Weekly Margin 2025, W23: Nine Moons, Old Friends, OUT/PLAY Presents: Summer Shorts, Good Night, and Good Luck, Tony Awards

6/02/25: Nine Moons

What: Blessed Unrest presents Keith Hamilton Cobb's new play, a prequel to Othello.

And? full review here.

Sophia Marilyn Nelson and Robert Manning, Jr. as Desdemona and Ot'Teo.
Photo by Maria Barnova.

6/03/25: Old Friends

What: The newest Sondheim revue, this time produced by Cameron Mackintosh and starring Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga (with Gavin Lee, Beth Leavel, and others).

And? It's pretty great. There are always going to be some weirdnesses, but it's pretty great for a revue. There are an awful lot of act one finales in this (which makes sense, because Sondheim really knew how to write a good one). We could worry that having so many could mess with the dynamic of the evening but, to quote another show from this season, the audience as a whole is "too much in love to care." We're all just so damn happy to be hearing songs we love from across Sondheim's canon. Whereas the pandemic revue, Take Me to the World, often specialized in some lesser-known gems, this leans into the beloved in a big way, with numerous songs from oft-revived shows like Funny Thing, Company, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods. I will admit to being a bit troubled that the program credits only Sondheim for music and lyrics for the evening, as it includes songs from his collaborations with Leonard Bernstein and Jule Styne; especially when they're careful to note when they're using text by James Lapine, it's a weirdass omission, because the music for both West Side Story and Gypsy are rather iconic.

But let's get to some praise. It's truly lovely to see some familiar and talented faces back on the Broadway stage, like Gavin Lee and Beth Leavel (Kate Jennings Grant was not in the night I went, but her role was ably filled by Scarlett Strallen). Also shining were some faces I knew less well, like Joanna Riding nailing the patter in "Getting Married Today" and Jeremy Secomb bringing his powerful vocals to the role of Sweeney Todd. Bernadette is always Bernadette, but manages to do a delightful sendup of her concert persona as she sings "Broadway Baby" as an audition piece, asking the pianist to play it as slowly as possible, like "Bernadette does it." And Lea Salonga, well known for her clear and bright voice, shines in a new way by letting her bawdy and belty side out as Mrs. Lovett and Madame Rose.

There are lines that find new resonance these days. Bonnie Langford, nailing "I'm Still Here" with brassy aplomb, sings "I got through all of last year, and I'm here," and we feel the weight of surviving it together. And then there's the photo montage of Sondheim through the years, starting with infancy. When Bernadette looks at those photos (some of which include Steve with herself), and sings "Not a day goes by, not a single day, but you're somewhere a part of my life," we feel both her ache and ours. He's gone, but we keep him here with us.

The show ends with an audio of Sondheim singing the cut song "Love is in the Air," and I found myself weeping. The woman next to me asked if I was okay. All I could say was, "I miss him."

Jacob Dickey, Bernadette Peters, and the  cast perform "Sunday."
Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Margin Notes: Nine Moons

Nine Moons

Sophia Marilyn Nelson and Robert Manning, Jr. as
Desdemona and Ot'Teo. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Seen on: Monday, 6/02/25.

Plot and Background

Blessed Unrest Theatre Company, The Untitled Othello Project, and Sacred Heart University present Keith Hamilton Cobb's new prequel to Othello. Cobb, known for his 2019 play American Moor, which explored the complications of playing Othello but having to deal with having the character repeatedly explained to him by white directors. This marks a further exploration of the problem of Othello by visiting the characters prior to the tragedy set in motion by Iago's manipulations.

What I Knew Beforehand

I really appreciated Cobb's earlier play, and was excited to see what he's got next.

