Forbes on Film & Footlights

Rose-Marie (Light Opera of New York)

2012-02-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

The Light Opera of New York launched its third full season of staged operettas with as ambitious a piece as they’ve attempted so far: one of the megahits of the 1920’s, “Rose-Marie,” a once ground-breaking operetta set against the novel backdrop of the Canadian Rockies. The show – with its music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II -- was a “Phantom of the Opera”-like phenomenon in its day.

The titular heroine (Julie Anne Hamula) loves miner Jim Kenyon (Daniel Greenwood). But her brother Emile Steve Gokool) wants her to marry the smarmy, well-to-do business man Hawley (Evan Alboum) who has secretly been carrying on with Wanda (Kirsten Kane), wife of the crooked Indian Black Eagle (Matt Elizondo). There’s also Sergeant Malone, the Mountie who loves Lady Jane (Sarah Bleasdale), the good-egg proprietress of the local hotel, who’s also being pursued by Kenyon’s milquetoast sidekick Herman (David Macaluso). Along the way, Black Eagle is murdered, and Kenyon’s the suspected killer, driving the disillusioned Rose-Marie to think she might marry Hawley after all.

Part of what made the piece so innovative, besides the setting and atypical murder theme, was its generous underscoring intended to effect a seamless whole, so much so that co-librettist Hammerstein requested that individual song titles not be included in the program.

Under music director James Bittlecome, the ensemble of six musicians (piano and five strings) played many of the melodrames which gave the flavor of the piece, though ideally of course, one would hope for a more robust sound for such a full-blooded score than even an accomplished salon ensemble could produce.

The cast possessed uniformly excellent voices, if not necessarily cast to type. Kane and Hamula, for instance, towered over Alboum‘s Hawley an unlikely rival for Kenyon, requiring a serious suspension of disbelief.

Greenwood sang the hero role with firm, well-rounded tone. Gomez gave a good account of the rousing Mounties number, and Gokool sounded strong in his brief singing bits, but dramatically, the males in the cast were on the stiff side (or perhaps just under-rehearsed).

Macaluso’s Herman was anything but stiff, though I’m not sure he quite conquered the shortcomings of the part, despite channeling, in turn, Nathan Lane, Bert Lahr, and Groucho Marx.

Bleasdale, resembling Carol Burnett, may not have been totally convincing, but she and Macaluso enlivened all their scenes, within the limits of their often hokey comic material. She was also given Rose-Marie’s vocal part of the third act “Minuet of the Minute” duet with Herman, and did well by it.

As for Rose-Marie, Hamula – fresh from her outstanding performance in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ light opera “The Poisoned Kiss” for Bronx Opera – made a strong-voiced heroine, with a capable French-Canadian accent. She and Greenwood blended beautifully in the iconic “Indian Love Call.”

Adapter Alyce Mott mercifully trimmed what she could of the original book.

When one considers the original Broadway production had no less than 75 chorus girls stopping the show with the Indian-flavored “Totem Tom-Tom” (a tad more modestly staged here!), it must be acknowledged that Gary Slavin directed the forces at his disposal resourcefully. And LOONY’s chorus of eight still works wonders.

The costumes on this occasion were rather drab (partly due to the outdoorsy locale, partly not), and in some cases, ill-fitting, but one makes allowances.

LOONY is to be commended for using some discreet miking for the first time, which greatly improved audibility in their overly reverberant playing space, and made for a more involving experience all around.

Village Light Opera Group once mounted a very fine version with full orchestra, and Light Opera of Manhattan (LOOM) performed the work capably several times with their usual piano accompaniment. But “Rose-Marie” is a rarity these days, so it was good to encounter it again in such a well sung performance which also afforded the chance of hearing such rarely recorded numbers as the tuneful opening chorus and the comic trio “Only a Kiss,” entertainingly delivered by Bleasdale, Macaluso, and Gomez.

At the start of “Indian Love Call,” the couple in front of me gazed at each other with fond recognition of the tune and perhaps something more. So it seems Friml’s immortal melodies can still cast their spell.

(Landmark on the Park, 76th St. and Central Park West, 866-811-4111 or www.LightOperaOfNewYork.org; Feb. 4 and 5 only)

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (Richard Rodgers Theatre)

2012-01-28T07:03:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

First things first. This production, which hailed from the American Repertory Theater, is no desecration of DuBose Dorothy Heyward and George and Ira Gershwin’s masterpiece. Despite some patronizing comments from director Diane Paulus and adapters Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre L. Murray prior to Broadway that indicated the work needed fixing – comments that drew ire from Stephen Sondheim and others – this is very much the “Porgy and Bess” we all know and love.

And despite streamlining, at two and a half hours, it is a satisfyingly full evening and hardly feels like a Reader’s Digest version by any means.

Paulus has, in fact, done a superb job of giving the drama sharp focus, and she’s been aided by a uniformly excellent cast.

Audra McDonald’s Bess – finely characterized and sung as it is – does not blow away Norm Lewis’ grey-bearded Porgy, nor anyone else on stage for that matter.

David Alan Grier reveals a strong voice, and registers as one of the best Sporting Life’s within memory. Natasha Yvette Williams’ amusingly gruff Mariah is a constant delight, and her “I Hates Your Strutting Style” putdown of the drug-pushing Sporting Life is a little show-stopper in itself. Nikki Renée Daniels’ Clara offers as sweet a “Summertime” as I’ve ever heard in the show’s opening moments. And Bryonia Marie Parham’s Serena gives full measure to “My Man’s Gone Now.”

The supporting men hold up their end, too, with powerful work from Joshua Henry’s Jake, Nathaniel Stampley’s Robbins, and Phillip Boykin’s scary Crown.

McDonald acts up a storm as Bess, playing her as a damaged (literally as per the scar on her cheek) as well as emotionally. Though not as innately sexy as some past interpreters, she certainly plays up the sexuality in her first scenes, and then transforms most affectingly once she moves in with the crippled Porgy after her lover Crown commits murder and must go undercover.

When Crown surprises her at the picnic and virtually rapes her, she succumbs with graphic abandon. And, near the end, when she falls under Sporting Life’s sway, she becomes a pathetic creature again, hungrily sniffing the cocaine on the ground.

Lewis is a pillar of strength, and though Porgy’s lost his cart in this production, Lewis’s twisted legs make him as “crippled” as the character needs to be. He and McDonald make beautiful music together, slipping into the numbers, like the rest of the cast, as naturalistically as possible.

This is probably the dancingist “Porgy and Bess”you’ve ever seen, and Ronald K. Brown’s choreography is tasteful and satisfying throughout.

Purists may rankle at re-orchestrating Gershwin, but William David Brohn and Christopher Jahnke’s adaptation sounds just fine to me. There’s a new Broadway-style overture, and a couple of numbers such as “I Got Plenty of Nothing” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” have a slightly more pop inflection, but not egregiously so.

This Broadway-style adaptation is miles better than Trevor Nunn’s West End version a few years ago, which played well dramatically, but was musically undernourished.

(Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 West 46th Street, 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com)

Close Up Space (Manhattan Theatre Club)

2012-01-20T16:07:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

David Hyde Pierce is a highly adept stage actor and it’s a pleasure to watch him at full throttle in the opening moments of Molly Smith Metzler’s, alas, ultimately not very compelling play. He’s Paul, a widowed publisher whose 18-year-old daughter Harper (Colby Minifie) has been thrown out yet another school, this time for some naked rooftop shenanigans on campus.

The school has just written him about her expulsion, and Paul, red pen in hand, bitingly dissects all the errors of redundancy, syntax, and grammar in the series of letters, blithely oblivious to the disturbing content therein.

Soon after, he similarly decimates the application letter of would-be intern Bailey (Jessica DiGiovanni) whose initial assurance soon gives way to humiliation and tears. Despite all, he hires her.

These are the play’s most entertaining moments, but in short order, we’re introduced to his eccentric office manager Steve (Michael Chernus) who, unbeknownst to Paul, has been camping out in the office reception area at night in a big yellow tent. Why? Because he’s disconsolate about his beloved dog shifting affections to Steve’s roommate, and can’t bring himself to return home.

Suddenly, we’re in annoyingly absurdist territory that only escalates with the cyclonic arrival of the delinquent Harper, now defiantly spouting Russian – unintelligible to Paul -- and behaving in an alarmingly threatening manner.

There’s also Vanessa Finn Adams (Rosie Perez providing some chuckles), the firm’s best-selling author. Against all odds, both she and Steve end up bonding with Harper who, as the play’s (thankfully short) 85 minutes progress, reveals her genuine hurt at her father’s lack of empathy.

As our sympathies are so much with Paul, however, it’s difficult to feel much pity for the eccentric Harper, though the script would seem to have us do so.

The play is ultimately about communication, or lack thereof. Thus, the title refers not to “Close Up” in the cinematic sense, but the editing term that mirrors (and might conceivably fix) the metaphorical ellipsis between Paul and Harper.

All the performers are decent, and to varying degrees, appealing, including, little by little, Chernus’ initially annoying Steve.

Leigh Silverman directs a well-paced production. Todd Rosenthal’s detailed office set provides visual interest. Emily Rebholz ‘s costumes, Matt Frey’s lighting, and Jill BC Du Boff’s sound design are fine.

(Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City Center – Stage I, 131 W. 55th St., 212-581-1212 or nycitycenter.org; through January 29)

Neighborhood Watch (Brits Off Broadway)

2011-12-07T19:17:00.001-08:00

By Harry Forbes

In his 75th play, Alan Ayckbourn shows that he is still very much at the top of his game (though when has that not been the case?), and “Neighborhood Watch,” direct from Ayckbourn’s home base, the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, England, features his usual exemplary ensemble of actors that have you marveling at the absolute perfection of each characterization.

A large part of the pleasure derived from Ayckbourn’s plays is the skill with which he orchestrates each new development, but on this occasion, the play does open with a long speech in which the the middle-aged Hilda (Alexandra Mathie) eulogizes her beloved brother Martin who, we gather, has been killed “tragically and prematurely.” That much we know. The rest of the play a flashback.

We see how said Martin (Matthew Cottle) and Hilda have taken up residence at the Bluebell Hill Development and are relishing their anticipated carefree suburban existence. But a young trespasser climbs over their fence just as they are preparing for a housewarming party. Their first guests – the ex-security guard and sometime vigilante Rod (Terence Booth) and the gossipy Dorothy (Eileen Battye) – convince them there’s danger everywhere.

Rod, in particular, warns that the lower class folk in the estate houses at the bottom of the hill are a bad lot, and Martin and Hilda had better put a strong fence, topped with barbed wire, around their house if they know what’s good for them.

In short order, we meet their other neighbors: sad sack Gareth (Richard Derrington), a retired engineer, obsessed with ancient torture devices, whose sexy young wife Amy (Frances Grey) is having her latest extramarital affair with none other than Martin and Hilda's next-door neighbor, powder-keg Luther (Paul Cheadle), abusive husband of meek music teacher Magda (Amy Loughton).

Martin is sufficiently galvanized by Rod’s alarmist talk to form the titular neighborhood watch, one which carries increasingly fascistic overtones. If the police won’t adequately protect them, as Rod has demonstrated in his cautionary tale about how his hedge trimmer once went missing, they'll do it themselves. Before long, we see that there can be just as much danger within their gated community as outside.

A dark undercurrent imbues the play, with Ayckbourn taking every opportunity to satirize right-wing, sanctimonious folks whose fear and paranoia are far more destructive than whatever they perceive as the enemy. Hilda and Martin are devout Christians, but Ayckbourn takes sharp aim at the hypocrisy beneath the good intentions. The character with the least hang-ups – the amoral Amy – is the one who most earns our sympathy.

The cast, as noted, is truly brilliant. Each brings one of Ayckbourn’s masterful character studies to vivid life. They exemplify the best of the British school of acting, with Mathie especially impressive as the sweet but, as we gradually come to see, scarily controlling sister.

Set designer Pip Leckenby’s cannily placed pair of crescent-shaped sofas, with three perfectly positioned throw pillows, makes the apt living room centerpiece, even without having to show us the dreadfully green wallpaper which Hilda has proudly covered the walls.

Under Ayckbourn’s own direction, every funny barb, delicious nuance and ominous utterance lands just as it should.

(59E59 Theaters, 212-279-4200 or www.59e59.org; through January 1)

Seminar (Golden Theatre)

2011-11-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

If “Seminar” offered nothing more than a chance to see Alan Rickman at his most sneeringly, witheringly sarcastic, that would probably be enough for the audience that cheers his entrance, and laps up every subsequent scene. He’s Leonard, a famous fiction writer, hired for a cool $5,000 each by four aspiring young novelists, to coach them over a period of 10 weeks.

His feedback as they tremblingly offer him a few pages of what they’ve written is anything for paternal, and he – like everyone else in this play – seems to be able to assess the quality of prose by the merest glance. But we’ll forgive playwright Theresa Rebeck this bit of dramatic license.

The well-heeled Kate – whose spacious 10-room rent controlled apartment is setting – gets the worst of Leonard, as he harshly laces into the story it’s taken her six years to write. She’s played by Lily Rabe in a sardonic, New York style eons removed from her much-praised Portia in the Al Pacino “Merchant of Venice.”

Jerry O’Connell (in his Broadway debut) is Douglas, the cockiest member of the group about to be published (though Leonard decrees his writing is perfect “in a whorish way”); Hettienne Parr is the sexy Izzy (she uninhibitedly bares her breasts early on) with a tougher skin than Kate, but with the more pragmatic outlook; and Hamish Linklater is Martin, the most insecure, and the one most reluctant to hand over any of his precious prose for Leonard’s exacting, no-holds-barred inspection. Literary matters aside, love and sex enter the picture, but I shan’t spoil what the pairings.

Rebeck has written five juicy parts, and they all rise to the occasion, under Sam Gold’s smart direction.

The play is far from profound, and more than a little implausible, though there are some astute observations on the writing process and the realities of the publishing world, and certainly, the Rebeck's setup holds your attention, with a good number of laughs. When matters take a more serious turn, we go along with the mood shift

Rickman has a long revelatory speech that he delivers with understated power. I found his projection a little understated, too, for much of the evening (perhaps the result of an acute respiratory infection that felled him earlier in the week), but in every other respect, he was at the top his game here.

David Zinn’s striking set design for Kate’s apartment defines Kate to a tee, and gives way to a striking scene change when you least expect it, lighting designer Ben Stanton’s bright illumination morphing to something more atmospheric in kind.

(The Golden Theatre, 252 West 45th Street, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200.)

Private Lives (The Music Box)

2011-11-19T10:11:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Kim Cattrall proves the real deal in Noel Coward’s classic “Private Lives.” As the mercurial, witty Amanda, there’s nary a trace of the “Sex and the City” Samantha on display. Her assumption of the role is, in fact, the latest in a string of latter-day performances that have seen the actress stretching with a number of versatile roles, from Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” to “My Boy Jack” on PBS’s “Masterpiece Classic” to her recent stint as Shakespeare’s Cleopatra in the U.K.

Cattrall received praise for Richard Eyre’s production of Coward's play in London last year, opposite Matthew MacFadyen as Elyot. Here, she’s joined by the wonderful Paul Gross, star of “Slings and Arrows,” that superb mini-series about a Canadian Shakespeare festival, not unlike Stratford, which you can still catch on the Sundance Channel.

As the formerly married couple who meet in Deauville on their respective honeymoons to other people – the stuffy Victor (Simon Paisley Day) and the simpering Sybil (Anna Madeley) -- they play with great style, tossing off their barbed lines with crisp British aplomb in a way that honors the roles’ originators, Coward himself and Gertrude Lawrence, with the overlay of their own considerable personalities.

The first act is set on the traditional double balcony – though those early scenes are marred by “off-stage” music far too intrusive and not appropriately directional. The actors shouldn’t have to compete with what should only be distant ambient scene-setting. The music, of course, eventually leads into Amanda and Elyot’s sentimental favorite, “Someday I’ll Find You,” vocalized most charmingly by Cattrall and Gross.

They are far from the whole show, however, as Day and Madeley are quite wonderful in their supporting roles, both showing their mettle in the third act, after Victor and Sybil come in upon their squabbling mates who have fled to Amanda’s Paris apartment, designed – like the period-perfect costumes -- by Rob Howell in witty Art Deco fashion. But though highly fanciful, the spacious layout gives the stars ample room for the considerable slapstick of the second act, which Cattrall and Gross enact adroitly.

What makes Eyre’s production so special is the sensitivity to the serious subtext beneath the witty banter: those significant pauses and silences, the casual references to death, belief, afterlife, love, attraction, and fidelity. The seemingly idle banter of much of Coward’s dialogue belies the comedy’s true substance. One is reminded anew how human and natural is the dialogue with its quicksilver shifts from light to shade.

This is, if anyone need be reminded, a great play, and it’s happily been accorded an ace production.

(Music Box Theatre, 239 West 45th Street, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com; through February 5, 2012.)

The Grand Duke (New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players)

2011-11-17T19:44:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

For its annual one-night-only event – often a G&S or Sullivan-only rarity – NYGASP, under the direction of Albert Bergeret – resurrected G&S’s final operetta, a critical and popular flop in 1896, and not performed again by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company till 1975.

Under the circumstances, NYGASP’s staging was remarkably polished and full, including some delightful choreography by David Auxier (who also co-directed with Bergeret, and took the small but significant part of the Herald who brings on the Prince of Monte Carlo near the end).

Bergeret’s conducting – brisk, buoyant and graceful throughout – ensured a high musical tone, one matched by a uniformly superb cast. The concerted numbers – “Strange the Views Some People Hold” and “Now Take a Card,” to name two – were gorgeously vocalized.

All in all, Sullivan was, in fact, more faithfully served than librettist Gilbert some of whose lyrics were rewritten, albeit not egregiously. The music proved a constant delight to the ear, because even though near the end of his life and in poor health, Sullivan came up with one beguiling tune after another.

Gilbert’s libretto – an unfocused story about a theatrical troupe in a German Duchy who plot to overthrow a penny-pinching Grand Duke (the redoubtable Stephen O’Brien) and govern along theatrical lines, actually achieving that end through a game of cards (don’t ask) – lacks the sharp focus of Gilbert’s earlier work, but even so, the situation is never less than amusing.

Richard Holmes essayed the role of company comedian Ludwig who takes the Duke’s place, and learns that duty dictates his abandoning his sweetheart Lisa (Melissa Attebury) for a succession of ladies with claims to the status of Grand Duchess, including the troupe’s leading lady Julia (Charlotte Detrick), the battleaxe Bareness von Krakenfeldt (Angela Christine Smith), and finally the Princess of Monte Carlo (Sarah Caldwell Smith).

As usual, Holmes’ mellifluous tone, incisive diction, and assured stage presence made for a cherishable performance.

Daniel Greenwood as theatrical manager Ernest and Detrick brought just the right comic flair to their roles, the latter having a ball with her incongruous (for an “English” actress) German accent, and were vocally strong.

Attebury’s Lisa was exquisitely sung, and her second act lament, “Take Care of Him,” was especially lovely, garnering one of the biggest hands of the evening. As, later, did Quinto Ott as The Prince of Monte Carlo whose dazzling Roulette number, sung with firm tone and appropriate panache, brought down the house.

The purist in me didn’t care for Julia’s showpiece aria “So Ends My Dream” turned into a duet for her and Lisa, but – as both were abandoned by Ludwig at this point – it made some dramatic sense, and gave us another opportunity to hear Attebury. Also right on target was James Mills as the Notary who sang with style and fine musicianship throughout.

The performance was unobtrusively miked, the sound emanating from the stage cleanly and naturally.

The edits and revisions notwithstanding, the performance was faithful in most particulars and made a good case for the piece’s reclamation. Of all the “Grand Duke” revivals I’ve seen in town over the years by our enterprising operetta companies – including NYGASP themselves – Sunday’s performance was among the most persuasive.

(Peter Norton Symphony Space, 2535 Broadway at 95th Street, (212) 864-5400 or www.nygasp.org)

Venus in Fur (Manhattan Theatre Club)

2011-11-13T06:10:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

I missed Nina Arianda in her much praised performance in this play last year Off-Broadway at the Classic Stage Company. But now, after making an auspicious Broadway debut in “Born Yesterday,” she has returned to the role that first brought her attention, one that allows her to demonstrate even far greater range.

She’s a loopy, classless actress trying out for a part in a play based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novel “Venus in Fur,” about a nobleman who allows a lady named Vanda (significantly, Arianda’s character has the same name) to dominate him for sexual pleasure. (The word masochism derives from the author’s name.)

Hugh Dancy plays David, the harried playwright/director who’s adapted the novel. She arrives in a rainstorm for the audition late and frazzled, but before long, she’s persuaded him – by a combination of her forceful personality and manipulative cajoling – to read the nobleman’s part in the script (which, by the way, allows Dancy to revert to his natural English accent).

And, for the duration of the intermissionless play, they go through a series of kinky role-playing as they act out Sacher-Masoch’s story, every so often departing from the play and speaking of their actual situation which, of course, mirrors the the situation in the 19th century narrative.

Arianda is so mercurial and dazzling to watch that it almost doesn’t matter that David Ives’ play, though cleverly conceived, becomes awfully talky as it morphs from comic romp to something considerably darker, though director Walter Bobbie masterfully orchestrates the transitions.

This is not a one-woman show, however, as Dancy expertly matches Vanda’s quicksilver mood and character shifting with a most accomplished performance.

(MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street, 212-239-6200 or www.Telecharge.com)

Other Desert Cities (Lincoln Center Theater)

2011-11-12T15:34:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Much as I enjoyed Jon Robin Baitz’s much heralded play when it opened at the Mitzi Newhouse last year for its snappy one-liners and superlative performances (by Stockard Channing, Stacy Keach, Linda Lavin, Elizabeth Marvel, and Thomas Sadoski), I felt the whole was rather less than its excellent parts.

The dilemma of a daughter, a promising novelist, now divorced, and recovered from emotional problems, who returns to the California home of her staunchly Republican parents – should she or shouldn’t she publish a memoir about her late brother’s suicide that will hurt them? – seemed rather inconsequential, and the dialogue smart but overly glib.

But now on Broadway, where John Lee Beatty’s set looks just as spiffy on a proscenium stage, with Judith Light and Rachel Griffiths in the Lavin and Marvel roles, lines are delivered in a far more naturalistic, less sitcom manner, and the whole – under Joe Mantello’s sensitive direction – seems more persuasive on every level.

The returning cast members have settled into their parts most admirably. Comparisons are famously odious, but I’ll take the plunge and say that Light is every bit the equal of Lavin, as she follows her acerbic part in “Lombardi” with another sharp portrayal, and Griffiths is far more affecting than Marvel.

Griffiths seems more naturally suited to the part, and she gives a fine and touching portrayal that transcends her quality, but sometimes mannered, TV work (e.g. “Six Feet Under,” “Brothers and Sisters”). Her final moments are especially moving.

Now’s the time to see “Other Desert Cities.” If you saw it uptown, I think you’ll find a return visit most rewarding.

Photo credit: Joan Marcus

(Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St., telecharge.com or www.lct.org)

J. Edgar (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2011-11-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

As with the actresses who used to play the aging and heavy Queen Victoria, make-up goes a long way to helping Leonardo DiCaprio into a convincing J. Edgar Hoover from young man to old age and death. But there’s no denying that what makes his performance so dynamic comes from the inside out.

The film focuses on several key episodes of the FBI director’s life – his pursuit of Prohibition-era gangsters like John Dillinger, the kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby, his wiretapping of Martin Luther King, etc. – and in his private life, his dependence on a domineering mother (Judi Dench), and a close friendship with his number two man at the Bureau, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer).

As we don’t know for sure the true nature of the latter’s closeness to Hoover, Dustin Lance Black’s script takes the safe middle ground, and the friendship is never shown to be physically consummated nor, for that matter, on Hoover’s part, is love per se ever articulated. So, too, Hoover’s rumored propensity for cross dressing only comes up in a poignant scene prompted by an emotional crisis. Platonic or not, the relationship between the two men emerges as a sort of love story, with a dotted line to Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), Hoover’s devoted secretary for many years.

Hammer and Gandy are likewise excellent, though Hammer’s old man makeup registers as patently false.

Like “Hereafter,” this is rather surprising subject matter to bear the Clint Eastwood stamp, but it’s sensitively done, with a delicate musical score by the director to match.

Some may find the narrative back and forthing through eras a tad confusing, or carp about the film’s limited focus. But as a showcase for one of our best screen actors, and as another feather in the cap of its distinguished director, “J. Edgar” is a compelling piece of work.

(This film has been rated R by the MPAA for brief strong language.)

Relatively Speaking (Brooks Atkinson Theatre)

2011-10-29T08:13:00.001-07:00

By Harry Forbes

The three one-acts that make up this evening of dysfunctional family comedies are a mixed bag, but never less than amusing.

The problem with the first – Ethan Coen’s “Talking Cure” – is that it ends too abruptly, but what there is of it is intriguing. You have Larry, a patient in a mental hospital (Danny Hoch) – a postal worker who, we learn, went “postal” -- being interrogated in a series of a short blackout scenes by a doctor (Jason Kravits) fighting a losing battle with his overly verbose patient.

Then there’s a flashback cutaway to Larry's parents (Allen Lewis Rickman and Katherine Borowitz) when she was pregnant with Larry, and we understand how he turned out as he did. Both halves are funny and sharply played, but one longs for more of a wrap-up, perhaps a return to the doctor and Larry for the final coda. Still, this is an intriguing curtain-raiser.

The second (and most solid of the trio) is Elaine May’s “George is Dead.” In this, wife Carla (Lisa Emery), currently at odds with her teacher husband (Grant Shaud) who resents that he takes second fiddle in her life, is anxiously waiting for his return home after a lecture of his she missed. There's suddenly a pounding on the door, and in comes Doreen, a pampered, self-absorbed chatterbox (Marlo Thomas) whose husband has just died in a skiing accident. It happens that Carla’s mother was Doreen’s childhood nanny. Deep seated resentments surface with funny and poignant results.

All the players, including Patricia O'Conncell as Carla's mother, are fine, but Thomas is brilliant, nailing Doreen’s childish needfulness to a tee.

With snappy one-liners and a promising premise, Woody Allen’s “Honeymoon Motel,” which comprises the entire second act, seems to be the crowd pleaser, based on post-show chatter.

Newlyweds Jerry and Nina (Steve Guttenberg and Ari Graynor) are about to experience kinky bliss in a wonderfully tacky motel room, but there’s a surprising twist, which I shan’t reveal. Suffice to say, their love nest is soon invaded by Jerry’s friend (Shaud again), wife (Caroline Aaron), stepson (Bill Army), Nina’s parents (Julie Kavner and Mark Linn-Baker), a eulogy-spouting rabbi (Richard Libertini), Jerry’s psychiatrist (Kravits), and a pizza delivery guy (Hoch)

This is vintage Allen in high farce mode with a Borscht Belt gags abounding. The problem is that farce needs to be grounded in more initial reality than Allen has constructed here, and the one-liners are not very organic on such an implausible foundation.

John Turturro directs all three playlets sensitive to the varying tone of each, and draws sharp performances from his cast

Santo Loquasto goes to town with the kitschy motel set of the second act, but Clara’s cluttered middle class apartment and Larry’s parents’ wood-paneled dining room are all right on target, as are Donna Zakowska’s apt costumes, and Kenneth Posner’s lighting design.

“Relatively Speaking” is tailor-made for the proverbial tired businessman, that's for sure, but there are moments, particularly in the more literate Coen and May pieces, that strike chords on a higher level.

(Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 West 47th Street, 877-250-2929 or www.ticketmaster.com)

Sons of the Prophet (Roundabout Theatre Company)

2011-10-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

This fine and deeply affecting play by Stephen Karam – commissioned by the Roundabout as part of its New Play Initiative for emerging and established artists – will surely rank as one the best of the 2011-2012 season. And it marks the occasion of another treasurable performance by the impressively versatile Santino Fontana who shone, most recently, in Roundabout’s “The Importance of Being Ernest” last season.

Here, he’s Joseph. a Lebanese-American living in central Pennsylvania surrounded by his handicapped brother Charles (Chris Perfetti) who, like Joseph, is gay; a crotchety uncle (Yusef Bulos) in failing health; and his clinically depressed, pill-popping book publisher boss Gloria (Joanna Gleason).

In the play’s early moments, we learn his father dies of a heart attack one week after swerving to avoid what he thought was a deer while driving. In fact, the animal was on a stuffed decoy placed on the road as a prank by Vin (Jonathan Louis Dent), a local football star who had been raised in a foster home, and whose juvenile sentence is postponed till after football season. This becomes a point of contention in the town, one ultimately debated in the play’s climactic scene, a town meeting.

Joseph is beset by various health ailments, and sorely needs the insurance he gets from working for the scattered, self-absorbed Gloria, a lady who, comically, knows no boundaries. But he faces his various adversities with humor and resilience, as misfortune seems to beset his family at every turn.

When Gloria discovers his ethnic heritage and learns that his family is distantly related to Kahlil Gibran, she sees a way to boost her failing business: a memoir about Joseph’s family geared to their tenuous connection to the famed author of “The Prophet.”

Karam has ingeniously structured the play along the lines of that book with projected headings “On Pain,” “On Friendship,” “On Work,” etc. But for all the Big Issues explored in the play – suffering, sickness, death, loneliness – the play is never heavy-handed, leavened as it is by humor throughout.

Besides Fontana’s fine work, Chris Perfetti shines as the campy younger brother with a spiritual bent, influenced no doubt by their father who revered the Lebanese Maronite St. Rafca, canonized for her suffering, and whose portrait looms in the upstairs bedroom.

