. Oronte, a non-gifted “boulevard bard,” is played by the always enthralling Tom Story, so well costumed and made up that I failed to recognize him. He has scarlet hair, which stands up in devil-like horns on the top of his head. His outfit displays a large portrait of (what else?) himself. His exchanges with Frank, who in true misanthropic fashion refuses to praise Oronte’s excruciating effusions, evoke such mutual horror, that it is hard to imagine them staying in the same play, much less the same room, for very long.
Clitander (Cameron Folmar) extols connections at court which Celimene hopes will sway the outcome of her case. Liam Craig, the well-oiled Trinculo from STC’s The Tempest, plays Acaste, a marquis of substantial liquidity and self-satisfied stupidity. Clitander places his hopes in his influence, and Acaste in his wealth.
Victoria Frings’ Celimene rises to the occasion with entertaining send-ups of narcissistic lawyer “D” and Valley-Girl-like Baroness “B.” The attraction between her and Frank is apparent from the beginning, and to those who wonder about their future I can only say, with Molière, that “Reason is not what decides love.”
Michael Glenn, Dorea Schmidt, and Victoria Frings in The School of Lies. Photo by Scott Suchman.
Dorea Schmidt’s Eliante, sweetly sincere and slightly loopy, is the most likeable character on stage. She handles the rapid reversals of her role with an air of winning, largely misplaced trust.
A popular flirt like Celimene must naturally carry in her wake a female detractor (usually moralistic) who condemns her every move. The irresistible Veanne Cox, in an unfortunate puce gown, with purple hair emanating from her head like the Bride of Frankenstein, is spectacular in the role. Michael Glenn (Dubois/Basque) excels in caustic commentary. Cody Nickell’s Philinte has an exuberant turn in the finale as a sort of deus (or dea) ex machina.
I have rarely seen more inventive costumes, by Murell Horton. Scenic Designer Alexander Dodge has devised a stunningly original set. The couch is a pair of deep red lips. There is an Ionic column topped by a gigantic cherry in a spoon. There is what appears to be a cage with a balloon dog inside it hanging from the ceiling.
We begin with a kind of Baroque synthesizer music; Composer is Adam Wernick, and Sound Designer is Christopher Baine. Mark McCullough’s lighting design rounds out the creative team. Don’t miss this visually and aurally luxurious evening.
Molière was an artist of many tribulations. In his youth, audience members pelted him with baked apples. He inspired the hatred of doctors, lawyers, priests, and all categories of individuals he had insulted. His marriage was unhappy.
Still, despite their differences, he had a firm friend in King Louis XIV. After the playwright’s death, the elderly Louis asked Molière’s friend Boileau: “What will have been the greatest accomplishment of my reign?” “There can be no doubt, Monsieur,” Boileau replied. “Molière.” The king, astonished at first, said, “Really, that buffoon? I wouldn’t have believed it.” But (according to Prince Michael of Greece), he then turned to Boileau and said, “But you know more about these things than I, you are no doubt right.”
Running Time: 90 minutes, with no intermission.
The School for Lies plays through July 9, 2017, at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Lansburgh Theatre – 450 7th Street, NW, in Washington, DC. For tickets, call the box office at (202) 547-1122, or purchase them online.
One afternoon in 1979 or 1980, I saw Orson Welles on The Merv Griffin Show discussing his love of mystery stories. One of his favorites, he said, was Murder on the Orient Express. I was young, and I had not yet read the book or seen the movie version. Mr. Welles then proceeded to give away the mystery’s ending. I have not yet forgiven him.
So if you want to know who committed the murder in Agatha Christie’s Murder On the Orient Express, I won’t tell you. You’ll have to go to the McCarter Theatre and find out for yourself. But that’s OK, because you’ll have a terrific time watching this sparkling production.
Allan Corduner (standing, fourth from left) and Company. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Christie’s thriller has been adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig, a playwright known for comic romps like Lend Me a Tenor. He even turned a Sherlock Holmes mystery into a farce in Baskerville on the McCarter stage a few years ago. Murder on the Orient Express has a quite different tone: the play opens with a disturbing scene of a child being abducted, a warning to the audience that this is, at its core, serious business. And while a lot of jokes (some quite corny) have been added to lighten the mood and reduce the tension, this is a mostly respectful take on a sometimes grim story. The play walks the tightrope between drama and comedy deftly: the plot (as in many of Christie’s stories) is mechanical at times, but the script takes delight in spoofing its ingenuity and its over-the-top improbability.
