Let Her Sing

Review:  Violet



Roundabout takes another chance by casting Sutton Foster in a role against her usual type, and it pays off handsomely.

Two-time Tony-winner Sutton Foster is virtually unrecognizable in Roundabout's revival of Violet, the 1997 Off-Broadway musical about a disfigured Southern girl on her way to seek a cure from a famous televangelist.  Oh, that crystalline belt is unmistakably hers, and in the show's lighter moments we see glimpses of the musical comedienne who wowed in shows like Thoroughly Modern Millie and The Drowsy Chaperone. But for the majority of Violet's intermissionless 110 minutes, Foster completely disappears inside this deeply insecure young woman struggling to make sense of the blows life has handed her, and watching an actress so familiar play so thoroughly against type is positively thrilling.  There are plenty of other aspects to recommend in this handsomely staged production, but Foster is the main draw, and it is another high point in her illustrious and prolific stage career.

Violet suffered a horrible accident in her youth, when her father's axe blade flew off the handle and left Violet with a brutal scar across her face.  Now grown, Violet has convinced herself that if she places herself in the hands of a nationally famous faith healer, God will heal her disfigurement and she can become the woman she was destined to be.  To that end, she hops on a bus toward the site of the Preacher's next big revival, and along the way befriends two soldiers who will play a major role in helping Violet realize what is truly beautiful about her.

It must be said that as a piece of theatrical writing, Violet has some issues.  Brian Crawley's libretto skips to different points in Violet's life with a murky logic that at times makes the show more of a mood piece than a coherent book musical.  Jeanine Tesori's folk and gospel-influenced score is far more engaging than Crawley's occasionally cloying dialogue, even if several musical numbers overstay their welcome ("Luck of the Draw" and "Raise Me Up" are prime offenders, even if the latter features some thrilling choral work by the hardworking cast of 11).  Thankfully for the show and the audience, the strongest section of the show is the last, with the final 30 minutes proving both an illuminating character study and an emotionally satisfying conclusion to Violet's journey.  Although the show's message about personal acceptance has become something of a cliché, it is heartfelt and earnestly expressed by both the writing and the cast.

In fact, it is largely due to the first-rate cast that Violet is able to overcome its more questionable plotting decisions and structural weaknesses.  As previously mentioned, Foster exceeds expectations as a dramatic singing-actress, in her most surprising and emotionally moving performance yet.  The production eschews any kind of make-up, allowing the audience to imagine Violet's horrific scar rather than getting bogged down with actually showing it; thanks to Foster's wholly committed performance, the scar's presence and the accompanying years of psychological baggage are always felt.  And while Violet the character can be emotionally guarded and introspective, Foster the actress is open and accessible in a way that anchors and elevates the show and its message of inner beauty triumphing over adversity.  Towards the musical's end, one of the characters earnestly tells Violet, "I wish you could see yourself.  You look so beautiful."  Because of the expert way in which Foster as charted her character's growth, we can see the exact change he's talking about, and it is truly marvelous.

Joshua Henry demonstrates great charisma as Flick, the black soldier who instantly bonds with Violet over the shared hardship of being constantly judged based on their looks.  Henry's million-watt smile and soulful voice make his solos soar, and he does an excellent job of creating a fully rounded character from material that leaves a lot unsaid.  Colin Donnell is appropriately dashing as Monty, Flick's womanizing companion who completes the central love triangle, although he is occasionally let down by the writing.  At times Monty is presented as a legitimate alternative to Flick, while at others he comes across as an opportunist only interested in brief fling.  Donnell portrays both options convincingly, which ultimately leaves you feeling unsure about both his character and how we're meant to feel about his eventual fate.  Meanwhile, Alexander Gemignani is pitch perfect as Violet's widowed Father, and Emerson Steele is ideally matched with Foster as the adolescent Violet.

Director Leigh Silverman has staged this production with efficiency and an appropriately scaled back physical production.  Unfortunately she doesn't always help to clarify what is going on in the show, specifically in regards to the logic behind the time shifts (Violet's current and past incarnations are often both onstage at once, in separate but interlocking scenes that sometimes dissolve into one another).  Both David Zinn's set and Clint Ramos' costumes are appropriately unassuming, with enough detail to suggest time and place but not so much that they inhibit suspension of disbelief during the many location changes and scene shifts.

