Quick reviews 2012

These are the shows I've seen in 2012 with a quick rating for each and links to reviews (some still to come). Please scroll down for other recent posts.

I also have a list of shows I've seen since 2007. (Ok, it's a bit out of date now.)

BEST. EVER.

Black Watch - National Theatre of Scotland at Shakespeare Theatre - D.C.

ZOMG

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs - Public

Assassins - Broadway Reunion Concert - Roundabout
Cock - The Duke

Da - Gate - Dublin, Ireland
Dirt, Part I - HERE Summer Sublet Series
DruidMurphy cycle - Druid Theatre/Lincoln Center Festival
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity - Company One - Boston

Freestyle Love Supreme

Once - New York Theatre Workshop and Broadway transfer
Prison Dancer: The Musical - NYMF

Tribes - Barrow Street
Uncle Vanya - Sydney Theatre Company/Lincoln Center Festival
The Whale - Playwrights Horizons

W00T

American Idiot tour

Assistance - Playwrights Horizons

The Best Man - Broadway

Billy Elliot - Broadway

The Canterbury Tales Remixed - SoHo Playhouse

Chimichangas and Zoloft - Atlantic
Falling - Minetta Lane Theatre
Glengarry Glen Ross - Broadway

An Iliad - New York Theatre Workshop

Lonely, I'm Not - Second Stage

Long Day's Journey into Night - New Rep - Boston
Macbeth - National Theatre of Scotland/Lincoln Center Festival
No Room for Wishing - Company One and Central Square Theater - Boston/Cambridge

A Number - Whistler in the Dark - Boston

Outside People - Vineyard

Slowgirl - Lincoln Center
Uncle Vanya - Soho Rep

YEAH

Backbeat - Mirvish Productions - Toronto
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo - Company One - Boston
Bring It On - Broadway
Le Cabaret Grimm - NYMF
Car Talk - Underground Railway Theater - Cambridge
Chinglish - Broadway

The Columnist - Broadway

The Common Pursuit - Roundabout

Death of a Salesman - Broadway

Dogboy & Justine - workshop production at American Theater of Actors

An Early History of Fire - New Group

February House - Public
Fried Chicken and Latkes - Actors Temple Theatre

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Encores
Golden Age - New York City Center
Good People - Huntington - Boston

Harold and Maude musical - York Musicals at Mufti
Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Rose Tinted Productions/A.R.T. - Cambridge
*Hedwig and the Something Homunculus (that's what I remember about the working title) - workshop presentation at AFTERGLOW - Provincetown, MA
The Heiress - Broadway
If There Is, I Haven't Found It Yet - Roundabout
Ingmar Bergman's Persona - HERE Summer Sublet Series

Leap of Faith - Broadway

The Lyons - Broadway

Merrily We Roll Along - City Center Encores
Modern Terrorism, or They Who Want to Kill Us and How We Learn to Love Them - Second Stage

Next to Normal - Speakeasy - Boston

One Man, Two Guvnors - Broadway

Potted Potter - Little Shubert

Stick Fly - Broadway

Storefront Church - Atlantic

That Beautiful Laugh - La Mama
Through the Yellow Hour - Rattlestick
Two Gentlemen of Verona - Actors' Shakespeare Project - Somerville

Wit - Broadway

Perversely excited: Xanadu tonight

http://www.speakeasystage.com/doc.php?section=showpage&page=xanadu

Lisa and I are headed to the Boston Center for the Arts tonight to experience what I hope will be a fantastically cheesy musical: Xanadu. I've seen the original movie (seriously, WTF was that mess?), but I've never seen the stage adaptation. I hear it's very campy and probably involves hotpants* and rollerskates. I love things that are intentionally cheesy as long as they're clever. So I have my fingers crossed!

* Alas, this production contains no Cheyenne Jackson.

