Tony Nominee Predictions: Part II

Welcome back!  With the announcement of the 2013 Tony nominees less than 24 hours away, I’m back to make some predictions about which leading actors and actresses will be waking up to very good news tomorrow morning.  As a disclaimer, I should point out that I have by no means seen all the eligible shows, and in some cases I’m basing my predictions primarily on hearsay and gut instincts. 

Here are my predictions:

Best Actor in a Musical

Olivier Award winner Bertie Carvel, reprising his work as Miss Trunchbull in the Broadway production of Matilda

They say it takes a real man to do drag, and coincidentally I think the frontrunners in this category are the two men doing so nightly on the Great White Way.  As drag queen Lola, Billy Porter is the sequined heart and soul of the delightfully frothy Kinky Boots, and his assured performance will definitely land him among this year’s nominees.  His biggest competition comes from Bertie Carvel’s scene-stealing turn as the wicked headmistress Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, a role which has already netted Carvel an Olivier Award and plenty of praise.

Elsewhere, Rob McClure can rest assured that his complete transformation into Chaplin’s titular character will propel him to Tony recognition, as he was the one bright spot in an otherwise dreary production.  Anthony Warlow deserves special recognition for bringing a depth and humanity to Annie’s Daddy Warbucks few thought possible, and a nomination is most likely in his immediate future.  And for the final slot, Pippin's Matthew James Thomas has the enviable advantage of playing the title character in one of the spring’s artistic zeniths, and the massive amount of love for the show should propel him all the way down the red carpet on Tony night.

I don’t foresee much chance of anyone unseating one of the above five actors, which is a shame for both Jim Norton – whose Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood was a master class in comedic timing – and Stark Sands, who does great work with the less flamboyant of Kinky Boots’ two male leads.  If one of them were to sneak into competition, my money would be on Norton, as I don’t think Sands is on equal enough footing with Porter to force the Tony committee to nominate both of them.

 

Nominees:

Bertie Carvel, Matilda
Rob McClure, Chaplin
Billy Porter, Kinky Boots
Matthew James Thomas, Pippin
Anthony Warlow, Annie
Runner-Up:  Jim Norton, The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Best Actress in a Musical

Laura Osnes steps out of "her own little corner" and into the spotlight in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella

Normally one of the most competitive races, this year’s Best Actress in a Musical category is surprisingly short on work that’s both eligible and memorable enough to merit serious consideration.  The surest pair for inclusion both have previous nominations to their name, and the weakened competition allows these rising stars to shine all the brighter.  Patina Miller may well follow Ben Vereen into the history books by turning Pippin’s Leading Player into a Tony-winning role, and you would be hard pressed to find a more deserving actress among this season’s musicals.  Meanwhile, the casting of Laura Osnes as Cinderella is practically perfect, although the ill-advised update to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic prevents her from soaring the way she really should have.

I’m relatively sure that young Lilla Crawford, who the famously cynical Ben Brantley called “pretty close to perfect” in his New York Times review of Annie, will be among this year’s nominees.  After her I’m not sure which way this year’s nominations will blow, although the well-liked Stephanie J. Block will probably score for her fine work in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, even though her role bordered on supporting by virtue of being absent for most of the second act.  And the virtuosic Carolee Carmello, who has a habit of scoring award nominations for critically reviled shows, got a showcase like none she’s had before in the long-since-shuttered Scandalous.  While A Christmas Story’s Erin Dilly could steal Carmello’s thunder, the latter had one of the few diva performances of the season, something no Best Actress category should be without.

 

Nominees:

Stephanie J. Block, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Carolee Carmelo, Scandalous
Lilla Crawford, Annie
Patina Miller, Pippin
Laura Osnes, Cinderella
Runner-Up:  Erin Dilly, A Christmas Story

Best Actor

Alan Cumming shows Broadway what happens when a Scotsmen performs The Scottish Play (and if you need that reference explained to you, you may be in the wrong place)

The polar opposite of Best Actress in a Musical, the Best Actor in a Play category is filled to the brim with deserving potential nominees.  I’d hesitate to call any of the eligible gentlemen a lock, but Tracy Letts’ volcanic portrayal of the usually mousy George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? dominated a nearly flawless production of one of the great American classics, making him an easy choice for recognition.  The immensely likable Tom Hanks is also a strong contender for his work in Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, his chances buoyed by virtue of the show being one of the major events of the spring season.  And perennial critics’ darling Nathan Lane will likely score his fourth career nomination for The Nance, especially since many feel the role represents his best work since The Producers. 