Set in 1934 aboard the legendary train traveling across Europe, the case finds Hercule Poirot, the celebrated Belgian (not French, as he keeps reminding people) detective, investigating the case of a man found stabbed to death in the bed of his private compartment. It turns out that the man was a vicious criminal, and Poirot finds there’s no shortage of people who had a reason to want the man dead. And a lot of them seem to be staying in the same cramped coach as the victim. With the train stranded by a snowstorm, will Poirot find the truth? As he might say, but of course.
Ludwig makes judicious cuts to the story to tell it in less than two hours: a number of the book’s lesser suspects have been eliminated, and interrogation scenes have been combined to make the story move quickly. But a few minor changes to the story are problematic. One is a newly added second crime occurring at a crucial moment; it’s unnecessary, and its solution is far too obvious. Also, in the novel, Poirot enlists a doctor from another section of the train to examine the body, providing vital information on everything from the nature of the stab wounds to the likely time of death. But Ludwig has eliminated this character, and instead enlists one of the suspects (not a doctor) to examine the body. Why the astute Poirot would depend on the analysis of someone eager to clear her own name is never explained. It’s an unnecessary plot hole, one that could be solved by having one of the cast members double as the doctor.
Alexandra Silber. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
But chances are you’ll be too dazzled by what you see on the stage to worry about plot intricacies like that. Director Emily Mann has concocted a production that is cinematic in its scope, with lighting (by Ken Billington) and strategically placed curtains that focus the viewers’ eyes on key elements. The production values are startlingly high: Beowulf Boritt’s design for the train – gleaming silver surfaces with crimson accents – is a sleek marvel, and William Ivey Long’s lush costumes reach their apex (literally) with a series of comically exaggerated women’s hats.
Allan Corduner makes a fine Poirot, commanding the stage with low-key charm and dignity. Evan Zes is quite droll as his sidekick, a railroad official thrown into fits of anxiety by his concern that the murder might damage his company’s reputation. Julie Halston is outlandishly kooky as a talkative American passenger, and Veanne Cox is severe and arrogant as a Russian princess. (Cox, seen previously at McCarter as a saucy and spicy Olivia in Twelfth Night, is unrecognizable here as the elderly princess, her familiar face peeking out from under one of Paul Huntley’s impressive wigs.)
Alexandra Silber is well-suited to the role of an elegant Countess. She has a warm smile and an easy, casual rapport with Corduner. And Max von Essen is excellent as both a suave Scottish suspect and the crude American victim; Huntley’s wigs help with him pull off the multiple roles. (The accent work by all the actors is quite strong, thanks in part to the work of dialect coach Thom Jones.)
Allan Corduner, Alexandra Silber, and Evan Zes. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Ludwig’s succinct script and Mann’s shimmering, dynamic production have turned Christie’s sometimes dry story it into a highly enjoyable piece of theatre. It’s fun to follow, and it’s gorgeous to look at. Be sure to add it to your timetable!
Running Time: One hour and 50 minutes, with an intermission.
Agatha Christie’s Murder On the Orient Express plays through April 2, 2017, at the Matthews Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center – 91 University Place, in Princeton, New Jersey. For tickets, call the box office at (609) 258-2787, or purchase them online.
It was an active year, heavily marked by new and revisited musicals. The attendance and box office numbers were good, both on and off Broadway. I, as the only writer covering New York theater for DCMTA, could not see everything, but from the 35 plays and musicals I did attend, I submit the ten that I found most distinctive. I list them in no particular order, but all of them rewarded me on any number of levels.
Kristin Chenoweth, Peter Gallagher, Mark Linn-Baker, Michael McGrath, Mary Louise Wilson, and Andy Karl in ‘On the Twentieth Century.’ Photo by Joan Marcus.
(1) In mid-March, when I joined DCMetroTheaterArts, I reported thatOn The Twentieth Centuryat the Roundabout was in the capable hands of director Scott Ellis and Choreographer Warren Carlyle who gave it a sleek and lively new look. It’s always interesting to see good material interpreted by original artists who, as performers, start from scratch and build their own characters. Certainly Kristin Chenowith, Andy Karl, Mary Louise Wilson, Michael McGrath and Mark Linn-Baker gave us musical comedy fun all night long. Leading man Peter Gallagher is just a bit too sane to have given theatre genius Oscar Jaffe the barely hidden madness that made him move, but he looked the part and sang well.