Thank god for Broadway tours (American Idiot is back!)

http://americanidiotthemusical.com

Boston is an amazing city with tons of great local theater. Plus it's a doable bus distance from New York. It also launches shows that later transfer to New York, hosts Broadway tryouts, and always brings in big Broadway tours. And I am SO thankful for that, especially when dearly departed Broadway shows come around on national tour. (Billy Elliot just closed, and I'm already ready for the tour to get here. I can't believe I have to wait until July!)

This week, I finally get to see American Idiot again. (A lot.) Oh, how I have missed this musical since it closed on Broadway nine months ago! And I'm so excited to see familiar faces from the Broadway cast, especially Van Hughes reprising his role as Johnny and two excellent former understudies now in leading roles: Leslie McDonel as Heather and Joshua Kobak as St. Jimmy.

Mostly, I'm in love with Tom Kitt's gorgeous arrangements of Green Day's cathartic music and Steven Hoggett's powerful choreography. I really can't get enough of either. Sure, eight shows in one week is excessive. But surely that's not surprising to any of you who have read this blog before.

I'll write up a review at the end of the week, but I can tell you now that it will be mostly positive!

___

A special hello to my new theater friend, Jorge. It was great talking with you before the show, and I look forward to seeing you at other performances in Boston and New York. Theater people are the best!

___

ETA: There is a ticket lottery for $28 seats in the first 2 rows. Cash only. Submit your name 2.5 hours to submit your name. Winners will be chosen 30 minutes later.

Quick reviews 2011

These are the shows I saw in 2011 with a quick rating for each and links to reviews (some still to come). Please scroll down for other recent posts.

I also have a complete list of shows I've seen since 2007.

BEST. EVER.
Black Watch - National Theatre of Scotland at St. Ann's Warehouse - off-Broadway
The Cripple of Inishmaan - Druid ensemble tour through ArtsEmerson - Boston
Frankenstein - National Theatre (London) Live broadcast

ZOMG
American Idiot - Broadway
The Book of Mormon - Broadway
The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures - Public Theater - off-Broadway
The Merchant of Venice - Theatre for a New Audience at Emerson's Cutler Majestic - Boston

Once - Broadway

W00T
Anything Goes - Broadway
Arcadia - Broadway
Carson McCullers Talks about Love - Rattlestick Theatre - off-Broadway
Completeness - Playwrights Horizons - off-Broadway
The Dream of the Burning Boy - Roundabout Theatre Black Box - off-Broadway
Good People - Broadway
Gruesome Playground Injuries - Second Stage - off-Broadway

Hadestown (Anais Mitchell) - traveling concert version
Invasion! - Play Company - off-off-Broadway

The Lyons - Vineyard Theatre - off-Broadway
Misterman - St. Ann's Warehouse - off-Broadway
The Normal Heart - Broadway

The Public - Powerhouse - New York Stage and Film at Vassar College

The Rocky Horror Show - The Old Globe, San Diego
Seminar - Broadway
Sons of the Prophet - Huntington Theatre - Boston

Sons of the Prophet - Roundabout Theatre - off-Broadway
Through a Glass Darkly - Atlantic Theater - off-Broadway

Venus in Fur - MTC - Broadway

Matt and Ben at Central Square Theater

http://www.centralsquaretheater.org

[I'm not able to see Matt & Ben before it closes this weekend, so I'm very glad to have this guest review from Lisa, my frequent partner in crime. Very frequent this month, actually: We're going to NYC together the next three weekends.]

A script falls from the sky. Hilarity ensues!

Cambridge native Mindy Kaling (best known for her role on The Office) and coauthor Brenda Withers have created a fantastically funny play showing a might-have-been version of the pre-fame friendship of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, complete with phone calls to Casey and flashbacks to high school.

There are surprise special guests, an awesome fight scene, and more in this alternate universe. The two aspiring stars are spending the day in Ben’s Somerville apartment trying to work on a script when their lives are suddenly changed forever. The friends are actually working on “adapting” another script when Good Will Hunting literally falls into their lives. This leaves them to struggle with questions about everything from their friendship to their careers to what to do with Good Will Hunting when it suddenly appears and then won't leave.