The final two slots are difficult to predict, but I find it hard to bet against Norbert Leo Butz.  The entire community loves him, and he was widely credited with keeping the Theresa Rebeck clunker Dead Accounts watchable.  Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’s David Hyde Pierce has been a stealth candidate before, including the year he won the Tony for his work in Curtains.  And Douglas Hodge earned high marks for his Cyrano de Bergerac, although that play is probably too long gone to give the actor any serious traction.  Similarly, the passage of time has probably dulled Golden Boy’s Seth Numrich’s chances, which leaves Alan Cumming in an extremely good position to receive a nomination for his one-man take on Macbeth.  I won’t be surprised to hear any of the above names called tomorrow morning, but I think Cumming and Butz are the most likely.

 

Nominess:

Norbert Leo Butz, Dead Accounts
Alan Cumming, Macbeth
Tom Hanks, Lucky Guy
Nathan Lane, The Nance
Tracy Letts, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Runners-Up: Douglas Hodge, Cyrano de Bergerac, and David Hyde Pierce, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

 

Best Actress

Laurie Metcalf as a mother losing touch with reality in MTC's The Other Place

As with the men, there’s a lot of talent represented in this category, although I think the committee’s choices are a tad more apparent.  I would be very surprised if Laurie Metcalf’s universally praised turn The Other Place didn’t land her among this year’s nominees, and utterly flabbergasted if Amy Morton weren’t recognized for holding her own against Tracy Letts in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  I also think Jessica Hecht’s work in this spring’s surprise critical darling The Assembled Parties puts her in a good position heading into Tuesday’s nominations, especially since her costar Judith Light is being considered in the Featured Actress category.

This spring saw three different one-woman shows debut on Broadway, and I think all three actresses are in strong contention for the remaining two slots.  A nomination for Ann’s Holland Taylor would give the committee a chance to acknowledge both the actress and the play, since she also wrote the piece herself.  But given Bette Midler’s vocal displeasure over Priscilla Queen of the Desert (which she produced) not making the Best Musical cut a few seasons back, Tony voters may feel they have to nominate the entertainment legend or risk scaring her off from Broadway for another 30 years.  While Fiona Shaw has always struck me as having a reputation greater than her stateside work necessarily merits, there is an unbridled love for her among the theatrical community that could lead the committee to look past the questionable merits of her chosen vehicle, The Testament of Mary.

Further confusing the issue is Cecily Tyson’s critically lauded performance in The Trip to Bountiful, which has already netted the veteran actress several other award nominations.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Tony voters will follow suit, leaving the three solo stars to fight over the final nomination slot.  I’m going to give Midler the edge, both due to star wattage and the fact that even I’ll Eat You Last’s detractors conceded Midler made the play worth seeing.  But Fiona Shaw is right on her heels, and if any of the five women I’ve mentioned isn’t nominated I suspect Shaw will take their spot.

 

Nominees:

Jessica Hecht, The Assembled Parties
Laurie Metcalf, The Other Place
Bette Midler, I’ll Eat You Last
Amy Morton, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Cecily Tyson, The Trip to Bountiful
Runner-Up:  Fiona Shaw, The Testament of Mary

 

Whew.  That’s all for now.  We’ll see how I did come tomorrow morning.  I’m going to try and bang out some supporting actor/actress predictions (no promises), but until then you can tide yourself over by reading who I think will get nominated in this year’s production categories.

Tony Nominee Predictions: Part I

With the last show of the 2012-2013 Broadway season officially open, we now enter my favorite time of the theatrical year:  Tony season!  To celebrate this joyous occasion, I’m going to be posting a series of articles dedicated to guessing which productions and people will be among this year’s nominees.  We’ll find out how well I did on April 30^th (last year I had an 82% success rate), but until then here’s some educated guesses and wild speculation to tide you over.  Enjoy!

Best Musical

 

Stark Sands (center) and the drag Angels in Kinky Boots

 

Kinky Boots and Matilda are a lock in this category.  Before either show even opened, it looked as if this year’s Best Musical race would be between Cyndi Lauper’s Broadway debut and the Olivier-winning smash, and so far that is still the case.  That leaves two slots for the season’s six other new musicals to fight over, a fight the critically lambasted Chaplin and Scandalous have no chance of winning.  The short-lived Hands on a Hardbody certainly had its admirers, but they are too few and far between to give it any serious momentum in this year’s awards race. 

If the Tonys were based solely on artistic merit – a novel idea, I know – the remaining two slots would go to Bring It On and A Christmas Story.  Both were highly entertaining pieces of escapist entertainment with well-constructed stories and endearing musical numbers.  Christmas Story in particular had an amazing score by Broadway newcomers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and I think that level of polish will propel it onto the nominees list.  But I think the fourth slot will go to Motown the Musical, as the Tonys have time and again shown favoritism towards commercially viable productions.  Motown is one of the major hits of the spring and a regular member of Broadway’s million dollar club; such financial prowess practically demands recognition by the Tony committee.  Couple in the fact that Bring It On closed what seems like eons ago, and Motown has the clear edge.

