2013 Tony Predictions: Best Featured Actress

As the clock steadily ticks down to Tony Sunday, it’s time to begin predicting the winners of what I’ve dubbed the Big 12 Tony races (which includes the eight acting awards, best revivals, and best new productions).  I’ll be starting my analysis with the featured categories before working my way up towards the more prestigious awards, and if there are any major discrepancies between who I think is the most likely to win and who is the most deserving, I’ll be sure to point them out. 

Since any gentleman knows it’s ladies first, I’ll be starting with the Best Featured Actress categories, which I actually find to be some of the hardest categories to predict.  These races are where wildcard nominees are most likely to appear, with voters alternating between rewarding exciting new talent and re-honoring theatrical veterans.  Guessing which way the winds will blow in a given year can be as much luck as anything else, but I will bravely soldier on and do my best to make sense of it.  So without further ado, here are my picks for this year’s best supporting players.

Best Featured Actress in a Play

Condola Rashad (right) is two for two when it comes to Tony nominations; she's been nominated for each of her Broadway roles.  Can she win this year?

 

Nominees:  Carrie Coon, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Shalita Grant, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike; Judith Ivey, The Heiress; Judith Light, The Assembled Parties; Condola Rashad, The Trip to Bountiful

 

In some ways this race is anyone’s game, but I think the least likely winner among the five nominees is Judith Ivey.  All but forgotten by the New York press, The Heiress hasn’t been very competitive when it comes to nominations or wins this awards season, and with two career wins to Ivey’s name I think the voters will choose to spread the love.  Carrie Coon was absolutely brilliant in Virginia Woolf, but her role is the smallest in the four character play, and with her flashier costars curiously overlooked by other awards bodies I can’t imagine she stands much of a chance.  Shalita Grant could be a dark horse candidate, as Vanya and Sonia has proven to be a surprisingly strong contender this season and the show’s most honored star, Kristine Nielsen, is competing in another category.

But ultimately, I think the most likely winners are the two women who found themselves in this same spot last year.  After a three decade absence from the New York stage, Judith Light returned in 2010 and has been Tony nominated three seasons running.  It is impossible to overstate the amount of love the community has for last year’s winner, and it is not outrageous to imagine Light becoming a consecutive Tony winner.  Aside from having just won this award, Light’s biggest stumbling block is that fact that Tony voters don’t appear as enamored with The Assembled Parties as the critics were.  The Trip to Bountiful’s Condola Rashad has obviously inherited her mother Phylicia’s talent, and voters who balk at honoring Light two years in a row will almost certainly vote for the young starlet.  In fact, I’m going to make the bold prediction that Rashad will win this year, although only a fool would count Light out completely.

 

Will & Should Win:  Condola Rashad, The Trip to Bountiful

 

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

Andrea Martin in the outstanding revival of Pippin.  It's been 20 years since she won her first Tony; will this year bring her Tony #2?

 

Nominees:  Annaleigh Ashford, Kinky Boots; Victoria Clark, Cinderella; Andrea Martin, Pippin; Keala Settle, Hand on a Hardbody; Lauren Ward, Matilda the Musical

This category is a nice mixture of industry heavyweights and Tony newcomers, with every nominated performance I’ve seen culminating in a genuine showstopper.  Despite her rafter shaking vocals and unexpected dramatic heft, Keala Settle is the underdog here as Hands on a Hardbody is the only nominated show not currently running.  And for all of the good things said about Matilda, the production itself has been more praised than the individual performances, which hurts Lauren Ward’s chances considerably.

I would honestly be happy to see any of the three remaining women take home the trophy.  Victoria Clark has been handed some questionable material in the rewrite of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, but her second act ballad “There’s Music in You” is one of the most gloriously sung and acted pieces of music currently on Broadway.  I think the general disdain for Cinderella will hold Clark back, but there’s no denying the power of her performance.  Annaleigh Ashford is finally enjoying her moment in the sun after years of hilarious supporting turns in under seen or underappreciated musicals, and her solo “The History of Wrong Guys” is a simultaneous send-up and love letter to 80s rock anthems.  In a lesser actress’ hands the part would likely fall flat, and a Tony win would provide the perfect feather in Ashford’s professional cap.  But Andrea Martin’s work in Pippin is nothing short of magical, and in its utter simplicity her “No Time at All” manages to trump the topnotch revival’s overwhelming amount of visual spectacle.  Only a complete killjoy would begrudge Martin her likely Tony win, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer broad. 