Also excellent are Charles Socarides as a reporter covering the hearings about the car accident and who shares a history with Joseph from high school days; and Dee Nelson and Lizbeth Mackay is various roles.

The play is finely directed by Peter DuBois who, like his cast, is ever sensitive to the frequent funny-sad shifts. Production credits are first-rate including Anna Louizos’ split-level set, Bobby Frederick Tilley, II’s costumes, and Japhy Weideman’s lighting.

I didn’t catch Karam’s first well-received play for the Roundabout – “Speech & Debate” – but clearly, he is an exciting playwright with a bright future.

(Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre/Laura Pels Theatre, 111 West 46th Street, (212) 719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org.)

I due Figaro (Amore Opera)

2011-10-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Opera lovers, get thee hence to the enterprising Amore Opera which is currently offering a gem of a rediscovery: Saverio Mercadante’s tune-filled 1826 “sequel” to “The Marriage of Figaro.”

The action takes place 15 years after the events in Mozart’s opera (and Beaumarchais’ play) and involves the same sort of intrigue, this time revolving around the Count’s former page Cherubino who’s now in disguise as another “Figaro” and determined to win the hand of the Count and Countess’ daughter Inez whom the Count would marry off to an older suitor.

The music is closer to Rossini than Mozart, but it’s not just a watered down, second rate Rossini, but music of similarly high quality. Perhaps Rossini might have provided more contrasting moments of light and shade, but I’m not complaining about the steam of infectious melody that just bubbles along from start to finish. Riccardo Muti’s performance of the piece in Europe last year was hailed worldwide, so bravo to Amore for picking up on the buzz so quickly, and giving the work its New York premiere.

Company president Nathan Hull (currently playing an excellent Figaro in the concurrent Mozart work) has directed a delightful production, conducted with panache by Gregory Buchalter. The parts are mostly double cast, and at my performance, the standout of a strong roster was mezzo Hayden DeWitt’s Cherubino singing with smooth and stylish tone throughout.

Elizabeth Treat was an accomplished Susanna, like DeWitt, handling the high flying coloratura passages with ease. Rounding out the female contingent, Alea Vorillas’ Inez, the Almaviva daughter, proved a delightful comedienne, especially in her despondent second act aria where, as amusingly staged by Hull, she contemplates various methods of suicide. Though the part is smaller than in Mozart’s “Figaro,” Nicole McQuade was an attractively sung Countess, she, Treat, and Vorillas offering a most appealing trio in the first act.

In Mercadante’s work, Count Almaviva is a tenor again (as in “The Barber of Seville), and Gilad Paz sang strongly, while Daniel Quintana applied his virile baritone to the wily Figaro. But in librettist Felice Romani’s text, it’s really the women who dominate here.

The production is a treat. But hurry. The final performance is Friday, October 28.

(Connelly Theatre, 220 E. 4th St., http://www.amoreopera.org or 1-888-811-4111)

Photo credit: Tal Karlin. Daniel Quintana (Figaro) is Figaro in Amore Opera’s American Premiere of Mercadante's hit 1826 opera "I due Figaro" ("The Two Figaros").

Man and Boy (Roundabout Theatre Company)

2011-10-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Some may disdain Terence Rattigan as dated and irrelevant (a sentiment I emphatically don't share), but surely even his critics can't deny the solid construction, effectiveness, and sheer entertainment value of his works, as a recent spate of London revivals commemorating his centennial have demonstrated.

So, too, the present Roundabout revival of his 1963 play about a corrupt Romanian financier and his estranged son proves quite mesmerizing despite, or even because of, its melodramatic trappings.

The play is set in 1934. Gregor Antonescu, played magnificently by Frank Langella, is on the brink of financial ruin. He contrives to visit his son Vasily (Adam Driver) with whom he had a terrible row five years earlier.

The latter, who has assumed the name Basil Anthony, earns his living as a lowly lounge pianist and lives in a Greenwich Village basement apartment. He has an actress girlfriend (Virginia Kull) who knows nothing of his background.

Antonescu shows up, accompanied by his sidekick Sven (Michael Siberry). Langella’s entrance – overcoat collar upturned, and a concealing fedora – heralds a great star turn, and indeed it is. This is a vivid portrayal of a charming but manipulative and emotionally repressed figure. The part was written for Charles Boyer and played to acclaim by David Suchet in a 2005 London revival, also directed, as this so finely is, by Maria Aitken.

The great man has arranged for Mark Herries (Zach Grenier) -- an American magnate who, in light of Antonescu’s financial instability, has called off a proposed alliance – to meet him there.

Antonescu has built his fortune on the principles of liquidity and confidence, both now in seriously short supply. But he has discovered that Grenier has a certain vulnerability, and comes up quite a diabolical way to use it to his advantage. Let’s just say what happens next belies the accusation that Rattigan shied away from themes that might compromise his own closeted sexuality.

Though Langella is so magnetic, he is not the whole show. Driver is completely convincing – physically and dramatically -- as Basil, conflicted by his revulsion of his father’s methods, but adoring him throughout. Kull makes the girlfriend – who takes the news about her boyfriend’s lineage with surprising equanimity – also believable. Siberry, too, offers solid support, proving again a great asset to any production in which he’s cast.

The second act is rather less unconventional than the first, though it introduces the character of Antonescu’s second wife (Francesca Faridany good in a rather stock role), as well as a further obstacle to the financier’s monetary reformation.

Derek McLane’s slightly worn two-room flat captures the 1930’s Village ambiance adeptly, as do Martin Pakledinaz’s period costumes.

Rattigan could have easily called this play “Father and Son” and certainly, as far as dramatizations of that eternal conflict go, this is one of the most intriguing. And for American audiences, the parallels to the Bernie Madoff scandal add further resonance.

More Rattigan, please.

(American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42nd Street (212)719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org)

The Mountaintop (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre)

2011-10-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett give tremendous performances as, respectively, Dr. Martin Luther King and a garrulous maid in this audacious and ultimately moving play about King's last night in Memphis' Lorraine Motel in 1968 where he would meet his death on the balcony the next day.

When the play opens, King – exhausted after delivering his "I've been to the Mountaintop" speech -- is sending his (off-stage) associate, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, off to buy him a pack of cigarettes. Left alone, King frets that the room might be bugged, misses the toothbrush that wife Coretta forgot to pack for him, relieves himself audibly in the bathroom, and takes note of his smelly feet as he removes his shoes, all the while mulling the approach of his next big speech. In short, we're seeing the human side of this now mythic figure.

When he wearily calls down to room service for a cup of coffee, Camae, an alternately feisty and flirtatious maid on the first day of her job, arrives. She’s a plain-spoken, lower-class woman but she certainly recognizes King, who, before long, begs her for a cigarette, and is asking her advice about matters large and small, including whether he should shave his mustache for image reasons. Camae indignantly replies that it's the sort of question he should more properly be asking his wife.

Carmae soon proves how there’s more to her than first apparent, when King asks her to demonstrate what she would say in his position. In a trice, she puts on King’s jacket, leaps onto one of the beds, and launches into an increasingly forceful sermon which builds to the point when she's exhorting the congregation to “f – the white man.”

Afterwards, she brags that her oratorical skills, and she chastises him for presuming she might not know what that word means. She boldly asks if she's as good as he is. He tells her she speaks nonsense; she counters that it’s poetry.

Bassett really shows her comic chops throughout, but reveals impressive gravitas when the script calls for it.

There’s a major twist in all this – thus, that audacity I mentioned earlier – but I shan’t spoil playwright Katori Hall‘s neat construction by giving it away here. The play originated in London and won last year’s Olivier Award for Best New Play.

Jackson looks rather less like King than Jesse Jackson, but he convincingly embodies King’s public persona and his personal demons.

It’s a joy to watch these two play together. They’ve got wonderful chemistry, and should be well remembered at award time next year. Bassett has the showier part, and she really is tremendous, but Jackson’s world-weary King is every bit as skillful, bringing just the right gravitas to the role.

Director Kenny Leon keeps the pace taut, deftly keeping up with the play’s tonal shifts, and making sure both stars are on an equal playing field, without one overshadowing the other. Indeed, Hall’s feminist perspective does sometimes seems to favor Camae, but in fact, the parts seem evenly distributed.

David Gallo‘s motel room set has the right slightly seedy and depressing ambience, and towards the end it breaks away impressively during the play’s climatic coup de theatre. Constanza Romero’s costumes – King’s rumpled suit and Camae’s yellow maid’s outfit – are right on target. Dan Moses Schreier‘s sound design – including the bone rattling thunderclaps that permeate the action which takes place on a stormy night – is most effective. Branford Marsalis has composed some apt original music

At my preview performance, the audience was thoroughly rapt throughout the plays 85 intermission-less, even when the play ventures into more spiritual realms, and the enthusiastic standing ovation at the end was the real deal.

(Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 West 45th St., 212-239-6200 or www.Telecharge.com)

[Pictured at top: Samuel L. Jackson as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Angela Bassett as Camae. Photo Credit: Joan Marcus.]

Follies (Marquis Theatre)

2011-09-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

To cut to the chase, Broadway’s second revival of the Stephen Sondheim cult favorite is, not only a vast improvement on the last (the Roundabout’s oddly mediocre 2001 mounting), but a superior production by any standards.

When the evocative ghosts silently traverse the stage in the opening moments and you hear the luscious strains of the 28-piece orchestra (under James Moore’s excellent direction), you just know you’re in for a treat.

And though the sleek, modern Marquis may seem an odd fit for a show taking place in a soon-to-be-demolished old theater, masking the proscenium and boxes in black drapery (courtesy of designer Derek McLane) goes a great distance in overcoming the disparity.

On the other hand, both the 1998 Paper Mill production, which by all rights should have transferred to Broadway, and the 2007 Encores revival were, I think, more consistently persuasive, but here, director Eric Schaeffer has brought out nuances in the text that are often revelatory.

Textually, this is basically the 1971 original with none of the material from the 1987 London revival – like the “Ah, But Underneath” strip that Phyllis performed at Paper Mill – and musically, it is missing only the “Bolero D’Amore” number.

The cast is fine across the board. Danny Burstein is the best of the post-Gene Nelson interpreters of Buddy, creating an enormously sympathetic character, and bringing back at least some balletic movement to his big moment, “The Right Girl,” which people forget was accompanied by Nelson’s virtuosic dancing in the original production. Ron Raines’ Ben, the disillusioned businessman, is on the stolid side, but the approach works for the uptight, self-absorbed character, and he sings beautifully.

As for their unhappy wives, Jan Maxwell nails Phyllis, delivering a really scorching “Could I Leave You?” that makes you momentarily forget even the best of the past ladies in the role, though I didn’t quite buy her generic vamping in “The Story of Lucy and Jessie,” rather prosaically choreographed by Warren Carlyle.

Bernadette Peters’ Sally – delusionally carrying a torch for Ben– is alternately touching and overwrought. This lady is really losing her mind, long before she gives voice to that condition in her eleven o’clock torch song. Vocally, Peters does some lovely things, especially with that upper range of her voice which we rarely hear, though at other times, her singing seems a bit tremulous.

Though she doesn’t bring the true-life persona of the original’s Yvonne DeCarlo or Paper Mill’s Ann Miller, London’s West End musical queen Elaine Paige – who’s already proven her Sondheim chops in the New York City Opera’s “Sweeney Todd” – gives a finely shaded reading of “I’m Still Here,” a bit over the top only at the climax. At my performance, the lights and the mikes blew just as the song was reaching that climax, but Paige finished the number like a trouper. She was also a hoot in her line readings.

As for the other ladies, Terri White is as much a standout delivering “Who’s That Woman?” as she was in “Finian’s Rainbow” where she stopped the show with her almost baritonal rendition of “Necessity.” The surprise here is her nimble footwork, as she leads the gals through their paces.

Jayne Houdyshell’s drolly dour “Broadway Baby” is amusing; Mary Beth Peil’s “Ah, Paree” a bit too understated; and Metropolitan Opera veteran mezzo Rosalind Elias – accompanied by Leah Horowitz as her younger self – delivers an especially powerful “One More Kiss,” though the Romberg-esque duet is arguably more satisfying performed in a soprano timbre.

It is a delight to see Susan Watson, the ingénue lead in the hit revival of “No, No, Nanette” which ran concurrently with the original “Follies,” turn up here with Don Correia singing and hoofing through a charming “Rain on the Roof.”

Schaeffer brings out all the marital strife of James Goldman’s script and then some. The highly-charged confrontations among the four principals are as acerbic as anything by Strindberg. Some of that bitterness could be ramped down, I think, but the text does support the interpretation, and the resulting fireworks are certainly not dull.

McLane’s dark empty theater set gives way to a splendiferous burst of pink for the big “Loveland” sequence, Natasha Katz’s atmospheric lighting in the early scenes morphing into complementary radiance. Gregg Barnes, whose costumes sharply defined each of the characters, also has a field day in this sequence. The production, on the whole, looks as good as it sounds.

This is not perhaps completely the “Follies” of one's dreams, but it will do just fine until that idealized one comes along.

(Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway, 877-250-2929 or Ticketmaster.com)

Olive and the Bitter Herbs (Primary Stages)

2011-09-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Olive (Marcia Jean Kurtz) is a crotchety old actress whose greatest fame came as the “sausage lady” in a popular TV commercial years before.

A perennial complainer about life in general and her neighbors in particular, and the sole surviving renter in her co-op, she grudgingly makes the acquaintance of the gay couple next door -- the even-tempered Robert (David Garrison) and the caustic Trey (Dan Butler) -- whose sounds and cooking smells she detests.

As with Robert and Trey, she also comes to know the co-op board chairman’s father (Richard Masur), thanks to the peace-making intervention of her cheerful, do-gooder friend Wendy (Julie Halston), a B-level theater company manager, and inveterate helper of aging actresses.

Eventually, Olive invites them all for a Passover Seder (that’s where the “bitter herbs” come in), and later, they all come over to watch Olive’s comeback part in a TV procedural.

Beyond the realistic story, playwright Charles Busch has decided to give Olive a ghost living in her ornate mirror. At first we think this may be a fancy of Olive’s faltering mind, but when, one by one, all the others see the spirit too (and know him to be a certain Howard), we realize the ghost is meant to be real.

Busch – writing in his accomplished Neil Simon manner as in “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife” rather than his accomplished movie spoof mode (e.g. “The Divine Sister,” “Die Mommie, Die” -- has said his play is “about connecting to the people in our lives – those with us and those who have passed on” and indeed the inter-connectedness theme gets full play in the fun, if predictable and wildly improbable, climax.

Still, Busch is equally adept at writing in both a comic and sentimental vein, and Mark Brokaw expertly draws both those qualities from his cast.

Busch veteran Halston exudes great warmth throughout, and her body language – a sort of Olive Oyl come to life – is a rib-tickling pleasure to watch from start to finish. The titular Olive is intentionally unpleasant, though we’re meant to grow fonder of her as the play progresses. Kurtz excels in the unlikable aspects of the part, but her performance could have used more colors in helping convey the other.

Garrison and Butler make a well-contrasted pair, and the bear-like Masur, who ultimately serves as Olive’s love interest, is affable and appealing.

Some of the cast stumbled on their line readings – perhaps the disorienting result of Hurricane Irene a couple of days earlier – but, on the whole, the ensemble could not be faulted.

Anna Louizos’ lived-in set suits Olive to a tee. Suzy Benzinger’s characterful costumes, and Mary Louise Geiger’s lighting – including that mirror with its glowing specter -- are also first-rate.

While not perhaps Busch’s very best work, as there’s a contrivance to the basic setup that makes it hard to suspend disbelief completely, “Olive and the Bitter Herbs” is never less than amusing, often laugh out-loud funny, and generally succeeds in making its touching point about our common humanity in a most entertaining way.

(Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, (212) 279-4200 or www.primarystages.org; through Sept. 3)

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (Music Box Films/Universal)

2011-09-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Eric Elmosnino gives a mesmerizing performance as the iconic singer, songwriter, poet, actor, provocateur Serge Gainsbourg (1921-1991) in this expressionistic bio.

Despite some fanciful conceits on the part of director Joann Sfar, a noted comic book artist making his feature film debut (both writing and directing), the narrative covers, in fairly chronological fashion, Gainsbourg’s life from precocious child Lucien Ginsburg – son of loving Russian-Jewish parents – to his early days as a painter, then cabaret pianist, and finally superstar pop icon.

Famously, he was the lover of Juliette Greco (Anna Mouglalis), Jane Birkin (Lucy Gordon), and Brigitte Bardot (Laetitia Casta), and they are vividly portrayed here. Casta makes a luscious Bardot, and Gordon is especially likable as Birkin. Sadly, Gordon committed suicide after filming her role her, a great loss.

Gainbourg became increasingly outrageous as the years went by, smoking and drinking to excess, finally dying in 1991 of a heart attack.

Many of Gainsbourg’s hit songs are heard, including “Bonnie & Clyde,” “La Javanaise,” and “Je t’Aime Moi Non Plus,” some duets with Bardot and Birkin, and everything is newly performed, rather than lip-synced to old recordings. The songs and background score (by Olivier Daviaud) are beautifully interwoven into the whole.

Handsomely shot by Guillaume Schiffman, the film utilizes a life-size puppet alter ego for Gainsbourg to spur him on to new challenges, get him into trouble, or remind him of his less than movie star looks, and of his outsider status.

The figure – which we first see in the childhood scenes, as if the anti-Semitic posters then posted around occupied France had sprung to life -- exaggerates Gainsbourg’s prominent ears and nose. The alter ego device becomes a bit wearying after a while, but fortunately never gets in the way of the story which Sfar has stated was meant to have the aura of a Russian fable.

I’m sure many Americans are unfamiliar with Gainsbourg; I knew him mainly for the series of catchy hit records he penned for Petula Clark in her pre-"Downtown" French period. But he was a towering figure in his native France – praised by Mitterand as a modern Baudelaire – and this interesting film, with its very persuasive performance by Elmosnino (winner of the 2011 Cesar Award), paints a vivid picture of his life and times, especially in the swinging Sixties.

Bitter Sweet (Bard College)

2011-08-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

One’s joy that someone finally had the good sense to mount Noel Coward’s musical masterpiece – his glorious operetta “Bitter Sweet” from 1929 – was, as it happened, seriously undermined by a minimalist, avant-garde staging that, while faithful to the essentials, was so stylized that it emerged far removed from the spirit of the original.

If this were an oft-revived work, such as one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s chestnuts, perhaps a novel approach could be tolerated. But as so many in the audience, judging by the pre-performance chatter, were anxious finally to see a legendary show they had heard much about but never actually encountered, it seemed a shame not to have rewarded their curiosity with a traditional staging.

Rather than following the script’s time frame of an old woman reminiscing in the 1920’s on the great tragic romance of her life in 1875, this production began in 1969, and traveled back to 1920, a conceit which, in many respects, worked against many elements of the period-specific text.

The story centers on Sarah Millick, a well-to-do young Englishwoman who elopes with her Austrian piano teacher Carl Linden, on the eve of her marriage to a stuffy young man. In Vienna she and Carl live in relative penury, he working as a pianist at Herr Schlick’s Café, she as one of the establishment’s dancing partners for the patrons. When a military officer presses himself on Sarah (now Sari), Carl jumps to her defense and is killed in a duel.

Normally, the actress playing Sarah gets to demonstrate her versatility, first as the wise old woman, then an ardent young girl of 16, then a poised middle-aged widow, and, finally, back to the present, as her elderly self again. Here, unaccountably, the part of the older Sarah (now Lady Shayne) was given to the great British actress Sian Phillips. Delightful as it was to see her here, the double-casting was wrong, but director Michael Gieleta seemed intent on imposing a “Follies”-like structure on the show with the young Sarah interacting across the decades with her older self.

Other ghostly effects were conveyed by Christopher Akerlind’s lighting which cast dark shadows on the wall to remind us, presumably, that this was all a flashback, an effect more creepy than evocative.

The younger Sarah was played by Sarah Miller, who sang well, although her mezzo timbre gave her songs a more covered quality than the bright, open sound the part ideally requires, and handled her line readings intelligently, affecting – like the rest of the cast – a decent English accent. But, somehow, she lacked the indefinable luminosity that a leading role such as this absolutely demands. And, sorry to say, she was saddled throughout with an unfortunate hairstyle.

Phillips appropriated what should have been Miller’s opening declaration to follow one’s heart, “The Call of Life,” and rendered it in an accomplished speak-sing manner rather than with the soaring lines the score requires. Phillips also opened the second act with an artfully studied reading of “Zigeuner,” but Miller at least got to sing that song in full near the end of the show.

There wasn’t any particular chemistry between Miller and her leading man, William Ferguson, but his gleaming tenor was outstanding, and he played with a charming Viennese accent, something of a novelty since most of the Carl Lindens on LP were Italian tenors.

Also standing tall in the cast was Amanda Squitteri as Manon, the entertainer at Schlick’s Café. She milked her big number, “If Love Were All,” for all it was worth, singing superbly and playing the vivacious star with great style that compared favorably with that of the incomparable Ivy St. Helier, the part’s originator, who memorably recreated her role in the 1933 film version.

James Bagwell conducted Jack Parton’s mercifully traditional arrangements with style. If one closed ones eyes during the songs, one almost could pretend this was an authentic presentation. But there was no overture, the extended musical set pieces were truncated, and most of the ensemble sections were sacrificed for a “chamber opera” effect. Even Sarah’s glorious “Tell Me What is Love” was shorn of most of the chorus’s response which is what really makes the number click. The opening party, the café, and Lord Shayne’s house all looked sadly underpopulated.

I didn’t care for the setting of the satiric “Green Carnations,” Coward’s paean to the gay young men of the day, as a cabaret number in Schlick’s café. And surely the saucy “Ladies of the Town” in this café were far too vulgar. Gieleta staged them as if this were the Kit Kat Klub from “Cabaret,” with a decadence that was not what Coward had in mind.

Dialogue was overly deliberate, and often had a hollow ring in the exceedingly spare setting. There was little sense of fun or gaiety. Apart from the café numbers, there was little dancing, and a dour mood pervaded all.

In his New York Times review of Florenz Ziegfeld’s original Broadway production, Brooks Atkinson wrote admiringly, “It is a production composed of miniatures, each one neatly turned. It is charming; it is subtle and witty.” You’d be hard pressed to glean those qualities from the directorial choices here, more suitable to Pirandello or “Wozzeck.”

Atkinson also called the show “decorous entertainment, reveling in the billowing costumes of a grandiose age of style, and courting humor in the bouncing bustle.” Gregory Gale’s costumes here -- though attractive in their way – couldn’t hope to be as picturesque.

Adrian W. Jones’ high-walled set, with its tall glass doors, evoked photographs of the original production. The substitution of a crimson curtain in place of the doors and the inclusion of a crescent-shaped little stage allowed a nice transformation into the café.

Still and all, misguided though the concept was, the production offered a chance to hear most of Coward’s evergreen songs performed live in something akin to their original context, generally strongly vocalized and played, and with Phillips adding a classy authenticity, however superfluous, to her inauthentic role.

Search online on YouTube for the priceless Pathe footage of the original London production (nearly 30 minutes worth, although silent) to see how “Bitter Sweet” ought to be done.

(Theater Two, The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, 845-758-7900 or www.fishercenter.bard.edu; closed 8/14)

Death Takes a Holiday (Roundabout Theatre Company)

2011-08-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

This handsome and generally involving musical from composer/lyricist Maury Yeston and book writers, the late Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan, has a number of good things going for it.

It’s based on a once-popular play by Alberto Casella, adapted originally by Walter Ferris, (and later filmed to general acclaim with Fredric March and then again with Brad Pitt as “Meet Joe Black”), and thus it’s nice to have the property back on the boards in any form. It’s composer Yeston’s first major New York score since 1997‘s “Titanic.” It’s been cast with blue-chip actors. All the technical elements are first-rate. And it’s nicely directed by Doug Hughes in his first musical outing.

It could still use more fine-tuning, and there are some less-than-scintillating patches, but the production bespeaks quality. And the narrative holds one’s attention.

The setting is an Italian villa, post-World War I. In the opening scene, heroine Grazia (Jill Paice) and her cronies are driving along the road after a party. They crash, she’s thrown from the car. and by any rights, should have died. But Death, in the handsome person of Kevin Earley, has become smitten with this effervescent creature, and for the first time, he allows one of his intended targets to emerge unscathed.

In short order, he turns up at he home of her parents, the Duke and Duchess (Michael Siberry and Rebecca Luker), and though the Duke know who he is, Death insists he be allowed to stay the weekend incognito, and that the Duke must keep mum about his true identity. In this way, Death can learn what it’s like to be human and experience the thing called love which he’s heard so much about.

In his guise as a charming Russian prince, he sets about romancing Grazia who, before long, breaks off her engagement to her sour, heavy-drinking fiancé Corrado (Max Von Essen).

There’s also a doctor (the suavely charming Simon Jones), once engaged to Grazia’s now-dotty but ultimately wise grandmother (also outstanding Linda Balgord) who continues to mistake him for her late husband, lovelorn Daisy (Alexandra Socha) who sets her cap on Grazia’s castoff lover, and flapper Alice (Mara Davi), who had been married to Grazia’s late brother who died in the war, and who tries to seduce Death with Yeston’s liveliest number, “Shimmy Like They Do in Paree.”

Except for the majordomo (Don Stephenson), the sulky Corrado and Daisy’s pilot brother (Matt Cavenaugh) who has special reason to distrust this “prince,” everyone falls for Death’s ruse, and finds him perfectly charming.

The cast is uniformly excellent. I was disappointed not to have seen Death played by that excellent British actor and singer Julian Ovenden who was felled by laryngitis after opening night, but his replacement Earley is unquestionably a first-rate vocal replacement. His smooth manly baritone makes a nice contrast to all those “Les Miz” high tenors so prevalent in pop opera musicals today.

Yeston’s score sounds quite nice on first hearing (and I have a hunch will improve upon repeated plays of the forthcoming CD). The songs bear the stamp of his trademark romanticism, almost operetta-like at times, sounding to my ears more like “Titanic” than “Nine.” Among the standouts are Luker’s lovely “Losing Roberto” and the female trio, “Finally to Know,” and Death’s 11 o’clock number, “I Thought That I Could Live,” powerfully delivered by Earley.

There’s something of an inconsistency of the tone of the book, the bittersweet romantic quality sitting uneasily beside some tiresome comic bits, but I don’t know how much of that is true of the source material or the work of Stone and Meehan.

Kevin Stites leads the small orchestra with sensitivity, choreographer Peter Pucci provides some nice 20’s moves, though this isn’t much of a dancing show. Derek McLane’s sets, Catherine Zuber’s costumes, Kenneth Posner’s lighting all contribute to a pleasing period ambience.

(The Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 W. 46th Street, NYC), 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org; through September 4, 2011.)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2011-07-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

© 2011 Warner Bros. Ent.
Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R.

Harry Potter characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

By Harry Forbes

In reviewing the more reflective Part 1 of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” we predicted the sequel would undoubtedly make up for the slow patches in spades (or words to that effect), and indeed it has.

With this eighth and final film in the J.K. Rowling adaptations, we can sit back and marvel at the remarkable consistency of quality that has marked the series all along, and also wonder at the perspicacity of the casting agents who chose their three young stars so exceedingly well, for Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione), and Rupert Grint (Ron) have matured quite beautifully and just as they should over the past decade, matching their characters perfectly.

It’s almost nostalgic to see Radcliffe once more in his familiar Potter spectacles, now that he’s moved on to the Great White Way, proving himself a surprisingly adept song and dance man in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”

The movie at hand is slickly done with marvelous effects and nary a dull moment. If anything, there may be a bit too much action crammed by scriptwriter Steve Kloves into its 130 minutes. The digital effects by Tim Burke are marvelous. What a long way we’ve come since the stop-action animation of early films like “King Kong”!

But the script is careful to keep the strong bond among the friends, and Harry’s loyalty to his deceased parents front and center so that we still care about our heroes amidst all the distracting flashy effects.

The main thrust here, as fans know, is the young wizards’ mission to find the four remaining so-called Horcruxes that each holds a piece of dastardly villain Lord Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) soul. The “deathly hallows” are the objects that coveted by Voldemort, especially the Elder Wand that he believes will ensure his supremacy.

Along the way to the fight to the death conclusion (and we won’t say whose), our young protagonists must break into a high security bank vault booby-trapped by a multiplying treasure trove threatening to crush them, outwit a giant dragon, navigate a secret passage to Hogwarts, face a resentful ghost, escape the pursuing flames in a overstuffed supply room, and help defend Hogwarts from the invading Death Eaters,

Most of the favorites from the earlier films are back: Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon, John Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, David Thewlis, Julie Walters, and a most delightful Maggie Smith. Some of these are only on screen for a few minutes, but the luxury casting speaks to the continued attention to detail that has characterized each film.

The film is confidently helmed by David Yates, though that's no surprise as did the last three installments so well.

I screened the film in 2D, not its 3D alternative, but found the experience quite engulfing enough without the bother of gimmicky glasses.

(The film has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for some sequences of intense action violence and frightening images.)

All’s Well That Ends Well (The Public Theater)

2011-07-10T19:31:00.001-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Along with “Measure for Measure,” the Public Theater is presenting a second Shakespeare “problem play” this summer, also, as it happens, involving a “bed trick.” wherein a woman takes her rightful place by the man she loves in the cover of night. The excellent Daniel Sullivan is at the helm this time, but the cast is mostly the same.