Nominees:

A Christmas Story
Kinky Boots
Matilda
Motown the Musical
Runner-Up:  Bring It On

Best Play

Jessica Hetch and Judith Light star in Manhattan Theatre Club's The Assembled Parties

The big question in the Best Play race is how seriously Tony voters will take the glut of one person shows that have opened this season.  Most of the solo outings have featured celebrities playing people other than themselves, so they would technically qualify, but I think the traditionally-minded Tony committee will shy away from honoring any of them with production nominations.

Manhattan Theatre Club’s The Other Place and The Assembled Parties, however, are exactly the kind of plays the Tonys like to recognize.  High-minded affairs from a prestigious non-profit, both works received glowing reviews and are the closest thing to sure bets in this category.  And the overwhelming amount of goodwill towards the late Nora Ephron practically guarantees her Lucky Guy is announced with the rest of the nominees come Tuesday morning.  As for the final slot, it’s something of a toss-up between Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Masha and Sonia and Spike and Douglas Carter Beane’s The Nance.  I’m going to give Durang the edge here, as his play is seen as a welcomed return to form whereas Beane’s burlesque comedy is viewed more as an excellent Nathan Lane vehicle rather than a strong show in its own right.

 

Nominees:

The Assembled Parties
Lucky Guy
The Other Place
Vanya and Masha and Sonia and Spike
Runner-Up:  The Nance

Best Revival of a Musical

Matthew James Thomas and the company of the Diane Paulus helmed Pippin

There are two things we can be certain of in this category:  that Diane Paulus’ circus-inspired Pippin will be among the nominees, and that the critically reviled Jekyll & Hyde will be completely ignored.  Now, since currently running shows with mass road appeal tend to have an edge among Tony voters, I think we can safely add both Annie (which was fairly good) and Cinderella (which was fairly awful) to the list of nominees.  That leaves one slot left for Elf and The Mystery of Edwin Drood to fight over, and since the theatrical community could barely muster up enthusiasm for Elf during the two months it ran I doubt Tony voters will honor it with a nomination.  Drood, on the other hand, was far better than any production of such awful material deserved to be, and therefore earns its place among the Best Musical Revival nominees.

 

Nominees:

Annie
Cinderella
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Pippin
Runner-Up:  Elf (but who are we kidding, it doesn’t have a chance)
 

Best Revival of a Play

Tracy Letts as George and Amy Morton as Martha in the latest Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

This is the one production category where I don’t think being a currently running show is going to make much of a difference.  If Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s production of Who’sAfraid of Virginia Woolf? doesn’t get nominated then we should just consider this entire year’s nominations null and void, as such an omission would be a clear sign of insanity on the committee’s part.  And as I can’t recall one negative word being spoken about Golden Boy, I think it’s a lock as well.

With five play revivals this season, simple probability says that Roundabout practically has to score one nomination, and I think it will be for The Trip to Bountiful. Besides being their most recent production, it has a high-profile cast led by a Hollywood legend that received very good reviews, and the New York theatre community has been particularly enamored with playwright Horton Foote as of late.  The final slot is difficult to predict, but I’m going to rule out Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Glengarry Glen Ross for essentially the same reason:  they were poorly received productions that did not represent their Tony-winning headliners’ best work.  Orphans opened to similarly indifferent reviews, and is therefore also out of contention.  That leaves Macbeth and The Heiress as the only real contenders, and I think the latter has the edge.  While most critics loved Alan Cumming, they also felt his bravura turn overshadowed Shakespeare’s text, whereas people were generally pleased with the Victorian-set drama as a whole.

*Note:  Because this is my blog and I get to make the rules, I’m going to say should Roundabout manage two nominations in this category their well-reviewed take on Cyrano de Bergerac is next in line.*

 

Nominees:

Golden Boy
The Heiress
The Trip to Bountiful
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Runners-Up:  Cyrano de Bergerac, Macbeth

 

Be sure to keep an eye out for the rest of my nomination predictions, and once the official nominees are announced on Tuesday look for my personal reactions and the beginning of a month’s worth of speculation!

They've Got Magic to Do, and It's Extraordinary

Review:  Pippin

Because it wouldn't be a Fosse show without canes and top hats.

 

There’s no reason to mince words:  Diane Paulus has done it again.  Her revival of Pippin, like her Hair and Porgy and Bess before it, takes a classic piece of musical theatre and effortlessly modernizes it, imbuing it with a vibrancy and relevance that feels wholly contemporary while still respecting what made the show popular to begin with.  Ambitious in scope and stunningly theatrical, this Pippin is above all a celebration of the magic of live performance, a sumptuous feast for the senses brought to life by one of the finest ensembles of this Broadway season.