Comden and Green, late in their careers as book writers and lyricists, here proved they never lost their ability to take perfectly ordinary people and turn them into highly original lunatics and lovers. And Cy Coleman sprinkled his musical notes all along the way. Together all of these gifted artists, totally committed, came up with a merry musical.
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Leanne Cope and Robert Fairchild in ‘An American in Paris.’ Photo by Angela Sterling.
(2) Barely a month later,An American In Parisopened on Broadway. It’s a prime example of creative people tackling a beautifully wrought film, and delivering a fresh version of the source material that shines like any great original musical must. Introducing us to Robert Fairchild, on leave from the New York Ballet, was a major plus because as leading man he was notable as singer, dancer and actor. He’d have been snapped up by MGM in an instant had this been played out first onstage, before the film was made, just as Gene Kelly was spotted in Pal Joey on Broadway, and whisked west for a major career on screen.
The delightful George and Ira Gershwin score, (which used highlights from the film, but was augmented by many numbers to serve the new book), that new book by Craig Lucas and the direction and choreography of Christopher Wheeldon all melded to transform the movie into something we’d not seen before, and now we could relish it live on stage.
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The cast of ‘The Visit.’ Photo by Joan Marcus.
(3)The Visitcontinued the rush of openings racing to happen in time for consideration by the Tony Award committee. It is the last of the many collaborations by John Kander and the late Fred Ebb, the last of the four mostly completed works that Ebb left behind. The other three were finished by Kander and in some cases by other collaborators who contributed finishing touches.
The last of the four was The Visit, a dark musical about revenge that is based on a Dürenmatt play of the same name. It had served the Lunts as a drama, and was in fact their swan song on Broadway, where it was highly regarded. An unlikely source for a musical because it told a very dark story, dealing with revenge for a hurt imposed years earlier. In it, Claire Zachanassian, the world’s richest woman, returns to her desperately poor home town, from which she’d been banished many years earlier when her lover had abandoned her to marry another woman.
Terence McNally, a frequent Kander and Ebb collaborator, adapted the play and wrote an engrossing story of this wealthy woman, her ex-lover and some of the key people of the town. It deals with greed, perfidy, betrayal but remains a love story gone wrong, and there is romance in it when it flashes back.
The score is one of the team’s loveliest, and songs like “Only Love,” “You,” “Yellow Shoes,” and others will live on. I found the show memorable, more so because it offered Chita Rivera the role of a lifetime, and she triumphed in it. I saw it in all three regional productions that preceded Broadway and it was richly rewarding to watch it grow until it positively glowed. It was not popular and only managed a three-month run, but it’s a major work in my opinion, and belongs on any “Best 10 list.”
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Kelli O’Hara (Anna), Ken Watanabe (King of Siam), and the cast of ‘The King and I.’ Photo by Paul Kolnik.
(4) Days after my visit to The Visit I was at Lincoln Center’s large Beaumont Theatre to catch Bartlett Sher’s production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic The King and I. Kelli O’Hara has been lighting up Broadway season after season in some ten musicals since 1997, and her work in South Pacific,The Light In The Piazza, and The Bridges of Madison County prepared her for her major star turn as Anna Leonowens which is still playing at Lincoln Center.
Her new “King” replacement, Hoon Lee, is younger than the original King and is reported to be bringing a more sensual quality to the relationship he has with “Mrs. Anna.” I urge you to see this production, for it is unlikely to be bettered — ever.
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Ben Miles and Lydia Leonard in ‘Wolf Hall.’ Photo by Johan Persson.
(5)The year wasn’t devoted exclusively to musicals. They certainly led the way to record breaking grosses, but in addition to holdover hits like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the British importWolf Hallarrived in the April rush. This monumental work was really one long play, running some six hours, but to make it user friendly, it was played out with the one title, on two evenings. One could see the two at matinée and evening on the same day. The first play deals with Henry VIII and his life on the throne through his marriage to Anne Boleyn, the second one opens as he is on the verge of marrying Jane Seymour. It dealt with the banishment and ultimate death of Cardinal Woolsey whose power over the English throne was potent when Henry began his reign.
The evenings were filled with rich and informative performances by Ben Miles and this excellent company of British actors. A vast and entertaining history lesson, and a worthy addition to the season it graced.
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Brad Oscar (Nostradamus) and Brian d’Arcy James (Nick Bottom). Photo by Joan Marcus.
