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Superior Donuts – Review

20 Aug

It is simply delicious to see a new play and fabulous actors.  It is particularly fulfilling if the production in question is an ensemble piece.  That is indeed the case with Superior Donuts at the Music Box Theatre.  This new Tracy Letts (Pulitzer: August Osage County) comes directly from Steppenwolf and feels it.  The tight ensemble has packed up their focused and small production and plopped it onto Broadway.  The stage is even scaled down, with the help of blackout curtains to recreate the smallness.  The set is a donut shop in Chicago, seemingly untouched since Arthur’s (Michael McKean) parents purchased it fifty years ago.  The play opens with a suspicious break-in and the introduction of several of the 9 characters.  Shortly after the police leave (fabulously played by James Vincent Meredith and Kate Buddecke) we are introduced to Franco (Jon Michael Hill) who comes to work and change Arthur’s life.  Arthur is a frozen man, as the sound designer reminds us with accents of howling Chicago winds, and Franco thaws him.  We learn of Arthur’s story through spotlight monologues.  There are no surprises in this play, despite the audible gasps from the audience.  But Letts’ skill may very well be in the predictability of his story telling and how very satisfying it is to see the characters develop exactly as one would expect.  There are some very funny moments in this play that features ethnicity as its focal point.  Mr. Letts has great fun with his Russian stereotypes, his digs at the Polish and Irish, and goes to lengths to highlight the rich history of African American poets.  This conceit feels a little awkward, but perhaps it works well in Chicago.  (Personal aside, I’m never quite sure which ethnic groups are amusing to make fun of and which are not.) There is a wonderful actress, Jane Aldermann who plays the alcoholic as Yoda character, Lady.  While I found this character no more convincing than I ever do, Aldermann did, and it showed.  Much of the set design and direction did much to set the tone and move the story forwarded.  While it is always very difficult to stage a convincing fight scene, I must say that the actors were not helped by the harsh lighting.  I’m not sure that it can be helped in a donut shop with fluorescent lights.  Loving the performances as much as I did, I tried not to look too closely at the fake punches and foot stomping as sound effect.

Mr. Letts sat in front of me, as did several Broadway veterans.  Mr. Letts was no doubt pleased with the abundance of laughter and audible response throughout the two acts.  While the actors received a standing ovation (who doesn’t these days?) the curtain call was extremely brief, leaving the audience at somewhat of a loss.  If you love very fine acting, and do not abhor sentimentality, I recommend this play.  If you enjoyed August, not because of its scale but because of its content, you will enjoy Superior Donuts.

 
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Posted by on August 20, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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A Boy and His Soul – Review

20 Aug

I have never laughed and cried so hard or so much as I did yesterday during A Boy and His Soul at the Vineyard Theatre. This one-man show, written by and starring Colman Domingo has a limited run (September-October) but if yesterday’s audience was any barometer, it will be extended and/or moved. Directed by Tony Kelly and Choreographed by Ken Roberson, A Boy and His Soul is an exquisite composite of music, dance, memoir and more music. Set in a pitch perfect suburban basement/rec room (Scenic Design by Rachel Hauck) Mr. Domingo tells the tale of his childhood and adolescence through a raucous and moving mosaic of soul music. He sings (not enough for this viewer,) dances and is hysterically funny and heartbreaking through 90 minutes of non-stop fabulousness. Mr. Domingo was most recently seen in The Wiz (at City Center) but might be more known for his roles in Passing Strange. He is an extraordinary bundle of talent and has a face that would make Norma Desmond proud. While I usually tread lightly into the terrain of memoir, or as I like to put it; “If it’s about me, it must be fascinating!” there is nothing here that even hints of a vanity project. The script is so shockingly good, I actually found myself wondering if I could purchase it. There were far too many perfect gems in the dialogue to recall, and I wanted to remember it all. If there is a weakness in the script, it is only the way in which the dramatic arc peaks too close to the end and is not in fact the end. A minor point in such an incredible experience. While Mr. Domingo deserves heaps of praise for his script and his performance, clearly this was an ensemble piece. The direction, sound, lights, set, and choreography were all so perfect. I guarantee that this will please you. When the lights came up, I was jubilant and utterly exhausted after loosing so many tears. I have never been so happy to walk outside looking like Tammy Fay.

 
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Posted by on August 20, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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We’re Paying For This?

20 Aug

When they told me to pump my own gas, I took on Lady MacBeth characteristics, but I pumped. 

When they told me to please listen closely to all available selections as options have change, I listened as I manically punched “0.”

When they told me to swipe my own credit card to complete the most sacred of rituals; shopping, I swiped, and I silently wept.

And when I am expected to supply my own towel, paper towels, cleaning solution, and noise canceling device to enjoy the few machines that work in my sweltering gym, I do so.

I do all these things.  But not without speaking up, which I see as a moral imperative and those around me see as another excuse to label me as “difficult, high maintenance, crotchety” or any other label that allows them to distance themselves from the fact that silence equals complicity.

