Weekly Margin 2023, W51: The Country Wife, Christmas Spectacular, Lookingglass Alice

 12/11/23: The Country Wife

What: Red Bull presents a benefit concert staging of Maltby and Shire's adaptation of William Wycherley's play about sexual escapades, with a revisionist slant.

And? What's funny is, right before seeing this performance, I was talking with a friend about the problem of revisals (problems include: changing things without the (dead) author's consent but pretending it's still the same work; "fixing" the wrong things and utterly demolishing the stakes in the process; and maybe if the show is enough of a problem we just shouldn't do it? maybe we just write a new show? how about that? the songs from Carousel aren't going anywhere but I don't need to see that show ever again. anyway). And this is an interesting solution: a play-within-a-play adaptation of a problematic play where one of the characters articulates her issues with the play as written and then proceeds to rewrite it. It's not a perfect solve: a lot of the grosser elements are still there, but now the show is calling them out. But the audience is still expected to applaud the songs about the grosser elements so ... it's a bit of trying to have their cake and eating it too. We had a number of covers going on last minute for the concert staging, including the story's hero, with Nicholas Edwards ably and charismatically stepping in for Jelani Remy. And as a special treat, this is now the second time I've seen Richard Maltby, Jr. step in to cover a role in a show he wrote, so that was pretty charming too.

12/12/23: Christmas Spectacular

What: The annual Christmas show from the Radio City Rockettes.

And? Funnily enough, this marks my first time actually seeing a Rockettes show! It's definitely worth experiencing if you've never gone, but I don't know that I'll make an effort to catch it every year going forward. The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers dance is really something else. I think that was my favorite.

Streaming Theater Related Content I Watched

• Lookingglass Theatre's stream of Lookingglass Alice on PBS.

Best Theater of 2023: Well, we survived, I guess

Usually I use this space to talk about how the year of theater has felt, maybe some of the highlights, compare the trends with previous seasons and my engagement with them, and thoughts about the future. I don't know that I have the energy to do that this year. This year has found too many ways to break my heart, and I don't have much left to give. I'm scared and sad and tired.

So this is what I can give: this year I saw 107 pieces of theater, with 6 of them being repeats within the year, so: 101 unique pieces of theater. Of those 101, 62 were plays, 28 were musicals, and 11 were streaming.

Here are the top eleven, in chronological order of when I saw them.

The Coast Starlight (LCT/Newhouse, Off-B; watched February)

The company of The Coast Starlight. Photo by T. Charles Erikson.

The Jungle (A Good Chance/National Theatre/Young Vic/St. Ann's Warehouse, Off-B; watched March)

Ben Turner and Jonathan Nyati as Salar and Mohammed in The Jungle.
Photo by Marc Brenner.

Life of Pi (National Theatre/Schoenfeld, B; watched March)

Hiran Abeysekera and puppeteers as Pi and Richard Parker in Life of Pi
(London run). Photo by Johan Persson.

Describe the Night (Steppenwolf, Regional; watched March)

Yasen Peyankov and James Vincent Meredith as Nikolai and Isaac in
Describe the Night. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

Villette (Lookingglass Theatre, Regional; watched March)

Debo Balogun and Mi Kang as Paul Emmanuel and Lucy Snowe in Villette.
Photo by Liz Lauren.

Rough Trade (The Tank, Off-Off-B; watched April)

Derek Christopher Murphy and Max Kantor as Finch and Hawk in Rough
Trade. Photo by Hunter Canning.

& Juliet (Sondheim, B; watched May)

Lorna Courtney, Betsy Wolfe, Justin David Sullivan, and Melanie La Barrie
as Juliet, April, May, and Angelique in & Juliet. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Jaja's African Hair Braiding (MTC/Friedman, B; watched September)

Nana Mensah, Lakisha May, Maechi Aharaanwa, and Kalyne Coleman as 
Aminata, client, Ndidi, and client (I'm so sorry, both Lakisha May and 
Kalyne Coleman played multiple roles brilliantly, but now I can't remember
which was which), in Jaja's African Hair Braiding. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Swing State (Audible/Minetta Lane, Off-B; watched September)

Mary Beth Fisher and Bubba Weiler as Peg and Ryan in Swing State.
Photo by Liz Lauren.

Nosferatu, a 3D Symphony of Horror (TIQ/Skirball, Streaming; watched October)

Cover art for Nosferatu, a 3D Symphony of Horror.

Purlie Victorious (Music Box, B; watched November)

Jay O. Sanders, Billy Eugene Jones, Kara Young, and Leslie Odom, Jr. as
Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee, Gitlow Judson, Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, and 
Purlie Victorious in Purlie Victorious. Photo by Marc J. Franklin.

Weekly Margin 2023, W50: The Time Machine

Streaming Theater Related Content I Watched

• Original Theatre's The Time Machine.

Weekly Margin 2023, W49: Gutenberg! The Musical!, The Gardens of Anuncia, Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors, Life & Times of Michael K

11/28/23: Gutenberg! The Musical!

What: Scott Brown and Anthony King's musical about two buddies who decided to write an unresearched, wildly fictionalized musical about the invention of the printing press. This production reunites the original stars of The Book of Mormon: Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells.

And? It's fine. It's dumb. Sometimes it's a fun dumb. It was clearly written by two straight guys, and I could do without the jokes about the fat character eating a lot of food ha ha ha isn't it funny to laugh at fat people eating gosh they have no self control, also have you noticed that fat people are unlovable. The jokes about German people being antisemitic (though I've been told were revised in the wake of the pogrom on October 7) are also not ... terribly funny to me right now. I wonder if I would have liked it better Off-Broadway.

Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

12/01/23: The Gardens of Anuncia

What: Lincoln Center presents a new musical by Michael John LaChiusa, a memoir for Graciela Daniele, who also directs and co-choreographs the show. It is a tribute to the three women who raised her in Argentina under Peron's oppressive government: her mother, her grandmother, and her aunt.

And? It's fantastic to hear a new LaChiusa score, especially one performed by such a talented set of performers as Priscilla Lopez, Eden Espinosa, Andréa Burns, Mary Testa, and Kalyn West (oh god, especially the stunning harmonies of Espinosa, Burns, and Testa). I think this show isn't quite finished yet, but its strengths are worth the rest of it. The magical realism, the family relationships, the scenic and lighting design, these are all effective. What is less effective is the attempt to bring in the pieces of Daniele's (or I should say Anuncia's) life after Argentina. It's thinner, it's without much grounding, and I'm impatient to return to the more visceral story in Argentina. I want to be shown, not told, and everything post-Argentina is just something told (well, not everything--the deer stuff is great). I think with a bit more tightening of the writing, this could be great.

Priscilla Lopez and Kalyn West as Older Anuncia and Younger Anuncia.
Photo by Julieta Cervantes.