Weekly Margin 2024, W43: Tammy Faye, Maybe Happy Ending, Jason Robert Brown at Carnegie Hall

10/22/24: Tammy Faye

What:  The Broadway transfer of the West End musical about Tammy Faye Bakker, with songs by Elton John and Jake Shears.

And? I was so deeply bored. Katie Brayben was great though.

10/23/24: Maybe Happy Ending

What: The English translation of a hit Korean musical. Set in a future time in Seoul, two "retired" obsolete generations of Helperbots (sentient androids) go on a road trip to seek one of their former owners.

And? I adored it. What an absolute darling treat of a show, genuinely funny and heartwarming. It examines not only our willingness to dispose of technology for the newest and fastest, but also how one who has been discarded can both live and die with dignity. Ably directed by Michael Arden (ugh I love him) with an electric and sleek scenic design by Dane Laffrey (and wonderfully vivid video and projection design by George Reeve), the show is light and color and a softer side of sci-fi. As the two leads, Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen do wonderful work: Criss has fully commitment to the stilted physicality of his older model droid, whereas Shen, while much closer to passing for human, still maintains the precision of an artificial being.

Helen J. Shin and Darren Criss as Claire and Oliver. Photo by
Matthew Murphy.

10/25/24: Jason Robert Brown at Carnegie Hall

What: Jason Robert Brown makes his solo concert Carnegie Hall debut ... with a lot of special guests.

And? What can I say? With a lineup including Raúl Esparza, I couldn't resist. Most of it was music I already knew from Mr. Brown's career, but there were also a few numbers from upcoming projects. Every performer was a highlight, and it was sweet to see the composer's daughters, together with his wife Georgia Stitt (who was also conducting the orchestra) join him on a song I remember from one of his pandemic concerts. Also, in this particularly fraught year, it was lovely to see someone so unapologetically Jewish onstage talk about that part of his identity.

Photo by Amy Nieporent.

Margin Notes: Honeyland

Honeyland

Abby Goldberg and Anika Buchanan, front, as Fran and
Helen. Photo by Thomas Mundell, Mundell Modern Pixels.

Seen on: Sunday, 10/20/24.

A young man in military uniform strides through the jungle in Vietnam. By the next scene, he is gone. Mike's three best friends--Helen, Fran, and Tom--all gather to spread his ashes, reconnect, and remember their time together: through political protests, theater troupes, road trips, drug use, and other iconoclastic moments of the 1960s, the four of them attempt to navigate their early twenties with seemingly endless possibilities but ultimately disappointing realities.

Or at least, that's how the show starts out. Most of the songs are flashbacks to these remembered times, and the connecting "present-day" dialogue, stilted from the first, quickly peters out until Fran is tasked with introducing the context for each song ahead of its performance. The result is that one feels that not only is the show only half-written, but also that the writers changed their mind about what kind of show they were writing midstream, and didn't bother to revise the earlier parts. Unfortunately that underwritten nature extends to the characters within the show as well. It can feel silly to call out male writers in musical theater, since they already comprise ninety percent of musical theater writers, but these two fully failed their female characters here: Helen's character notes are that she was in relationships with both men, had a child (whom we don't meet), and sings a song about being a 60s girl with Fran. Fran has even less, becoming instead the de facto narrator and introducing each song, but with no story of her own. It's a real disservice to her portrayer, Abby Goldberg, whose soulful eyes and clear singing voice deserve material worthy of her instrument. When she laments in the final scene that she feels "like [her] life is incomplete," I wrote in my notes, "because the writers gave you nothing."

For all my criticism above, these are things that could be improved and fleshed out further, particularly if we decide to treat this show, not as a full production, but as a semi-staged workshop. But even then, the writers need to answer a few key questions: who is this show for, and why is this the story they need to tell? The fact that both male characters are writers (oh yes, the men get to have career aspirations)--one a songwriter, the other a novelist--tells me that there's a chance this show is a bit of a roman à clef, perhaps a tribute to a fallen friend. But even if that's true, the show as is has nothing new to tell me, either as a time capsule of the 1960s, or as a commentary on the state of our world today. My philosophy as a writer is that you should try to tell a new story; if you're not telling a new story, find a new way to tell it.