Marianna Bassham and Philana Mia are brilliant as the not-too-bright but naturally charismatic Ben and the overly studious and much more driven Matt. Aside from a few points where the script lags a bit, this show is great fun.

Matt & Ben plays through Sunday, Aug. 14 at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Mass.

Also, David Schwimmer looks like a mushroom! (It’s worth going to the show just so you’ll know what that means.)

Quick hits 1

My longer list of shows I've seen this year obviously includes shows that have closed. And there are a ton of productions I saw this year that I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet (plus shows I saw in past years that are still running). I do hope to double back to them.

In the meantime, here are my brief impressions of shows I've seen that are still running, in case you're looking for recommendations of shows to see (or to avoid). I'm just going from the lists of Broadway and off-Broadway shows at Playbill.com. If no dates are given, the show's run is open-ended.


ZOMG
Avenue Q - off-Broadway (not for the easily offended, but smart and hilarious)
Billy Elliot - Broadway (not for those who care about accurate British accents, but heartwarming with great music and dancing)

W00T
Anything Goes - Broadway
Sons of the Prophet - off-Broadway - currently scheduled for Sept. 20 through Dec. 23

YEAH
Blue Man Group - off-Broadway (weird and fun)
How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying - Broadway
Jerusalem - Broadway - closes Aug. 21 (heavy, but Mark Rylance's Tony-winning performance is definitely worth seeing)
Silence! The Musical - off-Broadway - currently extended through Sept. 24 (not for the easily offended, or for people who don't remember the movie well, but so much fun)
The Talls - off-Broadway - closes Aug. 27 (I laughed so hard and so often that I was embarrassed and had to clamp my hands over my mouth at times)

OK
All New People - off-Broadway - closes Aug. 14
Follies - Broadway - closes Dec. 30
Rock of Ages - Broadway (fun if you like that kind of music, and really much better than I expected)
Wicked - Broadway (quite a spectacle; I saw this on tour in Boston not on Broadway, so take from that what you will; a good time, but with all the hype I was a bit disappointed)

MEH
Catch Me if You Can - Broadway
Hair - Broadway (tour) - closes Sept. 10 (not my favorite songs, and I wish it had more of a story and developed characters, but the wall of sound created by so many voices is quite impressive, so if you like the music, this might be for you)
Priscilla, Queen on the Desert - Broadway
War Horse - Broadway/London's National Theatre

Upcoming
Bluebird - off-Broadway - currently scheduled for Aug. 9 through Sept. 9
The Book of Mormon
Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling - off-Broadway - currently scheduled for Sep. 9 through Oct. 23
The Lyons - off-Broadway - currently "scheduled" for September through November
Master Class - Broadway - closes Sept. 4
Once - off-Broadway - currently scheduled for Nov. 15 through Jan. 1
Porgy and Bess - Boston pre-Broadway tryout Aug. 17 through Oct. 2 - currently scheduled to start on Broadway Dec. 17
The Submission - off-Broadway - currently scheduled for Sept. 8 through Oct. 22

Sons of the Prophet at The Huntington

http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/production.aspx?id=8754




Ah, I love shows like Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet, which just closed at Boston's Huntington Theater. It's clever and full of heart but also rudely funny. (I assume I'll feel the same way about The Book of Mormon, the musical by those South Park guys.)

The play begins with a car accident resulting from a stupid high-school prank, which is just the latest of the tragedies surrounding a Lebanese family that is descended from early-twentieth-century Prophet poet Kahlil Gibran. (Surely you've been at a wedding where this verse was read: "Love one another, but make not a bond of love / Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.") The play is structured around titles of Gibran passages that are projected as supertitles, like "On Pain," and this familial connection is central to their lives, especially the relationship between father and sons.