(6)April continued to shower us with well conceived and executed products. A refreshing original musical (Something Rotten!) with nothing on its mind but amusement, took up residence in the St. James Theatre, once home to Oklahoma!, The King and I, The Producers, Hello, Dolly!and other crowd-pleasers, where it remains happily pleasing large audiences as it rounds out its first year. This lighthearted romp involving show folk trying to make a buck in London in 1599 offers a cast of farceurs who are tops.
I enjoyed Tony Award winner Christian Borle (so great in Peter and the Starcatcher) and Brian D’Arcy-James (who has played with great range all sorts of plays and musicals. This is his first outing in farce since he was a youngster playing the bellboy in Lend Me a Tenor in Ohio. (I know he can play farce because I was in that production and he was hilarious). It features such great character actors as Brad Oscar, Brooks Ashmanskas, John Cariani, Peter Bartlett and the lovely Kate Reinders, and Heidi Blickenstaff. Check your troubles in the lobby, and c’mon, get happy.
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Steven Boyer (Jason) and Sarah Stiles (Jessica) in ‘Hand to God.’ Photo by Joan Marcus.
(7)April continued to bring May flowers along with 3 and 4 openings a week! I was so busy I didn’t get to see one of those, an original play by Robert Askins called Hand to God.I finally caught it in early June, but its originality and brave use of controversy are still imbedded in my head. As I wrote then: “Askins takes us on a journey into little known territory and with the aid of a first rate cast, he helps us to understand and relish the little band of broken very human beings.” The play deals with the preparation of a Christian puppet show, and the Pastor is demanding that it must be ready within a week.
One of the participants is Jason, a soft spoken lad who has made himself a hand puppet he calls “Tyrone.” Suffice it to say that Tyrone has a mind of his own, and as an extension of Jason’s arm, he will spend most of the evening shocking us as he becomes adversary to the world, particularly when he spots anyone being evasive in answering a tough question. He is the dark side of Jason, and he’s as scary as the demon inside the girl in The Exorcist. Shocking and provocative, beautifully executed theatre that’s been thrilling audience for most of the year. It will play its last performance on Broadway this Sunday, January 3rd, but I’m certain it will pop up again wherever a theatre company can find an actor of the caliber of Steven Boyer to play both roles, often in the same sentence.
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Sam Rockwell (Eddie) and Nina Arianda (May). Photo by Joan Marcus.
(8)Fool For Lovedeserved a return run (it originally opened in 1983 at Circle Rep) if for no other reason than to give the iridescent Nina Arianda a role she can fully inhabit, not to mention one that can do the same for Sam Rockwell. Set in a motel in the Mojave Desert, it’s the re-uniting of a pair of untidy lovers and they will interest you whether or not you’ve ever met anyone like them. Rough and tumble, that’s them – and the tumbling gets fairly rough between clinches. Ed Harris and Kathy Baker had a field day (and big career boosts) from the original production, as have many other actors in the ensuing years.
It’s an early Shepard play; Eddie and May, the two principals characters, will be around indefinitely for their connection is visceral and will not date. There is tenderness and violence within them, with many shades in between, This production lent drama to the year, and deserves credit for that.
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James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson. Photo by Joan Marcus.
(9)To move from Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love to Donald L. Coburn’s The Gin Gameis almost like mentioning Charley’s Aunt and Medea in the same breath, in that one is a gut wrenching tug of war between two turbulent characters and the other is a love letter to two aging individuals who have built armor against hurt. Both plays are rich in detail, and are immensely satisfying. Of course plays are meant to be acted, and when that’s well done, an audience can be transformed. James Earl Jones has great range, and in this play he sensibly keeps under control his resonant baritone voice, so useful to him in the past in roles that require thunder (The Emperor Jones is one, The Great White Hope is another). But in this he is just an old guy who is lonely, (Weller Martin) living in a retirement home, who tries to break through the shell constructed by a fellow retiree (Fonsia Dorsey). It’s just the two of them, a series of gin games, and the unfolding of two deep and meaningful relationships, that make up this Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
This production has the good fortune to have Cicely Tyson playing Fonsia. In it she fulfills the promise she showed in her lovely performance in The Trip to Bountiful for which she won the Tony Award. Now over 90, she is in full command of her talent, and her Fonsia is another character she has created from the text, from her imagination, and from her great gift as a creative artist. She never seems to be acting; she is just being. Every moment is real, and as Mr. Coburn has affection and understanding for his characters, some of the effects are chilling, others are terribly funny, many more are just plain touching. An old play, somewhat forgotten, given vibrant new life by two actors in their ancient age, blessed with the ability to deliver.