Also, if you're going to set your show in Boston in the 1960s, at least one of your characters needs to have a Boston accent. As the grandchild of two Bostonians, I can tell you it's a hard accent to kick.

***

Running: Now playing at The Triad Theater (Theatreroo Productions) - Opening: October 13, 2024. Closing: November 2, 2024.
Category: musical
Length: 1 hour, 20 minutes (no intermission).

Creative Team

Book: Denny Lawrence
Music: Clarry Evans
Lyrics: Clarry Evans and Denny Lawrence
Director: Denny Lawrence
Designers: Michelle Lemon (Choreography), Molly Goldberg (Costume), Ben Hostetler (Lighting and Sound), Bobbie Zlotnik (Wig),  Clare Cooper (Music Direction), Jackie Mates (Stage Manager), Jamibeth Margolis and Meredith Hoddeson (Casting), 22Q Entertainment LLC (General Management), Katie Rosin/Kampfire PR (Publicity), Clarry Evans (Producer), Tweiss Productions LLC (Additional Production Consulting).
Cast: Anika Buchanan, Abby Goldberg, Jacob Higdon, Ben James Tyrrell, Kelsey Marshall, Noah Marcus.

Ben James Tyrrell, Anika Buchanan, Abby Goldberg, and Jacob Higdon as
Mike, Helen, Fran, and Tom. Photo by Thomas Mundell, Mundell Modern Pixels.

Weekly Margin 2024, W42: Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song, Bad Kreyòl, Street Theater, Good Bones, Honeyland

10/14/24: Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song

What: The latest from Alessandrini.

And? Uneven, as they all ultimately are, but it was worth it to see Danny Hayward perform "Wilkommen" as Joel Grey, Alan Cumming, and Eddie Redmayne with pitch-perfect accuracy.

Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, Danny Hayward, and Chris Collins-Pisano. Photo by
Carol Rosegg.

10/15/24: Bad Kreyòl

What: Signature and MTC jointly present Dominique Morisseau's newest play about the reunion of two estranged cousins--one Haitian-born and running a high-end clothing boutique; the other a first generation Haitian American who is trying to reconnect to her roots in her father's homeland.

And? It's basically impossible to go wrong with a Dominique Morisseau script. Her work is always interesting, her characters always fully drawn, and the conflicts built in real, human ways. And adding Pascale Armand as one of the leads? Our cup runneth over.

Andy Lucien and Kelly McCreary as Thomas and Simone. Photo by
Matthew Murphy.

10/17/24: Street Theater

What:  As part of the company's 50th year in operation, TOSOS presents Doric Wilson's play about the hours leading up to the Stonewall Riots.

And? fan-freaking-tastic. full review here.

Antony Terrell as Boom Boom. Photo by Richard Rivera.

10/19/24: Good Bones

What: The Public Theater presents James Ijames's new play about an affluent Black couple in an unnamed city having the kitchen in their new home redone, as questions of gentrification and community come to the forefront.

And? Not as strong a work as Fat Ham, but it was okay. Very well acted, particularly by Khris Davis as Earl, the man hired to redo their kitchen, who has very strong opinions about the preservation of his community.

Mamoudou Athie, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Khris Davis as Travis, Aisha,
and Earl. Photo by Joan Marcus.

10/20/24: Honeyland

What: Theatreroo presents a new musical about four friends reckoning with the changing times of the 1960s and 70s, and their memories of who they used to be.

And? full review here.

Ben James Tyrrell, Anika Buchanan, Abby Goldberg, and Jacob Higdon as
Mike, Helen, Fran, and Tom. Photo by Thomas Mundell, Mundell Modern Pixels.