Set in a dying industrial area of Pennsylvania, settled by Lebanese expats and sharing names with places in the Middle East, geography is key to this tale: the younger brother is a geography bee champion because the father taught the boys to recognize countries based on odd shapes (Russia does look like a headless dog!), the older brother longs to escape but doesn't have a passport, the reporter is writing a travelogue, and the crazy boss has just moved to where her husband had grown up.

Along the way, Sons addresses dichotomies including the crushing responsibility of family bonds/the strength they give, wanderlust/cultural ties, fame/stable job with health insurance, youth/elders, Maronite/Mormon, big-city glamour/small-town stoicism, tightknit white family/black high schooler in Jewish foster home, justice/mercy and hope, creating healthy connections/severing disfunctional bonds. Plus death and pain and forgiveness. Yet the play somehow doesn't sag under that weight: the final scene is so sadly hopeful.

With so many themes crammed into one play, it's hard to explore all of them, of course, and some may find that dissatisfying. But one of the play's strengths is in showing how complex a life can be--the need to balance competing relationships, responsibilities to work and family, needs of self and others, and valid but opposing world views.

I went into the show expecting to like it and came out loving it. I've seen the Huntington production twice now, and I'll see it again after it transfers to Roundabout's off-Broadway theater in the fall. Speech & Debate, an earlier Karam play that I saw at Roundabout's black box and then in a separate regional production at the Lyric Stage in Boston, is charming and very funny, if a bit superficial and rough around the edges. But Roundabout's investment in this young playwright is well deserved. Sons is just as funny though less slapstick, more complex, and ultimately more satisfying.

Huntington artistic director Peter DuBois seems to be quietly working to strengthen the bonds between the Boston and New York theater scenes with this show and Becky Shaw, which he directed here and at Second Stage. (He'll be back at Second Stage this summer directing All New People, by Scrubs actor Zach Braff.) DuBois has assembled a strong cast for Sons, and I expect many of them will transfer, since most have New York credits. And the show definitely seems to be a vehicle for Joanna Gleason, a master of daftly charming characters.

Kelsey Kurz is excellent as a single man, almost 30, who is suddenly saddled with the care of his crazy family at the same time as starting work for a crazy new boss and starting to date a self-centered and ambitious reporter. (My only quibble with his casting is that Kurz is not at all built like the competitive long-distance runner he is supposed to be.) Lizbeth Mackay, who shows up very late in the play for a wonderful scene with Kurz, gives a beautifully understated performance, and I'll be keeping my eyes open for a chance to see her in larger roles. (I sadly don't remember her from the recent Broadway revival of All My Sons, but she was sharing the stage with the phenomenal John Lithgow, Diane Wiest, Patrick Wilson, and Becky Ann Baker--and the phenomenally bad Katie Holmes.)

The Boston production has just closed, so catch Sons of the Prophet in New York this fall.

The Other Place and the blessing of theatrical synergy

Two-show days/three-show weekends can be utterly exhausting. They're trying physically because I get fidgety and my knees start to protest after so much sitting still in a cramped space, mentally because it requires so much attention, and sometimes emotionally. That makes it hard to give each show the reflection it deserves. (I have become so grateful for the ninety-minute shows, which let me actually think between performances!) But I live outside New York, so there's just no way to see even half of the productions I want to unless I just cram them all in on the weekends. (A huge thank you to Chris, Seth, and Becca for letting me crash at their place--all the time.)

The flip side of this is that seeing shows back-to-back can create wonderful serendipitous experiences. Most recently, I saw Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney at the Irish Rep on a Saturday and Sharr White's The Other Place at the MCC the following day. Both are impressive performances in their own right, but the combined experience is far greater than the sum of its parts. In fact, if I had seen them months apart, I'm not sure my puny, forgetful brain would have made a connection. The plays tell the stories of women dealing with their own physical deterioration and its mental effects, how their husbands struggle to help them, and whether that help is more or less useful than how they struggle to help themselves.