Thoughts:

Play: Once again, very striking work from Cobb: reading the script it is clear he has a very intentional sense of space and society. The play, beautiful and haunting, is both a love story and the opening threads of a Greek tragedy. Even as we see the slow and gentle courtship of Ot'Teo and Desdemona, we note every mention of Iago, Ot'Teo's seemingly honest friend who feeds him addicting pills and laughs at Ot'Teo's gullibility (and has most certainly stolen his diary). And when Desdemona unwraps her engagement gift from Ot'Teo and we see it is a stunning kerchief with strawberries on its design, we know too the fate of that kerchief and its owner. But perhaps, amidst the politics and war, amidst the too much drinking and the abusive father, amidst the grief for those loved ones lost and the fear of more to come, we can have this, in this moment. Here, if only here, in Nine Moons, we can have Desdemona and Ot'Teo, in love and happy and looking toward a bright and long future ahead of them. Ot'Teo knows how dark life can be--he tells of his difficulty in communicating his understanding of war to the pampered men of Verona: how "to explain child soldiers to men who have never missed a meal." But he also sees that perhaps, with Desdemona by his side, she who sees all of him and loves him for all his parts, perhaps he can find the light as well.

Weekly Margin 2025, W22: Just in Time, Dead Outlaw, Next to Normal, Yellow Face

5/27/25: Just in Time

What: Jonathan Groff stars in the Bobby Darin biomusical.

And? I'd read someone make the crack online that it's not Jonathan Groff playing Bobby Darin, it's Jonathan Groff playing Jonathan Groff playing Bobby Darin, but I thought at the time that was just someone dismissing his impression of Darin, rather than describing what the show is actually doing. Groff begins his audience banter by introducing himself as "Jonathan, I'll be your Bobby Darin tonight" and proceeds to make a few cracks about himself (growing up in Amish country, the low viewer count for Mindhunter) before stepping into the actual narrative of Bobby Darin's life, which includes just as much of Bobby himself breaking the fourth wall to narrate, often snapping his fingers to freeze the rest of the cast in order to do so. It's an interesting idea, though I wonder about the legs of this show past its initial run. Both this show and A Wonderful World tried to upend the usual expectations of a biomusical (Just in Time with the Groff-as-Darin lens, and Wonderful World by focusing on the wives), but they do both inevitably slide back into the usual moves of this genre, like an audience member gradually slouching in their seat as the show goes on (this metaphor brought to you by my poor tailbone, which was in a lot of pain that night).

Groff himself brings all his natural charisma and joy at existing to the performance (and all his sweat and spit, as he jokingly acknowledges during the Hi I'm Jonathan prologue. Seriously, y'all, "I'm a wet man" is now canon in a Broadway musical). And while the music is enjoyable and the supporting cast talented, I have to admit I didn't feel the show truly come alive until the second act, when Erika Henningsen appeared onstage in a creamy pink dress, cool as an ice cream cone, to play Sandra Dee. Her vocals are wonderful, as is her chemistry with Groff, and all their scenes felt more visceral and engaging than most of what had come before.

I'm not trying to fully dismiss the show. It's all very charming. Everyone's having a great time. But it feels all very surface until Henningsen shows up and brings everyone down to earth. Oh wait! I do want to praise director Alex Timbers, whose staging handles the challenging Circle in the Square configuration (my favorite Broadway house!) with an ease and confidence that makes you wonder why it's such a challenge to other directors.

Gracie Lawrence and Jonathan Groff as Connie Francis and 
Bobby Darin. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

5/30/25: Dead Outlaw

a repeat visit

Streaming Theater

Courtesy of PBS's Great Performance series, both 

• Next to Normal
• Yellow Face

My Reliably Inaccurate Tony Predictions

I've been saying all Spring that we've had such a weird and varied list of new musicals to land on

Broadway, and that's pretty delightful to me. One gets tired of cookie cutter tourist-aimed fare and jukebox after jukebox. This season we had fourteen new musicals, including a spinoff of a cult favorite but unsuccessful TV show (Smash), four biomusicals (Tammy Faye, A Wonderful World, Just in Time, Buena Vista Social Club), a classic cartoon come to life (BOOP! The Musical), another Sondheim revue (Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends), two shows about the adventurous life a corpse can have after he dies (Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical and Dead Outlaw), another one about the long life two living corpses can have once they've each murdered each other and lost their man (Death Becomes Her), a story about an immigrant family trying to succeed in America while worrying they'll be deported (Real Women Have Curves), a story about grief and tree-climbing and sophisticated projections (Redwood; also, how long until we get a Tony category for Best Projection and Video Design? We're long overdue), a musical about a shipwreck and cannibalism (Swept Away), and finally my favorite show of the season, a robot road trip/love story (Maybe Happy Ending).