The story of Pippin is (very) loosely based on the life of the eldest son of King Charlemagne, who ruled over all of Western Europe at the start of the ninth century.  Well-educated but without much purpose in life, Pippin spends the show searching for fulfillment through various pursuits including war, political activism, and even the pleasures of the flesh.  This is all presented as a show-within-a-show performed by a group of traveling Players, enacted for the audience’s enjoyment at the behest of their leader (appropriately called the Leading Player).  The narrative is not without its problems; the libretto by Roger O. Hirson definitely shows its age, and despite some incredibly catchy numbers it is clear this show represents Stephen Schwartz before he gained full command of his musical gifts.

What Pippin needs, and what it gets in Paulus, is a director with a definitive concept to shape the production around.  Paulus’ stroke of genius is making the Players members of an actual circus, similar in style to Cirque du Soleil.  In conjunction with Gypsy Snider of the circus troupe Les 7 doigts de la main, Paulus has filled this revival to the brim with dizzying displays of athletic superiority and acrobatic prowess.  Performers jump, dive, and climb into a mind-boggling array of positions and pairings, all while singing and dancing the Fosse-inspired choreography by Chet Walker.  Between the aerial work, tumbling, knife throwing, fire juggling, and copious amount of magic tricks, your jaw is guaranteed to drop in amazement at least once over the course of the evening.  Yet for all the feats of human agility on display, Paulus keeps a remarkable grip on the actual narrative, portraying it with more clarity and genuine heart than it probably deserves. 

Paulus’ inspired direction is expertly executed by her top-notch cast, a mix of Tony-nominated veterans and Broadway newcomers that are all completely at home here.  As the Leading Player, Patina Miller follows up her star-making debut in Sister Act with another full-throttle performance.  Tackling the song-and-dance role head on, Miller belts to the rafters and uses her lithe frame to embody the Fosse style with surprising dexterity, all the while charming the audience into submission with her winning smile.  In fact, the only complaint that can be leveled against Miller is that she sometimes seems to be working too hard, with her performance lacking the ease of the most accomplished stage actors.

Matthew James Thomas plays Pippin with the appealing earnestness of a young man looking to find his way in the world, and manages to do so without coming across as whiny or petulant.  The character is underwritten and a bit of a cipher, but Thomas more than makes up for it with his winning personality and rock-tinged tenor.  Terrance Mann gives a delightfully hammy performance as Charlemagne, oscillating between doting father and imposing authority figure with ease, and his real life spouse Charlotte d’Amboise portrays his onstage wife, Queen Fastrada, with the perfect mix of political cunning and feigned ignorance.  Finally, special recognition must be given to Tony-winner Andrea Martin’s scene-stealing turn as Pippin’s grandmother Berthe.  Over the course of one ten-minute scene, Martin manages to make one of the strongest impressions of the night and leaves the audience practically begging for more. 

Pippin’s intentionally garish production design only adds to the show’s overall charm, from the barely-there costumes of Dominique Lemieux to Scott Pask’s big top-inspired set.  This revival is a triumph, a coup de theatre that celebrates all that is magical about the Great White Way.  With her bold but wholly organic direction, Paulus has rescued a work in danger of becoming dated and brought it crashing into the 21^st century, appealing to modern sensibilities while still honoring the show’s roots.  There’s plenty of magic to be found in this production, and anyone interested in seeing it should buy their tickets now before they disappear.

All in the Timing

Goodbye, Breakfast at Tiffany's.  We hardly knew you.

Here’s a fun bit of theatrical trivia: almost half of the shows eligible for the 2013 Tony Awards will open between March 1^st and April 25^th (the cutoff date for Tony consideration).  If that seems excessive, well, it is.  But conventional wisdom states that spring shows have a better chance at doing well during awards season, and the fact seems to support that assertion.  In the last twenty years, 63% of the winners for Best Musical, Play, and Revival have opened between February and May, so it makes sense that producers would choose this time of year to launch their productions.  The spring also sees a massive influx of tourists into the NYC area, something that begins in March and doesn’t let up until September, meaning there are a lot of tourist dollars up for grabs.

But there’s a flip side to this entire situation, one most producers seem to willfully ignore.  More shows equals more competition, and unless your show is one of the buzzed about productions with either star power or major awards pedigree, it cannot hope to compete in such a crowded marketplace.  Two shows from late March, the new musical Hands on a Hardbody and the stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, have been forced to shutter after less than a month of performances.