Molly Sweeney has closed, but The Other Place is currently running through May 1 at the MCC and, although the script is flawed and devolves a bit into cliche, Laurie Metcalf's performance is mesmerizing throughout, even when she's just sitting on stage in character waiting for the show to begin. I don't want to give away her ailment, as it might be considered a spoiler, but for me the reveal was less interesting than the path to get there. Aya Cash is definitely better as the daughter than as the doctor, and John Schiappa is wasted in what amounts to a bit part. Dennis Boutsikaris is effective as the put-upon husband doing his best to deal with both the illness and his increasingly erratic and belligerent wife, who, to his dismay, keeps insisting that he's filed for divorce and is having an affair with her doctor. The technical jargon and its accompanying visuals are arresting, sometimes assaulting, but I'm a nerd so I enjoyed it. Tthe power of this piece, though is Metcalf's performance, one not to be missed.

Another recent pairing is immersive musicals Prometheus Bound and Hello Again, which I've already posted about. And although I don't think either production is great, I enjoyed being able to compare the big, loud Prometheus Bound (performed in the A.R.T.'s new club space) with the quiet, unamplified Hello Again (performed in a SoHo building the Transport Group temporarily converted for this show).

The most stunning example of theatrical synergy (surely there's a better term for this?) is seeing Adam Rapp's Metal Children at the Vineyard followed by John Logan's Red, the Donmar Warehouse production that transferred to Broadway. I was so surprised at how much the second show changed my feelings about the first.

Red, about painter Mark Rothko and his (fictional?) assistant Ken, is just a phenomenal play. Eddie Redmayne and Alfred Molina (I will not think of him as Doc Ock!) gave career performances infusing the talk-heavy script with irresistible energy. But the play itself is perfect, never feeling dull or preachy even during long monologues about, well, art. The whole production was flawless, especially the canvas priming--probably the most visually stunning scene I've ever seen on stage--though the opening to the National Theatre's current production of Frankenstein is right up there. (I'm so excited that the SpeakEasy Stage Company is doing Red in Boston next season!)

Metal Children, on the other hand, is good but not great, and I might have written it off as an interesting idea gone a bit wonky if I'd seen it in isolation. (I feel that way about a lot of Rapp's work, which is compellingly dark--and odd.) You can never go too wrong with Billy Crudup on stage, of course. Mostly, I loved how their meditations on the purpose of art and the dangers of being misunderstood but yet commercial artists play against each other and make me reconsider Metal Children, a play I enjoy more as I think about it afterward than I did while watching it.

These pairings are unintentional but delightful, and I would like to create more of these experiences but, as I said, I mostly just cram in as many shows as I can whenever I can. Tonight I'm in Cambridge to see Central Square Theater's production of Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code (about famous mathematician Alan Turing, who cracked the Nazi's Enigma code--perhaps you've heard of the Turing Test in relation to artificial intelligence). I would love to follow it up with Samara Weiss's Lines in Code in New York at Columbia Stage's New Plays Now (about the imagined--perhaps kinky--relationship between Charles Babbage, father of the computer, and Ada Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer), but it's playing only April 14 at 2, April 16 at 7, and April 17 at 2. Alas. I do hope I get to read it, though!

ETA: Yes, I get to read it! Thanks, Samara! Also, I just found out that one of the characters in Arcadia--which I'm seeing tomorrow--is loosely based on Lovelace. Isn't that awesome? Yay, serendipity! (Sorry for the sudden burst of exclamation marks.)

The Merchant of Venice tour

http://www.tfana.org/season/the-merchant-of-venice/overview

I'm not proud of it, but I don't know much about Shakespeare. (Hey, I wasn’t an English or theater major!) I know, I should probably be barred from the theater until I do my homework, right? Or, I could just go to more amazing productions like Theatre for a New Audience's tour of The Merchant of Venice and get schooled.

All the ads focus on Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham in a smart suit (see above)--and he is, unsurprisingly, excellent--but the star of this show is director Darko Tresnjak. By which I mean I loved everything about this show: the sleek set, the slick costuming, every single actor, and the use of the original language in a contemporary setting in a way that actually works. Tresnjak seems to direct many Shakespearean works. I don’t know if they’re all in this half-modern style, but if they were I would watch them all.