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L to R: Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Photo: Joan Marcus.
(10) The tenth selection I make is virtually mandatory. I refer of course to Hamilton, the incredible achievement of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the book, music and lyrics and manages to play the central role as well. Noel Coward used to do all that, but that was in the age when theatre folk were revered, when cocktails and cocktail hours were evident in all the smart places, when cigarette smoking was a very sophisticated thing to do.
There is no one like Miranda today, and the theatre is blessed to have him. In the so-called Golden Age we had a dozen or more teams of writers prolifically producing theatre, season after season, including Irving Berlin, Rodgers with Hart and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Cole Porter, Frank Loesser, Jule Styne, Schwartz and Dietz, Harold Rome, Noel Coward, and more, was followed by the next generation, equally gifted and interested in keeping musical theatre alive and thriving. In that group — Kander and Ebb, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Bock and Harnick, Adams and Strouse, Jones and Schmidt and a dozen others. But the generation after that — brought us Stephen Schwartz, William Finn, Craig Carnelia, and Jason Robert Brown.
Now, it’s the post-AIDS generation and Lin-Manuel Miranda is the titan who emerges from it to give us all hope. His Hamilton is audacious, original, and satisfying. It’s different, it casts casting correctness aside with some interesting results, and its rap score will not work for everyone, but it is original and pungent. He is our hope for the future, and of course his work must be on any list of bests that is worth its salt. So here is Hamilton, the biggest hit since Oklahoma!
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I have two latecomers for you, as alternates. One, School of Rock-The Musical, surprised me for I really can’t take rock in the theatre (it’s too loud for me, it’s not always about melody and it takes all nuance out of lyrics).
But this simple tale of under achieving kids finding something to give them confidence, Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber (the show’s composer) has written some stirring anthems and has found Alex Brightman, who is tireless in the leading role, and very funny and appealing. And for once stage kids are appealing and genuinely talented.
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Josh Segarra (Emilio) and Ana Villafane (Gloria). Photo by Matthew Murphy.
Another juke box musical is calledOn Your Feet!) and is the story of composer/performer Gloria Estefan and her husband. It’s a jolly night out with a superb cast and some wildly exuberant staging by Jerry Mitchell which has you doing the Conga on your way out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkZ1_RL1J3U
Both shows are happy editions to the scene on Broadway as 2015 calls it a day.
“Fresh as paint” kept buzzing through my head as I sat, enthralled, as this latest “new musical based on a famous film” sang and danced its way across the boards of the famous Palace Theatre. Soon I suspect there won’t be any famous films left that might inspire the current crop of musical theatre creators. Of course we can’t be certain; perhaps even now there are writers, directors, even stars planning to add song and dance to Cool Hand Luke, Stage Coach and Dark Victory. But we must be grateful that Playwright Craig Lucas, Director/Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, Arranger and Musical Supervisor Rob Fisher, and Set and Costume Designer Bob Crowley got together with just such a plan, and somehow managed to put together a consortium of several dozen producers to guide it to the Palace, where if there is any justice in the world, it should remain — forever.
Leanne Cope and Robert Fairchild in ‘An American in Paris.’ Photo by Angela Sterling.
You see it is “inspired by” the MGM film of the same name. The Arthur Freed unit at MGM during Hollywood’s golden years was the most creative and successful in all the world of motion pictures. In 1951 Gene Kelly was at the peak of his considerable popularity, and he and Freed convinced big boss Louis B. Mayer – and his associates – to ok a project very close to Kelly’s heart. Kelly, Vincente Minnelli and Alan Jay Lerner, all riding high from recent successes in film and on Broadway, wanted permission to film an original story with music from the George Gershwin estate, one which would bravely stretch the boundaries of movie musicals by, among other things, including an uninterrupted seventeen minute ballet. The movie was made, it won eight Oscars including Best Picture, and has remained one of our most cherished musical movies. All this made it a great challenge to anyone attempting to transform it into a vibrant and original stage musical that didn’t bring to mind Gigi, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, State Fair, A Time for Singing, and so many other pale imitations of the films that inspired them. To get to the point, this team has met that challenge, and come up with a lollapalooza of an “original musical” that should delight the whole family, cynics, and sourpusses included.