Now, I don’t think anyone can honestly claim that they find this news surprising.  In the weeks leading up to the shows’ respective openings, there was a definite air of dismissal among the theatrical press about the merits of both shows.  The idea of any actress tackling an iconic Audrey Hepburn role is dubious at best, and given it to the untested (onstage, at least) Emilia Clarke did little to assuage doubts that Tiffany’s would prove to be a wholly unnecessary adaptation.  Meanwhile the very premise of Hands on a Hardbody is so inherently static – it chronicles a contest where ten Texans attempt to win a truck by keeping their hand on it the longest – many wondered how it could possibly sustain a two hour plus musical. 

And therein lies the problems.  Rather than attempting to launch their shows against highly anticipated productions like Lucky Guy (which has an A-list actor and beloved author to help sell tickets) and Matilda (the latest British import to arrive with a boatload of glowing reviews from the West End), Hardbody and Tiffany’s would likely have lasted much longer had they opened during a slower portion of the Broadway season.  Other parts of the year may not have as many tourists looking to spend money, but there is an entire population of local theatregoers who would love to have new shows to see in, say, January or late August.  I don’t think either show would have been a hit – especially given the lukewarm reviews both shows received – but they might have scored enough additional traffic to run for a few more months.

I have said it before and I will say it again: producers need to consider scheduling their opening nights in months besides October, November, March, and April.  Shows with little buzz and mediocre reviews can do quite well when there is less competition, and the longer a show runs the more time it has to build up good word-of-mouth to counteract any negative press.  Even the most diehard Broadway fan only has a finite amount of time and money, and when presented with as many options as are currently available those fans will have to prioritize.  This is one of the most crowded spring seasons in recent memory, and hopefully producers will learn their lesson from the failures of Hardbody and Tiffany’s and consider spreading things out a bit more next year.

A Fairytale Fractured Beyond All Repair

Review:  Cinderella

 

Hello, Young Lovers:  Santino Fontana and Laura Osnes enjoy a waltz is the Broadway revival of Cinderella

When the lights come up on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, we are treated to a silent tableau of the titular heroine gathering food in an idyllic, storybook forest.  A minute later, the Prince (here named Topher for reasons neither apparent nor consequential) and his footmen are slaying a tree giant, and the juxtaposition of those two images tells you everything you need to know about this rendition of the classic fairy tale.  Heavily rewritten in an attempt to be more hip, modern, and equally accessible to boys and girls, this new version of Cinderella completely eschews the old-fashioned charm that has allowed the property to endure for more than fifty years.

To be fair, the hour-long television musical Rodgers and Hammerstein originally wrote for a young Julie Andrews is too slight a story to be transferred directly to the stage, and padding it out with new plot points and a few of the duo’s trunk songs is not an inherently bad idea.  But surely the producers could have found someone better suited to the task than playwright Douglas Carter Beane, whose relentless snark is in complete opposition to the exceedingly earnest tone Rodgers and Hammerstein are known for.  Making matters worse is the fact that Beane is just god-awful at his job, as anyone who suffered through his odious work on Sister Act and Lysistrata Jones can attest. 

Possessing zero talent for characterization and a rudimentary at best understanding of proper story structure, Beane fills his musical librettos with an unending series of “punch lines” that sound like the improvisations of mildly amusing teenagers.  In Cinderella, this includes having characters exclaim “Seriously?” after being told to execute any unsavory task and commenting on how the placement of certain props makes “zero design sense.”  Beane and director Mark Brokaw have also saddled the show with a blatantly political subplot about bringing democracy to the Prince’s fairytale kingdom, a story thread so clumsily executed that it makes South Pacific’s simplistic observations about race seem like a graduate-level thesis in comparison.  By the time the people of the royal court decide to amuse themselves by trading insults in a game called Ridicule, you can’t help but laugh at how completely Beane has missed the mark, and hope that poor Rodgers and Hammerstein aren’t aware of what’s been done to their show.

It is physically painful to watch genuinely talented performers like Laura Osnes, Victoria Clark and Harriet Harris struggle to make such atrocious material work.  In many ways, Osnes is ideally cast as Cinderella – or Ella, as the show obnoxiously insists upon calling her – and when allowed to embrace the material’s traditionalist leanings she is a veritable delight.  Winsome without descending into blandness, Osnes and her lovely soprano are the perfect embodiment of the fairy tale princess, and watching her struggle to come up with an in-character reaction the sarcasm that permeates this show is almost depressing.  As she continues her ascent to leading lady status, one hopes that Osnes’ next show will finally combine the critical and commercial success this hard working actress so desperately deserves.