I find it difficult to follow Shakespeare live. The language is unfamiliar to me, so when it's spoken too quickly and in a pompous, stagy way, I get lost (even though it's generally easier to understand it on the stage than on the page). This production solves that problem entirely, though. Even when I missed a line or two because it was too quiet or too fast (or I was distracted by a terrible audience member), the superb acting got me right back on track.

What I find the most delightful, though, is that the actors look (in gestures and general movement) and sound (in cadence, inflection, and speech mannerisms) as though they're performing a modern play. There's nothing stuffy about their delivery at all because they clearly understand how every line they're saying would be translated in modern language. And they act and give line readings according to that modern dialogue while actually speaking the original words. It's thrilling to watch.

Scholars the world over study Shakespeare, so I won't weigh in on the various debates regarding anti-Semitism in Merchant. I will just say that as a viewer new to this play, I find the whole cross-dressing bit with the wives fairly weird. In fact, I find the mix of humor and drama odd. I'm a fan of black comedy, but usually the twisted comedy derives from the drama itself, and here it's more like a parallel story that doesn't quite mesh. Also, the play gets surprisingly gay there at the end (perhaps without enough of a lead-up?), complete with a full on-mouth kiss. I don't know if it's just this production, but I couldn't tell if Antonio and Bassanio are supposed to be good mates or soul mates in the original play or in this production.

The setup about the husbands stupidly giving away the rings from their wives (to their wives in drag) seems to be the only part that straddles the drama/comedy line and brings the various storylines together. Portia certainly seems justified in her worry that she comes second in Bassanio's heart. She cares enough to save him from losing his friend, which would likely break him, even though saving him means having to share her husband's love with another. (Because she actually loves him or because he was the best of the bunch of potential spouses?) I'm disappointed for Portia that she only has a portion of her husband's heart, and also sad for Antonio that he has to be grateful for Portia saving his life while being envious that she has married his true love. Am I alone in wishing this storyline had been developed a bit more? (Am I also alone in wondering what exactly Antonio did to secure Bassanio's devotion? He comes across as a feckless asshat to me.)

So, now that I've made it clear how little I know or understand about the Bard, I hope you will still take me seriously when I say that you should go see this show if you get a chance. It's at the Cutler Majestic in Boston through April 10. The $25 seats in the rear mezzanine have a good view. (If you see it, please come back and explain it all to me!)

Prometheus Bound at the A.R.T.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/148207-Tony-Nominee-Gavin-Creel-Is-Prometheus-Bound-Opening-at-ART-March-4

Gavin Creel as Prometheus. Photo by Marcus Stern.

This musical should be titled Prometheus's Abs. As with Hair and The Donkey Show, A.R.T.’s Diane Paulus once again uses naked flesh (in the form of Gavin Creel, again) to distract from a hot mess of a show. (Hair isn't a bad show, exactly--especially compared to the completely clothed Johnny Baseball--but it's not a particularly great one.)

For me, the most telling thing about this lackluster production is that while I continue to think of additional things I loved about The Dream of the Burning Boy that I left out of my review (the clever use of movable bookshelves, the preshow music, the awesome blackboard/backlight panel), I've already forgotten almost everything about Prometheus, which I saw only three days earlier.

Here are my general recollections of this collaboration between Paulus, Steven Sater (Tony winner for the very awkward book to Spring Awakening), and Serj Tankian (from band System of a Down, which I've never listened to):
Loud! abs! where'd they go? can't hear lyrics! on my table! plot??? hate this space! creepy chicks are awesome! LOUD!

As my husband complained to me, for as loud as the show is, and with all the jumping around, nothing really happens. And because of that, there are no character arcs. The lack of action makes the story about as engaging as reading a Wikipedia article about the myth. This is not helped by Sater's stiff and clunky writing in both dialog and lyrics (but his earlier work with Spring Awakening makes this unsurprising). Plus, the vocals are often drowned out by the music, so it's hard to follow what story there is.