Having most recently spoken up to gym “management” regarding the ephemeral opening times of the gym (the pool opens when its waters can no longer stand the glassy top to their surface and the gym opens when someone decides that the hang-over is not in fact life threatening.)  I was treated this morning to being followed into the rest room by a “old enough to have recently graduated high school, but let’s be serious, she was most likely asked to leave” who “works” the desk.  I heard her muttering, not making eye contact of course; “Tobias,Tobias.”  It had a rather eerie “The Prince of Tides” quality to it.  I’m not sure when it occurred to me that she was actually trying to address me,  “Tobias?”  Had I not changed my name when I married, I no doubt would have been having some serious 8th grade gym class flashbacks.  Safely ensconced in my married name, I told the tot “I’ve never been addressed that way.  It’s Mrs. Tobias.”  She continued that the gym is no longer open at 5:45, it opens at 6:00.  This time change of course, the result of my compaints regarding opening time.  Fine.  I’ve no problem with shortening the gym day.  I’m not sure that I even mind being chased into the bathroom.  What I DO MIND is being spoken to as if I am a schoolyard homie, or posse, or BFF, or whatever the hell they call them.

I am a customer damnit.  I just want to be treated as such.

 
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Posted by on August 20, 2011 in Cultural Critique

 

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Our Town – Review

20 Aug

A show of hands of those of us who aren’t really the least bit intrigued by yet another production of Our Town.  Look closely and you will see my hand frantically waving in the back.  This Thorton Wilder gem has been staged by well meaning community theatres, eager High School English teachers, a few edgy prison program directors and even a 1980s sitcom.  We all know it backward and forward, and have ceased to see the delicacy of Wilder’s work.  Have I got the remedy for you.

The Barrow Street Theatre has brought the Hypocrites (Chicago) production, with full cast, to New York.  David Cromer (upcoming Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound) directs this fresh and modern interpret ation of the 1938 Our Town.  Cromer, not only brings a clean and engrossing production to the stage, he also manages it.  He is most brilliant in the role of the stage manager.

While the cast is engaging and quite talented, it is the staging that is the star of this production.  Set on a thrust stage (which is actually just the floor of the center of the room) the audience is surrounding (and sometimes IN) the action on three sides.  Cromer keeps the houselights up the entire time, dimming them slightly in the third act.  This device is not nearly as distracting as one would think.  Even with Judd Hirsch sitting directly across from me, my attention was focused on the Our Town actors.  This was partly due to the fabulous use of space.  The choir congregates and sings on a wide fly above the stage.  This gives the audience a new place to focus from time to time.  Actors use the thrust floor space as if it is an actual town square.  Actors weave in and out of the audience in the most naturalistic of manner.  There is nothing self conscious or contrived about the device.

The stage manager’s affect and use of cell phone, combined with the modern day dress of the cast, gives the whole production a sense of the present.  While undoubtedly set in the thirties (evident by milk delivered by horse) there was only a sense of modern day small town throughout the production.
Three acts can seem daunting to the average theatre goer, but the evening simply flew by.  This is a production not to be missed.  It will make you think differently about this American classic and will leave you with a sense of wonder about the experience of true creativity.  Mr. Cromer is someone to watch.

 
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Posted by on August 20, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Do The Right Thing

20 Aug

For all its diversity and dispersion, there is a collective conscious to New York City.  Most often it’s evident after disaster or crops up cyclically.  There is a collective bonhomie that occurs around Christmas.  (Ironic, for a town considered so Jewish.)  Transit strikes and black-outs bring out a certain camaraderie as well.  But ordinarily, on a day to day basis, the collective consciousness usually simply appears as a collective disapproval of the behavior of others.  Not action, mind you, more of a rolling of the eye form of disapproval.
There are knowing glances that occur on buses and subways at the appearance of a group of waistband challenged youth.  (If teenagers ever discover that their attempts at intimidating us people of a certain age with their boxer shorts are actually met with pity, they will be crushed.)  Looks are traded as the inadequate headphones spill banging, tinny, repetitive thumps into the subway or bus.  (Another heads up for aggressive youth; your choice of music and volume makes us people of a certain age wonder if you have any musical sensibility whatsoever.  We don’t feel “out of touch” or intimidated by your blatant disrespect for social mores.  We just kind of pity you.)
Then there are incidents that not only garner knowing looks and breaking the cone of silence to actually comment on said incident to a stranger, there are incidents that motivate people to speak to the offender!  It is rare.  But when it does happen, my heart soars.  If I had one wish for our culture at large, it would be; SAY SOMETHING!!!!!  Speak up when you see something.  Is there a dangerous wire hanging down?  Tell someone.  Does the elevator not work?  Tell someone.  Does a child appear to be in danger?  For the love of G-d open your “I don’t want to get involved” head hole.
This rant only reinforces how happy I was to see the split second response to a man walking down Madison Avenue (across a very busy intersection) with his dog; off of the leash.  Several of us looked horrified and commented to each other.  But one extremely decent man, caught up with the offender and explained the extreme danger he was inflicting upon the dog in the name of coolness.  The offender took no heed of course, and continued on his path to the stares and horror of everyone he walked past.
Perhaps he’ll be ticketed, or overwhelmed by a roving gang of SPCA members.  Probably nothing will happen to him and his dog will continue to be a victim of a variation of the “friend as parent” syndrome.
I often wonder…if children can be removed for neglect, why can’t animals?  Where is the SPCA in this?

 
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Posted by on August 20, 2011 in Cultural Critique

 

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