Margin Notes: Street Theater

Street Theater

Greg Seage as Jack. Photo by Richard Rivera.

Seen on: Thursday, 10/17/24.

Plot and Background

The Other Side of Silence, celebrating its 50th year, presents a seminal work by its founder, Doric Wilson. TOSOS has a long history of producing this play, starting with its New York premiere in 1982 and including when the company relaunched in 2002. This a new staging (though still done in a runway style), a satirical look at queer culture in Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969, in the hours leading up to the Stonewall Riots. Trans sex workers, anarchists, a leather daddy and a hippie, Vice cops, cruisers, and more populate the intersection of Christopher and Sheridan Streets, all looking for something to make their day a little more survivable. Doric Wilson himself was a participant in the Stonewall Riots, and wrote this as a record of the people he knew at that time.

What I Knew Beforehand

I kind of can't believe this was my first time seeing a Doric Wilson play, but what a way to start! I knew he was part of the early Off-Off-Broadway movement from my readings on Caffe Cino. And I knew some of the history of Stonewall.

Thoughts:

Play: This was fantastic and I loved it. It's genuinely funny and ultimately genuinely galvanizing. The arc of people who are used to being put down, marginalized, targeted by law enforcement, realizing they don't have to be used to that, and shouldn't be used to that, and that they have some control over whether that pattern will continue to perpetuate. This play is clearly built for runway staging, as if we the audience are the buildings lining the scrap of street on which these characters all intersect, semidormant witnesses to this seminal day. The characters don't know that Stonewall Inn is about to become a historic landmark of queer liberation, but we do. Co-directors Mark Finley and Barry Childs keep the action moving at a brisk pace, including utilizing the risers behind one side of the audience as a sort-of ghost space: the larger unseen audience on this moment (it's possible I'm reading something into a happenstance fact of the space, but hey, a theatrical experience is a collaboration between the storytellers and the receivers of that story, and this is the story I saw). Doric Wilson's play is fast, funny, and raw, and absolutely worth everyone's time. It's rather remarkable TOSOS has been able to take this particular iteration on tour, but then, as Co-Director Mark Finley said in his pre-show speech, "It takes a village to do the Village."

Weekly Margin 2024, W41: Sump'n Like Wings

10/09/24: Sump'n Like Wings

What: Mint Theater presents Lynn Riggs's play about the tense dynamic between a mother and her grown daughter facing the limited life choice available to a woman in the 1910s.

And? Good costume design by Emilee McVey-Lee. The play itself was not for me.

Joy Avigail Sudduth, Lukey Klein, Julia Brothers, and Mariah Lee as Hattie,
Boy Huntington, Mrs. Baker, and Willie Baker. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Weekly Margin 2024, W40: Vladimir, Cellino v. Barnes

10/01/24: Vladimir

What: MTC presents the world premiere of Erika Sheffer's play about a journalist covering the Second Russian-Chechen war during the rise of Putin, as more and more suppression of truth takes over the news media.

And? Even though the play is called Vladimir and the content is about a journalist and an accountant trying to uncover a governmental embezzlement scandal that could be traced back to the top of the Russian government, it's also very clearly about now, today, in America, with the death of truth and facts in news media coverage. The show ends on a melancholy note, not one particularly infused with hope, but with determination: it's worth it to try to save your home from decay. I left the show with a sick feeling in my stomach, which I assume is the intent.

Norbert Leo Butz and Francesca Faridany as Kostya and Raja. Photo by
Jeremy Daniel.

10/02/24: Cellino v. Barnes

What: A fantasy comedy about the rise and fall of the partnership of injury lawyers Ross Cellino and Steve Barnes.

And? I don't know whether to call this show delightfully stupid or stupidly delightful. I had a fantastic time, laughing loud and long more than once. What a good time at the theater!

Eric William Morris and Noah Weisberg as Ross Cellino and Steve Barnes.
Photo by Marc Franklin.