Sullivan’s production (airy design by Scott Pask) – prettily set in Edwardian times – delights the eye as befitting the fairy-tale quality of the story. Helena (Annie Parisse), a gentlewoman, loves the callow Bertram (Andre Holland), daughter of her protector, the regal Countess (Tonya Pinkins) who has maternally taken the orphaned young woman under wing.

Helena contrives to force Bertram into marriage after she saves the life of the King of France (John Cullum) using the methods she learned from her late physician father. The angry Bertram – who obviously fails to appreciate Helena's finer qualities -- dutifully weds her but quickly flees the court for the battlefields of Italy. While there, he attempts to seduce the beauteous Diana (Kristen Connolly). (And here’s where that bed trick comes in.)

His comrades-in-arms are the Dumaine brothers (Lorenzo Pisoni and Michael Hayden), and the foppish Parolles (Reg Rogers) who reveals his cowardice and disloyalty when the men trick him into thinking he's been captured by the enemy.

Tom Kitt’s music is particularly lovely and adds to the physical charms of this production, which include a couple of dance sequences and picturesque battle scenes.

I didn’t much care of Parisse’s far too contemporary-sounding Helena. Her line-readings lack poetry, and the ho-hum Holland is missing the requisite charisma to counterbalance the unpleasantness of his caddish role, making Helena’s attraction to him all the more puzzling.

After her bawdy part in “Measure,” it’s good to see Pinkins demonstrating her versatility as the noble Countess. She handles the text well, even if her generalized regality falls short of Margaret Tyzack, Celia Johnson and other great ladies who have assumed the role.

Cullum, as distinguished a veteran of classic theater as he is of musicals, is especially fine, and has a much juicier role on this occasion. He's proof that American actors can sometimes measure up to the Brits when it comes to playing the Bard. Dakin Matthews as Lafew has much the same quality. And as in “Measure,” Rogers is a standout as a roguish character who gets a well-deserved comeuppance.

Sullivan has decked out the text with many ingenious touches such as having Helena and Bertram’s parting kiss (before the latter’s flight) suggest that a union with Helena might not perhaps be so odious after all.

Still, this is the sort of production that might send an audience out thinking it’s the best that can be done with a play not out of the Bard’s top drawer. But those who remember the Royal Shakespeare Company fabulous 1983 mounting at the Martin Beck with Tyzack know how much more can be mined from the tricky text.

The same might also be said for the splendid BBC production which aired on PBS’s Shakespeare series many years ago. It's worth tracking down for those seeking a more authentic performance.

(Shakespeare in the Park, Delacorte Theater in Central Park, www.shakespeareinthepark.org or 212-539-8750; through July 30)

Photo credit: Joan Marcus (L to R) John Cullum, André Holland and Annie Parisse with the company

Master Class (Manhattan Theatre Club)

2011-07-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Against all odds, Tyne Daly – an unlikely casting choice for Maria Callas, to be sure – is absolutely magnificent portraying the diva in her post-career teaching period at Juilliard.

Though Daly has said in interviews that she’s eschewing impersonation – a claim often made by actors when their assumption of a real-life character falls short – she, in fact, captures Callas’ speaking voice perfectly: that odd mixture of European affectation, and more common, even strident, New York intonation. She is spot-on in every respect, a charismatic and imposing presence.

Playwright Terrence McNally has distilled the essence of Callas’ Juilliard transcripts and combined them with biographical elements, with a healthy dose of dramatic license, to create a vivid portrait of the artist in her sunset days: by turns, modest and imperious, sincerely helping the students while using the occasion to reminisce on her own career, deadly serious one moment and wryly humorous the next.

Beautifully paced by director Stephen Wadsworth, the “master class” setting disappears for two bravura set pieces: a thrilling recollection of Callas’ brilliant assumption of Amina in “La Somnambula” at La Scala, and an imagined scene between Callas and lover Aristotle Onassis, with Daly alternating between the two voices. Daly is simply riveting in both sequences, and indeed throughout the evening.

As for her pupils, Alexandra Silber is the guileless, nervously giggling student who bears the brunt of Callas’ perfectionism in the first act. Garrett Sorenson varies the pace in the second as the tenor who ultimately wins Callas’ approval despite being one of the despised breed of tenors, and Sierra Boggess, Broadway’s Little Mermaid, fresh from creating the role of Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” sequel “Love Never Dies,” assumes the Audra McDonald role of the overly confident student who has the temerity to sing Lady Macbeth’s aria for Callas, and crumbles and then rebounds under Callas’ penetrating critique. All are excellent, as is Jeremy Cohen who plays Manny, the accompanist.

Thomas Lynch’s scenic design – the Juilliard stage giving way to Callas’ aforementioned reveries with the help of David Lander’s dramatic lighting – Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes, and Paul Huntley’s character-defining wig for Daly contribute to this superior production.

(Manhattan Theatre Club at Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St., Telecharge.com or 212-239-6200)

Horrible Bosses (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2011-07-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

“Horrible Bosses” is a generally amusing albeit potty-mouthed comedy about three hapless friends – a corporate executive on the rise (Jason Bateman), an accountant (Jason Sudeikis) and a dental assistant (Charlie Day) --who are brothers in suffering under the sadistic thumbs of their respective bosses (Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston).

Under the guidance of a shady con artist whom the three mistake for a hitman (a priceless Jamie Foxx), they ultimately hatch a plan to kill each other’s bosses, a la “Strangers on a Train.” But this being a comedy, it isn’t long before things go terribly awry.

While the premise (by Michael Maarkowitz) is somewhat funnier than the execution and Markowitz and John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein’s script could use more genuine wit, many of the gags are hilarious, and the cast is so good, they help smooth over the rough patches.

The two Jasons bear a physical resemblance, but their characters are well contrasted: Bateman, the straight corporate type, appalled as the three find themselves in deeper and deeper hot water, and Sudeikis, a ladies’ man whose libido keeps getting in the way. The manic Day is their short-fused, none-too-bright sidekick.

Aniston is all but unrecognizable as the randy dentist with the hots for her assistant (Day). If she wanted a change of pace from her nice-girl image, she’s got it here, and she carries it off. Farrell, too, has a radical makeover as Sudeikis’ sleazy, druggy boss who takes over the family business when his nice-guy father (Donald Sutherland in a brief cameo) suddenly dies. And Spacey’s at his enjoyably nastiest as Bateman’s sadistic boss.

The plot has a couple of neat twists, adding to the raunchy fun.

(This film has been rated R by the MPAA for crude and sexual content, pervasive language and some drug material.)

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Larry Crowne (Universal)

2011-07-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

This is a pleasant if unremarkable vehicle – one that might have been cranked out in the old Hollywood days -- for the onscreen reunion of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. (They previously appeared together in “Charlie Wilson’s War.”)

On this occasion, he plays the titular character, an unemployed Umart (read Walmart) worker who has been laid off ostensibly for lack of education despite years of loyal service. The putative rationale given by his smarmy superiors is that, without a degree, he won’t ever be eligible for advancement.

After a frustratingly fruitless job hunt, he enrolls in a local community college. Roberts is Mercedes Tainot his blasé public-speaking teacher, weary after too many semesters of indifferent classes, and frustrated by her marriage to a professor-turned-writer-turned blogger-turned-(are you ready?) porn surfer (Bryan Cranston).

It’s this last point that gives Mercedes the moral pass to fall for Larry (as you know she will eventually do). At one point, the husband admits, yes he likes “big boobs,” and seconds later, when he flings the word “washboard” at her, well, you just know, the marriage is really kaput.

Hanks, who can’t afford the price of gas for his car any longer, buys a motorcycle from his neighbor (Cedric the Entertainer) who runs a perennial yard sale, and promptly falls in with funky, charming fellow-student Tania (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and her do-gooder motorcycle crowd. They all take a shine to the middle-aged Larry, and proceed to make him over. Roberts presumes an affair between the mature Hanks and the young Tania, and this misunderstanding keeps them at loggerheads for most of the movie, until the inevitable moment when she learns the truth.

Hanks and Roberts are pros, and carry their years remarkably well. Roberts, in particular, might have made “Pretty Woman” just yesterday. Hanks continues to embody the American Everyman with natural aplomb, and she’s a particularly deft comedienne, especially in a very funny drunk scene when she comes on to Larry, throwing all inhibition to the wind. (In a way, her performance reminded me of Lucille Ball’s very funny dinner table drunk scene in “Yours, Mine & Ours,” when tears of embarrassment give way to spontaneous, lusty laughter.)

Mbatha-Raw is an ingratiating presence and Wilmer Valderrama as her biker boyfriend evinces charisma.

Whatever the film’s good points or shortcomings, the buck stops with Hanks as, besides costarring, he’s produced, written (with Nia Vardalos), and directed the whole shebang. And yet, for all of that, it doesn’t register as a vanity piece, no small accomplishment.

So if “Larry Crowne” is totally synthetic and not for one teensy second believable (not even in its depiction of these recessionary times), there’s more than a little pleasure in watching these very likeable stars in action.

(The film is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for brief strong language and some sexual content)

Measure for Measure (The Public Theater - Shakespeare in the Park)

2011-07-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

The New York Shakespeare Festival has mounted a solid “Measure for Measure” as a companion piece to “All’s Well That Ends Well,” both “problem” plays because of their varying, hard-to-classify tone but, if done well, as good as anything the Bard ever penned.

David Esbjornson’s mostly traditional staging is a big plus here, as is the generally fine cast, with not too many of those flat American cadences that always used to mar Public Theater founder Joseph Papp’s park productions.

Danai Gurira as the novice Isabella -- who must plead for clemency for her brother Claudio (Andre Holland), is condemned to death for having impregnated his finacee (Kristen Connolly) -- delivers her lines with exceptional clarity and admirable conviction. I felt, though, that at moments of stress, her interpretation bordered on the overwrought, as in her repeated demands for “Justice.”

Lorenzo Pisoni is a good Vincenzio, the Duke of Vienna, who pretends to leave town but, in fact, goes undercover as a friar, when the immorality in the city hits an all-time high. (Esbjornson visualizes this with creepy devilish characters that appear at key moments.)

The Duke leaves in charge his austere, morally righteous deputy Angelo (Michael Hayden) who ferociously clamps down on licentiousness. Of course, like any number of politicians recently in the news, the latter’s rectitude proves a sham.

Pisoni’s demeanor is rather too comical in his priestly disguise, rather than sardonically humorous, but he’s authoritatively impressive in the climactic moments when he takes charge of the city once again. Hayden, for his part, isn’t anywhere near as fascinating a villain as he should be, though he speaks the text well, but in the final scenes when his duplicity is unmasked registered little anxiety.

John Cullum as Angelo’s aide Escalus and Dakin Matthews as the Provost give rock solid performances in the traditional vein. Tonya Pinkins makes a lively Mistress Overdone, entertainingly indignant that her house of ill repute is being shut down, and Carson Elrod has some amusing moments as the pimp Pompey.

Reg Rogers has a field day n the comic part of the braggart Lucio who claims false intimacy with the Duke, and bad mouths the friar, little realizing whom he’s defaming.

The long climactic scene when everything is revealed, and set right is as riveting as any production of “Measure for Measure.”

Technical credits are all polished from Scott Pask’s versatile set to Elizabeth Hope Clancy’s costumes, and Peter Kaczorowski’s lighting. Acme Sound Partners ensure every line is crystal clear, no matter your seat location.

(Delacorte Theater, 81st and Central Park West, 212-539-8750 or www.shakespeareinthepark.org; through July 30)

Photo: (l.-r.) Reg Rogers, Danai Gurira, Dakin Matthews, and Michael Hayden (credit: Joan Marcus)

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (Foxwoods)

2011-06-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

I was not among the critics who defied the embargo and went to “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” before it closed down for an extensive overhaul under its new director, or as the credits have it, “creative consultant” Philip William McKinley. So I can’t compare this 2.0 revision (as it’s been dubbed) to Julie Taymor’s allegedly more fascinating if messy original.

But the show as it stands now is still hardly one of the better musicals on the boards. And frankly, even if you choose to view the show as a new breed of entertainment – a theme park spectacle with elements of Cirque de Soleil – there’s no escaping the fact that this is a traditional book musical. And applying all the usual critical standards, it remains, I’m afraid, a not very good one.

The creative team is not, of course, without talent. First, there are the truly amazing aerial stunts (courtesy of Daniel Ezralow and Chase Brock). The sight of Spider-Man (Reeve Carney), flying briskly over the heads of the audience, or in mortal battle with his adversary, far outdoes your average “Peter Pan” or “Mary Poppins.”

Spidey doesn’t take really wing until more than halfway through the first act (“Rise Above”), however, and it’s the second act that has most of the flying bits. There are several doubles for the flying, due to Carney’s extensive on-stage acting and vocal demands, but he gets his share of air time, too.

The show reminds me of nothing so much as those London spectacles of a couple of decades ago like “Time” and “Metropolis”: bombastic generic music (for so I judged the score by Bono and the Edge), and an unremarkable book (by Taymor, Glen Berger, and Roberto Aguirre- Sacasa).

The story follows Peter’s progress from geeky high school student, target of the school’s bullies, to conflicted super hero, after he’s bitten by a genetically altered spider in the lab of mad scientist Norm Osborn (Patrick Page), all the while romancing Mary Jane Watson (Jennifer Damiano) who morphs from unhappy student with an alcoholic father to budding Broadway star, while Peter toils as a cub photographer at the “Daily Bugle.”

The principals are good. Carney has the lion’s share of singing culminating in his eleven o’clock number “Boy Falls from the Sky,” and makes an appealing protagonist. Damiano conjures Kirsten Dunst from the film, and proves a likeable Mary Jane. Ken Marks and Isabel Keating are appealing as orphan Peter’s loving uncle and aunt. Michael Mulheren’s one-dimensional “Bugle” editor grows tiresome, as the script gives him little to work with. Page has fun with the Green Goblin, but here again, the script undercuts the integrity of his performance.

Is he a fearsome villain or a comic one? The script can’t seem to decide. A scene where he tries to leave a threatening message at “The Daily Bugle,” and runs into endless voicemail prompts, is jarringly out of keeping with the frightening aspects of his character we’ve seen up to that point.

The role of Arachne (T.V. Carpio), the subject of Peter’s science project in the opening scenes, and then Spider-Man’s muse has, by all accounts, been drastically cut to the point of “why bother?”

George Tsypin’s scenic design – a lot of expressionistic forced perspective cityscapes, including the Chrysler Building at the climax – is striking, if rather dark for the youngsters who make up such a large part of the audience. Eiko Ishioka’s costumes and Donald Holder’s lighting help sustain the visual interest.

But visuals and high flying acrobatics aside, the show never grips you. And that’s the surprise. The story, even one which follows such familiar predictable lines, could easily be far more involving. Every movie-to-stage musical adaptation this year has demonstrated far more narrative skill. As my companion sighed upon exiting the theater, “‘Turn off the boredom’ is more like it.”

(Foxwoods Theatre, 213 W. 42 St., 877-250-2929 or Ticketmaster.com)

Photo credit: (l-r) Patrick Page and Reeve Carney in a scene from “SPIDER-MAN Turn Off The Dark” © Jacob Cohl

The Best is Yet to Come: The Music of Cy Coleman (59E59 Theaters)

2011-05-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

This tightly constructed, fast-moving tribute to the eclectic songwriter packs a heap of entertainment value into its intermission-less 85 minutes.

With a personable cast comprised of some of our best performers, most of them veterans by this point, the evening – from California's Rubicon Theatre Company -- was devised and directed by David Zippel who provided the lyrics for the composer’s 1989 hit “City of Angels." He shows his cast to best advantage in a seamless succession of solos, duets, and ensemble numbers.

There’s the versatile Rachel York playing it sexy and sultry; Sally Mayes, vulnerable and playful; Howard McGillin, suave and smooth; Lillias White, funny and scorching; and at the piano, Billy Stritch. the show’s urbane musical director, whose impeccable musicianship keeps the whole enterprise, including a seven-piece Big Band at a high level. (York once played Lucille Ball in a made-for-TV movie, so it’s fun to see her essay Ball’s “Hey, Look Me Over” from “Wildcat,” though the interpretation here couldn’t be more different from Lucy's.)

Vocally, everyone’s in fabulous shape. David Burnham, the one cast member who hasn’t yet achieved the lifetime credentials of his co-stars, looks well on his way, and holds his own effortlessly with the others, including his homage to Sinatra as he croons “Witchcraft.”

That’s just one of many hit numbers from Coleman’s trunk, which includes favorites from such shows as “Little Me,” “Sweet Charity,” “The Will Rogers Follies,” “Seesaw,” and “On the Twentieth Century,” all of which are represented here. But there's also lesser-known material, including several numbers from “N*” a show about Napoleon that he and Zippel were working on which was never produced. (McGillin’s big number “I’ll Give the World” hails from that score.)

The cast groupings are often witty (“Don’t Ask a Lady” is but one example), as Zippel constructs mini-story arcs for the song clusters, ultimately building to a nightclub setting where the cast alternates as performer and audience. Mayes delivers a striking “With Every Breath I Take” in this sequence.

By a long shot, the front-running showstopper of the evening was White’s sensational reprise about being too old for “The Oldest Profession” from the musical “The Life.” The role won her a Tony, and if anything, her interpretation has only deepened with the years.

Lorin Lattaro has provided some very cute choreography, as for example in “Those Hands.”

Production-wise, everything’s first-rate, as you’d expect from Douglas Schmidt (set), Michael Gilliam (lighting), Don Sebeskey (orchestrations) and William Ivey Long (costumes).

For such an intimate space, the sound design of Jonathan Burke and the generous musical accompaniment is sometimes, I must confess, a bit overpowering, and the face mikes worn by the cast slightly mar the visual impact.

But these minor caveats aside, there’s no more tuneful playlist in any musical on the boards right now.

(59E59, 59 E. 59th St., 212-279-4200 or www.59e59.org)

The Student Prince (Light Opera of New York)

2011-05-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

It’s curious why it should be so, but Sigmund Romberg’s “The Student Prince,” the third and final offering of Light Opera of New York’s season – theoretically, the simplest to stage after the far more elaborate demands of “Desert Song” and “The Vagabond King” – proved more problematic to pull off.

Paradoxically, it may be because Dorothy Donnelly’s book – about a 19th century prince who falls in love with a Heidelberg barmaid before being called back to his duty - is so good, based as it is on a popular play of its day, that the acting really needs to be grippingly compelling, while the endless reprises of the big tunes and extensive use of underscoring demand a full orchestra for maximum effectiveness.

Daniel Greenwood and Elizabeth Hillebrand proved likable performers with quality voices. His phrasing had elegance and style, though like so many of the cast, he wasn’t always successful in cutting through the tubby acoustics of the Landmark on the Park church. Hillebrand’s notes sailed out in the high lying passages, but at some loss of vocal purity. Their acting was better than adequate, though he could have used more dash, she more charm.

Scott Michael Morales did an OK job with the comic shenanigans of Lutz, the prince’s stuck-up valet, and ditto Jeff Horst as his sidekick Hubert, but their dated comic business quickly grew tiresome.

Musical director Steve Vasta’s reduction of the orchestrations was tasteful as always, and the result seemed more of a chamber piece than his more vigorous previous efforts. There were some cuts in the score, but it was nice to hear many of the bits and pieces of the score less frequently recorded.

Intimate though the story is, “The Student Prince” calls for a robust male chorus. Even though “Vagabond King” and “Desert Song” contain far more muscular singing, LOONY somehow overcame the limitations of its small casts in those productions, but the crew here sounded pretty anemic, starting with their clomping onstage for their entrance, or pounding their beer steins on the table during “Drink, Drink, Drink.” The famous “Serenade” was executed with some sensitivity, but was not the knockout it should be.

Angela Christine Smith made an imposing Grand Duchess, mother of the prince’s betrothed, Margaret (Jennifer Dorre). The acting demands on the latter are minimal, but she sang the second act duet “Just We Two” nicely with Christian Smythe as her admirer Captain Tarnitz.

Matthew Kreger as Detlef, the principal student and head of the Saxon Corps into which Karl Franz is happily recruited, sang his several bits with firm tone and appropriate robustness. David Macaluso and Matthew Hughes also scored as students who have important parts in Romberg’s intricate ensembles.

By far the most consistently fine performance was given by Richard Holmes, as Karl Franz’s loving old tutor Dr. Engel who wants his charge to experience a normal life before returning to his royal responsibilities. Smoothly and sensitively vocalized throughout (so much better than the wooly baritones who usually play the part), he gave a dramatic performance to match, and had the requisite feel for the music, drama, and style of the piece. (And there were no audibility issues when he sang or spoke.)

On this occasion, resident book adapter Alyce Mott seems to have employed a light hand, given the superior source material, though she might have chopped a bit more in this instance! The book-heavy second act, with its long stretches of dialogue and paucity of new songs, was especially deadly.

Lydia Gladstone’s costumes added pleasing visual interest as usual. But the green curtains that masked the altar area became monotonous over such a long evening.

Resourceful director Gary Slavin did his best with the limited resources at hand.

Though, of course, there was no amplification when “The Student Prince” was first performed in 1924, miking would have helped this performance immeasurably. The dialogue would have been far more involving, and the balance between the singers and orchestra rectified. If LOONY ventures into less familiar territory in coming seasons -- and the attractive “operetta guide” insert in the program suggested this might be so – full audibility will be essential.

For all its faults, the audience – old-timers, operetta lovers, and showbiz pros alike – seemed to enjoy the tunes and the sentimental story.

The evening didn’t end with a standing ovation, but it began with one as board president Norm Keller paid touching tribute to co-founder Jack Behonek who died suddenly in April following surgery.

(Landmark on the Park, 76th St. and Central Park West, 866-811-4111 or www.LightOperaOfNewYork.org; May only)

A Minister’s Wife (Lincoln Center Theater)

2011-05-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

The enormous success of “My Fair Lady” (“Pygmalion”) and “The Chocolate Soldier” (“Arms and the Man”) notwithstanding, most of George Bernard Shaw’s works -- including his 1897 “Candida” from which the dully titled “A Minister’s Wife” derives -- would seem highly unlikely candidates for musical treatment, despite "Candida" containing rather more romantic elements than some others of his plays.

But Michael Halberstam – who both conceived and directed this production – apparently thought otherwise. With a score by Joshua Schmidt, whose adaptation of Elmer Rice’s “The Adding Machine,” was so compelling, and lyrics by Jan Levy Tranen, and a reduction of Shaw’s original by Austin Pendleton, the result is well-intentioned but tedious, even at 95 minutes.

This is not to say the leading players aren’t commendable. Marc Kudisch is The Reverend Morell, a Christian Socialist, high in demand on the lecture circuit. Kate Fry is his lovely, empathetic wife Candida, just returned from holiday with an idealistic young poet Eugene Marchbanks (played by Bobby Steggert) in tow.

In short order, Marchbanks, who is totally smitten with Candida, declares his love for her, and his belief that she is wasting her life with the commonplace Morell who bores his wife with what Marchbanks defines as merely “the gift of the gab.” Though Morell is tempted to throw the lad out, he begins to think perhaps the young man’s accusation might carry some truth, and he allows him to stay, ultimately forcing Candida to choose which she prefers.

Drew Gehling is Morell’s curate Lexy, and Liz Baltes his adoring secretary. Pendleton has dispensed altogether with the colorful and humorous character of Candida’s low-born father who, in the play, engages with Morell in a Higgins-Doolittle sort of dynamic.

Kudisch, Steggert, and Fry are fine, if not perhaps in the ranks of Katharine Cornell, Raymond Massey and Marlon Brando, or the other legendary interpreters of these parts, who, of course, didn’t have to contend with Schmidt’s rangy, declamatory score. (Deborah Kerr was my first Candida in London, opposite Denis Quilley, and though technically too mature for the part, she was truly luminous.)

Though it’s unfair to judge a score on first hearing, the songs – such as they are – seem utterly extraneous, an intrusion on Shaw’s brilliant original. They’re accompanied by an orchestra of four players, giving the enterprise the feel of a chamber musical.

Shaw’s play – a comic and wry paean to marriage and a “counterblast” (to quote Shaw) to Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” (for here, it is the husband who is essentially the “doll”), -- was always one of his most popular. But you’d never know it from this dreary retread.

Despite the talent gathered here, Allen Moyer’s attractive setting, David Zinn’s period costumes, and Keith Parham’s sensitive lighting, I'll take my "Candida" straight, thank you very much.

(Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, 150 W. 65th St., 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

Baby It’s You! (Broadhurst Theatre)

2011-05-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

“Baby It’s You!” tells the story of Florence Greenberg (Beth Leavel), a music-loving Passaic, New Jersey housewife and mother of two, who founded and promoted the Shirelles. The four African-American high school girls would become the country’s number one female singing group. The narrative unfolds in a mostly enjoyable if unabashedly superficial way.

Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott’s script (conceived by Mutrux) also charts the breakup of her marriage to her male chauvinist husband Bernie (Barry Pearl), and affair with African-American songwriter Luther (“Sixteen Candles”) Dixon (Allan Louis) who became her business partner in Flo’s record company Scepter which went on to release Burt Bacharach’s early output. Ultimately, her determination to bring that composer into the fold would cause a rift with Dixon.

The show comes across as a lightweight mash-up of “Jersey Boys,” “Memphis,” and any number jukebox musicals, but within its less ambitious structure, what it does, it does very well. Along with the Shirelles hits like “Soldier Boy,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” and “Mama Said,” are numerous other pop songs of the period. showing the group appearing on bills with name performers, like Chuck Jackson (“Since I Don’t Have You”), Lesley Gore (“It’s My Party”), and Dionne Warwick (“Walk on By”). This serves to add variety to a generally satisfying musical program.

Plot-wise, the focus is squarely on Greenberg, with the Shirelles – Shirley (Christina Sajous), Beverly (Kyra Da Costa), Doris (Crystal Starr), and Micki (Erica Ash) -- providing mostly the onstage and in-studio vocals. We see Flo’s maternal concern for her girls, and eventually Shirley seems to be a rival for Dixon’s affections, adding a teasingly triangular aspect to the plot. Not much is made of that, however. Still, the general arc of the story is interesting enough.

Leavel gets her meatiest role yet as the savvy, determined entrepreneur, and she’s quite good, script sketchiness notwithstanding. Louis makes a solid Dixon.

The first act plays very well, charting as it does Flo’s improbable career switch and the ascendancy of the group. The second act, though packed with songs, has a more sour edge, dealing as it does with the group’s loss of popularity, and the breakup of Flo and Dixon. Of course, their adulterous affair has a somewhat disagreeable patina to begin with.

Bernie doesn’t seem like such a bad sort, despite some early sexist remarks that lead the audience to boo and hiss. After Flo insists that being a homemaker is as much a job as his own, Bernie retorts, “When you bring home a paycheck, you’ve got a job.”

But it’s clear he financed his wife’s early efforts. At one point, Flo says to her daughter Mary Jane (Kelli Barrett) from whom she’s estranged, “You know your father,” perhaps hinting at other character flaws, but we never get to hear them. Similarly, an implication of payola is glossed over. At the end of the day, though, I think Mutrux and Escott were wise not to delve too much into the nitty-gritty, but tell just enough of what really happened to support the songs.

Apart from Leavel, Louis, Sajous, and a couple of others, the cast members play multiple roles quite impressively. Geno Henderson as the show’s narrator Jocko essays three other parts; Brandon Uranowitz plays both Flo’s blind son Stanley and promoter Murray Schwartz, and Barrett (who has a terrific voice, incidentally) has a turn as Lesley Gore. The characters are fairly one-dimensional, but the story is told well enough, and it is compelling.

The songs are pleasingly performed, some of them sung in character beginning with a script cue and, and then opening up to a full-bodied number done by the girls or one of the other contemporary singers. The musical program overall is first rate, and uncommonly well integrated into the plot.

The show is nicely paced by Mutrux and Sheldon Epps who share directing credit, This is a relatively compact production, but it looks handsome enough, thanks to sets by Anna Louizos, costumes by Lizz Wolf, and lighting by Howell Binkley.

If you aren’t bothered by the lack of depth, you should have a good time.

(Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St., 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

The Normal Heart (Golden Theatre)

2011-05-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

The excellent 2004 Public Theater revival (with Raul Esparza) of Larry Kramer’s masterwork about the early days of the AIDS epidemic – 1981-84, to be exact – was not that long ago. But this spellbinding revival with its superb cast more than justifies its mounting on Broadway a mere eight years later.

Jointly directed by the Joel Grey (who played Ned during the play’s original run) in tandem with George C. Wolfe, the action plays out on David Rockwell’s spare white box set, which allows projections of the time and place, and most strikingly and poignantly, the ever-growing lists of AIDS victims.

On this occasion, it’s Joe Mantello who plays the Larry Kramer role of Ned Weeks, a writer who becomes a strident activist fighting an unyielding bureaucracy, and he plays it brilliantly, not afraid to show Ned’s irritating side when he needs to do so, which is often. Of course, Kramer is the hero of his own drama, but he shows enough of the abrasive quality to offset the halo.

Though much has transpired since the events outlined here, the plague (as Kramer labels AIDS in a heartfelt letter handed out after the show) still has no cure, research for a cure is shockingly under-funded, and people are still dying. Even if that weren’t the case, the events of the play are as irresistibly gripping as in an Ibsen play.

Good as Mantello is, the rest of the cast is equally fine. John Benjamin Hickey plays Felix Turner, the New York Times Style-section writer, whom Ned approaches with the hope the paper will finally write about the epidemic, but in short order, they fall in love. Their happiness is short-lived when Felix discovers a lesion on his foot. Felix’s decline is spectacularly etched by Hickey right up to the final moving moments of the play, his voice now a hoarse whisper.