As her Prince Charming, Santino Fontana is exactly that, even if Beane’s writing forces him to play up the character’s buffoonish qualities.  Fontana seems appropriately lost as a young man struggling to find himself, and his infatuation with Cinderella is entirely believable.  Victoria Clark is positively enchanting as the Fairy Godmother, and her second act solo “There’s Music in You” is sung in the deeply felt, full-bodied manner befitting a majestic Rodgers and Hammerstein ballad.  (It should be noted that musical adaptor David Chase has flawlessly integrated the trunk songs and extended interludes with the existing score, creating one of the few instances where this production’s additions feeling like a natural extension of the source material.)

The villains of the piece are more problematic, due in no small part to Beane’s inability to decide whether they are meant to be truly menacing or mere comic relief.  As the wicked Stepmother, Tony-winner Harriet Harris spends two thirds of the evening spouting off one liners before being required to suddenly switch to genuine maliciousness and then again to heartfelt repentance, a horribly rushed progression no actress could make convincing.  In fact, given the wretchedness of her material Harris comes off remarkably well, with is more than can be said for Peter Bartlett as the devious royal advisor.  Ann Harada struggles mightily as the less attractive of the two stepsisters, but is let down by the decision to make her partner-in-crime Marla Mindelle noticeably less antagonistic than is usual.  Harada is essentially playing both sides of a comedic duo, and although she has some great moments the performance is ultimately ineffective.

Despite all the changes, there are times when this Cinderella actually begins to resemble the traditional version of the story, and when it does the show comes alive.  Cinderella’s onstage transformation and subsequent carriage ride to the ball is every bit as grand and enchanting as you could want, confirming the suspicion that we could have had a fantastic production if the creative team had merely trusted their source material.  Equally enthralling is the sweeping ballad “Ten Minutes Ago” and its accompanying waltz, which recreates old school Broadway spectacle in a most ravishing fashion.  Unfortunately, every time the show seems to get back on course Beane steers it in the complete opposite direction, to the point where he even changes the one thing literally everyone knows about Cinderella (let’s just say that her famed glass slipper makes a rather circuitous journey into the Prince’s possession).

From a production standpoint, this is definitely the Broadway version of Cinderella, with lavish sets and costumes that strike the proper balance between timelessness and modernity.  William Ivey Long’s costumes are gorgeous, and the multiple onstage transformations he creates are literally jaw-dropping.  Anna Louizos’s set design looks like a storybook illustration come to life, and is expertly highlighted by Kenneth Posner’s rich lighting design.  The twenty-person orchestra sounds just as sumptuous as the rest of the production looks, rounding out the technical excellence on all sides.

Ultimately, there is enough merit to this revamped Cinderella that it cannot be completely written off.  The production is visually striking and features some highly talented performers doing valiant work against insurmountable odds.  But unfortunately Douglas Carter Beane’s book is so inherently wrong, in both conception and execution, that the show cannot overcome it.  The production fails as both an old-fashioned musical romp and as an attempt at a clever reinvention of or commentary on the fairytale genre.  Rarely have I been so desperate for the characters in a musical to shut up and start singing, and if I never have to endure another one of Beane’s terrible librettos it will be too soon.  When this Cinderella vanishes at the stroke of midnight, perhaps we should simply let her leave.

Drag Queens Just Want to Have Fun

Review:  Kinky Boots

Whatever Lola (Billy Porter, right) wants, Lola gets.

When pop musicians decide to write a Broadway musical, they must find a way to marry the catchy melodies and repeated choruses that spell success on the radio with the more story-driven nature of modern musical theatre.  Sometimes they fail miserably, as evidenced by the ghastly, incomprehensible score Bono and the Edge created for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.  But sometimes, as in the Cyndi Lauper-scored new musical Kinky Boots, they manage to use their pop prowess to create infinitely hummable tunes that still propel the plot forward.  Kinky Boots, which also features a book by Harvey Fierstein and direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell, is not a perfect musical, but it is a delightful first try by the eighties icon that is one of the most giddily entertaining new musicals of the past several seasons.

Based on the motion picture of the same name, Kinky Boots tells the story of Charlie Price, who inherits his father’s struggling shoe factory after the old man’s untimely death.  Stuck with a responsibility he never asked for and an entire factory’s worth of friends facing unemployment, Charlie is at the end of his rope until a chance encounter with a drag queen named Lola.  As Lola explains, finding fittingly fabulous shoes in men’s sizes can be quite the tricky feat, and Charlie realizes that creating footwear for this niche market could be his last hope of saving the factory from financial ruin.

Lauper’s signature sound adapts surprisingly well to the musical theatre form, resulting in an energetic pop score that fleshes out the story and characters through a steady stream of great melodic hooks.  The repetitive choruses occasionally betray Lauper’s pop roots, but overall the songs strike a nice balance between feeling comfortingly familiar and excitingly fresh. 