Robert Fairchild (Jerry Mulligan), Brandon Uranowitz (Adam Hochberg), and Max von Essen (Henri Baurel) with the cast of ‘An American in Paris.’ Photo by Mathew Murphy.
For starters, book writer Craig Lucas has put Alan Lerner’s script into a blender, and extracted from it the bare bones of a story about an ex-GI named Jerry Mulligan, a would-be painter, who decides to remain in Paris for a while at the end of World War II. He has a friend there, a composer now named Adam Hochberg (I say “now named” because in the Lerner screenplay he is Adam Cook). There will be a girl named Lise Dassin thrown into the mix (she was called Lise Bouvier in the Lerner version) and a friend of Adam’s (Henri Baurel, from an aristocratic background, but stuck with a dream of becoming a professional singer). The name changes are not arbitrary. Mr. Lucas has background stories for his principal characters that enrich them, make them more substantial, for he’s also moved the time slot to 1945 when more than memories linger in the aftermath of the just ended great war. The show begins with the tearing down of the Nazi flags, the early days of recovery, and gives weight to many of the references to what’s gone by, to the hope for a better future for all of these interestingly fleshed out characters.
But wait! I haven’t mentioned that Jerry and Lise are played by two who are new to Broadway, both from the world of ballet. He isRobert Fairchild, principal dancer with New York Ballet since 2009, and she is Leanne Cope, trained in the Royal Ballet School and graduated into the company in 2003. Both are making their Broadway debuts, and both are absolutely smashing. He is movie star handsome who is exciting from the moment he opens his mouth. That he can sing, act with great conviction and charm, is a bonus we hadn’t expected. When he dances, which is often, he almost seems animated, for no one in recent memory on Broadway can compare.
Ms. Cope manages to capture all the charm that Leslie Caron brought to the role in the movie, but Caron was French and Ms. Cope is not, so this in itself is an achievement. But like her partner in dance, she seems to float effortlessly throughout the evening, and in the end the two created the kind of magic we just don’t see all that often in the post Golden Age of Musical Theatre.
In support, Brandon Uranowitz as Adam Hochberg, now renamed to make him Jewish in the role Oscar Levant inhabited in the film, is far more than the wisecracker Levant played.
Max Von Essen wraps himself around Henri, and stops the show with the fantasized version of “A Stairway to Paradise” which Mr. Wheeldon and his collaborators have designed around him.
Veanne Cox is playing a character not in the film, Madame Baurel, Henri’s mother, and she extracts from it juicy contradictions, a woman freed of many of the restrictions life forced upon her during the war. To watch her cut loose in a moment when she can no longer contain herself, is pure joy.
Leanne Cope (Lise) and Jill Paice (Milo) in ‘An American in Paris. Photo by Angela Sterling.
Jill Paice, who played Scarlett O’Hara in the London musical Gone With the Wind, is now a wealthy art patron with a yen for Mr. Fairchild. She has taken on the musicalized role Nina Foch played so well in the MGM movie, and she has made it her own.
The brilliant ensemble of singers and dancers, as well as the magical projections of 59 Productions complete this bundle of contributors to the most exciting musical of the season. So far — we still have a couple waiting in the wings. But this American in Paris will be hard to top. Here I am, still aglow on the morning after.
What’s most impressive about this lovely show is that it never settles for the obvious. American in Paris is filled with the imagination and talent of its creators who have truly transformed a marvelous movie into a magnificent Broadway musical, one you will remember long after its attractive central couple finally find each other, having earned their happy ending in a most dazzling and entertaining way.
Running Time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission.
An American in Parisplays at The Palace Theatre-1564 Broadway in New York, NY (at 47th Street). For tickets, call Ticketmaster at (877) 250-2929, go to the box office, or purchase them online.
The riotous romp, the scandalous show, the hilarious hyjinx is making its way to the tail end of the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 25th Anniversary Season with William Shakespeare’s crackpot comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. When attempting to juggle two women it is never a good idea to send them the same identical word-for-word love letter, especially not when these two women are good friends. Especially not when these two women are married. And especially not when these two women will plot revenge. The laughable tale of Sir John Falstaff, an impoverished, rotund knight, sets afire to the stage when he attempts to woo the two merry wives of Windsor. But inevitably his plan backfires leaving him drowned, beaten, and eventually cuckolded. With amorous side plots and general tomfoolery this show is a fantastic way to close the anniversary season.