Ellen Barkin is the wheelchair-bound Dr. Emma Brookner, sardonic, no-nonsense, and compassionate, desperate to warn the gay community that their sexual liberation might be killing them. Her second act monologue as she rails against the board denying her needed research funds is one of the most searing scenes on the boards right now, truly goose-bump time.

Ned’s colleagues in the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (though it's never named) – Mickey Marcus (Patrick Breen), Bruce Niles (Lee Pace), Tommy Boatwright (Jim Parsons) among them – are all pitch-perfect, and Kramer has constructed the play so that each gets his own chance to shine. One by one, we observe the toll that the struggle is taking on each one of them.

Mark Harelik as Ned’s straight brother from whom he becomes estranged, and Richard Topol is the mayor’s assistant are spot-on in their roles, too.

The direction is taut, as in the tense scene of the group’s meeting at a windowless basement office at City Hall, but there are many moments when you can hear the proverbial pin drop.

Far more than a polemic, this is a blazingly vital drama that will, I think, stand the test of time. The audience responded at the end with a richly earned standing ovation. There have been many worthy dramas on Broadway this season, but the sense of urgency in this one is unmatchable.

(Golden Theatre, 252 West 45th Street, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

The House of Blue Leaves (Walter Kerr Theatre)

2011-05-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Curiously, John Guare’s absurdist comedy seems to have dated less well than many of the other plays revived this season, though that being said, there is plenty to enjoy here, and David Cromer’s production is very fine, if rather darker (literally, thanks to designer Brian Macdevitt’s low-keyed lighting, and figuratively) than the Vivian Beaumont revival of 1986.

Ben Stiller is Artie Shaughnessy, a zookeeper with little talent but big aspirations of becoming a Hollywood composer. His songs are downright terrible, as we observe as he tries to play and sing them to a loud, utterly indifferent audience at the bar where he plays on amateur night. (Stiller’s vocalizing is pretty good, however.)

Saddled with a schizophrenic wife, aptly named Bananas (Edie Falco), he plans to commit her to an institution and run off with his mistress, downstairs neighbor Bunny Flingis (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

His boyhood friend Billy (Thomas Sadoski), now a Hollywood bigwig, would seem to be his salvation, and Bunny urges him to call, and pave the way for a visit.

The aforementioned bar lounge excepting, the action takes place in Artie’s cluttered apartment in 1965 (set by Scott Pask), the day of Pope Paul VI’s visit, giving Guare plenty of opportunity for satiric jibes about religion and the nature of celebrity, both of which coalesce in the sudden appearance of three idolatrous nuns – Mary Beth Hurt, Susan Bennett and Halley Feifer – who are so enamored of the Pope that they come through Artie’s window begging to watch their beloved Pontiff on television.

It is, in fact, the appearance of these three sisters where the play’s more or less realistic tone takes a wildly surreal turn. Continuing in the same vein, Artie’s son Ronnie (amusing Christopher Abbott) has gone AWOL from the Army and is planning to make a name for himself by blowing up the Pope, unbeknownst to the other characters. (Stiller played Ronnie in the 1986 revival, and the part of Bunny was originated by his mother, actress Anne Meara.)

Stiller makes a good Artie, and demonstrates a natural stage presence. But it’s hard to feel sympathy for his character and his failed dreams, as his behavior to Bananas seems so callous. Falco is extraordinarily good and very touching as the sometimes surprisingly perceptive missus. And Leigh’s self-centered Bunny hits all the comic notes as she utters one vapidity after another.

Alison Pill – so fine in last year’s underrated production of “The Miracle Worker” – is marvelous as Billy’s glamorous blonde girlfriend who decides to pay a visit to the Shaughnessys with funny and ultimately tragic results. Sadoski makes his appearance late in the play, and is another plus.

(Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 West 48th St., 212-239-6200 or www.Telecharge.com)

Born Yesterday (Cort Theatre)

2011-05-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Garson Kanin’s 1946 comedy holds up very well indeed in Doug Hughes’ solid revival, featuring, as it does, three sterling leads: Jim Belushi, Robert Sean Leonard, and, in her Broadway debut, Nina Arianda.

The story, set in Washington, D.C., centers on Billie Dawn, a stereotypical “dumb blonde” (Arianda) whose thuggish, junk magnate lover Harry Brock (Belushi) hires New Republic reporter Paul Verrall to give her some gentility. Inevitably, she falls in love with Verrall in the process. The George Cukor film version with its indelible original stage star Judy Holliday at her most adorable is, of course, a staple of Turner Classic Movies.

The sweetness and innate class of Holliday’s performance is somewhat lacking in the otherwise marvelous Arianda’s winning performance which, rather than because any lack of chemistry between Arianda and Leonard, serves to undercut the believability of romance between Billie and Verrall. Would this bookish, articulate crusader really fall for someone quite so common? Then again, there’s Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, but I digress.

But even if disbelief must be suspended rather more than usual, the play delivers the requisite laughs. And the premise that a little education can lead to empowerment, a greater sense of civic responsibility, and ultimately defeat high-powered corruption in our nation’s capital, still resonates, however simplistic that last notion may be.

Bulushi gives a well shaded performance showing the vulnerability beneath the Tony Soprano-like exterior, so much so, in fact, that you genuinely feel sorry for him as Billie starts to gravitate towards Verrall. And this is even after we have witnessed Brock’s extreme physical brutality towards Billie when she first stands up to him.

Terry Beaver as the senator under Brock’s thumb, and Frank Wood as Brock’s once-upright lawyer, and Michael McGrath as one of Brock’s henchmen, give good support.

John Lee Beatty’s ostentatiously ritzy hotel suite, provides a sleek playing area for all three acts.

Interesting footnote: in a season in which “Anything Goes” has returned in such a triumphant revival, “Born Yesterday” is one of two straight plays currently on the boards that quotes one of the Cole Porter musical's songs.

(Cort Theatre, 138 West 48 Street, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

Jerusalem (The Music Box)

2011-05-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

For the second time this season, the superb Mark Rylance gives an absolutely extraordinary performance, and one which couldn’t be more different from the stream-of-consciousness chatterbox he played in the Moliere send-up, “La Bete.”

On this occasion, he’s societal renegade Johnny “Rooster” Byron, living in a ramshackle trailer home in a Wiltshire forest of present-day England. It’s St. George’s Day, and the provincial Flintock Fair is in full swing.

But Johnny’s on the outskirts, surrounded by the young people to whom he supplies drugs and liquor, and yet, paradoxically, serves as protector. These include DJ-wannabe Ginger (superb Mackenzie Crook), soon-to-emigrate to Australia Lee (John Gallagher, Jr.), chubby slaughterhouse worker Davey (Danny Kirrane), two randy girls, Pea (Molly Ranson), and Tanya (Charlotte Mills), and runaway Phaedra (Aimee-Ffion Edwards).

There’s also a dotty professor (Alan David) and a sad-sack bartender (Max Baker) who has banned Johnny from his pub, after the latter recently went on a naked bender (the incident repeatedly and amusingly referred to as a “fracas”). Of course, Johnny has no memory of this, nor of the wild revels the night before when, among other things, he smashed his flat-screen TV.

The local authorities are poised to evict him, but you’d almost never know it from Johnny’s nonchalance.

But as the story progresses, and Johnny is visited by his six-year-old son Marky (Aiden Eyrick at my performance), in tandem with the boy’s mother Dawn (Geraldine Hughes), playwright Jez Butterworth peels back the bravado from the former daredevil cyclist (20 years earlie), and we see – thanks to Rylance’s monumental performance -- the humanity beneath. His absolutely mesmerizing recounting of a tall tale about a long-ago encounter with a giant is but one example of Rylance's formidable technical skill. He’s funny in his often deadpan delivery, but also poignant in his self-awareness.

It’s a long play, with only a pause between the second and third acts, but it holds your interest, despite the occasional talky patch. Though some of the cultural references may be obscure to an American audience, the overarching theme of England’s eroding rural life, its ironic title taken from the Hubert Parry/William Blake anthem (sung in the play by Phaedra, dressed in her fairy costume for the fair), is easy enough to follow. And Butterworth’s dialogue is wonderfully quirky.

Under director Ian Rickson, all of the performances – both the original Royal Court cast from London, and the few American replacements – are terrific, their characters richly drawn.

Both the play and Rylance’s performance make this a must-see experience.

(Music Box Theatre, 239 West 45th Street, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

Sister Act (The Broadway Theatre)

2011-05-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

This thoroughly entertaining stage version of the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg movie about a singer who goes undercover in a convent after she witnesses her crooked married boyfriend commit murder – in the process, reinvigorating the choir, the church, and the community -- is the latest in a series of film-to-stage adaptations this season.

More so than “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” or “Catch Me If You Can,” “Sister Act” most resembles “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” both in its musical milieu, although this is a brand new score (by Alan Menken), and its drag sensibility. For here we have, after all, a bevy of nuns ultimately jazzing up their habits with sequins and glitz. Both shows are enjoyable, but I’d give “Sister Act” the edge for its overall cohesiveness.

Patina Miller, who sizzled in the sexy “Who Will Buy?” number in Encores’ “Lost in the Stars” earlier this year, gives a star-making performance in Whoopi Goldberg's movie role of Deloris Van Cartier. (Goldberg co-produced, and briefly assumed the role of the sternly disapproving Mother Superior in the original London production.)

A sort of Tina Turner with a heart of gold underneath the cocky exterior, Deloris takes the pathetically off-key sisters’ choir and gets them singing the Lord’s praises with Motown-fused ardor. The number that effects that transformation, “Raise Your Voice” is a real showstopper.

Victoria Clark is co-billed as the Mother Superior and gives her usual fine performance making the most of her second act musical soliloquy, “Haven’t Got a Prayer.”

The other principal nuns are excellent and distinctive, too: Marla Mindelle as the shy postulant Mary Robert who finally cuts loose with her eleven o’clock number “The Life I Never Led”; Sarah Bolt as the jolly Mary Patrick; and Audrie Neenan as the feisty Mary Lazurus. The reliable Fred Applegate is spot-on as Monsignor O’Hara who overrules Mother Superior’s worries about appropriateness of Deloris’ methods, particularly when attendance in the failing parish starts to climb, the collection baskets to fill, and no less than Pope Paul VI sends word he wants to see the sisters in action.

John Treacy Egan, Caesar Samayoa, and Edmond Green are a hoot as the henchmen of bad guy Curtis (Kingsley Leggs) who join him for the comically threatening “When I Find My Baby,” as Curtis declares what he’ll do to Deloris when he locates her, and in the second act vocalize, one by one, their absurdly romantic notions of how they’ll apprehend Deloris by sweet-talking the nuns (“Lady in the Long Black Dress”).

Chester Gregory as Eddie, the cop assigned to protect Deloris, and who’s loved her since high school, shines in his brightest number when he imagines the kind of cool dude he might be if he overcame his shyness (“I Could Be That Guy”).

Menken’s score (clever lyrics by Glenn Slater) has the appropriate soul-infused sound, but includes more reflective numbers where required. And the well-constructed book by Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner (adapted from Joseph Howard’s screenplay) has lots of laughs, no doubt many of them the work of Douglas Carter Beane who supplied “additional book material."

Jerry Zaks is an old hand at this kind of funny business, so the comedy is given full measure, while the narrative clips along at a tight pace. Anthony Van Laast provides the sister’s roof-raising choreography.

Klara Zieglerova has designed an imposing church setting for most of the action, with Natasha Katz supplying appropriately subdued lighting for the intimate scenes and ramping it up for the flashy production numbers.

The audience responded with rousing enthusiasm throughout, affirming the show’s sure-to-be hit credentials.

(The Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

The People in the Picture (Roundabout Theatre Company)

2011-05-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

“The People in the Picture” is the sort of show that makes you wonder how so many extremely talented people could come up with such a ho-hum result.

Donna Murphy plays Bubbie, an old Jewish grandmother living with her resentful, single-mom daughter Red (Nicole Parker) and grandchild Jenny (Rachel Resheff) in 1977 New York. Jenny, if not Red, adores Bubbie who, we learn, was once the star of a Yiddish theatrical troupe in Warsaw in the 1930’s, when her name was Raisel. Jenny can’t get enough of her grandma’s colorful past, and is eager to soak up the language, culture and culinary delights of the old country.

"Beaches"-author Iris Rainer Dart’s script moves back and forth in time, as Raisel’s history unfolds. Bubbie’s lover goes off to America, leaving her pregnant. As anti-Semitism escalates, the members of the troupe are increasingly harassed, Bubbie is compelled to take drastic action to protect her child. And we eventually learn what precisely Red has against her mother.

The music – the songs credited to either Mike Stoller (of Leiber & Stoller) or Artie Butler respectively – is unobjectionable, but on first hearing, not terribly distinguished, and reminiscent of other, better, Jewish-themed musicals. Ms. Dart’s lyrics are dully predictably. You can hear the rhymes coming a mile away.

Murphy gives a truly superb dramatic performance, effortlessly transforming from the increasingly forgetful old lady to the vibrant young performer. But the property is so unremarkable, it’s difficult to enthuse about her considerable accomplishment. I would much rather see her in, say, “Rags.” Her colleagues in the troupe are all fine performers – Alexander Gemignani, Joyce Van Patten, Chip Zien, Lewis J. Stadlen, Christopher Innvar – so no complaints there either.

Riccardo Hernandez’s setting – a giant picture frame and other smaller frames – is obvious but striking, at least for a while. Ann Hould-Ward’s costumes seem accurate enough for the period, and allow Murphy to change eras smoothly.

Michael Starobin’s accomplished orchestrations, conducted with customary flair by Paul Gemignani, are as polished as the rest of the production.

There’s not much choreography to speak of, but Andy Blankenbuehler is credited with musical staging. Leonard Foglia directs competently, but the whole enterprise is so by-the-numbers, with one clichéd moment following another, that it seems all for naught.

Though the press material for the show speaks of it being "funny," the attempts at humor are actually fairly lame, and with its heavy Holocaust theme, I'd say “Mildred Pierce” meets “The Dybbuk” is more like it. But Murphy is remarkable.

(Studio 54, 254 West 54th St., 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org)

War Horse (Lincoln Center Theater)

2011-04-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

If “War Horse” isn’t, in fact, the greatest theatrical experience of my life (and I’m not at all sure it isn’t), it certainly ranks in the Top Five.

The National Theater of Great Britain’s glorious production – which I saw in late 2008 in London, tears running down my cheek in the front row (very embarrassing!) – has been transferred intact to the Vivian Beaumont, which is probably the only venue in the city that could accomodate the panoramic setting as it was on the similar –- if somewhat larger -- thrust stage of the Olivier.

Nick Stafford’s adaptation of Michael Mompurgo’s novel, as wondrously directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, is an utterly gripping World War I tale about Albert (Seith Numrach), a 16-year-old farm boy who runs away from home and, though underage, joins the army to find his beloved horse Joey after his father Ted (Boris McGiver) sells it to the cavalry.

Rae Smith’s enveloping production design (including a cloud-like screen for projections), a deftly used revolving stage, a jaw-droppingly realistic creation of the horses by the Handspring Puppet Company, Paule Constable’s superb lighting, Adrian Sutton’s evocative film score-like music, and Christopher Shutt’s atmospheric sound all contribute to an extraordinary experience.

Though the horses’ operators are plainly visible, the animals seem so real that you barely focus on the so-called puppeteers, so adept are they at recreating the horses’ natural moves. The transformation of Joey from a spindly foal to an imposing steed is nothing short of miraculous.

The title notwithstanding, “War Horse” has much more than battle scenes at the western front. The early parts where the easily goaded Ted, using the family’s precious mortgage money, outbids his more prosperous brother Arthur (T. Ryder Smith) for ownership of the horse at auction, and the farm scenes where Albert bonds with Joey, and then is forced by circumstances to train this part-thoroughbred hunter to do farm work, are just as compelling.

So, too, is the family dynamic between Albert’s mother Rose (Alyssa Bresnahan) and her weak, alcoholic husband, and the sibling rivalry between Ted and Arthur. How that relationship shifts once both of their boys are off at war is handled most movingly.

There are several quite thrilling moments, including the spectacular first act conclusion – a real coup de theatre – and later, a battle scene involving a tank, and another heart wrenching one involving a nasty run-in with barbed wire.

Amidst such magnificent staging, it’s easy to lose sight of the quality performances but Numrach, Bresnahan, McGiver, Smith, and Matt Doyle as Albert’s cousin Billy all offer finely drawn portrayals.

Among the military characters, Stephen Plunkett as the Lieutenant Nicholls who takes ownership of Joey when he is first posted to France, and Peter Hermann as Hauptman Friedrich Muller, a German officer whose love of his own horse Tophorn, parallels Albert’s for Joey, are outstanding. While Albert boasts of getting “bloody Fritz” (the Germans), little does he know that Muller is taking care of his beloved horse.

The play is as strong an anti-war play as been done, the pre-war jingoism sounding quite empty once in the midst of battle, its horrors vividly portrayed, and its senselessness underscored repeatedly. And the sympathetic portrayal of the German side, with Muller and others, echoes “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

“War Horse” is theater at its purest, a breathtaking theatrical experience you must not miss.

(Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65th St., Telecharge.com or WarHorseOnBroadway.com)

Wonderland (Marquis Theatre)

2011-04-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Much like the movie version of “The Wiz,” this latest riff on “Alice in Wonderland” puts an adult heroine in search of self at the center of a well-known children’s tale.(Remember Diana Ross as Dorothy anyone?) As with that cinematic “Wiz,” the results here are less than wonderful, and yet, also like that film, not totally egregious.

The problem with “Wonderland” is that the whole feels so very synthetic, derivative of better things (like, again, “The Wizard of Oz”), and dully predictable in its dime-store psychology (“Wonderland is you!” seems to be the message).

So, this adult Queens-based Alice (Janet Dacal from "In the Heights") -- separated from her out-of-work husband, and raising her sad daughter Chloe -- is looking for her inner self, the talent she abandoned as a child, a better appreciation of the things she already has, and female empowerment.

Jack Murphy wrote the book with director Gregory Boyd, and also supplied lyrics to Frank Wildhorn’s mixed-bag score, which runs a gamut of genres and proves highly variable in quality. In terms of the former, there’s Jose Llana as the Cheshire Cat (here El Gato) sings a Latin number; E. Clayton Cornelious as the Caterpiller has an R&B ditty, Darren Ritchie as the White Knight harmonizes with his back-up singers in the best boy-band style. All three of these numbers are actually pretty good.

Ritchie is, in fact, one of the show’s best performers, appearing also as Lewis Carroll in the second act, and a third role, which I shan’t spoil, though you’ll probably guess it. As Carroll, Ritchie delivers one of the better (and quieter) second act songs, “I Am My Own Invention.”

There are some good one-liners in the show, including some obvious punning on the phrase Tea Party.

One of the show’s dubious conceits is to have a female Mad Hatter. She’s played without much charisma by Kate Shindle like an Elphaba knock-off, but neither her songs nor her dialogue make for a very memorable villain, as she plots Alice’s demise, the Queen’s overthrow, and eventual rule of Wonderland herself. Her second act opener, “I Will Prevail,” is particularly strident and unpleasant. At one point, she pretends to be a marriage counselor and lures little Chloe down to Wonderland on the pretext of helping the girl’s parents.

Dacal makes a pleasant enough heroine, simple enough in manner not to disappoint youngsters in the audience who might not empathize with a grown-up protagonist. She does well with “Home,” the pretty (if again, derivative) duet with her young daughter Chloe (Carly Rose Sonenclar). But her big eleven o’clock number, “Finding Wonderland” doesn’t measure up to its climactic position in the show, or the decibel level accorded it.

Karen Mason channels some of her Norma Desmond experience into the Queen of Hearts, and gets two campy numbers “Hail the Queen” (with a homage of “Gypsy” and other musicals thrown in for laughs) and “Off with Their Heads” which she puts over with aplomb. Too bad the songs themselves aren’t just a bit more tuneful and witty. She also doubles as Chloe’s grandmother in the real scenes.

Edward Staudenmayer has some amusing moments as the (forgetful) White Rabbit, as does Danny Stiles as The March Hare.

Peter Hylenski’s sound design is often uncomfortably loud, and even so, the lyrics are often unintelligible.

Neil Patel’s set design and Susan Hilferty’s costumes are colorful, but lacking in true enchantment, though I liked the picturesque silver proscenium framing. Sven Ortel’s curtain projections before the show – traditional renderings of the Carroll characters – perhaps raise unfair expectations. Still, the high-tech Wonderland projections within the show are another plus.

(Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway, 877-250-2929 or ticketmaster.com)

High (Booth Theatre)

2011-04-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

As a vehicle for Kathleen Turner, “High” keeps its valiant star on stage almost all evening, allowing her to run the gamut of emotions, with plenty of humorous lines amid a narrative as melodramatic as they come.

She’s Sister Jamison Connelly, a tough-talking drug counselor with a distinctly un-sisterlike vocabulary (the f- and s-words are thrown off unflinchingly throughout) who reluctantly takes on gay hustler Cody (Evan Jonigkeit), when her superior, Father Michael (Stephen Kunken) insists she do so, his true motivation (no, not what you might think) only revealed much later.

A recovered alcoholic and former user herself and, like Cody, one who spent a fair amount of time as a homeless street person, she resists at first because she knows how hopeless these cases can be. Adding to her skepticism is hearing of the death of a 14-year-old boy found in the hotel room where Cody himself nearly died.

But Father Michael won’t take no for an answer, and Sister Jamison agrees to work with the sullen, belligerent youth.

The confrontational scenes with the boy – including an especially lurid one when Cody falls off the wagon, and at the peak of his high, darts naked to and fro like the Alan Strang character in “Equus” and attempts to sexually attack the good sister -- are interspersed with monologues in which she reflects on her past and the tragic events which eventually led to her becoming a nun and her yearning for redemption.

Sister Jamison’s back-story is fairly hair-raising (and not terribly plausible). But even when that history and her personal demons are fully revealed, her initial resistance to taking Cody on as a patient is hard to swallow. After all, wouldn’t anyone in her position want to help a lost soul?

The conviction of the performances and the stylized staging balance the more over-the-top elements. Turner’s foggy voice and commanding presence, and Jonigkeit’s extremely realistic turn are both compelling. Kunken’s role is a fairly colorless one, but he plays it well enough.

Matthew Lombardo’s script is less risible when one learns of the playwright’s own former addiction. And for all its contrivance, it must be said that “High” does hold your interest.

Rob Ruggiero, who also directed Lombardo’s lightweight but entertaining “Looped,” about Tallulah Bankhead, adapts to the very different structure here, staging Turner’s monologues effectively against set designer David Gallo’s constellation backdrop.

The show has already posted a closing notice, so you need to see it by Sunday, if so inclined.

(Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200 or Telecharge.com)

Catch Me If You Can (Neil Simon Theatre)

2011-04-20T12:16:00.001-07:00

By Harry Forbes

A great deal of talent – much of it comprising the same team that generated the long-running “Hairspray” -- has gone into this latest cinematic adaptation, this one taken, of course, from the 2003 Steven Spielberg film with Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio. Terrence McNally provided the effective book.

But the stylized, somewhat cynical, way in which he and the other creators have chosen to tell the true-life story of FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Norbert Leo Butz) in dogged pursuit of con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Aaron Tveit) who changes names and professions (pilot, doctor, and lawyer) with dizzying alacrity, works against the feel-good qualities that made "Hairspray" so endearing.

This, despite a sentimental undercurrent of growing affection between pursuer and pursued, with Hanratty becoming a father figure to young Frank, after the latter’s French mother (glamorous Rachel de Benedet) walks out, and his alcoholic con artist father (Tom Wopat, solid as ever) can't raise him. (Both are lonely and lacking in familial affection.)

Still, there’s no denying the slickness and polish that has gone into the mounting, and who says “feel good” has to be part of the package anyway? Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman have fashioned their score after the swinging songs of the period that might have been rendered by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, or Carlos Jobim. Several songs have been dropped since the show’s tryout period, but the score still remains a strong one, albeit with an emphasis on the flashier, more hard-driving numbers.

Amidst those, the Christmas anthem, “My Favorite Time of Year,” which closes the first act; Hanratty and Frank, Sr.’s bar duet, “Little Boy, Be a Man,” and Paula’s “Don’t Be a Stranger” provide less frenetic contrast.

Tveit brings boyish good looks and much appeal to the DiCaprio role, but the amazing Butz dominates, completely immersing himself in the role of schlumpy agent, and stopping the show more than once, starting with his “Don’t Break the Rules” anthem.

Kerry Butler as nurse Brenda whom Frank genuinely falls for late in the show has little to do till then, but effectively and movingly belts out her feelings in the eleven o’clock number “Fly, Fly Away.” Wopat’s smooth vocalizing throughout is another plus, as he makes his less than admirable character both pitiable and empathetic.

Jack O’Brien directs the show tightly, and Jerry Mitchell’s choreography – often employing a chorus line of the airline stewardesses and nurses in Abignale, Jr.’s life – keeps the momentum going, and accurately mirrors the period TV variety show which serves as the framing device in McNally’s book (as per the song “In Living Color” used as a motif throughout).

That conceit does, however, create a distancing effect, inasmuch as there are moments when just as you get caught up in the story, you are pulled back to the artificiality of the concept.

David Rockwell’s set (lit by Kenneth Posner) and William Ivey Long’s colorful costumes capture the flashy Jet Setting milieu by way of “The Dean Martin Show.”

(The Neil Simon Theatre, 250 W. 52nd St., 877-250-2929 or Ticketmaster.com; through August 14)

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Richard Rodgers Theatre)

2011-04-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

In 2003 Baghdad, a Tiger (Robin Williams) is fatally shot by marine guard Kev (Brad Fleischer) after Tommy (Glenn Davis), his partner in guarding the zoo after the Americans have bombed it, has his hand bitten off by the beast. The tiger’s ghost returns to roam the city, searching for spiritual answers, and haunting his killer.

The handless marine, shipped back to Iraq with a prosthetic appendage, returns to retrieve the gold toilet seat and gold gun he had purloined from Saddam Hussein’s effects during the invasion, and subsequently hidden. Musa (Arian Moayed), the U.S. military’s Turkish translator, is now in possession of the gun. But Musa has demons of his own.

Characters haunted by ghosts and guilt, while vainly seeking meaning, God and redemption permeate the unusually structured dream piece by Rajiv Joseph whose play was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. “Speak, God, speak,” demands the Tiger, echoing the feelings of nearly all the characters before the evening is over.

The play has an admirably implicit anti-war tone. The marines are often not likeable, though plainly out of their element in the foreign environment, and ultimately as conflicted about their actions as the tiger’s ghost who regrets mauling a couple of children years before.

The entire cast, apart from Williams, took part in the play’s two engagements at the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles in 2009 and earlier this year, and they are all very fine. Brad Fleischer is the naïve, emotionally unstable marine; Davis is the tough one motivated by self-interest. Arian Moayed is the translator whose background – when it is finally revealed – is emblematic of the complex moral confusion of all the parties concerned.

Hrach Titizian plays two roles, including a malevolent ghost who haunts Musa, and suggests that the delineation of right and wrong is far from clear. Sheila Vand also does double-duty as disparate victims of the soldiers and the forces of Saddam respectively. Likewise, Necar Zadegan shows versatility in her two contrasting parts.

Williams, scruffy and bearded, admirably underplays his comic persona, though the tiger’s sardonic lines (at one point, he wryly describes himself as a “dead cat consigned to a burning city”) do elicit stronger laughter than perhaps intended. But the audience clearly wants to laugh at Williams, and it’s to his credit and that of director Moises Kaufman that once the gravity of the situations at hand is firmly established, they don’t.

Most of the other roles are larger than his, but Williams is an adept stage actor, with a commanding presence, and his work here still rates as an auspicious Broadway debut. And if his participation in such an important play – for so, I believe, the topical subject matter and the quality of Joseph’s script establish it to be -- help attract an audience, so much the better.

Technical credits are all impressive, starting with Derek McLane’s imaginative use of stage space, including a giant topiary that figures significantly in the second act. David Zinn’s apt costuming and David Lander’s atmospheric lighting coupled with the moody sound design by Acme Sound Partnes and Cricket S. Myers create a powerful ambiance.

The play occasionally loses focus, but on the whole, rates as first-rate theater. Certainly, under Kaufman’s taut direction, the pace never flags, even if several moments seem a tad overwrought. But there’s depth and poignancy here, and much to ponder when the curtain falls.

(Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46 St., 800 745 3000 or
www.ticketmaster.com)

Anything Goes (The Roundabout Theatre)

2011-04-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Years ago – on “The Dick Cavett Show” – legendary producer-director Jed Harris explained that in younger days, whenever he happened upon a particularly wonderful musical, nothing pleased him more than attending once a week, sitting in his favorite box. This was his nirvana. And the example he cited was, in fact, “Anything Goes.”

Watching the spanking revival mounted by Kathleen Marshall for the Roundabout, I know exactly how Harris felt. This show – in the expert version fashioned for the 1987 Patti LuPone revival at Lincoln Center by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman(adapted from the P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsey and Russel Crouse original) -- is pure pleasure.

The score is one of Porter’s best, and when it’s performed as well as it is here, why indeed look elsewhere?