In between all the ear candy, Fierstein’s often hilarious book balances clever one-liners with an emotional honesty that makes Charlie, Lola, and their collection of quirky friends feel like genuine people rather than character archetypes.  The writer has previously explored the same themes of acceptance and defied expectations in his previous drag extravaganza La Cage aux Folles, but Kinky Boots is so charmingly executed that the repetition hardly matters.  Fierstein displays a consistent gift for story structure and characterization that is all too rare in today’s musicals, and Boots is another strong addition to his sterling resume.

Director/choreographer Mitchell does well by the material, although his work here lacks the inventiveness and wit of his surprisingly strong staging for Legally Blonde.  The biggest problem is that while full of pep and vigor, the score is surprisingly short on full-blown production numbers, giving Mitchell relatively few opportunities to make full use of his choreographic gifts.  This is in no way meant to imply the other songs are anything less than superb, but they don’t quite play to the director’s strengths.  On the positive side, the few production numbers that are present are an obscene amount of fun, particularly the Act I finale “Everybody Say Yeah.”

The talented writers are aided by an equally talented cast, and while there are many standouts, the heart and soul of Kinky Boots is the divinely divaliscious Billy Porter as Lola.  Kicking the show into high gear with his first appearance, Porter possesses a magnetic stage presence that fills the Al Hirschfeld to the bursting point.  His Lola embodies the combination of camp and sincerity that defines Kinky Boots as a whole, and if anything Porter could probably go slightly more over-the-top without harming the show’s entertainment quotient.  Late in the show Charlie describes the “great gaping gap” Lola leaves behind when she exits a room, and so it is whenever Porter leaves the stage; thankfully, he always reappears quickly, and in increasingly fantastic ensembles to boot.

Stark Sands graduates to leading man status with aplomb, imbuing Charlie with an approachable Everyman quality while preserving the character’s individuality.  Sands’ two big solos don’t quite land the way you’d like them to, but the golden-voiced performer acts the hell out of his book scenes and maintains a refreshing level of credibility throughout.  Annaleigh Ashford brings a delightful level of camp to her relatively minor role of Lauren, and her “The History of Wrong Guys” is the most outright hilarious song in the show.  And while the entire ensemble deserves mention, special kudos must be given to the six drag Angels who provide frequently outrageous background business without ever upstaging queen bee Lola.

Visually, the show strikes the perfect balance between the working class realities of its industrial setting and the kitschy fantasy world of Lola and her Angels.  David Rockwell’s unassuming but surprisingly versatile factory set seamlessly reconfigures itself into a tiny flat, Lola’s underground club, and even a boxing ring (an unexpected second act diversion which the Angels turn into a magnificently campy highlight).  Costumer Gregg Barnes deserves a Tony nomination for the Angels’ finale outfits alone, but this gifted designer is equally at home dressing the blue-collar factory workers and the bourgeois members of Milan’s fashion elite.  And the titular boots look as gloriously gaudy as you could possibly hope, adding immensely to the show’s already sizable appeal.

Coming off a decidedly lackluster fall for new musicals, Kinky Boots feels like a godsend.  It is an unabashedly entertaining show filled to the brim with charm and good humor, and sports an always relevant message about accepting yourself and others for who they are.  The entire cast is filled with talented performers using all their varied gifts to entertain, with Billy Porter’s Lola emerging as one of the most memorable characters to sashay across the Broadway stage in several seasons.  Those searching for an evening of high art will be disappointed, but they were never the target audience of this show to begin with.  The rest of us can – and should – revel in Kinky Boots’ delightfully daffy spell.

PS - This is my 100th post!  Thank you everyone for reading.  Here's to the next 100 :-)

Goodbye Until Tomorrow

Review:  The Last Five Years

You'll want to spend more than just the next ten minutes with Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe in The Last Five Years.

The original production of Jason Robert Brown’s semi-autobiographical musical The Last Five Years only ran for two months Off-Broadway, but thanks to a beloved cast album featuring Norbert Leo Butz and Sherrie Renee Scott the show has gone on to achieve genuine cult status.  But despite hundreds of college and regional productions during the eleven years since its premiere, the current Second Stage Theatre revival marks this chamber musical’s first return New York City engagement, and the first chance many fans (myself included) have had to actually see the show live.  Those myriad fans, and anyone else with an appreciation for serious musical dramas, will be happy to know that this revival not only meets but at times even exceeds the lofty expectations brought on by its vaunted reputation.