If you're looking for the kind of big, splashy musical that Sutton Foster is usually associated with, Violet is not for you.  But it is a lovingly mounted production of a charmingly small-scale musical that tells an interesting and moving story despite some structural shortcomings.  Previously confined to the realms of musical comedy, Foster's career redefining performance shows she has the acting skills to tackle more serious musical dramas, opening even more doors for one of the Great White Way's most in-demand leading ladies.  Ably supported by her costars, Foster makes Violet a journey worth taking

Shakespeare Sings, and It's (Mostly) Beautiful Music

Review:  Love’s Labour’s Lost

It's Shakespeare, but it's fun!  See?  His bowtie is untied and everything!

 

The Public Theatre’s annual Shakespeare in the Park program was started with a very simple mission: to provide free Shakespeare to the entirety of New York City, not just those able to afford the increasingly high price of theatre tickets.  Over the years this mission has expanded to include revivals of other classic playwrights and even the occasional musical, with multiple productions eventually transferring to healthy and critically acclaimed runs on Broadway.  This year the Public is using the program to launch an original musical for only the third time in its history, reuniting the creative team of the Tony-nominated Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson for a reimagining of the Bard’s early comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost.  And while the Public is clearly hoping that the show follows in the footsteps of Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, shows that transferred to Broadway and won Best Musical, this slickly produced new work is in need of at least one major round of rewrites before being ready for the big leagues.

For those unfamiliar with Shakespeare’s original play (and I must confess that I was not), the plot concerns the King of Navarre and three of his noble friends forswearing women and other earthly delights in order to devote themselves to study and personal betterment.  This vow is immediately tested by the arrival of the Princess of France and her entourage, who have come on behalf of her father to discuss some financial matters.  In an attempt to keep his vow the King insists the women camp outside his house rather than enter it, but the noblemen and women soon fall desperately in love.  There is also a subplot involving a Spanish lothario named Armado who is attempting to woo a tavern wench named Jaquenetta, and several other periphery characters that seem to be given a disproportionately large amount of stage time in comparison to their almost complete irrelevance to the plot.

Since I have neither seen nor read the original Shakespeare play, I cannot tell if this production’s narrative problems stem from the original text or from bookwriter/director Alex Timbers’ adaptation of it.  But the problems are definitely there, with multiple characters feeling underwritten and besieged by inconsistent motivations.  The show’s resolution also isn’t nearly as tidy as the almost painfully thorough denouements Shakespeare is known for, although the bizarre tonal shift at the play’s end does stem from the source material.  Timbers would have been better served by cutting several nonessential characters and subplots during his condensation of the show’s narrative, which would have allowed him more time to explore the principle characters and sharpen the thematic parallels between the love story of the nobles and the Armado/Jaquenetta subplot.

On the positive side, Timbers’ reimagining of the characters and setting is often ingenious.  He has reset the show in the present day and recast the noblemen and women as Ivy League college grads.  The men’s vow to devote themselves to further study calls to mind the decision many young people make to enter grad school rather than confront the harsh realities of adult life that their education and upbringing has done so little to prepare them for.  It is a crisis that will be especially familiar to the Millennials in the audience, and makes the play double as a funhouse commentary on the very real challenges facing today’s young adults. 

Timbers also does an excellent job of blending the contemporary jargon found in Michael Friedman’s lyrics with the Shakespearean dialogue used in the book scenes, and does a much better job of integrating Friedman’s rock-influenced score into the show’s structure than the pair managed in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, whose music often felt like an afterthought.  The score is also much more accomplished than the bare bones affair Friedman created for Bloody Bloody, although the composer still doesn’t have a firm grasp on how to use reprises and often struggles to find appropriate buttons for his sometimes truncated songs.

The slickness of Timbers’ and Friedman’s writing is matched by the outstanding production design.  John Lee Beaty’s unit set is one of the most visually interesting constructions the prolific designer has created for the Delacorte stage, and is perfectly complimented by Jennifer Moeller’s spectacular modern dress costumes.  Jeff Croiter beautifully lights all of the onstage shenanigans, with designs ranging from naturalistic mood lighting to rock concert razzle dazzle with a pit stop into the world of Eastern European performance art strobe lights.  (And while we’re on the subject, the deliciously non-sequitur performance art set piece is easily the highlight of the evening, and one of the most side-splittingly funny moments of the year.)