The 1987 version – which wisely retains virtually every song from the original and the two Porter additions that have become de rigueur, “It’s De-Lovely” and “Friendship” – has been given a rejuvenating face-lift, with snazzy orchestrations by Bill Elliott, supplementing Michael Gibson’s already excellent ones, under Rob Fisher's musical supervision.

At the center of it all is the smashing Sutton Foster who, though unlike LuPone and the role’s originator Ethel Merman, wouldn’t seem a “natural” Reno Sweeney, her interpretation – a slinky blonde with confident swagger, a dollop of self-deprecating humor, and a dash of Mae West – are just what’s called for. And her singing, starting with her opening ballad, “I Get a Kick Out of You” and virtuoso dancing is really, to quote Mr. Porter, “the top.”

She is surrounded by a spot-on cast. There’s Joel Grey at the top of his present-day game as Moonface Martin, Public Enemy #13. John McMartin is a comic delight as the perennially tipsy stockbroker Elisha Whitney. Colin Donnell as Billy Crocker sports Don Draper good looks, a stylish voice and again, quoting Cole, an impressively “nimble tread.”

Laura Osnes follows her well-received Nellie Forbush with a lovely turn as ingénue Hope Harcourt, bringing real feeling and gorgeous tone to her character’s restored solo, “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye.” Jessica Walter scores as Hope’s upper-crust mother anxious to get Hope married to fuddy-duddy (but wealthy) Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. And he’s played by the terrific English actor Adam Godley who’s given so many fine, serious and funny performances at the National Theatre and elsewhere. He's a stitch fighting his losing battle with American slang.

Marshall works wizardry on all the musical numbers. The first act ends with the title song, an irresistible showstopper, which Marshall builds and builds, sending the audience to intermission in a semi-delirious state. We’re not far into the second act before she and Foster top themselves with “Blow Gabriel Blow.” That’s when evangelist Reno and her “four angels” sock over the song, drop their capes, and Foster is transformed into a sexy Cyd Charisse-like vamp, while the trumpets blare in the best down-and-dirty fashion. Marshall works in all the revivalist gestures you want in this sort of number, and again, the audience is bowled over. In both of those strenuous numbers, by the way, Foster’s breath control is amazing.

Marshall’s choreography is wonderfully inventive, not just in those big numbers but the more intimate ones like Grey’s sweet “Be Like the Bluebird” which he performs with a blue spotlight; “Friendship” for Foster and Grey, with its vaudeville-like series of false endings; “Buddy Beware,” sung (rather roughly) by Jessica Stone as gangster moll Erma who’s otherwise a hoot and six muscular sailors; and“The Gypsy in Me,” wherein Lord Evelyn finally lets his hair down and dances a torrid tango with Foster.

Derek McLane’s various shipboard settings are versatile and cheery. Martin Pakledinaz’s stylish duds are knockouts. And Peter Kaczorowski’s daytime, nighttime and interior lighting effects are all they should be.

I’m ready to book my Jed Harris box for the remainder of the (just extended) run!

(Stephen Sondheim Theatre, 124 W. 43rd St., 212-239-6200 or Telecharge.com)

The Motherf**ker with the Hat (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)

2011-04-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

In case you were wondering, yes, there is indeed plenty of the sort of language implied by the provocative title. But if you’re not the sort to be offended by a heavy dose of expletives, you’ll find Stephen Adly Guirgis’ new play to be a superbly constructed, finely acted, genuinely funny, and ultimately, deeply touching experience. It certainly ranks with the best plays of the season.

Jackie (spectacularly embodied by Bobby Cannavale) is a parolee who’s recently served a two-year prison term upstate and has now returned to his combustible girlfriend Veronica (Elizabeth Rodriguez) with whom he’s been in love since eighth grade. Their passion is real, and they obviously care for each other, her addiction to crack notwithstanding. He’s full of boisterous high spirits, especially as he’s just landed a job, as well as randy and ready for sex. But Veronica says she wants to shower first.

While he’s waiting expectantly for her to emerge, his cheerful lustiness comes to a screeching halt when he spies a man’s hat on the table across the room. He sniffs the sheets like a hound dog with a scent. Someone else has been in the bed. In a trice, a dark and dangerous mood descends. He rails at Veronica for her perfidy with the downstairs neighbor always seen with a hat. She heatedly denies the charge, and gives back as good as she gets.

Unconvinced, he seeks solace and counsel from his friend and AA sponsor Ralph D. (Chris Rock in his Broadway debut). The calm and unflappable Ralph – his own addictions behind him, by contrast with Jackie and Veronica’s abode, lives in an orderly apartment (versatile scene-shifting sets by Todd Rosenthal) with wife Victoria (Annabella Sciorra), who’s almost as feisty as Veronica. Ralph has replaced his former addictions with yoga, health food, French lessons and surfing in Far Rockaway. Ralph talks Jackie down from his murderous thoughts about the neighbor, and insists they pray together.

But after not taking Ralph’s sage advice, Jackie turns to his New Agey cousin Julio (hilariously campy Yul Vazquez). That’s the setup, but I won’t reveal anything further as the delicious and frequent surprises are among the special pleasures of Guirgis’ masterful style. Suffice to say, what follows is beautifully constructed, with unexpected events that unfold with great ingenuity.

Cannavale’s blazing performance is among the most impressive this season. His part is sharply written, but he plays every nuance to the hilt, encompassing a wide range of emotions. I can’t imagine Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire" making a stronger impact than Cannavale does here.

Rock also does fine work, though not on Cannavale’s exalted level, even allowing for his character being mild-mannered and more subtly shaded than Cannavale’s powder keg.

The women are also superb, and similarly contrasted. Rodriguez is a raging force of nature, but Sciorra shows her temperament in different ways, as we learn more about her less-than-ideal marriage.

Friendship, loyalty, fidelity, moral choices are among the themes in a play which, like Veronica, has a bountiful heart beneath its sordid and sometimes profane exterior. Guirgis’ rhythms and quirky dialogue are somewhat akin to those of Martin McDonagh’s best work. But his own voice is distinctive and the dialogue really crackles.

Rosenthal’s impressionistic set, Mimi O’Donnell’s costumes, and Donald Holder’s lighting are all first-rate

Director Anna Shapiro, who balanced the funny and bittersweet moments so well in “August: Osage County,” creates similar magic here.

(Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street, www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200)

Peter and the Starcatcher (New York Theatre Workshop)

2011-04-10T06:51:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

This adaptation of the first of Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s prequels to J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” is an imaginatively staged and predominantly humorous take on the book. With lines like “he's more elusive than a melody in a Philip Glass opera” and such, the creators are aiming to appeal to adults as much as, if not more than, youngsters. I noticed only a handful of kids at the evening performance I attended.

Adam Chanler-Berat plays the orphan boy who, in the course of the show, acquires the name Peter (and later Pan). It’s 1885, and together with his friends Prentiss (Carson Elrod) and Ted (David Rossmer), he’s being shipped off into slavery. But along the way, he encounters the resourceful Molly (Celia Keenan-Bolger) whose ambassador father Lord Aster (Karl Kenzler) on another ship has been entrusted with a trunk filled with priceless treasure.

Pirates and assorted villains (Matt D’Amico among them) intervene, including Captain Hook but then known as Black Stache (Steve Rosen at my performance, now alternating with the highly praised Christian Borle) and his assistant Smee (Kevin Del Aguila).

After much swashbuckling derring-do at sea, the youngsters find themselves on a tropical isle, run by an Italianate villain (Teddy Bergman) who plans to feed them to a giant crocodile, but by the time of the bittersweet conclusion, Peter is on his way to becoming the eternal youthful sprite we know, and Molly the future Mrs. Darling.

Rick Elice (of “Jersey Boys” and “The Addams Family” fame) has written the book adding puns and alliteration to ultimately wearying effect. Director Roger Rees, who made his name in the title part of RSC’s legendary “Nicholas Nickleby,” and clearly knows a thing or two about narrative storytelling, has collaborated with Alex Timbers of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.”

The result is something of an amalgam of those two earlier credits: a sometimes compelling yarn with actors assuming multiple roles (occasionally confusing) merged with “Andrew Jackson’s” jokey, sometimes groan-inducing puns (“You’ve made your bed, Pan” is one example), and a somewhat sophomoric tone.

As with Barrie’s original, there are some songs (by Wayne Barker), though not enough to categorize this as a musical any more than the original had been. Donyale Werle’s lovely Victorian proscenium frames the seafaring accoutrements of the first act, and blossoms into a lush island jungle setting in the second act. The latter opens with a chorus of (the all-but-one male cast) mermaids in drag casting their siren spell. Paloma Young’s period costumes have the requisite flair.

Speaking of cross-dressing, Arnie Burton is Mrs. Bumbrake, Molly's panto-style governess who’s smitten with boatman Alf (Greg Hildreth)

Keenan-Bolger is quite delightful as the serious-minded Molly trying to mask her adolescent stirrings for Peter, paralleling the Wendy-Peter dynamic of the Barrie version.

Throughout, there are hints of the future elements of “Peter Pan”: the conceit of clapping if you believe, the ticking clock inside the crocodile, and so on.

The play is nearly two and a half hours, and at the end of it all, the audience responded with a good-natured ovation. For my part, though appreciating the talent on stage and the resourcefulness of the staging, I’d have preferred a shorter evening, a less precious tone, and a generally straighter approach with less jokey and anachronistic humor.

(NYTW, 79 East 4th Street, www.ticketcentral.com or (212) 279-4200)

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Al Hirschfeld Theatre)

2011-04-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

With the last of the “Harry Potter” films in the can, Daniel Radcliffe continues to make really smart career moves, as he has, in fact, done all along between films. The Rudyard Kipling bio on “Masterpiece Theatre” (he played the writer’s son), the very moving “December Boys” film, the impressive stage debut in “Equus” on both sides of the Atlantic, and now, an honest-to-goodness classic Broadway musical.

It’s no surprise that he succeeds beautifully, demonstrating as window-washer-turned-young-executive J. Pierrepont Finch, that he's a confident singer, a nimble dancer (despite self-deprecating comments in the press to the contrary), a thoroughly engaging presence adept at a flawless American accent, including some long, tongue-twisting stretches of dialogue.

I found some of director Rob Ashford’s choreography overly busy. On the other hand, the “Grand Old Ivy” and “Brotherhood of Man” numbers are bona fide showstoppers, with Radcliffe really keeping up with the intricate moves and acrobatics.

John Larroquette – who amusingly towers over Radcliffe -- is also terrific as J.B. Biggley, World-wide Wicket Company president, at one point using a megaphone in homage to the part’s legendary originator, crooner Rudy Vallee.

Tammy Blanchard can play sweet (the film “Bella”) and sexy (Louise in Bernadette Peters’ “Gypsy”). As Hedy LaRue, Biggley’s va-va-voom but none-too-swift mistress, she gets to do both. Ellen Harvey is appropriately starchy but warm as Biggley’s secretary.

Rose Hemingway makes a sweet devoted Rosemary, and a good physical match for Radcliffe. Mary Faber is a funny bespectacled Smitty. And Michael Park, Nick Mayo, Cleve Asbury, and Rob Bartlett are excellent as various stepping stones on Ponty’s rise to the top. Bartlett has a nifty double turn as Twimble, the head of the mailroom, and at the end, as Wally Womper, the chairman of the board, and does well by the “Company Way” anthem.

As Biggley’s ambitious nephew (and Ponty’s nemesis) Bud Frump, Chistopher J. Hanke makes the part his nerdy and smarmy own. Anderson Cooper proves a fine choice for the voice of the narrator, giving a different spin than Walter Cronkite’s avuncular approach in the 1995 revival.

I wasn’t wild about Derek McLane’s modular honeycomb set at first, however period appropriate, but it grew on me as the evening progressed, and it proved its versatility during some of the split-level numbers.

Catherine Zuber’s 60s’s costumes pay obvious homage to “Mad Men” with Rosemary decked out like Elizabeth Moss’ Peggy, and Hedy La Rue sporting the Christina Hendricks’ Joan look.

Ashford’s puts his own distinctive stamp on the aforementioned numbers and the “I Believe in You” set-piece. In that men's room number, the executives enter in conspiratorial pairs with trench coats and fedoras as they sing about having to “stop that man” while Radcliffe shaves solo front and center. The number reminded me of Ashford’s excellent work in the Donmar Warehouse “Guys & Dolls.”

Another plus of the production is the restoration of material cut from the 1995 production, including “Cinderella Darling” where Smitty and Rosemary’s other secretary friends urge her to capture the “prince” (Smitty).

Though Broadway’s predecessors in the role, originator Robert Morse and revival lead Matthew Broderick were more seasoned performers when they played Finch, Radcliffe is pretty damn good, and his youth and natural appeal are further plusses.

The book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert is still one of Broadway’s most tightly constructed and funniest. Frank Loesser’s score is enjoyable as ever, even in Doug Besterman’s reduced orchestrations, and hearing it again makes a nice bookend to the recent Encores staging of his first hit, “Where’s Charley?”

(Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 West 45th Street, Telecharge.com or 212-239-6200.

The Book of Mormon (Eugene O’Neill Theatre)

2011-04-03T06:26:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Well, now. On the one hand, “The Book of Mormon” is clever, delightful, tuneful, and exceedingly sweet natured, as it charts the amusing story of two Mormon missionaries – the clean-cut made-for-success Elder Price (Andrew Rannells) and the portly, friendless Elder Cunningham (Josh Gad) – sent to northern Uganda to do missionary work for their church. It’s your typical buddy-movie setup set to song.

On the other, as you might expect from book, music, and lyric writers Trey Parker and Matt Stone – the creators of “South Park” – working in tandem with “Avenue Q” co-creator Robert Lopez – much of the humor is puerile with plenty of envelope-pushing language, and there’s an overall tone for which the word irreverent is a whopping understatement.

The book is never mean-spirited, however, with barbs aimed mostly at the Mormon sacred text (e.g. Prophet Joseph Smith, his receiving of the gold plates, etc.), rather than the more likely-to-outrage-the-masses Old or New Testaments. The Mormon characters themselves are presented as likable (if repressed, as in the very funny “Turn it Off” led by Rory O’Malley with ingenious choreography by co-director with Parker/choreographer Casey Nicholaw).

At the start of the show, the Mormon boys are paired up in teams and assigned a two-year missionary location. The shallow Price wants nothing more than to be assigned to Orlando, Florida, where he once had a blissful childhood holiday, while Cunningham – once he learns that Uganda in is Africa – presumes the place will be just like “The Lion King.” (The Disney extravaganza is spoofed hilariously at least twice here.)

But no, they find themselves in a poverty stricken village (and kudos to Scott Pask for his wonderful sets throughout; ditto Ann Roth’s costumes) where the residents live in the grip of AIDS and in fear of a notorious genocidal war lord with an outrageously vulgar name. Rape and genital mutilation are the order of the day, not generally the stuff of comedy or musicals.

After being spattered with the blood of a man shot in cold blood, the cockily confident Price decides he wants out of the whole business. Once he bails, the inept Cunningham has greatness thrust on him when local girl Nabulungi (the marvelous Nikki M. James) insists he is their only hope to salvation and what she imagines is the wondrous “Salt Lake City.”

The show’s creators have managed some delicious parodies of iconic Broadway and Hollywood musical moments including a deft reworking of Maria’s “I Have Confidence” from “The Sound of Music” and most wickedly “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” ballet in “The King and I.” The songs – not listed in the program -- are fun, if occasionally blasphemous, and spiritedly performed.

The cast is excellent. Besides the aforementioned leads, there’s fine work from Lewis Cleale, Michael Potts, Brian Tyree Henry, and the others

Hard as it is to dislike the show, given the engaging performers, the cleverness of the material, and the light-hearted tone, the nagging question remains whether making mockery of anyone’s religion is fair game. Just asking. The New York Times recently reported that the outward Mormon position on the show is one of nonchalance, and that some Mormons who have seen the show have found it insightful despite the ridicule.

Ultimately, the script does makes a point about the religion serving a primal need for a belief system, even if the fantastical stories are, well, merely metaphors. And yet even if it’s all fraudulent, somehow we humans can go on, strengthened by that belief. It’s something akin to “Make Your Garden Grow” spirit of Candide and Cunegonde at the end of Bernstein’s operetta.

(Eugene O’Neill Theatre, 230 W. 49th Street, 212-239-6200 or Telecharge.com)

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Palace Theatre)

2011-03-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Though technically one of those jukebox music so despised by all true musical aficionados, this adaptation of the 1994 Australian film -- already a smash success not only Down Under, but in London and Canada -- is solid entertainment, and features a superb performance by Tony Sheldon, who’s been with the production from the beginning. He accomplishes the what-might-have-been-thought impossible feat of equaling Terence Stamp’s impressive performance in the movie.

His Bernadette is one of three drag queens – Tick (Will Swenson) and Adam/Felicia (Nick Adams) are the others -- who leave their gig in Sydney to travel across the desert on their own bus (the titular Priscilla) to perform in distant Alice Springs. Tick has talked them into headlining at the club run by his ex-wife (Jessica Phillips). Of course, Felicia and Bernadette had known nothing of his previous alliance, and Tick keeps from them the fact that he has a young son (Ashton Woerz at my performance).

In the course of their journey, they encounter an assortment of colorful locals, including some pretty rough characters, and an empathetic middle-aged mechanic (C. David Johnson) and his uninhibited wife (J. Elaine Marcos), who outdoes the trio with her X-rated impromptu act.

The score is comprised totally of pop hits, used both as onstage numbers, and character songs. The show opens with “It’s Raining Men,” sung by the three celestial Divas who descend on clouds from above to comment on the action, or simply provide harmonious backup. And another drag performer does “What’s Love Got to Do with It” onstage in the Sydney club.

But when Will, alone in his dressing room, sings a heartfelt "I Say a Little Prayer" in tribute to his distant son, the audience titters. The familiar song strikes a false note in this context, and bodes ill for the rest of the evening. But happily, the songs that follow are far better chosen.

Much has been made of how the show has been made more palatable for American audiences, with family values taking precedence over the more outrageous elements. But, in fact, I found the show to be a faithful adaptation of the movie which always had, at heart, Tick’s needing to return home to his son. A more noticeable alteration is the downplaying of Aussie accents, at least from the film.

Still, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much better this is – as an adaptation – than “Legally Blonde,” which occupied the Palace stage not so long ago, and has now, unaccountably, picked up a slew of Olivier Awards for its London production.

I hope Douglas Hodge’s having won last year’s Tony for a similar role in “La Cage aux Folles” doesn’t undercut Sheldon’s chances this year, for he gives a truly great performance. Though Tick is ostensibly the leading character, and Swenson does fine work, as does Adams who completes the triumvirate with a good, audacious turn, Sheldon’s more textured Bernadette can’t help but dominate.

Simon Phillips directs the book by Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott at a lively clip, and the musical numbers come in fast profusion, with flashy choreography by Ross Coleman. I would have preferred a more nuanced sound palate than the over-amplified work designed by Jonathan Deans and Peter Fitzgerald, but at least the dialogue scenes are pitched at a more sensible level, and allow you to be fully absorbed in the story.

(Palace Theatre, Broadway & 47th Street, 877-250-2929 or Ticketmaster.com)

Arcadia (Ethel Barrymore Theatre)

2011-03-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Tom Stoppard’s heady mix of chaos theory, determinism, thermodynamics, and the like has returned to Broadway in a production by David Leveaux which met with great success in London a couple of years ago, albeit with a different cast.

“Arcadia,” like most of Stoppard’s work, makes its audiences feel, by turns, smarter and dumber for the experience, though the play’s sometime denseness is balanced by a crowd-pleasing romantic setup, and the compelling mystery at the core of its parallel track narratives, both set at a Derbyshire country house, one in 1809, and the other in the present.

The former involves the romantic complications of Septimus Hodge (Tom Riley), tutor to the young lady of the house, 13-year-old Thomasina Coverly (Bel Powley). The latter involves two academics, Hannah Jarvis (Lia Williams), who’s written a best-seller about Lady Caroline Lamb, and Bernard Nightingale (Billy Crudup), an academic determined to prove, despite scant proof, that Lord Byron was once involved in a fatal duel there.

There’s also Chloe Coverly (Grace Gummer), the comely young lady of the house smitten with Nightingale, and her brother Valentine Coverly (Raul Esparza), a math scholar, who is working on the same theories as the precocious Thomasina did a couple of centuries before. The work flips back and forth between time periods on the same set (designed on this occasion by Hildegard Bechtler), and gradually we learn the truth of the 19th century events.

The original 1993 production with Rufus Sewell, Samuel West, and Felicity Kendal at London’s National Theatre is the one by which all others must be measured. It was quite splendid and hard to beat in terms of production values and aptness of performances. The subsequent New York mounting at Lincoln Center was excellent, but less definitive.

The current production, though accomplished and enjoyable on its own terms, has an uneven quality. For one thing, audibility is sometimes a problem, starting with the high-pitched tones of the otherwise engaging Powley. Her fellow Brits Riley and Williams are solid (Riley, in particular, anchoring the production), as are, on the American side, Margaret Colin as Thomasina’s imperious mother, Lady Crooms, and Byron Jennings as gardener Noakes. And Noah Robbins, Eugene in the ill-fated Broadway revival of “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” has a nice turn as both 19th century Augustus, and present-day mute Gus.

Just a tad unconvincing are Crudup (Septimus in the Lincoln Center premiere), fine actor that he is, who struck me as overly mannered on this occasion (but then so was Bill Nighy in the original), and the versatile Esparza who handles Valentine's convoluted math monologue with aplomb, but never quite convinced me he was the character.

Leveaux directs with as much clarity as the idea-heavy text and present cast allow.

(Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

The Comedy of Errors (BAM Harvey Theater)

2011-03-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

For most of the first act, I feared Shakespeare was fighting a losing battle with over-the-top slapstick shenanigans and rather too much extraneous business.

But by Act 2, the visiting Propeller company’s South American-set riff on the Bard’s earliest comedy caught me in its crazy spell, especially when the frenetic misunderstandings surrounding two sets of twins separated at birth and now operating at cross purposes in the same town, reached fever pitch. And does it ever!

Propeller uses an all-male cast, not so much for camp effect (though Robert Hands as Adriana and Kelsey Brookfield as a va-va-va boom Courtesan certainly fit that bill), but in order to give present-day audiences something of the texture of the original female-deprived productions.

Getting back to the extraneous business, a faux mariachi band is a constant stage presence, and provides musical entertainment before and after the performance, and even in the lobby during the interval where, zanily, the strains of “Material Girl” mingle with more traditional Mexican rhythms. Leading the audience back for the second act, they chant an intentionally dopey mantra of “Julio Iglesias” and “Ricky Martin.” Finally, Dominic Tighe as the cheesiest of the singers (and the Officer in the actual play) serenades a lady in the front row with “The Girl from Ipanema.”

Most seemed to find the conceit fun, and a woman remarked to her companion as she made her way back to her seat, “That was the best intermission ever!” I confess I found it just a tad wearying.

In any case, though all this may have precious little to do with Shakespeare, it nonetheless provides an inventive backdrop to a generally accomplished reading of the text, some overly rushed and shouted passages notwithstanding.

The Bard based the play on Plautus, but we’re a long way from Ancient Rome here. The setting is said to be inspired by holiday package tours of the 1980s. I might not have figured that out without reading a background piece about artistic director Edward Hall’s intentions, but never mind.

Richard Clothier and John Dougall as the Duke of Ephesus and old Aegeon, the Syracuse merchant get things off to a traditional start, as the latter, arrested for daring to venture into enemy territory, relates how he was separated from his wife and one of his twin sons, both named Antipholus, during a shipwreck years before. And he also tells how their twin servants, each called Dromio, suffered a similar fate. Dougall recites his monologue with appropriate gravity.

But once the farcical mayhem begins – with Antipholus of Ephesus’ wife (Hands) mistaking the twin (Dugald Bruce-Lockhart) for her husband (Sam Swainsbury), and the former showing a romantic interest in her sister Luciana (David Newman) -- knockabout clowning prevails. That includes the confusion over some extended business about a gold chain delivered to the wrong Antipholus, driving the goldsmith and merchant to demand their payment.

Droll as the actors are, the characters of Luciana (comically plain) and the Lady Abbess (Chris Myles, done up as a dominatrix in a half nun’s outfit) are the chief casualties of the Propeller treatment as the romantic and sentimental aspects of their characters are seriously undercut.

But whatever your take on the company’s overall approach, there’s no denying the cast is extremely accomplished. Swainsbury’s rapid fire accounting of events is breathlessly funny. Hands gives the nagging Adriana considerable humanity beyond the belly laughs. Tony Bell as evangelical charlatan conjurer Pitch stops the show when he comes on to exorcise Antipholus, and improbably breaks into a gospel number. And the two Dromios (Richard Frame and Jon Trenchard) are amusing clowns who easily win the audience’s affection.

The final revelation scene – one of Shakespeare’s most protracted -- still touches the heart, confirming the essential integrity of Hall’s approach.

(BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., 718-636-4100 or BAM.org; through March 27)

(Photo: Julieta Cervantes; l.-r. Newman, Hands)

Cactus Flower (Westside Theatre/Upstairs)

2011-03-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

After reading some fairly tepid reviews for the Off-Broadway resurrection of Abe Burrows’ adaptation of Barillet and Gredy’s French stage hit, I think I can be forgiven for approaching Michael Bush’s production with dire foreboding.

But (surprise), though it may lack the polish of a slick Broadway retread – and the prospect of one should not be ruled out, considering the original with Lauren Bacall ran a staggering 1,234 performances! -- the property still demonstrates considerable appeal.

Right now, in fact, Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler can be seen on movie screens in “Just Go with It,” which is (read the fine print) nothing less than a reworking of “Cactus Flower.” As further testament to the appeal of Barillet and Gredy, the upcoming “Potiche” with Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu also originates from the pen of the prolific French playwrighting team.

You’ll recall that “Cactus Flower” is the story of Dr. Julian Winston (Maxwell Caulfield), a womanizing dentist and his long-term relationship with his good-hearted mistress Toni (Jenni Barber). Now, he’s finally decided he wants to marry her. The only problem is, he had originally told her that he was married with three kids to avoid commitment, and now Toni won’t accept his proposal unless she meets the wife, and hears for herself that the decision to divorce was mutual.

So Julian begs his starchy nurse Stephanie (Lois Robbins) to pose as the missus, and give Toni the assurance she needs. But Stephanie does, in fact, love him herself, and that fondness can’t help but shine through the charade when she dutifully visits Toni in the record shop where the latter works as a clerk. Empathetic Toni feels sorry for her, and, well, complications arise.

Those expecting a farce along the lines of “Boeing Boeing,” that other 60’s hit adapted from a French original, and seen a couple of seasons ago in Matthew Warchus’ smashing revival, will be disappointed. That was indeed a true farce in the door-slamming Feydeau manner. But no, this is better characterized as a romantic comedy.

The situations are amusing, rather than laugh-out-loud hilarious, at least not until the character-driven plot goes into high gear in the second act.

The cast knows what they’re about. I found Barber warmly sympathetic, channeling Goldie Hawn (her Oscar winner) just a tad, but creating her own character. Jeremy Bobb as Igor, Toni’s next-door writer neighbor who rescues her from a suicide attempt at the opening, is another bright spot. Brit Caulfield plays the philanderer well, and gets the American accent right. Robbins’ tart delivery helps you imagine what Broadway’s Lauren Bacall might have sounded like, and when the script calls for her to do so, she lets her hair down most enjoyably.

For all its entertainment value, this production does have the aura of a summer stock production about it, but a good one.

Anna Louizos’ set is attractive in a scaled-down way, and the scene changes are pretty deftly done, while 60’s hits blare forth, much as they did in Warchus’ “Boeing-Boeing.”

Beneath the lightweight goings on, there is actually some emotional substance, and a more savvy production might bring that into sharper relief. But this revival will do quite nicely until such a one comes along.

(Westwide Theatre/Upstairs, 407 W. 43rd St., 212-239-6200 or CactusFlowerOnStage.com)

That Championship Season (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre)

2011-03-13T17:51:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

All-star cast or not, Jason Miller 1972 Pulitzer Prize-wining play – which also won the Tony and Drama Critics Circle Awards – somehow has been rendered pretty unremarkable in Gregory Mosher’s current revival.

The five leads are accomplished enough, and yet, everyone seems to be dutifully going through the paces without truly inhabiting the roles. As a result, the parts seem more like cardboard characters than before.

This is the story of four members of a high school basketball team meeting at the home of their beloved, now terminally ill, Coach (Brian Cox) on the 20th anniversary of their victory. There’s George (Jim Gaffigan), the town’s corrupt and inept mayor hoping for reelection against a Jewish opponent; Phil (Chris Noth), the millionaire strip-mining businessman whom George hopes will bankroll his campaign; James (Kiefer Sutherland), the downtrodden school principal and George’s campaign manager who’s tired of playing second banana to George; and Tom (Jason Patric), James’ alcoholic writer brother.

Racial epithets, anti-Semitism, sexist remarks and plenty of cussing abound, in a way that was probably once shocking, but less so now that David Mamet and others have utilized four-letter words to more dramatically pungent effect.

In strictly by-the-numbers fashion, secrets are revealed, festering resentments come to the fore, and shouting matches turn to physical violence, particularly when it is revealed that Phil had a fling with George’s wife. Yet, by the end of the evening, the Coach is still going on about how they once gave “this defeated town something to be proud of.”

“24” star Sutherland in an impressive change of pace as the sad-sack functionary, and Patric, playwright Miller’s son, delivers Tom’s caustic remarks with apt bitterness, and takes a quite spectacular drunken tumble down the staircase at one pivotal point.