A high concept affair based in part on Brown’s failed first marriage, The Last Five Years chronicles the relationship of aspiring young actress Cathy Hyatt and writing wunderkind Jamie Wellerstein.  The twist is that while Jamie’s story unfolds in chronological order, Cathy’s tale is told in reverse, beginning with the couple’s divorce and ending on the night of their first date.  While an interesting idea, this approach means the actors in this two person chamber musical almost never interact, save during their wedding day at the show’s midpoint.  The concept also requires the audience to track the two stories separately and figure out how they overlap as the evening progresses.  Although an ultimately rewarding gimmick, the time jumping narrative does keep the audience from fully engaging with the characters for the first twenty or so of the show’s intermissionless ninety minutes.

Thankfully, whatever clunkiness is caused by the show’s narrative structure is more than compensated for by its lushly romantic score.  Since first bursting onto the scene in the mid-nineties with Songs for a New World, Brown has been routinely hailed as one of the most sophisticated composers of his generation.  The Last Five Years is his most unabashedly beautiful score to date, a perfect melding of pop-influenced character songs and gut-wrenching ballads.  Vocally demanding and richly textured, Brown’s music rewards repeated listening thanks to its subtle motifs and complex, often surprising lyrics which speak volumes about the characters singing them.  Brown has also ingeniously orchestrated the piece with a fullness that belies the six person pit’s small size, making judicious use of strings to add to the music’s romantic flair.

Brown’s music is notoriously difficult to sing, and finding two young performers with the vocal ability and emotional maturity to bring this score to life is one of the primary challenges facing any proposed production.  For this incarnation, Brown – who also assumes directing duties – has found the exceedingly talented Betsy Wolfe and Adam Kantor to embody Cathy and Jamie, respectively. 

Wolfe in particular is simply sensational, immediately banishing any memories of Sherrie Renee Scott’s performance (no small task) and making Cathy entirely her own.  With an emotional vulnerability that pulls the audience in, she creates a wholly sympathetic portrayal of a not entirely likable woman, as Cathy’s crushing self-doubt and neurotic need for attention are at least partially to blame for her marriage’s eventual collapse.  Wolfe starts the show on a high note with a superbly acted “Still Hurting” and proceeds to improve from there, and as Cathy regresses to happier times Wolfe gets to display her finely tuned skills as a comedienne.  She turns Brown’s purposefully ridiculous “A Summer in Ohio” into comedic gold, and her pitch-perfect send up of every bad audition habit during “Climbing Uphill” will be especially appreciated by anyone unlucky enough to experience such a thing in person.  The actress sings like a dream, tenderly caressing her notes or belting them to the rafters as the score dictates.  It is a star-making performance, and I expect Wolfe to become one of the city’s most in-demand musical actresses following her work here.

Kantor is slightly more problematic as Jamie, at least initially.  His first song, “Shiksa Goddess,” is surprisingly subdued both vocally and emotionally considering the song is about the unequaled thrill of a stellar first date.  But as the show progresses Kantor becomes steadily more effective, and by the time he sings his final farewell to Cathy your heart breaks with his.  Credit must be given to Brown for writing Jamie – obviously an author analogue – as a real person and not a faultless saint, and Kantor’s performance makes it clear that Jamie hates himself as much as anyone for the mistakes he makes, a trait most readily illustrated during his particularly forlorn rendition of “Nobody Needs to Know.”  Kantor also transforms “The Schmuel Song,” which has always seemed overlong and unnecessary on the cast recording, into one of the most surprisingly touching moments of the show, displaying a gift for emotional clarity and a charming sensitivity that goes a long way towards explaining why Cathy puts up with Jamie’s ever-burgeoning ego.

Brown’s staging of the work is excellent, emphasizing clarity and emotional honesty over any theatrical trickery.  The amount of visual interest Brown derives from what is essential an uninterrupted succession of solos is astounding, and with each scene transition it is immediately clear both where and when the characters are in their journey.  Brown has permitted his actors to take slight liberties with the rhythm and tempo of the music, and while this may initially throw fans of the cast recording for a loop, almost every change brings with it greater illumination of the show’s lyrics and the psychological state of its characters.  Set designer Derek McLane and costumer Emily Rebholz provide minimalistic but evocative designs in purples and blues, all gorgeously lit by Jeff Croiter’s rich lighting design.

Anyone interested in The Last Five Years should run, not walk, to purchase their tickets to this deeply moving Off-Broadway revival.  This is a definitive production of Brown’s deeply personal work, representing the show as he intended it to be and executed with the utmost professionalism by all involved.  Kantor and Wolfe are promising young talents poised for great things, and this could be the last chance to see them in such an intimate setting.  Like Sondheim before him, Brown has pushed the boundaries of what the contemporary musical can be, creating an artistic triumph that demands to be seen by all.