What: Urban Stages presents the return of "a new play with old music," about Mira, who inadvertently reunites with her estranged grandfather while on a hootenanny-hunting road trip with her enthusiastic grad school boyfriend.
And? This is a rare special piece that is perfectly tailored to the three performers at its center (which makes sense as two of them are also cowriters on the piece): each adept at a variety of stringed instruments, from banjo and dulcimer to guitar and mandolin to violin (or fiddle, depending on the song) and urhu (a two-stringed Chinese instrument with a long narrow neck and a small wooden soundbox). As the three characters trade stories and song across the porch of Edgar (Mira's grandfather)'s porch, the timbre varies: when they play together in traded melody lines, singing along in a joyous shifting harmony, everything seems easy. But between the songs the unhealed wounds reopen, confronting unresolved tensions and heartbreak. Music may be Mira and Edgar's connector, but it's not the thing that can actually mend what's broken. Words spoken a cappella are the only road to reconciliation. The dialogue sections themselves are uneven, pace-wise, and need to be sharpened and tightened. But the emotional beats are still there and hit well, especially as performed by Tora Nogami Alexander as the closed-off but hopeful Mira, and David M. Lutken as a beautifully understated--and also a bit closed-off--and homespun pure Edgar (the third voice in their trio, Morgan Morse, plays Beckett, who keeps verging over into annoying and intrusive. But he does it so well, I have to think it's deliberate). But oh, when the three of them play--when they're playing, harmonizing, improvising--the joy of it, the beauty of the sound. When they play, none of the rest of it seems to matter, if we can just be here and listen to them go.
 |
| Tora Nagomi Alexander (Mira), Morgan Morse (Beckett), and David M. Lutken (Edgar). Photo by Ben Hider. |
What: Douglas Lackey's new bioplay about the attorney, Hans Litten, who in his capacity as private prosecutor questioned Hitler on the stand to answer for the violence of his storm troopers. Later, when Hitler assumes the role of Chancellor, Litten is specifically targeted for imprisonment, interrogation, and torture. Though his family and allies campaign for his release, he ultimately dies in Dachau by suicide.
And? Having appreciated him in a number of supporting roles over the past few years, I'm pleased to see Daniel Yaiullo step into a leading role. He leads the cast with gentleness and intelligence, tracing Litten's arc from a confident young man of conviction, to a battered and beaten-down shell still determined to hold onto his honor as well as his love for music and the written word. The ensemble is a bit uneven under him, but Zack Calhoon's turn as Hitler is strikingly understated, and Dave Stishan makes an affably practical Barbasch (a colleague of Litten's), contrasted with the glowering visage when he plays a stormtrooper. The design is in large part utilitarian if unremarkable, except for a transformative and stomach-dropping moment that closes out the first act. The script itself is clunky and overlong with a bit of a dragging pace right now--issues that could be fixed with a tightening and focus to a theme, rather than a strict adherence to the facts as they happened. I'm not saying make things up; I'm saying make it a story rather than a biography. It's a story worth telling.
 |
| Foreground: Daniel Yaiullo as Hans Litten. Background: Zack Calhoon as Adolf Hitler. Photo by Nejamin Rivera. |
2/05/26: Mother Russia
What: Signature presents Lauren Yee's new work, a somewhat satirical look at Russia immediately following the collapse of communism and the rise of an uncertain and patently corrupt replacement, all through the lens of the wry and red-clad human embodiment of Mother Russia: a disappointed performer and a disappointed mother.
And? Honestly? It's great. It's weird and twisty and silly and there's a whole Swan Lake sequence that I adored, plus one of those near-nonsense list monologues that are a special favorite of mine when well-delivered (and, in David Turner's masterful hands as Mother Russia, it is indeed well delivered. Honestly his performance is perfection). The other actors, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Steven Boyer, and Adam Chanler-Berat, are all excellent (as expected), with Boyer's inept former-servant-and-aspiring-KGB-agent-turned-aspiring-spy a particularly endearing character. His timing and off-hand delivery are always a delight, and it's great to see him in another show. The scenic design, by the dots collective, is a delightful sequence of surprises all packed into a clumsy and cluttered garage/convenience store.
2/07/26: High Spirits
What: City Center Encores! series presents Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray's musical adaptation of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, about a married man and his second wife haunted by the ghost of his dead first wife.
And? A light and harmless musical. The score is pleasant if not memorable, and the dialogue often twinkles (I assume when borrowed from Coward's play). The cast is game for the cartoonishness of the story, none more so than Andrea Martin as the medium Madame Arcati who starts all the trouble: even when she loses her place in the script, she is delightful--and a giggling Steven Pasquale is always there to help her find her next line. Rachel Dratch manages to steal any scene she's in with barely any lines because she's Rachel Dratch and that's why we love her. Phillipa Soo is unafraid of finding the humor in the uptight Ruth, and Katrina Lenk makes a meal out of the lascivious and cynical Elvira. And a special shoutout to ensemble member Marcus Byers Jr., whose physical agility and presence makes him stand out in every dance sequence. This production was a refreshing return to the mission of Encores!: letting us revisit a forgotten musical with some merit, sung by a talented cast (script binders in hand) against a full orchestra. Not everything needs to Broadway transfer-ready. Some shows can just be enjoyed in the moment, and perhaps it's better to let the production breathe without the pressure of a potential transfer.
 |
| Katrina Lenk as Elvira and Phillipa Soo as Ruth with the ensemble of High Spirits. Photo by Joan Marcus. |
No comments:
Post a Comment