Noth’s initial bravado skillfully turns into tearful vulnerability, and Gaffigan believably inhabits his amoral character. The Scottish Cox – though utilizing, as he’s done before, an impressive American accent – can’t stop his native cadence from occasionally slipping through, detracting from authenticity of this blustering man who idolized both Teddy Roosevelt and Joe McCarthy.

Michael Yeargan’s Scranton, Pa. set conveys the proper conventional, somewhat dreary, suburban tone.

Young as I was when I saw the original, I recall “That Championship Season” as a highpoint of my early theater-going. Though everyone is rightly saying how dated the play now seems, and goodness knows, long stretches of it certainly telegraph as excessively talky and clunky, I'm going to hang onto the belief that in different hands, the play’s original quality and power might still evident.

(Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200 or Telecharge.com)

Skellig (Birmingham Stage Company)

2011-03-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

The Birmingham Stage Company’s production of David Almond’s award-winning novel about a 10-year-old boy who discovers an arthritic derelict in his parents’ dilapidated garage, is being seen in a very fine production at the New Victory Theatre. But it only runs through Sunday, so you’ll have to hurry.

Almond first dramatized his work for a 2003 Trevor Nunn production, and his novel has already been adapted as an opera and a 2009 TV film. The book received the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award, won a CILIP Carnegie Medal, and was judged one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years.

Michael’s prematurely born baby sister is gravely ill, prompting fears of death and loneliness, and somehow Michael’s anxieties about the future dovetail with his secret discovery of the stranger in the garage. He makes friends with the free-spirited home-schooled Mina whose mother (Ellen Callender) has raised her on William Blake. Michael eventually turns to the resourceful Mina for advice when Michael’s father (Colin R. Campbell) announces his intention to raze the garage.

Both father and mother (Charlotte Palmer) are absorbed in the fate of their infant, but are not unmindful of what young Michael’s apprehension.

I won’t reveal how the narrative unfolds, but this is a very moving, mystical story, beautifully acted all around. Almond has a uniquely compassionate world view, and though the story may be targeted for children, make no mistake: the story and presentational style are completely absorbing for an adult audience.

The performances here are uniformly excellent. The enigmatic Skellig is played by Birmingham Stage Company Manager Neal Foster, who handles the multifaceted aspects of his character with aplomb. Michael and Mina are played by older actors Dean Logan and Charlotte Sanderson, rather like the young characters in “Blood Brothers,” and they are both extremely touching.

Jak Poore’s music is played by the cast members, much like a John Doyle production. Jacqueline Trousdale’s ingenious set, anchored by the imposing junk heap of a garage, effectively delineates Michael’s public and interior worlds.

Phil Clark directs with fluidity and imagination. There were rather more adults than youngsters at my performance, but there was nary a peep from the latter during either of the acts, the ultimate compliment. Adults could be heard sniffling towards the end, however.

The production is a gem, too good really for its short run.

(New Victory Theatre, 209 W. 42nd St., 646-223-3010 or http://www.newvictory.org; through March 13)

Good People (Manhattan Theatre Club)

2011-03-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

David Lindsay-Abaire, currently represented onscreen by a superb adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Rabbit Hole,” has come up with another winner in “Good People,” an enjoyable play with many of the same attributes as “Other Desert Cities”: a well-constructed, old-fashioned (in the best sense) play with juicy roles that make its cast shine.

And though comparisons are famously odious, I find Lindsay-Abaire’s plot much more absorbing than the Jon Robin Baitz work.

Topping a first-rate cast is Frances McDormand as Margaret, a South Boston cashier who’s been reluctantly fired for frequent lateness by her young boss Stevie (Patrick Carroll), though he’s known her all his life and is fond of her.

She pleads for another chance, as she’s usually detained only because of caring for her adult, mentally challenged daughter. But pressured by his superior, Stevie has no choice but to let her go.

When her friend Jean (Becky Ann Baker) runs into Margie’s old high school flame Mike (Tate Donovan), now a doctor, Margie is persuaded to visit his office and plead for a job, which she does with her characteristic aggressiveness.

When Mike honestly tells her there’s nothing available in his office, she needles him about having pulled himself out of the Southie environment into “lace curtain” society. He denies it, but it’s clearly a sore point.

Eventually, encouraged by her friend Jean and landlady Dottie (Estelle Parsons), both bingo-playing buds (and both of these actresses are terrific), she elbows her way into Mike’s posh Chestnut Hill house which he shares with his younger wife Kate (Renée Elise Goldsberry). Lindsay-Abaire sets the stage for confrontation but nicely avoids the predictable.

McDormand is just superb, Southie accent and all, capturing both the likable and less-than-admirable aspects of Margie. Donovan and Goldsberry skillfully telegraph the troubled undercurrent beneath their seemingly congenial marriage. And Carroll brings a likable quality to Margie’s bingo-playing ex-boss.

Daniel Sullivan’s sharp direction, John Lee Beatty’s contrasting Southie and Chestnut Hill sets, and David Zinn’s costumes are spot-on.

(Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th Street, 212-239-6200 or www.Telecharge.com)

The Vagabond King (Light Opera of New York)

2011-02-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

The plucky Light Opera of New York continued its second full season with Rudolf Friml’s once enormously popular swashbuckling tunefest “The Vagabond King,” and as with its season opener, “The Desert Song,” succeeded beyond expectation – despite modest resources --in putting over an ambitious piece with aplomb.

For those unfamiliar with the piece, either through its rarely-screened movie versions or infrequent revivals (Village Light Opera Group and Light Opera of Manhattan’s 70’s productions were the last local ones I recall), it’s the fictionalized story of Francois Villon, the 15th century poet and thief, his wooing of Louis XI’s cousin Katherine De Vaucelles, his promotion to Grand Marshall and then elevation to “king for a day,” and finally, his audacious defense of France against the invading forces of the Duke of Burgundy.

The musical is based on Justin Huntley McCarthy’s novel and subsequent play “If I Were King,” itself memorably filmed with Ronald Colman.

“Someday,” “Love Me Tonight,” and “Only a Rose” continue to be staples of the operetta concert repertoire (or what’s left of it today), and they were superbly sung here by Kristin Vogel and Nathan Brian as the noble heroine and roguish hero. The voices blended beautifully, and they gave as good as accounting of those numbers as I’ve ever heard, and did well dramatically, too.

After camping it up as the comic Benny in “The Desert Song,” the versatile Brian proved a solid leading man on this occasion. Vogel conveyed Katherine’s regality and poise impressively, thinly written though the role is.

Erick Castille – the Red Shadow of “The Desert Song” – made an atypically youthful monarch, usually referred to in the original script as “old King Louis,” but his casting helped underscore the triangular romantic setup. Tenor Matthew Hughes as Rene made the most of his “My dear old mother” solo in the opening chorus.

Sarah Best was well cast as the lusty Huguette who selflessly loves Villon, and delivered a solid “Love for Sale,” though she seemed to hold back in her second act “Huguette Waltz.”

David Macaluso was amusing as Villon’s comic sidekick Tabarie, and vocalized the first act drinking song with panache. Later, he and Michael McAvoy provided one of the score’s lighter moments in their comic serenade to Lady Mary (Katie Hall).

With a couple of exceptions, most of the cast projected well in the cavernous church venue, though there were some complaints about audibility from the back rows.

As usual, Lydia Gladstone – who just finished a stint as FDR’s mother in Rodgers & Hart’s “I’d Rather Be Right” at Musicals Tonight – provided the very attractive costumes.

Gary Slavin directed with the customary style he’s brought to all these LOONY productions, and Stephen Vasta’s piano accompaniment and musical direction of the five-piece String CollectiveNYC went a long way to making one forget the presence of a full-sized orchestra. Similarly, the chorus of eight made a surprisingly full-bodied sound.

The production was not quite as faithful to the original text or score as “The Desert Song” had been, but adapter Alyce Mott’s tasteful condensation made perfect sense for a reduced staging such as this, and even with trimming, it was a very full evening.

Despite its popularity, I’ve always deemed “The Vagabond King” far less potent than the major Romberg works of the era, like “The Student Prince” (coming up, incidentally, on May 19), not to mention Friml’s own “Rose-Marie” with the latter’s innovative use of underscoring. But LOONY’s enjoyable production made a good case for it.

(Landmark on the Park, 76th St. and Central Park West, 866-811-4111 or www.LightOperaOfNewYork.org; February 17 only)

Other Desert Cities (Lincoln Center Theater)

2011-02-06T16:44:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Jon Robin Baitz’s “Other Desert Cities” is being heralded as the great American drama of the day in some quarters. In truth, while it is indeed a literate and often witty work – and you won’t see better performances in town than those offered by the five superlative actors who comprise the cast – I felt it doesn’t quite live up to all the huzzahs.

Never could I really lose myself in the domestic situation on view, though what transpires would only seem to be an allegory for a country in the grip of fear during the Bush administration.

What's on the surface is Brooke (Elizabeth Marvel), the emotionally troubled daughter of an old-guard Republican Palm Springs couple Polly and Lyman Wyeth (Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach). She’s a former screenplay writer, he an actor-turned G.O.P. ambassador. Both were intimates of the Reagans.

Brooke – divorced and recently recovered from a nervous breakdown -- has, she reveals, written a memoir about the suicide of her radicalized brother after he was party to a deadly bombing. On the occasion of a Christmas Eve gathering, circa 2004,she's hoping to get her parents' blessing. Knopf is already contracted to print it, and the New Yorker magazine is set to run an excerpt the following month. The revelation is met with shock, astonishment, and ultimately, anger by Polly and Lyman.

Brooke’s reality TV show producer brother Trip (Thomas Sadoski) and alcoholic aunt Silda Polly’s sister and screenwriter screenwriting partner Silda (Linda Lavin) offer, respectively, placating and caustic commentary from the sidelines.

Joe Mantello’s direction is all one could wish, drawing your attention to the detailed actions of each of his virtuoso players moment by moment. But the artifice of the setup is always apparent – or so it seemed to me -- and after a while, the bickering about whether Brooke should or should not publish her book, seems trivial and grows tiresome, even though capped with a satisfying, if melodramatic, twist.

Playing the loving but all-controlling matriarch, Channing delivers one of her very finest performances, and she knocks her stinging lines right out of the park even time. Keach is also superb, effortlessly inhabiting his authoritative role, and believably cracking under the strain of the situation. Lavin makes Silda a touching creature, both vulnerable and wise. Marvel shows the hurt that drives Brooke to betray the family’s secrets, while Sadoski skillfully shows the myriad layers beneath the unflappable exterior.

These performances and Baitz’s smart dialogue, stagy though it may be, are enormously enjoyable, even if the matter at hand is less than profound.

John Lee Beatty’s coolly affluent setting, David Zinn’s character-defining costumes, and Kenneth Posner’s revealing lighting are all tops.

(Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse, 150 W. 65th St., 212-239-6200 or www.lct.org; through February 27)

The Importance of Being Earnest (Roundabout Theatre Company)

2011-01-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Brian Bedford’s production of Oscar Wilde’s most enduring play is a winner in all departments, and ranks as one of the work's most satisfying revivals in recent times. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a finer production. Don’t be tempted to dismiss the Roundabout’s staging as just “another ‘Earnest,’” for it is one of the first order, a delight from start to finish.

Desmond Heeley’s sumptuous sets and costumes signal a classy production, as indeed it is, with the cast to a person matching the visual delights.

Bedford himself is a delicious Lady Bracknell, playing it straight (as it were) with dry, understated readings that owe nothing to Edith Evans indelible portrayal immortalized in the classic film. His exclamation about the handbag, and his accusatory call for “Prism” are all his own, and as rib-tickling funny as they’ve ever been.

The incredibly versatile Santino Fontana, happily recovered from the injury that necessitated his dropping out of “A View from the Bridge” during previews, make a delightfully campy Algernon, the polar opposite of his Drama Desk-winning turn in "Brighton Beach Memoirs."

David Furr as his older friend Jack, who falls for Algernon’s ward Cecily, is well contrasted, a straight man to the impish Algy, but every bit as much the mischievous bachelor.

Sara Topham and Charlotte Parry as Gwendolen and Cecily respectively, the former grandly arch, the latter not half so demure as her tutor Miss Prism thinks. Their second act bitch fest with each thinking she is courting the same man, as the men have each claimed to be called Ernest, is played to the hilt.

Dana Ivey as Cecily’s not-so-prim tutor with a romantic hankering for the Rev. Chasuble played by Paxton Whitehead as the clueless Rev. Chasuble also offer gems of characterization.

Bedford directs the whole with just the right tone of absolute sincerity, as it should be, with the comedy emerging all the droller for it.

(American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org)

The Company Men (The Weinstein Company)

2011-01-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, and Kevin Costner head a solid cast in a film that powerfully conveys the devastating effects of layoffs in today's depressed economy, written and directed with intelligence and sensitivity by ER's John Wells.

Read my review for America here.

(Rated R by the MPAA for language and brief nudity.)

Blue Valentine (The Weinstein Company)

2010-12-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Much as one can admire the work of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple at the beginning and (possibly) end of their six-year relationship, this intentionally murky scenes from a marriage which toggles back and forth in time is more frustrating than enthralling.

As the story unfolds so meticulously by degrees, almost any plot description might spoil the pleasure of the revelations such as they are. But suffice to say, at the film’s start, couple Dean and Cindy are married with a young daughter. Frankie (Faith Wladyka). Cindy’s a medical technician; he’s a house painter.

Though it’s clear that director Derek Cianfrance and his fellow screenplay writers Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne has striven mightily to keep the two protagonists in balance, I’d say Gosling still emerges as the more empathetic character by far, both by dint of the actor’s personal charm, and his character’s apparent devotion to his wife and child.

As Cindy expresses ever increasing frustration with him, his biggest sin – apart from perhaps drinking too much -- would appear to be lack of professional ambition, whereas her increasing sense of discontent seems ill-founded.

The film achieved some notoriety when the MPAA slapped it with an NC-17, though it’s since been edited to R specifications. There still remain a couple of graphic sex scenes (only one involving Gosling), but they’re reasonably organic to the story.

The ending is somewhat open-ended, or at least that’s how I saw it, but on the whole, I thought the narrative has too many holes and contrivance to seem totally convincing.

The early scenes were shot in super 16MM - and the present in extreme close-up using two red cameras -- but the filmic texture of those processes notwithstanding, it is Gosling’s hairstyle that provides the clearest clue as to which time period is presently on view.

(Rated Rated R on appeal for strong graphic sexual content, language, and a beating; originally rated NC-17 for a scene of explicit sexual content.)

The Fighter (Paramount Pictures/Relativity Media)

2010-12-29T15:58:00.001-08:00

By Harry Forbes

“The Fighter” is the gritty true life story of boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) who, after losing a series of fights, has the chance at the World Championship but is handicapped by his overbearing manager mother (Melissa Leo) and his drug-addicted half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) who serves as his trainer. The blue-collar setting is Lowell, Mass.

Dicky, a former boxer himself, once shared the ring with Sugar Ray Robinson (though he lost), and is now a ne’er-do-well who runs off to a crack house at every opportunity, and eventually, after a violent encounter with the police, ends up in prison.

Micky’s barmaid girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams) urges him to break with his family which also includes nine (count ‘em!) sisters, seemingly all as ferocious as their mother, but ultimately, Micky comes to learn that he needs his wayward brother’s expertise and the support of his family, for all their flaws.

Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson’s screenplay is as much a sordid domestic drama as it is a boxing picture, so be warned: the family squabbles are pretty relentless. Mother Alice is one tough cookie, though her bravado is scarily entertaining.

The downbeat milieu notwithstanding, the film is not without humor, and ultimately it becomes a story of redemption, sending you forth with a feeling of uplift.

Performances are first-rate. Wahlberg proves again what a solid actor he’s become, and his fight scenes are totally convincing. He's the relatively calm center of the scenery-chewing histrionics around him.

A gaunt Bale has a much flashier role, and he truly inhabits the unruly Dicky. Leo impresses anew as the harridan mother. And Adams’ atypically tough portrayal, far removed from her more ladylike roles in “Enchanted” and “Julie & Julia,” is also outstanding.

David O. Russell directs the personal drama and the ring scenes with equal flair.

(This film has been rated R by the MPAA for language throughout, drug content, some violence and sexuality.)

Rabbit Hole (Lionsgate)

2010-12-25T12:14:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

If you were to avoid the adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play fearing its downbeat theme – a couple, Becca and Howie, coping with the sudden death of their four-year-old son several months earlier – you’d be missing one of the year’s best.

For starters, Nicole Kidman gives an absolutely extraordinary performance – as did Cynthia Nixon in the play, for that matter – and for Kidman, this is one of her finest portrayals in a career full of them. And Aaron Eckhart is also spectacular as her spouse, futilely trying to bring their lives back to normal. Without outward signs of conventional grief, it’s clear these two have lost their purpose in life, and simply don’t know what to do with themselves.

The film is one of the best depictions of the grief process shown on screen, and even as it ends on a hopeful note, there’s nothing contrived or false about how that is achieved.

Howie tries to find solace in a sympathetic woman (Sandra Oh) from his bereavement group, while Becca (Kidman) – most interestingly -- reaches out to the quiet and sensitive teenager (Miles Teller) responsible for her child’s death.

Lindsay-Abaire’s screenplay – nicely opened up from the stage -- is so deftly constructed so that even this simple plot description contains some spoilers best experienced moment by moment as he shows us the couple’s predicament by subtle degrees.

John Cameron Mitchell directs with the utmost sensitivity to the subject matter.

There’s fine work, too, from Dianne Wiest as Becca’s mother, who has experienced loss herself; and Tammy Blanchard as Becca’s sister. But it’s Kidman, whose low-keyed, superbly natural performance blows you away.

The film has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for mature thematic material, some drug use and language.)

Black Swan (Fox Searchlight)

2010-12-25T10:31:00.001-08:00

By Harry Forbes

The buzz you’ve been hearing about Natalie Portman is true. As a ballerina slowly unraveling as she rehearses for her first starring role in “Swan Lake” at New York’s Lincoln Center, she gives a compelling, multi-faceted performance.

But the framework around her -- a luridly melodramatic story involving an overbearing, ex-ballerina mother (Barbara Hershey), a sexually predatory choreographer (Vincent Cassel), an embittered fading star (Winona Ryder), and a sluttish rival (Mila Kunis) – is predictably clichéd.

The film derives its title from the ballet’s dual central part – the good Odette and the evil Odille – the latter presenting Portman’s character with its greatest challenge. She can handle the good character with aplomb, but worries about the sensuality and duplicity of the latter eluding her, particularly with Cassel’s character feeding her insecurity on that score.

Mind you, the ballet setting is intriguing and not a little exotic, but there’s none of the artful visual composition or detailed plotting and ballet world atmosphere of Powell and Pressburger’s “The Red Shoes,” a film to which some have wrongly made flattering comparisons. This is not to say that the direction of Darren Aronofsky (“The Wrestler”) is lacking in flair, but it strikes me as flash with little substance.

“Black Swan” is rarely tedious and there are some twists, but the payoff is less than satisfying, and even then, not adequately explained in the script credited to Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin.

There’s a curiously trashy ambiance throughout, including a gratuitously graphic lesbian encounter between Portman and Kunis.

Still, Portman holds your interest and earns your sympathy, and even allowing for some cinematic doubling, convincingly executes her dance movements.

(The film has been rating R for strong sexual content, disturbing violent images, language and some drug use.)

True Grit (Paramount Pictures)

2010-12-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

The Coen brothers have done right by Charles Portis’ 1968 novel, already famously filmed in 1969, when it garnered an Oscar for John Wayne. The present version is, well, grittier, and truer in spirit to Portis’ vision.

The story of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who hires a dissolute Marshall (Rooster Cogburn) to help her locate and bring her father’s killer Chaney (Josh Brolin) to justice in post-Civil War Arkansas continues to exert an irresistible appeal

Jeff Bridges has a field day with John Wayne’s role of the boozing Rooster Cogburn, though I sometimes found his dialogue a bit unintelligible for all its grizzled ripeness.

Matt Damon, whose natural good looks can make you forget his skill as a fine character actor, is also outstanding as the garrulous Texas Ranger also on Chaney’s trail who joins up with the duo as they venture into Indian Territory to find the miscreant. He gives the role far more substance and humor than Glen Campbell’s rather generic interpretation in the earlier film.

And Steinfeld is a younger heroine than Kim Darby, making her courage, determination and resourcefulness all the more striking. And a coda to the main narrative with Mattie now an adult (Elizabeth Marvel) gives added substance.

Brolin’s role is short, but vividly characterized. Barry Pepper is well cast as outlaw Lucky Ned, the leader of Chaney’s gang, who runs into the Mattie’s posse midway through the film.

The look and feel of the film is far more atmospheric than the earlier version which today has the somewhat flat look of a made-for-TV movie.

(The film has been rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing image.)

The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company)

2010-12-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Colin Firth will almost surely get his second Oscar nomination in a row (after last year's "A Single Man"). But then, co-star Geoffrey Rush and many others connected with this fine film are also likely contenders.

Here's my review at "America."

(The film has been rated R by the MPAA for some language.)

Driving Miss Daisy (Golden Theatre)

2010-11-26T07:25:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Twenty-three years after its Off-Broadway premiere, “Driving Miss Daisy” remains a thoroughly absorbing, deeply moving theatrical experience.

And how especially could it be otherwise with Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones, and Boyd Gaines, all in peak form? I don’t believe any of them has ever been better.

In a series of short scenes spanning 1948 through 1972, Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play charts the relationship between Daisy Werthan (Redgrave), an independent-minded Jewish ex-schoolteacher, now a well-to-do widow, and the humble chauffeur Hoke (Jones) whom her son Boolie (Gaines) hires for her when she can no longer drive.

Initial wariness bordering on downright hostility gives way to growing dependency and ultimately profound friendship.

It’s a pleasure to see Redgrave in such a vital, feisty role after the heaviness of “The Year of Magical Thinking” and “Long Day’s Journey into Night” for there is a good deal of humor in the part.

Chief among the lighter moments is the scene where she confronts Hoke about the salmon he consumed without permission holding the can accusingly aloft with her long arm – all the while pointing to the wastebasket where he had discarded it – only to be completely deflated when she learns why her suspicion was ill-founded.

And we’re so accustomed to seeing Jones in authoritative roles it’s rather fascinating to see him take on such a docile, obsequious one, though one possessed of great inner strength and dignity.

Far from being outshone by those two pros, Gaines offers a richly textured portrayal of the go-between son far transcending what could be a merely functional role. This actor continues to amaze season after season with his great versatility.

It’s incredibly poignant to watch Redgrave and Jones at this stage of their careers, particularly in a play that has as much to do with aging as it does social issues and civil rights. Redgrave’s “Blow-Up” and “Camelot” and Jones’ “Great White Hope” and "Othello" may not seem to us who remember exactly like yesterday, but certainly not so very long ago.

Don’t miss the chance to see them together in this tear-jerking but also, grandly entertaining, vehicle.

(Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St., Telecharge.com or 212-239-6200)

Utopia Limited (New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players)

2010-11-23T11:49:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Until the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company mounted a concert version in 1975, and London/Decca Records subsequently recorded it, “Utopia Limited,” Gilbert & Sullivan’s next-to-last collaboration, was a true rarity.

Since that recording, “Utopia” has gradually gained a footing among G&S societies and operetta groups like Ohio Light Opera and NYGASP itself. But its appeal is still specialized enough to warrant only a one-night mounting, albeit in semi-staged form. Attractively costumed (by Gail J. Wofford), it was, in fact, not far removed from a full production. There was even a 27-piece orchestra on stage if largely hidden from view.

Company director Albert Bergeret’s staging did little to improve the essential static quality of the first act wherein the premise of a tropical isle deciding to model itself along the lines of a British company limited is laid out, and a series of English dignitaries – the so-called “Flowers of Progress” (Michael Galante, Cameron Smith, Quinto Ott, Richard Alan Holmes, Michael Connolly, David Macaluso)-- explain (in song) how things work back home.

The second half – with its hugely infectious and atypical (for G&S) minstrel number and more emphasis on the romantic couplings of King Paramount’s newly Anglicized daughters -- was far more animated.

Among a highly proficient cast, there were some standouts. Holmes has sung Goldbury’s songs at NYGASP and sundry other New York venues, and owns the role, his renditions virtually definitive. The jaunty quartet Goldbury does with Lord Dramaleigh (Galante) and Nekaya (Sarah Caldwell Smith) and Kalyba (Amy Helfer) was a special delight.

David Wannen’s Paramount was imposing and clearly sung. Erika Person brought a dignified presence and creamy tone to her numbers. Laurelyn Watson Chase had the vocal chops for Princess Zara’s demanding vocal line, and Smith, contrary to the lyric of his comic second act opener very much “did himself justice.”

NYGASP veterans Stephen O’Brien and Stephen Quint did their best with scheming Scaphio and Phantis’s tiresome comic business, while Ott made a resonant Captain Corcoran.

The aforementioned minstrel number was superbly staged with intricate choreography by David Auxier, who provided modestly graceful dances elsewhere.

Bergeret conducted stylishly, as always, the music slightly muted in the dry Symphony Space acoustic. But, on the whole, the singers had presence.

Some of Bergeret’s alterations to the text (co-credited to Holmes) were hokey or groan-inducing (a bit of double entendre concerning “Cox and Box,” for one), though the second act drawing room set piece staged, not simply with fashionably-gowned young ladies, but as a procession of G&S characters, was a cute, unobjectionable touch.

“The Yeomen of the Guard” and “Trial by Jury” (the latter sharing the bill with assorted G&S goodies) will be heard on December 5 and March 20 respectively, while the ever-popular “The Mikado” runs December 29 through January 2.

(The Peter J. Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space, 2535 Broadway, (212) 864-5400 or www.nygasp.org or www.symphonyspace.org.)

Photo credit: William Reynolds

The Pee-Wee Herman Show (Stephen Sondheim Theatre)

2010-11-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

I must confess that, until recently on YouTube, I hadn’t watched a minute of Pee-Wee (aka Paul Reubens) Herman ‘s 1980’s CBS show, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” so I can only take his new show at face value. Surrounded by screaming fans who relished every silly moment, I found the show to be, if not quite theater in the traditional sense, certainly a canny resurrection of the series and its well-preserved star.

There was not a child to be seen in the audience, but the now-adult fans that made up the very full house were totally in the moment, laughing with Pee-Wee, never at him.

Reubens – looking very much the same as his 80’s self – still projects that sweet, impishly naughty persona. All the beloved characters from the show are here – Chairy, Sergio, Cowboy Curtis, Globey, etc. -- and three of them are recreated by the original players, including Lynne Marie Stewart as Miss Yvonne, John Moody as Mailman Mike, and John Paragon as Jambi.

Reubens’ biggest single set-piece involves blowing up and slowly deflating a balloon which emits a variety of rude and funny sounds, but his well-honed persona -- not perhaps on the rarefied level of, say, Chaplin’s Little Tramp, but classic in its way -- imbues every moment

Some of the material (book by Reubens and Bill Steinkellner, with additional material by Pargaon) is mildly racy, with some very subtle allusions to Ruben’s unfortunate run-in with the law, but nothing to offend should an actual youngster be in the house.

David Korins’ child-friendly set and Ann Closs-Farley’s amusing costumes – based on the original designs -- are right on the money. Basil Twist’s clever puppetry is another plus.

The proceedings are slickly directed by the eclectic Alex Timbers, writer and director of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.”

Outsider to all this that I am, I can’t say I was heartbroken when the 90 intermission-less minutes came to an end. But after seeing it, I was, at least, able to understand something of the appeal of both the show and Reubens himself, and it was rather lovely to see the crowd embrace him so warmly throughout the evening.

(Stephen Sondheim Theatre, 124 W. 43rd St., Telecharge.com or 212-239-6200)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2010-11-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

On the plus side, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” bears all the quality hallmarks of the six films that preceded it. This has been a classy series from the get-go.

And as the series nears its conclusion with this penultimate chapter, one must admire again the prescience of the casting directors who picked Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson to play Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger respectively in the first place.

These three have developed most impressively, along with their characters, their acting prowess ever more skillful with each new installment.

On the other hand, perhaps because J.K. Rowling’s sprawling concluding novel has been accorded the luxury (and money-making potential) of two longish films, director David Yates’ pacing here is rather leisurely, to put it kindly.

So, too, the whole feel of the film is different than the others, requiring a definite mental adjustment. It takes place, not at Hogwarts, but largely in the woods and myriad dreary London locations. Harry must, at all costs, stay hidden from the evil Lord Voldemort and his cohorts, the Death Eaters, who are now in control of not only Hogwarts but the Ministry of Magic.

Voldemort now only needs to annihilate Harry – the Chosen One -- for complete domination. Harry and his friends, for their part, must destroy the Horcruxes which contains parts of Voldemort’s soul and thus his immortality.

As they eke out a fairly dreary existence in the forest, Ron begins to resent his role in protecting Harry, who is also jealous of the puppy-love vibes he intuits between Harry and Hermione, leading to a serious rift among the close friends.

Voldemort – in the person of Ralph Fiennes – puts in an early appearance in the film’s opening and most fearsome sequence, which leaves no doubt of his dastardly intent. Though they have scant screen time, the other big British thespians are back, too, this time joined by Bill Nighy as the Minister of Magic and Rhys Ifans as Luna’s father.

Despite dullish patches, the film is obviously essential viewing for what will undoubtedly be a bang-up finale when Part II is released next summer.

(This film has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for some sequences of intense action violence, frightening images and brief sensuality.)