 The show bleeds righteous indignation and aspires to be a political anthem for Amnesty International, to inspire the youth to rise up and take social action. But to me the script lacks heart and, worse, is mostly irrelevant to its cause. But at least there’s loud music and half-naked dancing, right?

 And the kids on the dance floor did have their hands in the air.

Eventually even the wonder of the abs wears off, and only boredom is left. As I mention in an earlier post, in the Oberon space I feel very detached from the show even when it is happening on top of my table. (I'm curious how that experience will compare to the also-immersive Hello Again, by New York's Transport Group, which I'm seeing on Sunday.)

 The most interactive the A.R.T.'s shows get is to require the audience to remove everything from their tables when the cast comes bounding up. Yes, everything, including the menu that the staff puts on the table and the drinks they sell.

Between straining to hear the lyrics, trying to follow the actors around the space, keeping my head and arms inside the vehicle at all times, and looking very hard for the point, my mind wandered. I wondered if Creel had that ripped body before or developed it over the course of this very physically demanding show, caught myself pondering his terrible dye job, then admired the tenacity of the body tape valiantly holding on the mic cord running down his back in the face of all that sweating and thrashing about. Bravo, tape!



For all its faults, though, this production has a lot going for it, which is why it's such a shame it's not better. The actors performed the hell out of the material given to them. (Unfortunately, Gabe Ebert as Hephaistos/Hermes was always breaking character--I assume an ill-chosen direction from Paulus.) A couple of the less musical-theatery songs sounded wonderful, enough overall that I'll definitely check out System of a Down, but except for the quiet ones sung by the Daughters of Aether the lyrics were so hard to hear that I don't remember which songs.

Other aspects I liked:


• Uzo Aduba as Io. The only emotional part of the show is her story, and her pain is palpable (even though it's written as way too overwrought, she sells it). Although I wish some of her songs were quieter, subtler, Aduba acted the crap out of it.

 Prometheus is the protagonist, but whatever heart and soul this production has is Io.
• Gavin Creel as Prometheus. Wow, the guy can sing. Imagine if he had better songs! Also, the spotlight just loves him, even when the script gives his almost nothing to do but belt out angsty songs while looking pretty.
  
• The trio of Daughters of the Aether. Their songs are spooky and interesting, and I loved how Ashley Flanagan, Jo Lampert, and Celina Carvajal's voices meld together. Their movement around the club space is the only immersive aspect that makes sense for the story and is compelling rather than distracting (they're fairly peripheral to the story, lending atmosphere most of the time). Basically, they bring the cool.

• Lea DeLaria as Force. Ok, mostly DeLaria being DeLaria, kicking ass and being generally awesome.
  
• The crazy hair in the show. Especially the shaved/bright red 'do on one of the Daughters, Lea DeLaria's fauxhawk, and what the various band members sport. (Not Gavin's hair though. The black makes him look washed out, and the hair gets strangely poofy after all that writhing around.
)
• Highlighting Amnesty International's work. After the curtain call, they tell the story of one suffering activist and invite the audience to sign postcards on her or his behalf. (Apparently a new activist is selected for each show.) Although I fail to see any strong connection between the show and this very important work for human rights--despite the note in the program asking "Are we in ancient Greece? Or is Prometheus a defiant dissident in modern-day North Africa? Or China? Perhaps Iran or Belarus?"--I'm glad to see the effort on behalf of Amnesty nonetheless.

All in all, it comes down to this: Once the show was over, instead of pondering Prometheus as a modern human rights hero, I was instead thinking of how much I loved the National Theatre's broadcast of Frankenstein (based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus) and Anais Mitchell's brilliant Greek folk opera, Hadestown. Both put the A.R.T.'s Prometheus Bound to shame.

For the sake of all that’s right and good, would someone please mount a fully staged production of Hadestown in Boston or New York already?