Should Win:  Annaleigh Ashford, Kinky Boots

Will Win:  Andrea Martin, Pippin

 

Check back soon for my predictions in the Best Featured Actor categories, and until then you can catch up on the rest of my Tony ramblings for this season.

 

Best Book and Score

Best Choreography and Direction
2013 Tony Nominations React

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.

Worst of 2011: #4

Worst Shows of 2011

#4 Sister Act

Patina Miller and the cast of Sister Act

The creators of Sister Act are going to have to say a lot of Hail Marys to atone for the multitude of sins committed by this movie adaptation gone awry.  It’s not often that a show manages to insult my intelligence *and* offend me, but Sister Act did both with such ease it’s almost scary.

One of the show’s many unforgiveable sins is the absolutely atrocious, anachronism-filled book.  I shudder to think what the show was like in London if Douglas Carter Beane’s many rewrites are considered actual improvements.  The show makes a point of being set in the 1970s (presumably to compliment Alan Menkin’s disco-infused score), but almost all of the jokes and the manner in which they’re delivered are supremely contemporary.  They also aren’t particularly funny, making the choice even more irritating.

The script also suffers from particularly uneven characterization, oftentimes violating the show’s established rules in an attempt for laughs.  The biggest example of this comes during the number “It’s Good to Be a Nun,” in which the members of the convent complain about the various aspects of life as a nun, like early mornings prayers and hours of meditation and self-study.  Now last time I checked, nobody in modern day America is forced to join a convent, and if these nuns are all so miserable why don’t they just leave?  The song would have been equally effective if the nuns had been enthusiastic about their lives, highlighting the fish out of water scenario lead character Delores finds herself in while actually being true the characters onstage. 

Which points to a larger problem with the show: although not Catholic, I left the show vaguely offended by the way the show continually mocked the Catholic faith and those who choose to live by it.  You would expect The Book of Mormon, from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, to be the most offensive show of the year when it comes to religion, but I genuinely feel like it has a greater affinity for the religion at its core.  Mormon pokes fun at some of the religion’s tenants, but never crosses the line into condemning those who lead their lives based on those teachings.  Sister Act actively judges all of its characters, condemning them for choosing to participate in such a deeply ritualized faith, and yet expects us to simultaneously empathize with these women.  Talk about mixed messages!

Outside of the various structural problems, the performances in Sister Act are all over the map.  Patina Miller is clearly talented and generally quite strong in the role Whoopi Goldberg made famous, but her performance lacks that spark of vitality you expect in a big budget musical comedy.  After playing 2 years on the West End prior to coming to Broadway, Miller’s performance has started to feel stale, as if the actress is on autopilot.  Victoria Clark’s Mother Superior also doesn’t quite work, although for reasons harder to pinpoint.  On its own, her dry and understated delivery is often hilarious, but since everyone else in the show opts for a much broader acting style, Clark seems oddly out of place.

The musical takes forever to get going, with much of its first act wasted on unfunny one-liners and god-awful subplots involving the male characters.  The men are actually so poorly written and haphazardly performed, that an easy way to determine the entertainment value of an upcoming scene or song is to ask yourself, “Do I see a male onstage?”  If you do, it’s an excellent time to check your program or go to the bathroom.

Sister Act disappoints on so many levels that it makes my blood boil.  Unlike some screen to stage transfers, the show actually has a premise that naturally lends itself to musicalization.  And while I enjoyed the Whoopi Goldberg film of the same name, it is by no means one of my favorites, so I don’t have a problem with the stage version’s decision to jettison large swaths of the film in favor of original material.  What I do have a problem with is almost all of those changes being for the worse.  I’m personally hoping the show posts a closing notice soon, and puts all of us out of Sister Act’s misery.