Elf (Al Hirschfeld Theatre)

2010-11-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Though it might be tempting to dismiss this musicalization of the 2003 Will Ferrell comedy as a mere holiday trifle for the tourist trade, “Elf” proves a quite delightful, “real” musical, old-fashioned in the best sense, with much to offer.

Sebastian Arcelus is outstanding as the Farrell character Buddy, an orphan raised by Santa Claus (George Wendt. When Buddy learns he's not an elf, but human, he journeys from the North Pole to New York to find his birth father, a humorless publisher Walter (Mark Jacoby) now, after the death of Buddy’s mother, married to Emily (Beth Leavel). Their young son Michael (Matthew Gumley) doesn't believe in Santa Claus.

Buddy, green elf duds and all, ingratiates himself into the family – and Walter’s business – ultimately teaching everyone the true meaning of Christmas.

Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin, composer and lyricist respectively of the underrated musical version of “The Wedding Singer,” has written some very catchy tunes and often witty lyrics, and there are several showstoppers in an overall extremely attractive score.

These include “Nobody Cares About Santa,” a lament sung by the Christmas Santas in a Chinese restaurant after a long, unrewarding day; “The Story of Buddy the Elf,” a “Brotherhood of Man”-like production number wherein Buddy helps his dad out of a tight fix; Jovie’s determined “Never Fall in Love”; and a pair of very nice duets for Leavel and Gumley, both appealing: “I’ll Believe in You” and “There is a Santa Claus.”

Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin collaborated on the book, adapted from David Berenbaum’s film script, and it’s a savvy piece of work, only sometimes betraying a synthetic quality.

Casey Nicholaw’s direction is efficient and clever, and his choreography, particularly for the “Nobody Cares About Santa” number and “The Story of Buddy the Elf,” is great fun.

Arcelus is a totally winning Buddy, and the linchpin of the production. A brunette Amy Spanger makes the most of her cynical character who blossoms under Buddy’s adoration. Jacoby makes the Walter’s transformation from preoccupied businessman to demonstrative family man nicely convincing. There’s good work, too, from Michael McCormick as Walter’s hard-nosed boss, Valerie Wright as secretary Deb who shares a winning song-and-dance number with Arcelus, “Just Like Him.” And George Wendt delivers some of the funniest lines as Santa himself.

David Rockwell's New York sets and backdrops (e.g. Macy's, Rockefeller Center) are satisfyingly eye-filling, as are Gregg Barnes' cheerful costumes and Natasha Katz's holiday-appropriate lighting.

There's nothing terribly profound here, but the show seems good enough to entertain audiences well beyond its announced January 2 closing date.

(Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 West 45th St., 212-239-6200 or Telecharge.com; though Jan. 2)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Belasco Theatre)

2010-11-13T06:31:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Don’t be put off by reports of a troubled preview period. After all, the point of previews is to iron out the kinks.

Composer-lyricist David Yazbek’s musical version of Pedro Almódovar’s 1988 film with its multi-strand plot has been wittily and cleverly put on stage with the kind of ensemble work that one is more accustomed to seeing overseas. Some have complained that the likes of Patti LuPone, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Danny Burstein don’t have enough to do, but I most strenuously disagree. Not only to do they all have some great moments to shine, but they are each part of a satisfying organic whole.

Sherie Rene Scott is Pepa, a movie-dubber whose live-in lover Ivan (Mitchell) has walked out on her. Ivan’s crazy ex-wife Lucia (LuPone) hasn’t stopped carrying a torch for her ex, and is now vengefully stalking Pepa. Ivan meanwhile is carrying on with Paulina (de’Adre Aziza), the lawyer Lucia has hired in her suit against Ivan.

Lucia’s inhibited son Carlos (Justin Guarini) is hoping to break away from his domineering mother with girlfriend Marisa (Nikka Graff Lanzarone). And Pepa’s manic model friend Candela (hilarious, scene-stealing Laura Benanti) is crazed to the point of being suicidal after learning her lover is a terrorist. Her frenetic telephone patter number, as she leaves message after message on Pepa's answering machine, is a brilliant tour de force.

Under Bartlett Sher’s astute direction, performances are pitch perfect, and the show moves along like a well-oiled clock.

That precision is mirrored in Michael Yeargan’s ever moving set pieces complemented by Sven Ortel’s colorful projections and Brian MacDevitt’s terrific lighting all of which evoke the distinctive color palate of Almódovar’s world. One of the most delightful effects involves upbeat taxi driver Burstein’s speeding around Madrid with Pepa in her moments of crisis as digital projections of the city speed behind. Christopher Gattelli’s choreography contributes to the smooth flow.

LuPone, a very funny comic presence throughout even when she’s just purposefully traversing the stage, has a wonderfully touching courtroom breakdown, and the song that grows out of it, “Invisible” is superbly done, as is Mitchell’s big solo, “Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today.”

Mary Beth Peil is another plus as Pepa’s dotty concierge who offers her distraught tenant some pearly wisdom.

As the sanest of the characters, relatively speaking, Scott is the solid anchor of the proceedings, and it is her character that has the most palpable growth. Though her role is, on the surface, the least flashy, she's a winningly sympathetic character throughout.

Librettist Jeffrey Lane has done a solid job in translating Almódovar’s dark comedy to the stage. Yazbek’s songs – all with an appropriate Spanish tinge – bubble along cheerfully or ruefully, as the situation demands, and capture the the Spanish filmmaker’s spirit accurately.

In an age of jukebox musicals, we should be grateful for having a brand new score – and a quality one at that -- whose songs are so integral to the plot. Let’s hope it gets recorded.

And when you go, be sure to leave time to explore and admire every nook and cranny of the Belasco Theatre, now splendidly restored to its former glory.

(Belasco Theatre, 111 W. 44th St., telecharge.com or www.lct.org)

The Desert Song (Light Opera of New York)

2010-11-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

By Harry Forbes

Light Opera of New York launched its second ambitious season of classic American operettas with an impressive small-scale production of Sigmund Romberg’s 1926 “The Desert Song.”

At a colonial French outpost in Morocco, young Margot – a guest of General Birabeau, governor of the province – longs for romance but never guesses that the general’s mild-mannered son Pierre is the notorious and to her, glamorous, Red Shadow, leader of the Riffs, the Moroccan fighters who are at odds with the French occupiers. Bennie, a society reporter and Susan, the general’s ward, are the comic lovers. And sultry harem girl Azuri, the secret mistress of Margot’s fiancée, Captain Fontaine, is determined to avenge her lover’s betrayal.

Casting was strong all around. Lauren Rose-King as the conflicted Margot delivered consistently striking work. Her “Romance” and “Sabre Song” were especially satisfying. Also outstanding was Brian Nathan as Bennie whose strong and incisive singing of the show’s pop numbers “It” and “One Good Boy Gone Wrong” were stylishly delivered as he made every word count. Iris Karlin played a particularly vivid Azuri, clearly relishing the sexy vamp aspects of the role, and demonstrating real temperament when her character was thwarted. Amy Maude Helfer was right on the button as soubrette Susan who’s so smitten with Bennie.

There was some post-show grumbling that Bennie was directed to play in too effeminate a manner, especially as that interpretation makes his interactions with Susan and harem girl Clementina all the more improbable. Yet, given the conventions of the era, it seemed to me stylistically sound, if somewhat off-putting for a contemporary audience.

In his Santa Claus-red garb (resourceful and generally attractive costumes courtesy of Lydia Gladstone), Erick Castille cut a reasonably dashing figure as the Red Shadow. And he sang the big numbers, including “One Alone” and the title song firmly and with apt style. Though in his Clark Kentish guise of Pierre, his Yul Brynner-like pate was distractingly out of period.

There was good work from David Seatter as General Birabeau, Daniel Greenwood as Margot’s suitor Paul, Kevin Ginter as The Red Shadow’s sidekick Sid, LaToya Lewis as Clementina, and Matt Ellison as Ali, even if ideally one would wish a sonorous bass for his part of the great “Eastern Love/Western Love” sequence.

I appreciated the way director Gary Slavin respected the original material, and some expeditious exceptions notwithstanding (like the dance music), performed a more authentic version than even the New York City Opera and Paper Mill Playhouse. Unlike the Herberts, LOONY allowed the script to play out without narration.

Steven Francis Vasta’s chamber ensemble of five, String CollectiveNYC, provided an accomplished and surprisingly muscular accompaniment to Romberg’s rousing melodies.

Last season’s three Victor Herbert gems at the Players were so successful the company needed to secure a location with greater seating capacity, and landed on the neo-Gothic locale below. The cushioned seats are definitely an improvement over the Players’ cramped wooden folding chairs, but with the building’s imposing arches and columns, and churchy ambience, there’s a corresponding loss of intimacy. But audibility was generally not a problem.

Small caveats about the venue aside, the quality of “The Desert Song” bodes well for LOONY’s next offering, Rudolf Friml’s “The Vagabond King” on February 17.

(Light Opera of New York, Landmark on the Park, 76th St. & CPW, 886-811-4111 or www.LightOperaOfNewYork.org, November 4)

The Scottsboro Boys (Lyceum Theatre)

2010-11-07T05:20:00.000-08:00

“The Scottsboro Boys” has made the move to Broadway from its sold-out engagement at the Vineyard earlier this year, via a stopover at the Guthrie in Minnesota. On the narrow stage of the Lyceum, it has lost very little of the intimacy of the smaller Off-Broadway venue.

Joshua Henry has replaced the excellent Brandon Victor Dixon as Haywood Patterson, the most prominent of a group of nine young men unjustly imprisoned on rape charges in 1931 in Alabama. I'm happy to report Henry is as fine as his predecessor, and brings strength and dignity to the pivotal role.

Director-choreographer Susan Stroman’s staging is, as many have already noted, among her best work, and beyond the clever and snazzy dancing we expect from her, has drawn excellent performances from her cast, including John Cullum as the interlocutor of the minstrel show that frames the narrative in the work, the final creation of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb before the latter’s death.

The rest of the Off-Broadway cast is mostly intact including Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon as Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo, the end men in the minstrel lineup (and, like Cullum, taking other parts along the way). The titular characters are played by Josh Breckenridge, Derrick Cobey, Jeremy Gumbs, Rodney Hicks, Kendrick Jones, James T. Lane, Julius Thomas III, and Christian Dante White.

All are impressive, with White and Lane doubling in drag as the boys’ accusers. Sharon Washington as a dignified, silent woman (her identity not revealed till the end) who watches the action from the sidelines is a lovely presence. Her character, though seemingly extraneous, also helps end the evening on a hopeful note.

From the exhilarating “Commencing in Chattanooga” which the boys sing on their fateful train journey as they set off in search of jobs to an ironic paean to “Southern Days,” the Kander & Ebb songs are tuneful and immediately accessible, though in the context of the bleak facts of the case, one can’t quite enjoy them as one can the numbers in “Chicago,” the Kander & Ebb show this most closely resembles in using a showbiz structure to tell grim events in an entertaining fashion. And it’s difficult to imagine them having a life outside the context of the show. (Barbara Cook won’t be singing “Electric Chair” at the Cafe Carlyle anytime soon!)

The production packed a wallop at the Vineyard in March. And now, with just enough little nips and tucks to make the narrative tighter, it's better than ever.

(Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200 or Telecharge.com)

Lombardi (Circle in the Square)

2010-10-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Not being much of football fan (as in “not at all”), I had little interest in this bio-drama about legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, but lo and behold, I found it a most enjoyable and worthy theatrical evening, with Dan Lauria and Judith Light truly outstanding as the gruff but soft-hearted Lombardi and his long-suffering, acerbic wife Marie.

The play is set in 1965, albeit with many flashbacks, as Lombardi is about to lead the second-place team to three consecutive championships. In his interaction with three players Dave Robinson (Robert Christopher Riley), Paul Hornung (Bill Dawes), and Jim Taylor (Chris Sullivan), we get to observe his tough love methods of motivating the team.

Based on the biography “When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi,” by Pulitzer Prize winning author David Maranis, playwright Eric Simonson’s conceit is to view Lombardi’s life through the eyes of a visiting “Look” reporter, Mike McCormick (Keith Nobbs) who moves in with the Lombardis for an up-close look. When Vince is elsewhere, Marie and the players give him plenty of insight into his subject.

And though he comes to view Lombardi as something of father figure, Mike eventually finds himself the brunt of the latter’s volcanic temper. The lengthy scene after that blow up is the play’s only dullish stretch, coming as it does after a particularly excellent confrontation between Lombardi and Taylor, when the laconic fullback dares to ask for more equitable pay.

Director Thomas Kail utilizes the long Circle in the Square playing area better than the theater’s last tenant – the otherwise commendable revival of “The Miracle Worker” – and draws solid performances from the cast, maintaining a lively pace throughout.

Lauria is tremendous, radiating the charisma Lombardi must have had, and always showing the compassion not far beneath the bluster, and Light – with her Lauren Bacall-ish delivery and a cocktail nearly always in hand -- provides a tart and dynamic contrast.

David Korins’ setting, Paul Tazewell’s costumes, Howell Binkley’s lighting scheme are all first-rate.

(Circle in the Square, 50th St., west of Broadway, 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

A Life in the Theatre (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)

2010-10-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

I’d not seen David Mamet’s early paean to the theater since many years ago when Jose Ferrer took over the leading role from Ellis Raab at the Lucille Lortel. I recall going with my parents, both former actors, and thus the seemingly perfect audience for this sort of backstage story.

But despite Ferrer’s excellence, I recall we were all fairly disappointed. And I had the same feeling at the conclusion of Neil Pepe’s perfectly fine production, one much slicker than what I recall on Christopher Street. But the play remains, well, thin: amusing but never truly hilarious, and occasionally touching without ever rising to poignant heights.

Nonetheless, there’s pleasure in watching Patrick Stewart – especially after his last New York outing as Macbeth (recently reprised on PBS’s “Great Performances”) -- take on such a predominantly light-hearted role. He’s Robert, a veteran actor mentoring newbie John (T.R. Knight) with whom he’s appearing in rep. We observe the pair in a series of short scenes, some backstage, some in the plays (all Mamet inventions) in which they appear.

Those pastiche excerpts – set in such diverse backdrops as the French Revolution, the Civil War, a hospital operating room, a rowboat at sea, etc. – are amusing to varying degrees, and in any event, stand in contrast to the dressing room sequences where we can see Robert’s essential loneliness and how emotionally dependent he’s become on his young colleague.

Stewart plays with a refreshing lightness and an assured sense of comic timing, his readings as masterful in their way as his interpretation of Shakespeare’s Scottish lord.

Knight, for his part, astutely conveys the protégé’s initial eagerness and compassion which ultimately morphs into wariness and fatigue towards the increasingly needy older actor. He and Stewart definitely have the requisite chemistry for this two-hander.

Thus, fans of Stewart and Knight should not be disappointed. Despite some passages in the play that are less than Mamet's best, these two pros ensure that the 90 intermission-less minutes pass pleasantly enough.

(Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

La Bete (The Music Box)

2010-10-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Though it was nearly 20 years ago, I remember the original Broadway production of David Hirson’s exceedingly clever verse homage to Moliere as a particularly delectable theatrical experience, even as I recall a strong first half, followed by a less brilliant second.

But in director Matthew Warchus’s astute present production – gorgeously designed by Mark Thompson in a floor-to-flies 17th century library (the original was a stylish white, spare setting) – I felt no such drop-off. It played beautifully from start to finish with Hirson’s satiric points about high culture versus populist entertainment sharper than ever.

As Valere, the incredibly crude, vulgar, gauche, self-centered upcoming playwright with whom the established Elomire, who fancies himself the “next Corneille,” must form an alliance by order of their mutual patron, The Princess (Joanna Lumley), Rylance is simply stupendous, and I don’t use the word carelessly. With a Tom Smothers-like guilelessness and a free-associating string of non-stop gibberish (some of it scatological and sexual) pouring out of him, he surpasses his hilarious work in Warchus’s “Boeing Boeing” revival two seasons ago.

In the face of such a tremendous tour de force, co-star David Hyde Pierce is basically the straight man, but it’s a part he takes with consummate skill, and after all, Hirson sees to it that ultimately Elomire gets the upper hand in terms of our sympathy.

The gender change of the patron – originally a Prince – adds variety to the surfeit of male characters, however historically inaccurate it might be, and offers New Yorkers the chance to see the “Absolutely Fabulous” star stretch her dramatic chops in what is basically a classical role, and she is superb. Her entrance amid a flurry of gold confetti is a delightful effect.

It’s gratifying to see Hirson's literate, witty play finally get its rightful due in such a splendid production.

(Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com)

Hereafter (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2010-10-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

If there were still double-features, “Hereafter” would surely make a most interesting pairing with Woody Allen’s latest, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.” Remarkably similar thematically in that both deal with spiritualism and the question of afterlife, the approach could not be more different.

In Allen’s nihilistic view, mediums and such are all charlatans, and it is goes without saying that in his world, there is nothing beyond our earthly lives. In Peter Morgan’s script for “Hereafter,” however, true communication with those who pass on may just be possible, though yes, as we see in one amusing sequence, there are charlatans to be avoided.

In interviews for this film, director Clint Eastwood isn’t saying what he believes, but in any case, his direction is wonderfully persuasive in, at least, leaving the door open. And no matter what viewers may believe, his film is quite absorbing and ultimately extremely touching.

This particularly atypical Eastwood film tells three separate stories about characters grappling with mortality and death, and though it doesn’t immediately seem possible, they do eventually converge.

There’s Marie (Cecile de France), a French anchorwoman and journalist who nearly dies in Indonesia when she’s swept up in tsunami. There’s Marcus (George McLaren and Frankie McLaren who alternate in the role), a little English boy who experiences a profound loss. And there’s George (Matt Damon), a blue-collar worker with a genuine psychic abilities who wants out of the business that he finds all too painful.

“A life that’s all about death is no life at all,” he has told his opportunistic brother (Jay Mohr) who hopes to get rich off George’s special gift.

All these characters are lonely and hurting, and in their individual ways, all are inextricably drawn to contemplate life beyond this mortal coil.

The film is compelling from the start, and certainly the tsunami quite early in the film that eventually leads to Marie’s epiphany is as spectacular as that in any big budget disaster film.

Under Eastwood’s sympathetic handling, the performances are all very fine. Damon proves again how excellent he is at portraying an ordinary guy. The scenes of George putting his psychic gifts to use are played with great sensitivity.

De France convincingly conveys a woman who’s had a glimpse of something beyond, and can’t let it go, even if it hurts her career. And the McLarens are heartbreakingly appealing, as Marcus determinedly searches for answers in an adult world.

The smaller parts are all wonderfully played, including Bryce Dallas Howard as an emotionally vulnerable young woman George meets in a cooking class; Marthe Keller as an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross doctor at a hospice in the French Alps; and Thierry Neuvic as Marie’s boyfriend who believes death is simply the “eternal void.” Derek Jacobi has a cameo playing himself as his audio book versions of Charles Dickens are favorites of George’s character with whom he feels an almost spiritual connection.

The film – largely subtitled in the Paris sequences – has an appealingly European flavor, and may be the most romantic film that Eastwood has ever helmed.

Some might find certain parts of the film hokey – and skeptics may scoff at the overall premise – but I was totally enthralled, and I have a feeling the wide public which could so fervently embrace a movie like “The Sixth Sense” – not to mention anyone who’s suffered a loss -- will find it a fascinating and perhaps even comforting film.

(The film has been rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for brief strong language.)

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Roundabout Theatre Company)

2010-10-14T19:43:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

As Mrs. Kitty Warren, Cherry Jones cuts a fine figure of a Victorian madam – even if her Cockney accent is a little dodgy – in Doug Hughes’ generally fine production of George Bernard Shaw’s once scandalous – and still provocative – play about the repression of women in Victorian society, and the sociological and financial circumstances that might push a decent woman into prostitution.

Sally Hawkins – best known here for her intentionally grating heroine in Mike Leigh’s film “Happy-Go-Lucky” – is her Cambridge-educated daughter Vivie. She talks so fast, though, that her lines are sometimes difficult to hear.

But she grows in strength (and verbal clarity) as her strong-willed character, learning the truth about Kitty's brothels, determines to break free of her mother and the men pursuing her.

Mark Harelik is particularly on the mark as one of the latter, Sir George Crofts, Mrs. Warren’s smarmy business partner who confidently tries to woo Vivie away from Frank (Adam Driver), son of the local rector (a solid Michael Siberry) who has some secrets of his own. Reliable Edward Hibbert makes a fine Mr. Praed.

Hughes’ staging is commendably ungimmicky, and he keeps the play – like much of Shaw, on the talky side – moving at a decent clip, even if he pitches the play’s confrontation scenes sometimes too high. The mother-daughter shouting match at the end is the most egregious example of that.

Catherine Zuber’s lovely costumes, including the sumptuously red number Jones wears upon her entrance, and Scott Pask’s multiple realistic sets, continually please the eye.

(American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org)

The Pitman Painters (Manhattan Theatre Club)

2010-10-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

The making of art can sometimes make awfully good theater. Last season’s Mark Rothko drama, “Red,” proved that point, if occasionally on the talky side. And I’m pleased to report that “The Pitmen Painters” turns out to be an even more accessible look at the creative process.

Lee Hall, the writer of “Billy Elliot,” explores another aspect of the Northern England mining country, this time dramatizing the true story of the Northumberland miners who, breaking the stereotypical mold, became painters of some repute and were known as the Ashington Group. And their first exhibition was the first such of working class artists in Britain.

Hall begins in 1934 with art instructor Robert Lyon (Ian Kelly) vainly attempting to teach a traditional art course to the rough hewn Ashington men who have elected to educate themselves on art appreciation. Da Vinci and Michelangelo hold little interest to the men, so Lyon, in frustration, suggests they try their hands with a brush and canvas themselves.

Paintings of mine-related activity give way to other themes with growing expertise and widening horizons. There’s crusty George Brown (Deka Walmsley), the head of the group, Harry Wilson (Michael Hodgson), a socialist dental technician, Jimmy Floyd (David Whitaker), a character known as Young Lad (Brian Lonsdale), and the miner with the most promise, Oliver Kilbourn (an outstanding Christopher Connel) who, though this is an ensemble work, is the nearest to what would be considered the central character.

Two female characters add variety to what could have been an all-male talkfest. There’s Phillippa Wilson as Helen Sutherland, an empathetic patron of the arts who wants to sponsor Oliver, and Susan Parks (Lisa McGrillis), a no-nonsense art study model who momentarily upsets the men’s equanimity. All are superb (and indeed have been playing these roles off and on for three years). Lonsdale doubles most impressively as the Young Lad with a heavy Yorkshire accent and artist Ben Nicholson with a posh upper crust one.

Hall’s play – inspired by a book by William Feaver --is never static and he cleverly meshes the artistic and sociological elements. Under Max Roberts’ direction, moves fluidly, as the action spans through 1947.

Gary McCann’s period costumes and scenic design – including helpful projections of the men’s work on three overhead screens – and Douglas Kuhrt’s lighting add pleasing visual interest.

(Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47 Street, 212-239-6200 or www.Telecharge.com)

Brief Encounter (Roundabout Theatre Company)

2010-10-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Having seen the Kneehigh Theatre’s highly imaginative, impressionistic take on the classic Noel Coward/David Lean film in London, I feared that its transfer to these shores – particularly at a large house like Studio 54 – would result in a loss of the charm and authenticity of the British mounting.

The recreation of a 1930s British cinema with cast members doubling as audience buskers and ushers, serenading the patrons, and then assuming parts in the story is, in fact, slightly diminished simply given the size of the theatre – by all accounts, not a problem at the more intimate St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn last year – but thankfully, in every other respect, the impact of this lovely production is undiminished.

Despite the novelty of the multi-media staging – characters stepping out of a black and white movie screen, breaking into song and stylized movement -- and the occasional slapstick (augmenting Coward’s original light moments), this isn’t meant to be a send-up of the film like that other British import, “The 39 Steps.”

The central love story here – a housewife and a doctor (both married) meeting in a train station when he removes a bit of grit from her eye, and in that and subsequent meetings falling more deeply in love, while grappling with increasing guilt – is played with utmost seriousness. Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock as lovers Laura and Alec are as repressed and tenderly impassioned as Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in the film.

Director Emma Rice (artistic director of Kneehigh) has adapted the film script – itself taken from Coward’s one-act “Still Life,” one of the playlets comprising his three-evening “Tonight at 8:30” anthology – and done so in a way that I think would have pleased Coward very much. Her work doesn’t distort the source material, in the way of, say, Ivo van Hove’s bizarre deconstruction of “The Little Foxes” at New York Theatre Workshop, but enhances it cleverly and movingly.

In fact, with crashing waves and symbolically liberating water projected on the drop, and a pulsating musical score, the romance is heightened to the nth degree.

A cast of merely nine players – many doubling – does stellar work here, including Annette McLaughlin as the refreshment center barmaid Myrtle, Joseph Alessi as amorous ticket taker Albert, and Dorothy Atkinson and Gabriel Ebert as young lovers waitress Beryl and porter Stanley.

The use of music – all Coward lyrics but, in some instances, excellent new tunes by Stu Barker – provides amusing and poignant counterpoint to the action. A gorgeous rendition of “Go Slow, Johnny” accompanies an unconsummated tryst between Alec and Laura, as they undress after getting soaked in a rowboat, and then chastely resisting their impulses, dress again. That sequence is one of many breathtaking moments.

Neil Murray’s period sets and costumes, Malcolm Rippeth’s mood setting lighting, Simon Baker’s adept use of sound, and Gemma Carrington and Jon Driscoll’s powerful projections enhance this truly unique theatrical experience, one that should not be missed.

(Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org)

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Twentieth Century Fox)

2010-09-27T18:10:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

At the start of Oliver Stone’s sequel to his 1987 “Wall Street,” Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko is being released from prison in 2001 having served eight years time for securities fraud and insider trading. Fast forward to 2008, and a variant of his iconic motto from the first film -- “greed is good” -- is now the subject of a best-selling book, "Is Greed Good?"

But Gekko is no longer a player in the financial system that brought him down. When young proprietary trader Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) -- who just happens to be dating Gekko’s estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) -- turns to Gekko for guidance, after the death of Jake’s boss and mentor Louis Zabel (Frank Langella), Gekko agrees to help Jake.

In return, he wants Jake to help bring about a rapprochement with Winnie who blames her father for the death of her brother. Having turned her back on her father’s world, she works as a reporter for a leftist Web site. Though Jake is, of course, in the same business as Gekko, what compensates in Winnie’s eyes is Jake’s genuine zeal for alternative energy.

Jake is wooed by ruthless investment banker Bretton James (James Brolin) whose machinations led to the plummeting of stocks of Keller Zabel Investments and subsequent easy takeover by the investment bank Churchill Schwartz of which James is a partner.

Nonetheless, Jake allows himself to be momentarily swayed from his course of vengeance on James whom he holds responsible for Zabel's death, and joins James’ team. Meanwhile, you just know Gekko is planning to get back to his power broker position.

Douglas gives another dynamic performance, even if this is a mellower – and, in some respects, nicer -- Gekko than in the first film. LaBeouf makes an empathetic protagonist and we follow the events of the film through his eyes. Mulligan – channeling Samantha Morton’s brand of moist vulnerability – shows another facet of her talent after her Oscar-nominated turn in “An Education” with a plausible American accent, too.

Brolin – his second film of the week (after Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”) – skillfully blends charm and ruthlessness.

Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff’s script includes references to the banking crisis of a couple of years ago, the results of deregulation, but it’s the human dynamic among Gekko, Winnie and Jake that predominates.

This is one of those films where New York looks absolutely splendid, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park Zoo, and iconic skyline really sparkling.

(The film is rated PG-13 for brief strong language and thematic elements.)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Sony Pictures Classics)

2010-09-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Spiritualism is bunk, and life is nothing but random luck and misfortune, followed by nothingness. Those are the not surprising underlying themes in this latest cinematic permutation of Woody Allen’s nihilistic world view. But until the end of the film, he’s fairly light-handed about it, and thematic material aside, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” is one of the writer-director’s most consistently enjoyable films.

Returning to the London setting of “Match Point” and “Scoop,” Allen’s story focuses on two couples Alfie and Helena (Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones) and Roy and Sally (Josh Brolin and Naomi Watts). The wealthy Alfie keenly senses the passage of time and his youth and perhaps the onset of the grim reaper (the symbolic titular figure).

He has left Helena to marry a spirited but common call girl (Lucy Punch). Roy’s a novelist who’s failed to replicate the success of his first book, and has gone to seed, while Sally’s mother (Helena) pays their bills.

Sally, daughter of Alfie and Helena, desperate to have a child and fed up with Roy’s inertia, develops a crush on her gallery owner boss (Antonio Banderas), while Roy pines for the attractive woman (the fetching Frieda Pinto) he watches from his window across the alley.

In her loneliness and confusion, Helena becomes smitten with Jonathan (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) the rotund owner of an occult bookshop. But all are, in one way or another, ill-matched to the people they desire, and are deluding themselves by thinking otherwise.

Allen has assembled a spot-on cast, all of whom deliver some of their finest work, as actors generally do in an Allen film. Watts is particularly outstanding as the frustrated wife pinning her goals on something unattainable. The scene where she finally tries to confess her pent-up feelings to Banderas is a highpoint.

Versatile Brolin, who put on considerable weight for the role, demonstrates anew what an adept character actor he is.