Hugh Nees (Nym), Michael Keyloun (Slender), and James Konicek (Pistol) in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Photo by Scott Suchman.
Director Stephen Rayne manages to evoke sheer nonsensical humors from his cast as they plod their way through the dense but witty text that Shakespeare has to offer. It is one of the longer shows but Rayne succeeds in making the show move quickly, flowing with ease from scene to scene without hitch or catch. You hardly notice that three hours have passed by the time the curtain call arrives. Rayne also ensures that each of the heavier laugh moments is executed with precision, not a laugh line is missed as the sexual overtones of many of Falstaff and the wives’ speeches are recited in quick pace.
It is a jolly good time for all, the characters crafted in such a manner as to make them whimsical and almost fairytale like. The bumbling blustering fat knight we find in John Falstaff is almost farcical. And the maddening jealousy of Mr. Ford is riotous. Each of these well seasoned characters are brought to jubilant and exuberant life on the stage by this cast of sensational actors.
One of the highlights of this particular performance is that each character has a unique quality to define him or her on the stage, separating them into their own special category. For Doctor Caius (Tom Story) it is his over-punctuated French accent and highly physicalized approach to his character. Story’s character is an arrogant narcissist who is vying for the love and affections of Ann Page. He manages to make the character an uproarious riot every time he struts across the stage, paying obsessive attention to his perfume bottle, spritzing it everywhere and beyond excessively. He is a comic diamond in this mine of comic gems.
Veanne Cox (Margaret Page), David Schramm (Falstaff), and Caralyn Kozlowski (Alice Ford) in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Photo by Scott Suchman.
But the man who outstands them all in regards to physical comedy is Ford (Michael Mastro). In every scene he has some sort of grandiose outburst where his body becomes a spastic vessel for displaying his emotions. During his first soliloquy of being cuckolded he whines and fumes with passion; his speech peppered with picturesque moments of hilarity as he throws himself about the stage floor. Mastro has a range of brilliant facial expressions that portray shock, among other things, when disguised as Brooks and hearing of his wife’s supposed infidelity from Falstaff. Mastro is a sensational performer and adds an extra zing to this already zany performance.
The two title characters are nothing short of brilliant in this production. Mistress Ford (Caralyn Kozlowski) and Mistress Page (Veanne Cox) create moments of utter hilarity as they bring about the downfall of the greasy fat knight. They are truly like sisters needling and wheedling; their plotting for revenge is delicious deceptive and deviously delightful.
Cox presents a slightly matronly approach to the role, being the older of the two characters, but maintains her youthful good nature in her go-rounds with Kozlowski. Her facial reaction during the scene where she reads through Falstaff’s letter are nothing short of priceless; each response to his backhanded compliments more and more annoyed and frustrated. And when she arrives to break-up the meeting between Falstaff and Mistress Ford, executing one of their many plots against the portly man, her physical execution of comedy is sheer hilarity.
Kozlowski is an entertaining woman who keeps the audience in stitches as she messes with the mind of the greasy knight. Her convoluted roundabout trickery of Falstaff is extremely comical, her simple facial expressions and offhanded gestures scream of hilarity. She makes quite the picture of innocence when splayed upon the chaise waiting to receive him in their plot to undo him, and when she teams up with Cox in several scenes to mock him, her comic performance is second to none.
The show itself would be pointless without the fatso who started it all. John Falstaff (David Schramm) is every bit the grotesque obese knight who has fallen to the low point of his life, poor and lonely. Schramm is the spitting image of a downtrodden hobo Santa Claus, making his advances on the women that much more disturbing. His crude manner of speaking and gesturing speaks volumes of his salacious lechery toward the two merry wives. His voice is gruff like gritty tar when he bellows and he appears like a blustering old goat when whining from the chair in his home. Schramm gives a sensational portrayal of the knight, leaving no comic stone unturned as he falls victim to each of the wives’ traps. His facial expressions run along the lines of those in the cast; highly involved and very amusing.
This is one Falstaff who delivers exceptional, hilarious, and sensational results. The Merry Wives of Windsor is not to be missed!
Kurt Rhoads (Page) and Michael Mastro (Ford) in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Photo by Scott Suchman.
Running Time:2 hours and 50 minutes with one intermission.
The Merry Wives of Windsorplays through July 15, 2012 at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall – 610 F Street, NW, in Washington, DC. For tickets, call the box office at (202) 547-1122, or purchase them online.