(ETA: Anais's manager says they're working crafting the show right now, to be ready sometime next year. BEST NEWS EVER.)

Diane Paulus and the new A.R.T.

http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/

(Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office)

Last night I sat through Prometheus Bound, Steven Sater's new musical written with System of a Down lead singer Serj Tankian, at the Boston-area A.R.T., directed by the inexplicably popular Diane Paulus. Her star is on the rise after directing Hair on Broadway, which happens to be on tour in Boston at the Colonial Theater at the moment.

I'm not surprised that I didn’t love Prometheus. I clearly just do not like her work, and I suspect I never will. I didn't love Hair, with its paper-thin story full of characters I didn't connect with played by a highly energetic cast throwing out an impressive wall of sound on songs I knew but never had loved. I half-hated the complete two-headed mess of a musical that was Johnny Baseball (the modern half was a light and hilarious spoof of Red Sox fans, while the flashback was a muddled, preachy, ineffectual, sappy, and trite treatise against racism). And I despised The Donkey Show.

Most of all, I hate what Paulus has done with Zero Arrow Street in Harvard Square. I don’t find her use of the space to be daring or exciting or even particularly creative. In fact, it’s annoyingly disingenuous. It's one thing for a scrappy theater company to turn a run-down club into a low-budget, makeshift theater space. It's another entirely for a high-profile, well-funded company to turn a perfectly good theater with decent sound and sightlines into a crappy club performance space so that dancing half-naked actors can sing loudly at you and invade your personal space to distract you from the deficiencies in yet another underdeveloped show.

This immersive-theater style Paulus is cramming down our throats just makes me weary. I thought Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More was brilliantly immersive, with the audience roaming around four floors of an abandoned school out in Brookline to check out the amazingly detailed spooky-cool set design and then running to catch up with gorgeous dancers as they zipped from room to room to wordlessly interpret scenes from Macbeth. (Bringing Punchdrunk to Boston is Paulus’s best contribution to Boston theater so far.) She’s riding high on Sleep No More’s critical raves and The Donkey Show’s success (undeserved, I think--aside from the fun of drag kings and very pretty, very scantily clad go-go boys, I don’t see the appeal of this hideous disco-music sketch of A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Paulus now seems determined to force this in-your-face style onto pieces much less suited for it.

I neither want to stand for a 90-minute show on a crowded dance floor, getting pushed around to make room for actors and set pieces flying at me from different directions, nor do I appreciate having to crane my neck around this way and that to try to follow the action from the more expensive raised table seating. The lack of tiered seating upstairs and the action taking place mostly on the level below means someone else’s head is in your way even when the actors are directly in front of you. The floors on the upper level are creaky, and the actors are always stomping and jumping on and off tables and railings, so it's really loud. And with the mix of voices over music being woefully unbalanced, you just miss too much of the show visually and aurally.

I do wish I had seen Amanda Palmer as the Emcee in Cabaret there, since that seemed like a brilliant use of the space (and it wasn't directed by Paulus). And I must admit that the kids down on the dance floor at Prometheus Bound, and the gay men and bachelorette parties at The Donkey Show, seemed to be having a grand time and were likely to come back for repeat viewings. So it's clearly bringing in a new audience to the theater. So even if I don't like the style, and even if it will keep me from seeing future shows in that space, I must grudgingly admit that I’m grateful that Paulus is helping to make a new generation of theater-goers.

Big musical number (list of shows seen)

To give you the idea of the scale of my theater-going activities, below are a tally and a list of (as far as I know) all the shows I've seen since September 2007 (plus one Broadway show I saw as a kid--the original production of A Chorus Line, late in its run). Some shows I have seen multiple times. A few of them a thoroughly excessive number of times. (Should I admit to which ones? Hmmmmmm, maybe later.)


PERFORMANCES ATTENDED
2007 (September-December): 11
2008: 124
2009: 95
2010: 72
2011: 102
2012: ???