PBS “Masterpiece Theatre” diehards will fondly recall Jones as “The Duchess of Duke Street,” and will relish seeing her all these years later in such a meaty screen part. And speaking of PBS, “Upstairs Downstairs” alumna Pauline Collins plays the charlatan fortune teller to whom the vulnerable Helena turns when she’s abandoned by her husband.

But it’s almost unfair to single out anyone, as the ensemble cast is so uniformly excellent.

Allen uses some of his trademark narration here, which I’ve sometimes felt has been a lazy substitute for dialogue, but this script is solidly constructed, and gives his actors a solid foundation. The plot consistently holds your interest with a delectable O. Henry-like twist late in the film.

(Rated R by the MPAA for some language.)

The Town (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2010-09-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

Ben Affleck returns to the same gritty Boston milieu with which he found success as a director in 2007’s “Gone Baby Gone” in “The Town,” a gripping action-drama and love story.

This time he also plays the lead, and he impresses mightily on both counts, much like Clint Eastwood whose mantle Affleck seems poised to inherit.

He plays Doug MacRay, the leader of a gang of bank robbers from Boston’s notorious Charlestown neighborhood which, we are told, has spawned more bank and armored car robbers than anywhere in the country. In the opening scenes, he and his partner and closest friend, Jem (Jeremy Renner from “The Hurt Locker”) and their accomplices break into a bank disguised in skeleton suits, terrorize the workers and leave with cash and the bank manager Claire (an especially fine Rebecca Hall) as temporary hostage, though they soon set her free.

Later, loose canon Jem learns Claire lives nearby and fears she may finger them and suggests he might permanently silence her, so Doug – not wanting to add murder to their crimes -- contrives to watch her himself. In short order they fall in love, and Doug sees a way out of his dead-end life, and the chance he blew years before when he was a promising hockey player.

Meanwhile, the gang is pursued by FBI agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) who, though he knows the identities of the masked criminals repeatedly fails to nail them.

The sharp script, co-written by Peter Craig, Affleck, and Aaron Stockard was based on Chuck Hogan’s 2004 novel, “Prince of Thieves.” Affleck filmed the story on location with locals taking parts, but the authenticity of the entire cast is most impressive.

There are many compelling scenes including one almost worthy of Hitchcock in which Jem happens upon Doug and Claire at an outdoor café and learns that Doug has been secretly dating her. But Doug knows that Claire saw Jem’s tattoo on the back of his neck during the robbery, and worries that if Jem turns his head, Claire will see it.

The relationship between Doug and Claire is beautifully limned by Affleck and Hall, though the love story aspects are balanced by the extremely violent – but not, I think, gratuitous -- heist scenes.

Renner, a sort of modern-day James Cagney, makes a compelling counterpart for Affleck. His Jem has served nine years in prison and is determined never to go back. He’s like a brother to Doug, further bound to him by Doug’s off-again, on-again relationship with his sister Krista (Blake Lively) who holds a torch for Doug.

Hamm gives a polished performance as the relentless agent, though perhaps through no fault of his own, it’s difficult to forget his “Mad Men” character, Don Draper. Chris Cooper is marvelous as Doug’s father, doing time at Walpole’s maximum security prison. He has only has one scene, but he makes it count. And Pete Postlethwaite is aptly frightening as a crime kingpin with a florist business.

The action scenes – car chases through the Beantown streets, shootouts, narrow escapes – are all excitingly done, but it’s the human story that stays with you after.

“No matter how much you change, you still have to pay the price for what you’ve done” someone says late in the film, underscoring the movie's redemptive theme. But "The Town" is as much about the validation of Ben Affleck’s impressive talent as that of the character he so memorably portrays here.

(The film has been rated R by the MPAA for strong violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use.)

Going the Distance (New Line Cinema)

2010-09-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

It’s difficult not to like Drew Barrymore even under the worst of circumstances – and I’m sorry to say that “Going the Distance,” a lumbering romantic comedy considerably short of both descriptors, is pretty much the worst of circumstances – but she stretches our tolerance to the limit here.

She plays 30-something aspiring reporter Erin who, during an internship at a New York newspaper, meets mid-level record company guy Garrett played by her real life off-and-on-again real-life beau Justin Long. When her internship ends, and she must return to the west coast, they decide to continue the relationship long distance, staying faithful to each other across the miles.

However his friends, smart-alack co-worker Box (Jason Sudeikis) and sad sack roommate Dan (Charlie Day), with a penchant for sitting on the john with the door wide open, and Erin’s protective sister (Christina Applegate) do everything they can to undermine the relationship, while the couple – whose onscreen chemistry is, sorry to say, pretty much nil – hang tough.

What keeps them going is the hope they’ll eventually be together, but when Erin gets a job offer from the San Francisco Chronicle, their plans threaten to derail.

What truly sabotages the film is the leaden dialogue, with its unremitting sophomoric vulgarity. “We’re not afraid to…hear F-bombs,” Day declares proudly in the press notes. It’s distressing to see Barrymore saddled with a drunk scene in a bar, and yelling at a burly bully “Suck my d--k, bitch,” while being unceremoniously bundled off the premises.

Throughout, Geoff LaTulippe's script runs the gamut from soppy sentiment to the crudest of language. The film’s nadir finds Erin and Garrett engaging in split screen bi-coastal phone sex, a far cry from Doris Day and Rock Hudson’s truly witty bathtub repartee in “Pillow Talk” with a similar split screen presentation. The scene is even more offensive than Applegate’s character catching the couple (including a bare-assed Long) having sex on her dining room table.

Like Barrymore, Long is a basically likable presence, and certainly Sudeikis, Day, and Applegate are pros, but they’re fighting a losing battle with the material, which continually undermines what I presume is meant to be, at heart, a sweet romance.

In fact, wit is the crucial element that’s entirely absent here. In the press notes, the producers brag like naughty children about the film’s subversive humor and the freedom for the characters to “talk the way that people really talk.” No one I know!

The proceedings are unremarkably directed by documentary maker Nanette Burstein.

(The movie is rated R by the MPAA for sexual content including dialogue, language throughout, some drug use and brief nudity.)

DVD Review: The Judy Garland Show (Volume Five) (Infinity Entertainment Group)

2010-08-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

If anyone really wants to sample the full power of Judy Garland at her mature, late period best – a time when her performances could be disconcertingly variable – I suggest they watch the Diahann Carroll episode of the latest installment of Infinity Entertainment Group’s reissue of Garland’s 1963-64 CBS-TV series.

They should begin, not with the opening number “Hey Look Me Over,” slightly marred when Garland muffs a lyric, but with the second song, Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” and the succession of evergreens which follow: “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” “After You’ve Gone,” “Alone Together,” and “Come Rain or Come Shine.”

She sang all of them, except “Smile,” at her famous Carnegie Hall concert a couple of years earlier, but here, she’s arguably in even better voice, and unlike some of the other musical moments on the TV series, she’s thrillingly present, making each lyric count, with accompanying body language that totally serves the material, and doesn’t simply register as nervous mannerisms.

But, in fact, that entire episode, and the Steve Allen/Mel Torme episode which accompanies it, rank high in the series, leading one to regret all the more that the network didn’t allow Garland a shot at a second season, in a less vulnerable time slot than competition to highly-rated “Bonanza” on NBC. The change in her comfort level with the TV cameras is palpable.

What’s particularly nice about these two episodes is the array of new (for her) material, all of it delivered with supreme confidence. The Allen show, for instance, has Garland emoting the classic “Here’s That Rainy Day,” and plugging the songs from Allen’s latest musical, “Sophie,” about entertainer Sophie Tucker (Garland's early MGM costar). Allen must have been thrilled to hear Garland sock over the big ballad, “I’ll Show Them All,” as perched on a stool behind her, he looked on with awe.

His wife Jayne Meadows joins Garland in the regular “tea” segment, telling an amusing story involving a manhole, and both ladies are in comfortable, chatty form.

Garland joins Allen and Torme for a tricky medley which includes “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Mean to Me,” and “Tip Toe through the Tulips.”

The “trunk” segment which closes the show presents a straw-hatted Garland at her playful best having a ball with Vernon Duke’s “Island in the West Indies” and then launching into a spectacular, moving reading of Vincent Youmans’ “Through the Years.” Just dazzling.

The Carroll show has much going for it, beyond the aforementioned splendid mini-concert. Carroll’s excessive 1960s makeup notwithstanding, the star of “House of Flowers” and “No Strings” looks cute as a button and ridiculously young, warbling “Quiet Nights and Quiet Stars” and “Goody Goody.” She and Garland engage in a dandy medley of tunes by Harold Arlen and Richard Rodgers, one that bears favorable comparison to the famous Barbra Streisand duets on the series.

The program concludes with Garland shining in an elaborate new arrangement of “Great Day,” despite a too obtrusive off-stage chorus.

Even if you haven’t been collecting the series until now, this exceptional pairing is well worth owning for its own sake.

(The Judy Garland Show: Vol. 5; Infinity Entertainment Group; suggested retail: $19.98.)

Eat Pray Love (Columbia)

2010-08-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables" trumped "Eat Pray Love" at the box-office this weekend, but the latter still performed solidly with $23.1 million in second place, despite reviews that were decidedly mixed, and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 38%.

Clearly, the public that made the book a best-seller can't get enough of Elizabeth Gilbert's soul searching globe-trotting memoir.

You can read my take at America magazine.

(The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity.)

The Extra Man (Magnolia Pictures)

2010-07-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

The word quirky might have been invented for this curious comedy about Louis Ives, the young man played by Paul Dano who, after caught in a compromising pose with a woman’s brassiere, is fired from his Princeton prep school teacher job.

He comes to Manhattan where he shares an apartment with eccentric, composition professor and once-promising playwright Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline), an overly refined man with a prudish and fastidious manner who makes much of his professed Catholicism (“somewhere to the right of the Pope,” he boasts) and supplements his income as an “extra man” (i.e., escort) for wealthy widows.

Kline has one of his most colorful screen roles as this autocratic, larger-than-life mentor who shows Louis the ropes on such niceties of how to sneak into the opera. (New Yorkers, note the chosen venue is the City Center, not the Met.)

Dano – so good in “There Will Be Blood” -- is equally fine as his shy, befuddled occasional cross-dressing young protégé through whose eyes we observe the events of the story.

An extremely hirsute red-headed John C. Reilly plays Henry’s oddball friend Gerson speaking disconcertingly in a high-pitched falsetto. At one point, Louis, Henry, and Gershon drive to the beach with the esoteric Henry warbling the title tune of all things, the operetta “Pas Sur La Bouche” (filmed by Alain Resnais a few years ago), and once at the shore, Reilly drops the falsetto and belts out “Somewhere My Love.”

John Pankow is Louis’ boss at the environmental magazine where Louis works in a sales job, Katie Holmes is a bright, likable presence as his vegan office-mate who becomes his unattainable love interest, and this year’s Tony winner Marian Seldes is outstanding as Henry’s most imposing client. A sequence at the Russian Tea Room is a standout.

The plot takes some rather off-putting turns that tests an audience’s tolerance for the offbeat, as when the wide-eyed Tim goes to a dominatrix for spanking.

Co-adapted by Jonathan Ames from his semi-autobiographical novel, originally set in the 1990s, and directed with fable-like aura by Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman (who both shared script duties), capturing something of the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald of whom Louis is so enamored. The Gatsby-like sepia credit sequence starts the film off to a charming and promising start.

Still, while the film has its amusing moments, and by the time of the bittersweet wrap-up, manages to tug at the heart, ultimately it never completely captivates, even with its interesting cast which also includes Celia Weston, Patti D’Arbanville, Lynn Cohen, Dan Hedaya, and Jason Butler Harner.

(Rated R by the MPAA for some sexual content.)

Dinner for Schmucks (Paramount Pictures)

2010-07-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Though Francis Veber’s delightful stage play and 1998 French film – the winner of three Cesar Awards – has been greatly altered, and in many respects, cheapened, the winning performances of Paul Rudd and the ever-amazing Steve Carell make it worth your time.

Director Jay Roach has only used the original property as a springboard for a considerably different sort of affair, utilizing many of the elements in different ways. And the dinner itself, never dramatized in the original, has now become the literal climax.

The setting has been transplanted to Los Angeles. Rudd is Tim Conrad, an up-and-coming financial analyst who’s been invited by his boss (Bruce Greenwood) to attend a dinner in which all the guests must invite the most idiotic person they can find, all for cruel amusement.

Driving through Westwood, Tim nearly runs down Barry (Carell) – an I.R.S. nerd and taxidermist who makes dioramas out of dead mice (don’t worry, they’re cute) – Tim thinks he’s found his perfect candidate to win the prize and make a promotion-deserving impression at the following night’s affair.

Barry mistakes the night of the dinner, however, and shows up at Tim’s house that very evening, thereby proceeding to wreak well-intentioned havoc on Tim’s business affairs and love-life, alienating Tim's girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak).

The mouse element – it was matchstick constructions originally -- is one of the more pleasing additions in this version. The “mouseterpiece” tableaux (everything from the Wright Brothers to Evel Knievel) are really quite charming, and exemplify the sweeter side of the film. David Guion and Michael Handelman’s script has a good number of funny bits, but some of the other permutations on the original’s themes are less felicitous.

Carell at times seems to be channeling Jerry Lewis (speaking of things French); he’s both lovable and irritating in equal measure and Rudd is a winning straight man throughout, his struggle with his better nature nicely portrayed.

So, too, there’s amusing work from Jemaine Clement as an outlandish womanizing artist for whom curator Julie works. He brings something of the roguish spirit of Russell Brand’s character in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”

Perhaps in homage to the property’s roots, French actress Stephanie Szostak has been cast as Tim’s disapproving girlfriend, and she’s most appealing and “real.” Zach Galifianakis has some funny bits as a mind-controlling I.R.S. man. And David Walliams and Lucy Davenport are funny and characterful as a German munitions factory owner and his wife whom Tim sets out to impress.

The cruelty of the central premise – albeit finally portrayed as just that – is more disturbing than it was in the original, and somehow, despite Carell’s inspired antics and some amusing gags along the way, manages overall to be far less funny than its source material, never quite hitting its stride. (I saw the play in London several years ago, and found it simply hilarious, played as originally written).

Rated PG-13 by MPAA for sequences of crude and sexual content, some partial nudity and language.

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2010-07-30T05:25:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Kids may enjoy the formulaic slapstick and high octane shenanigans, but adults are likely to find this sequel to 2001’s “Cats & Dogs” something of a noisy bore.

This live action, computer animation and puppetry amalgam is, at least, reasonably well executed, though the 3D effects add little. (The continuing popularity of the gimmicky process continues to perplex me.)

The eponymous villainess, a former agent for the spy organization MEOWS -- voiced by a game Bette Midler -- is intent on world domination. Determined to stop her are Diggs (James Marsden), an overly impulsive German Shepherd, formerly of the S.F.P.D., and now with MEOWS’ canine counterpart DOG; an older Anatolian Shepherd Butch (Nick Nolte); and MEOWS operative Catherine (Christina Applegate), a rare case of canine/feline comradeship (and maybe something more).

The voices for the canine and feline characters are a reasonably starry bunch. Besides those mentioned, there’s also Michael Clarke Duncan, Neil Patrick Harris, Sean Hayes, Joe Pantoliano, Katt Williams, and even (in homage to James Bond) Roger Moore. Chris O’Donnell plays Diggs’ human detective partner on the police force.

But Ron J. Friedman and Steve Bencich’s script is serviceable, and mildly amusing, no more. Brad Peyton’s direction is merely competent. The explosions, fights and chases grow wearying, as does the conceit of live animals who can talk, accomplished through the wizardry of CGI.

About three quarters of the way through, the little girl behind me politely informed her adult companion she’d like to leave, demonstrating that even small kids can be remarkably discerning.

(Rated PG by the MPAA for animal action and humor.)

Salt (Columbia Pictures)

2010-07-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

Angelina Jolie confirms her status as supreme female action star in this enormously exciting espionage thriller, “Salt.” In fact, forget the gender qualifier. Whether leaping from bridges onto moving trucks, navigating the precariously narrow ledge of an apartment building, bailing from a helicopter, she does it all as deftly as her male counterparts, and most convincingly at that.

She plays CIA agent Evelyn Salt who, in the film’s tense opening seconds, is being tortured by the North Koreans, insisting all the while that she’s not a spy. Before long, bruised and battered, she’s being swapped for another spy, due to the intense intercession of her devoted researcher boyfriend Michael (August Diehl).

Two years later, she’s in Washington, ready to celebrate her wedding anniversary, and poised to give up these dangerous assignments for a desk job, though her boss Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) predicts she’ll be bored.

Before she can get home to her hubby and dog, she and Winter are summoned to interrogate a Russian defector (Daniel Olbrychski).

Winter and Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the agency’s counter-intelligence man
dispatch Salt to the interrogation room, where the grizzled Russian spins an incredible tale about his countrymen training orphaned children to infiltrate America as sleeper agents (Lee Harvey Oswald is cited as one such), in anticipation of Day X where they will spring into action against the United States, seizing control of the country’s atomic weapons.

He reveals that an agent is now poised to kill the Russian president when the latter attends the impending funeral of the U.S. vice president. Salt scoffs at the preposterous story, but as she’s leaving the interrogation room, he stuns both her and the CIA men behind the glass window by naming her as one such operative.

Despite the supportive Winter’s protestations. Peabody has no choice but to detain her. Salt adamantly proclaims her innocence, but fears the Russians will try to target her husband, and determines to him get to him before the Russians at any cost. She ingeniously breaks loose and becomes a fugitive from the Feds as she endeavors to save her husband and clear her name.

As there are many twists and turns, it would be wrong to give away more of the plot, but suffice to say the breathless car and motorcycle chases, daredevil escapes, and ingenious subterfuges never stop.

Throughout all of this, Jolie is fascinating to watch and despite the ambiguity of her character, makes Salt a character for whom you instinctively root, even when the plot threatens to strain credulity. She handles the hardware with the greatest of aplomb, and allegedly does much of her own stunt work. As a blonde, brunette, and even, at one point, audaciously as a man, she captivates.

And with Russian spies currently extremely au courant all over again, the picture’s release could not be timelier.

Director Phillip Noyce whips up a tremendous lather of excitement, and the pace never lags. “Salt” outdoes the Bourne movies for nail-biting excitement. Don’t expect realism, but writer Kurt Wimmer has concocted a hugely enjoyable yarn, grounding his script just enough, all the while keeping you guessing about the motives of the enigmatic Salt character.

The huge funeral sequence – set at St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue – rivals the climactic Royal Albert Hall assassination attempt of Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” Scott Chambliss’ production design and all the location work – mostly in New York and Washington, D.C. – are first rate.

And all the excitement is considerably enhanced by James Newton Howard’s poundingly propulsive score.

(The film has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of violence and action.)

Despicable Me (Universal)

2010-07-19T05:27:00.000-07:00

Leonardo DiCaprio's "Inception" came in, predictably, at number one this weekend, but the family-friendly "Despicable Me" -- with Steve Carell voicing the comic villain Gru whose grandiose hopes of stealing the moon are complicated when he adopts three orphaned girls -- is hanging on to the number two slot, bringing in $32,734,000.

You can read my take on it at America magazine.

The Winter’s Tale/The Merchant of Venice (The Public Theater Presents Shakespeare in the Park)

2010-07-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

“The Merchant of Venice” – and Al Pacino’s electrifying if idiosyncratic turn as Shylock – may be getting the buzz, but “The Winter’s Tale,” with which it is running in repertory through August 1, is just as fine, and in some respects, perhaps superior.

I don’t quite understand why some critics have been so dismissive of Michael Greif’s very lovely production of the latter, many strangely having the audacity to criticize the play, too. For all its fable-like structure and fanciful elements, “The Winter’s Tale” stands high in Shakespeare’s canon.

In “Merchant,” Daniel Sullivan – faced, like all contemporary directors – with the “Shylock problem” – has added a brutal, enforced baptism for the Jewish moneylender at the end, which seems to me a bit heavy-handed, but he’s also come up with many other felicitous bits of business, like the delightful staging of the casket scenes with Portia’s suitors.

Pacino and Lily Rabe’s playful (and in the courtroom scene, relentless) Portia are indeed excellent, though I found the latter not quite on the level of Lynn Collins in Pacino’s 2004 film, though perhaps that’s an unfair comparison.

But for me, the standout performances at the Delacorte this summer are Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Linda Emond as Paulina and her queen Hermione in “Tale” who are truly splendid.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s unreasonably jealous king Leontes who suspects his dutiful wife Hermione of adultery with his best friend Polixenes (Jesse L. Martin) disappoints in the early scenes. Improbable and irrational though Leontes’ suspicion may be – and Shakespeare supplied scant motivation for it in the text – Santiago-Hudson does little to fill in the blanks. But once he realizes his terrible error – his young son and queen both presumably dead – he plays the requisite sorrow and penitence exceedingly well, speaking the text beautifully, too.

And in that last respect, Jean-Baptiste and Emond really shine, the former imploring the wrathful Leontes to accept the infant he refuses to accept as his own, and later Emond passionately declaring her innocence in a fire-lit trial scene.

Most of the supporting cast members double in both plays to impressive effect: Jean-Baptiste, for instance, makes a lovely Nerissa in “Merchant”; Byron Jennings doubles as Camillo and Antonio, Bill Heck as a Sicilian Lord and Lorenzo, Heather Lind as Perdita and Jessica, Max Wright as the Bohemian shepherd who adopts the abandoned Perdita and as the Prince of Aragon

Hamish Linklater – Portia’s ardent suitor Bassanio in “Merchant” – makes a funny, intentionally obnoxious Autolycus, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Launcelot Gobbo in “Merchant," is most amusing as Clown, the chief victim of Autolycus’s conning. The two of them enliven the often tedious low comedy scenes.

The climactic scene wherein the grieving Leontes is shown a lifelike statue of his late wife, and it comes to life as if by magic is deeply affecting. The characters have moved through the proverbial fire and the return of Hermione to her husband and now grown daughter has, by this point, been truly earned and Greif’s staging and the sensitive playing of all play this beautiful scene to the hilt.

I missed the well-regarded mounting of that play at BAM last year from the Bridge Project, but I’ve seem my share of “Winter’s Tales” here and in London, and none surpassed Greif’s traditional but stylish staging.

In short, both productions are superior Public Theater offerings, but don’t pass up “The Winter’s Tale,” which is every bit as rewarding as its more ballyhooed companion piece.

(Delacorte Theater, Central Park, www.shakespeareinthepark.org or 212-539-8750)

Predators (20th Century Fox)

2010-07-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

All in all, this is an effective science fiction-action-thriller in which a group of trained killers suddenly find themselves prey to unknown forces on a hostile planet. As the mercenary played by Adrien Brody puts it, at one point, the planet is a “game preserve and we’re the game.”

He and his cohorts, who have all parachuted from the sky into the distinctly unfriendly jungle terrain, have no recollection of how they got there from their respective locations where they lived as convicts, death squad members, army sniper and the like. (The odd man out is the jittery doctor character played by Topher Grace.)

I had not seen the earlier incarnations beginning with 1987’s “Predator” with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this latest from Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios, though flawed, has a lot going for it.

The early parts of the film are the best. During those scenes, Brody and the others, played by Alice Braga, Grace, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, and Louis Ozawa Changchien, are menaced by unseen forces, and director Nimrod Antal builds up a terrific lather of suspense, starting with Brody’s very nerve-wracking free-fall which opens the film.

Before long, the motley band confronts booby-traps, various projectiles, poisonous plants, and ferocious boar-like creatures. So far, so good.

Once the warriors realize what it is they’re dealing with – dreadlocked humanoids with infra-red vision, extraordinary strength, and creepy appendages -- the film becomes much too literal, and loses suspense.

The film is well anchored by Brody who – as in his last genre film, “Splice” – gives a solid, believable performance, his distinctively resonant voice adding gravitas to the more spurious lines of dialogue. Braga is also particularly good and the others are well cast.

Midway through, Laurence Fishburne makes a surprise appearance as a hardened survivor of the planet, and makes the most of his limited screen time.

The script had its genesis in an unproduced screenplay Rodriguez penned in 1994, but Alex Litvak & Michael Finch were brought in to update it. It’s generally well constructed and there are some good lines, though it’s often cheapened by the use of far too many expletives.

The film calls to mind the classic Richard Connell story “The Most Dangerous Game” (oft-filmed), where the hunter becomes the hunted. Of course, we’ve seen this sort of survivor story time and again in other guises, too, and it’s often obvious who the next victim will be. When one character says he can’t wait to do lots of cocaine and “rape some fine bitches,” well you know it’s just a matter of time before he gets his.

Fans of the “Predator” franchise and action films in general should like this best, but others will find it atmospheric and suspenseful, the aforementioned caveats notwithstanding.

(The film has been rated R by the MPAA for strong creature violence and gore, and pervasive language.)

The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features)

2010-07-09T04:25:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

This is one complicated family. Yet, though a far cry from traditional, the emotional dynamic between the spouses – both women, as it happens -- and their children, a college bound daughter (Mia Wasikowka), and 15-year-old son (Josh Hutcherson), are remarkably consistent with any family unit when you come right down to it.

And it says a lot about the impeccable performances here that we can so easily accept such high profile actresses as Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a long-time lesbian couple, with Bening as Nic, a doctor and the breadwinner of the family; and Moore as Jules an aspiring landscape artist.

As daughter Joni has just turned 18, kid brother Laser, who’s grown up without a male influence, implores her to look up their biological father -- the sperm donor for both of them -- as she is now of age to do so, Their dad turns out to be Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a scruffy, laid back restaurateur and organic farmer who readily grants permission for the kids to get in touch, particularly as he’s kept himself free of any serious emotional ties, and is flattered by the prospect of two ready-made offspring.

After some initial awkwardness, their meeting is a success, and they part with a resolve to continue the relationship. Later, when “the moms,” as they are called, discover what’s happened, they insist on meeting Paul themselves.

Nic is especially wary, but the encounter is cordial, and lunch ends with Paul offering Jules the job of redesigning his property. Predictably if not quite plausibly (but then we wouldn’t have a story), Paul and Jules spark, leading to a situation that could well undermine the family.

Besides the fine work of the two women, Wasikowska is spot-on as the budding young woman, and Hutcherson is extremely likable as the introverted, sensitive son. The talented actors use every trick in their considerable arsenals to play as naturalistically as possible. Even when the generally sensitive script (by Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg) gets into some squishy areas – it’s established, for instance, that Nic and Jules spice up their sex life by watching male porn – the actors almost make you accept the premise.

The highpoint of the film is a wonderfully acted set piece, wherein Nic – who has been resentful of the others for spending so much time with Paul – agrees to come to dinner at his place and surprisingly, bonds with him over their mutual admiration of Joni Mitchell. But when she retires to the bathroom, she discovers the evidence of Jules’ betrayal. It’s a riveting sequence.

Lisa Cholodenko (who co-wrote the script with Stuart Blumberg) directs in a very unaffected style that marks all the other elements of this distinctive film.

(Rated R by the MPAA for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some teen drug and alcohol use.)

The Girl Who Played With Fire (Music Box Films)

2010-07-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

By Harry Forbes

As dark and brooding and ugly as sin as its predecessor, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the film version of the late Stieg Larsson’s so-called Millennium Trilogy – tautly directed by Daniel Alfredson this time, makes an equally absorbing thriller.

Noomi Rapace is back as computer hacker Lisbeth Salender whose diminutive stature, punk outfits, and sullen demeanor belie a sharp, analytical mind, fearless resolve, and extraordinary resilience. Michael Nyqvist again plays Mikael Blomkvist, editor of the investigative Millennium magazine.

His publication is about to move forward with a major series on sex trafficking which will reveal involvement by higher-ups in the police force.

Lisbeth is living in seclusion after her actions (which we won’t reveal here) at the conclusion of the first story, and has allowed her gal-pal (and sometime lover) Miriam (Yasmine Garbi) to use her old apartment.

When Dag, the author of the upcoming sex trafficking piece and his girlfriend are found murdered, Lisbeth becomes the prime suspect. Mikael knows she’s innocent, but as she’s not in direct contact, he must use ingenious ways to help her from afar, all the while helping throw the police, headed by Jan Bublanski (Johan Kylen) off her trail.

Meanwhile, Lisbeth’s blackmail of her guardian Nils Bjurman (Peter Adersson) -- who so viciously abused her in the first story – takes another turn when he falls behind in his payments to her.

The bad guys, including a seemingly invincible blond hulk (Mikael Spreitz), in this installment are out of get Lisbeth (and anyone who stands in their way as they pursue her).

As with the first story, twists and revelations abound, including more hair-raising facts about Lisbeth’s background.

Rapace is superb at conveying her character’s neuroses and shrewd determination. As her searching eyes take in the results of her computer scans, she pulls in the viewer to every discovery. Nykqvist projects mature compassion and a dogged if hangdog tenaciousness. The acting is uniformly superb, and much more “real” than standard Hollywood fare.

Jacob Groth’s mood-setting music is as somber and compelling as before. Jonas Frykberg’s script – like Alfredson‘s direction -- is very much consistent with the first film which used a different director and writer.

Something akin to TV’s “Prime Suspect” with Helen Mirren in its unflinching look at the seamy underside, with some strong sexual elements and violence – neither of them gratuitous however -- mixing with a compelling narrative. For American viewers, this is certainly a side of Sweden we rarely see, which adds to its fascination.

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” the film adaptation of the third book, is due to be released in October. And there are English-language remakes of all three in the works as well. But it’s unlikely they’ll top the impact of these authentic adaptations.

In Swedish with English subtitles.

Rated R by the MPAA for brutal violence including a rape, some strong sexual content, nudity and language.