It is unfortunate that the performances don’t achieve the same uniform cohesion as the physical production.  Some of the actors do great work and some struggle unsuccessfully to make their characters pop, which only serves to highlight the show’s less successful moments.  In general, the women make a greater impression than the men, with Patti Murin’s indignant valley girl Princess emerging as the most consistently engaging performance of the evening.  Murin possesses excellent comic timing and a fine voice, while bringing a depth to the role that almost sells the heavy-handed ending the show is saddled with.  Rebecca Naomi Jones’ Jaquenetta has been gifted with the show’s best song, the smoldering rock ballad “Love’s a Gun,” and she knocks it out of the part.  But most importantly, the women display a genuine camaraderie and sense of teamwork that is sorely lacking among the men.

Colin Donnell comes across the better than the rest of his male costars as Berowne, the most conflicted of the four nobles, but Donnell’s role is more fully developed than most and even at his best he rarely rises above passable.  Daniel Breaker’s King has his moments, although his characterization also feels unintentionally separate from the rest of the noblemen.  Caesar Samayoa plays Armado as a dim puppy dog who is far too eager to please, and his cloyingly indulgent performance will repeatedly test the audience’s patience.  It is disappointing that such a high profile production ended up with such an uneven cast, and there are times where it’s obvious the dubious performances are holding the material back from the greatness it is pursuing.

Despite its many flaws, there is definitely potential in this material.  The writing shows flashes of brilliance and invention without disrespecting its source material, and the rock score is generally pleasing to the ear even if it isn’t particularly memorable.  Unlike too many new musicals, Lost never feels like it’s overstaying its welcome, and the intermissionless two hours is just about the perfect amount of time for it to tell it’s simple but engaging story.  It is often beautiful to look at, with the direction complimenting the design work perfectly.  If the cast doesn’t always reach the level one would hope for, there are certainly more good performances than bad, and several of the young leads are clearly on the cusp of the next level of stardom.  The show isn’t quite strong enough to merit a transfer, so anyone who is interested should hurry out and catch it before it disappears into the balmy summer night.

Even Flops Deserve an Encore

Review: Merrily We Roll Along

Celia Keenan-Bolger, Collin Donnell, and Lin-Manuel Miranda in the Encores staging of Merrily We Roll Along

I hope that Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, running this weekend and next as part of the Encores! concert series at NY City Center, receives that oft-speculated about Broadway transfer. Not because the show (or this production) is perfect; far from it, as there are many problems plaguing this 1981 flop musical about a group of friends dealing with life’s many disappointments. But the show is so close to being the grandly affecting theatrical revelation that we *want* it to be, and I firmly believe that it could achieve those lofty heights with just a bit more work.

A brief history lesson for the uninitiated: Merrily was the sixth collaboration between Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince, an artistic partnership that gave the world shows like Follies, Company, and Sweeney Todd. It tells the story of Franklin Shepard, a songwriter and film producer who is estranged from virtually everyone, including his longtime lyricist Charley Kringas and their novelist friend Mary Flynn. The story unfolds backwards, slowly revealing how these three inseparable friends ended up hating one another. The musical was such a critical and commercial failure when it opened on Broadway that it not only ended the Sondheim-Prince collaboration, but almost caused the gifted composer to retire from the theatre altogether.

But the show was preserved on a glorious original cast album, one which I have been in love with for many years. This Encores! concert, the latest in a decade-long, city wide fascination with all things Sondheim, was my first chance to see the show on its feet, and judge for myself whether the show (heavily revised by Sondheim and bookwriter George Furth since its initial Broadway run) was as bad as history would have you believe.

And unfortunately, this production doesn’t quite work. But it is so maddeningly close that I can’t help but think that with more time, it could become a truly transcendent theatrical event. The notoriously short Encores! rehearsal period hasn’t provided the performers with enough time to crack these complex characters, leaving us with a show that has its moments but is ultimately unsatisfying.

The book is partially to blame, but there’s no easy way to fix it. The same choice that makes the show fascinating – telling the story in reverse chronological order – also creates a host of challenges. It requires the actors to start the show at such an intense emotional level, where the depth of their bitterness and disappointment should be emanating from their pores, that few would be up to the task even in a traditional setting, let alone the abridged rehearsal period allowed here. Rather than having the entire evening to work up to that level of angst, the characters start at their emotional peak and slowly shed layers of regret to become the hopeful youths seen in the play’s final scene. The reverse narrative also requires the audience to absorb an incredible amount of back story early on, as we try to piece together the various relationships and how they got that way.