That's not even accounting for the dueling divas on 44th Street (Sunset and Gypsy), two beloved Off-Broadway musicals finally landing on Broadway (Floyd Collins and The Last Five Years), and the more straightforward romps of Elf, Once Upon a Mattress, and Pirates! The Penzance Musical.

Meanwhile the plays have been celebrity-stacked and charging ticket prices to match. There are a number of plays this season I skipped for those prices alone (I wouldn't mind seeing Good Night, and Good Luck, if I could get a decent price on a ticket, but I'm not bothering with Othello, and I didn't bother with Glengarry Glen Ross or All In either). Still, there were some worthy pieces this year, including the forgotten early shows in the season, Job and Home.

Let's go!

Weekly Margin 2025, W20: Bus Stop, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Eurydice, She Takes Flight

5/13/25: Bus Stop

What: Classic Stage Company, in collaboration with NAATCO and Transport Group, presents William Inge's play about a cafe attached to a bus stop, with several passengers stranded overnight when the roads are closed for a storm.

And? A pretty sublime production. There have been issues for a few years of CSC staging favoring one end of the audience over the two longer sides (which not only seems dumb, since that's less than a third of the audience space, but is also just bad direction. Thrust stages were meant to be activating and dynamic, not staid like any old proscenium), but I'm happy to report that's not the case here. While it did feel like one side was more heavily favored than the other (the side we sat on), I think the staging by Jack Cummings III is still largely effective. Peiyi Wong's scenic design, moreover, which includes black bands framing the floor and ceiling, elongate the space; and, with the Tiffany blue cafe counter, evokes Hopper's Nighthawks very effectively. For the most part, the cast has an appealing natural quality, with especially standouts of Cindy Cheung and Delphi Borich, who run the cafe; Rajesh Bose as the sleazy Shakespeare-loving professor (every moment of his is compelling and true); and Moses Villarama, giving an understated but fully present performance as Virgil. His final moments are still and quiet and heartbreaking, even as they go unwitnessed by everyone else around him. This one was a real treat.

Cindy Cheung and Delphi Borich as Grace Hoylard and Emma Duckworth.
Photo by Carol Rosegg.

5/14/25: The Picture of Dorian Gray

What: The Broadway transfer of Sarah Snook's one-woman turn in the Oscar Wilde controversial classic as adapted by Kip Williams, about a young man whose portrait absorbs all his sins while he remains youthful and beautiful.

And? Really quite an extraordinary execution of the piece. One-woman turn isn't technically correct, as Sarah Snook's performance is facilitated by a masterful camera (and prop) crew following a tightly-planned and intricately-timed choreography with such precision I honestly think they should get their own Tony Award (but they're already doing two of those this season: one for the musicians of Buena Vista Social Club, and one for the illusion/technical effects of Stranger Things: The First Shadow). While Sarah Snook's face is the only face we see on the many screens onstage (including the various portraits hanging in Dorian's house), we see her doubled and redoubled in different guises, wigs, makeup, accent. Even when onstage Snook seems to be interacting only with a camera or an empty chair, we are seeing the echoes of her other selves reacting.

I was describing this show to someone who said they'd never heard of this kind of stunt before. I think it's the first time I've seen it on this scale and on Broadway, but Theater In Quarantine has been experimenting with this sort of thing since 2020, and I'm sure they're not the only ones either. Still, it's really something to see in person.

The production is a bit breathless (I'm shocked Snook isn't hoarse by the end), which is effective, but it did have me longing for a moment of calm and quiet just to balance it out. That's a small nit to pick, though, as she had the entire audience in the palm of her capable hands for two hours straight. Major props to Kip Williams for pulling this whole thing off.

Sarah Snook as Dorian Gray. Photo by Marc Brenner.