I honestly feel that Furth’s book does this in the most economical way possible; the rest is up to the actors and director. Helmer James Lapine and his cast are headed in the right direction here, but have obviously run short on time. More rehearsal, and a longer preview period, would certainly provide all of them with the chance to deepen their own understanding of the text and how to best illustrate that to the audience, which is why I would love to see the show transfer to Broadway and be able to revisit it after they had had a solid month or more to explore it. And everyone knows that Sondheim’s songs (which are at their most heart-wrenchingly beautiful here) can reveal new meanings on each subsequent listening, again making a convincing case for more rehearsal time.

As is, none of the three leads have a strong handle on their characters, although all are respectable actors who have solid moments throughout. As Franklin Shepard, Colin Donnell is so charming that you end up rooting for him even as the character makes some truly repugnant choices. Donnell has a gorgeous singing voice, and enough intelligence to be able to convey the inner conflict that underlies all of Shepard’s actions without ever being voiced. But at least two numbers require Shepard be absolutely reamed by other characters without chance for rebuttal, and Donnell misses the opportunity to really demonstrate the emotional toll it takes on Shepard.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is more problematic as Charley. Though a Tony-nominee for his performance in In the Heights, Miranda is not a singer, and seems to be outside of his natural range for most of the show. Occasionally his acting abilities allow him to compensate, but he is usually too concerned with hitting the right notes to be fully convincing. Yet all this doesn’t stop him from delivering a strong rendition of “Franklin Shepard, Inc,” an incredible piece of musical theatre writing that is one of the greatest gifts Sondheim ever gave a male actor.

But Miranda utterly botches Charley’s other big number, “Good Thing Going,” although I’m not sure he is entirely to blame. A song from Frank and Charley’s work-in-progress show that they sing at a backer’s audition, on the original cast album it is a solo wherein you see Charley’s dawning realization that he is losing his friend to the soulless entertainment industry. Contrasted with some technically dazzling counterpoint from the backers, who are discussing anything but the song they’re hearing, it’s an utterly heartbreaking moment. But in this production the song is a duet for Charley and Frank (mostly Frank) that serves no purpose; it no longer illustrates Charley’s increasing isolation, and the fact that these backers have no interest in making the “art” Charley and Frank aspire to has already been well-established. Now, this may be a rewrite done by Sondheim and Furth (though an ill-advised one), but it reads as if Miranda simply couldn’t sing the song and the music director hastily added Donnell in to compensate. Either way, it kills what could have been one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in the entire show.

Completing the trio of leads is Celia Keenan-Bolger, who does her best with the ill-defined Mary. The show never does a great job of establishing Mary as a character in her own right; she functions purely as a mediator between the bickering Charley and Frank. But given the amount of stage time Mary has and the serious dramatic ambitions of the show, she really should be given more depth than “mediator” and “occasional comic relief.” Keenan-Bolger does a decent job with the one-liners and makes a very convincing drunk in the opening scenes, but can’t overcome the limitations placed on her by the book.

The performer that comes out the best in all of this is Elizabeth Stanley as Gussie Carnegie, the star of Frank and Charley’s Broadway hit and Frank’s second wife. Although Gussie’s function in the story is clear – she’s the temptress that prompts most of Frank’s bad decisions – unlike Mary she is given enough personality and idiosyncrasies to evolve beyond that. Stanley is fantastic in the role, effortlessly capturing the glamour of a bona fide star and the neuroticism that all too often accompanies it. Although she gets plenty of stage time, I found myself wanting more of her, since the show tended to flounder when she was offstage. And as Frank’s first wife Beth, Betsy Wolfe sings and acts well enough, although her rendition of the show’s big ballad “Not a Day Goes By” needs more time to deepen into the emotional sucker punch it can be when sung by someone like Bernadette Peters (who has made it a staple of her concert performances).

Again, this is a show I dearly love, and so part of my disappointment with the Encores! production may stem from lofty expectations. But this production and this cast is clearly headed in the right direction, which makes it even more upsetting that they don’t have the luxury of more time to tackle this behemoth of a show. I suspect the difference between the first and second weekends will be enormous, and who knows what could be achieved with even more time to settle into these roles. Hopefully the reception for the concert staging will be warm enough that some producer risks bringing the show to Broadway, where I think the extra rehearsal time will result in a first rate staging of this important but problematic work.