Long week in review (11/15-11/20/2011): The Divine Sister / Idiots in concert / The Lyons / Once / Other Desert Cities / Hadestown

The theater week started (normally) in Boston on Tuesday, when I went with Lisa and hubby (I suppose I should just start calling him Arthur, yeah?) to see Charles Busch's The Divine Sister at SpeakEasy Stage in Boston. I never saw the show when it was in New York, and I think that's really, really fine. It's just really not my kind of humor (though I had a blast at Silence! The Musical!, which has a similar feel, I guess). The performances were excellent, especially Varla Jean Merman (aka Jeffrey Roberson), and the cast certainly didn't hold anything back in this insane slapstick comedy with music. It was quite a brilliant performance for what it was, I suppose. Not my favorite, but not a waste of an evening, and I like trying new things.

Then Lisa and I decided we were tired of acting like adults, so we ran off to New York Thursday night after work. We got to Rockwood Music Hall in time to catch the midnight set from the as-yet-unnamed punk trio of (ex-Idiots) Michael Esper, Johnny Gallagher, and Gerard Canonico. We got a nice seat upstairs and I drank a lot a whiskey. Lovely.

Friday we saw Esper again, this time at the Vineyard Theatre for our second viewing of The Lyons. Linda Lavin as the mother was just as excellent the second time around. Kate Jennings Bryant as the alcoholic sister was just as terrible. Dick Latessa as the obscenity-spewing dying patriarch was good but greatly overshadowed by Lavin--well, everyone was. I can see why she chose to do this off-Broadway role instead of reprising her role in the Broadway transfer of either Follies or Other Desert Cities. A role like Mrs. Lyons is a hard one to find. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have seen her performance even once, much less twice. The play itself is ... hilarious, sad, and very problematic. There's a weird scene with Mr. Lyons in the second act that is just SO unnecessary. The same with the sister's scene at the top of that act. Just, terrible really. It was hard to tell whether Bryant was truly awful (overall, but in that scene in particular), or if the playwright (Nicky Silver) spent all his talent on writing the parents and just ran out of steam when faced with the dialogue for the other roles. Overall, the first act is really good (daughter excepted), and the second act is a mess. As always, Esper cries beautifully. (Isn't it time for this man to be in a comedy? Or, even better, a traditional musical comedy? Please?)

Saturday Lisa saw Venus in Fur, which she then RAVED about, before abandoning me to head back to Boston. (I'm seeing Venus this weekend--front row for Hugh Dancy, w00t!) While she was there, I headed to the New York Theatre Workshop for my first viewing of Once. (I'll be seeing it a total of four times before it closes off-Broadway and will then probably park myself at the Bernard Jacobs theater next year.) I bought tickets to three performances as soon as subscriber tickets were available and have since gotten tickets to the closing, which is conveniently on a Sunday evening during a long weekend. I am in love with pretty much everything about this show, as I knew I would be. A show that adds the creative team behind Black Watch to the music of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova was a pretty safe bet for me. Sure, it's cheesy at times, but in a way that I find charming overall. And the music and visuals are breathtaking. I love the entire cast (even with the accent wonkiness). Kudos to Steve Kazee for making me feel even a bit sorry for him--given how attractive and talented he is, it's not so easy to be convincing as a sad sack. Major props to Cristin Milioti for approaching Irglova's stunning vocals and being completely charming in a role that's a bit too twee.

(I don't know if there are any left, since the show is getting good reviews and has already announced its Broadway transfer, but they were offering $20 tickets for all Sunday evening performances. They were available to purchase in advance at the box office--cash only, max 4 per person.)

Then I saw Other Desert Cities, minus Stockard Channing, who was out with an injury. The audience was understandably upset to be missing the show's star. I like Channing and was a bit disappointed, but I didn't mind seeing an understudy. I feel like I certainly get a better sense for the strength of a play itself when left in the hands of a less overwhelming presence. (Indeed, would The Lyons be as enjoyable without Lavin's masterful delivery and the extra oomph she provided even--often especially--in silent moments?) The cast is excellent, including understudy Lauren Klein, but the rhythm of the show was definitely off. And it did sound as though Jon Robin Baitz had written specifically for Channing's voice. I liked the play well enough and would like to see Channing in that role (because Pal Joey should NOT be the only time I see her on stage), so maybe I'll go back when Justin Kirk takes over Thomas Sadoski's role. For me, though, Judith Light made the show.

To wrap up the weekend, I got to see Anais Mitchell's BRILLIANT folk opera, Hadestown, again, this time as a regular concert at Le Poisson Rouge. As most of the audience were diehard fans, Mitchell skipped the exposition and just plowed ahead with the songs, with guest musicians including Ani DiFranco as Persephone and Boston music god Tim Gearan as Hades. I am so in love with this show. If I were rich, I'd bankroll a production of it myself. And I'd convince the Once team to write the book/direct/choreograph/design it. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN.

After Hadestown, the enormous band/cast came down off the stage and led the audience in some protest/pro-union songs. She then invited everyone to follow her out to Washington Square Park to support the OWS campers there. Here's a very up-tempo version of Hadestown from the park:

And here's the end of my favorite choreographed moment in Once:

Elizabeth A. Davis and Cristin Milioti

Photo by Joan Marcus

American Idiot

http://americanidiotonbroadway.com

When is a jukebox musical not a jukebox musical? No, I'm just kidding. American Idiot is definitely a jukebox musical--perhaps moreso than most in that it has practically no book. In a brilliant move, director Michael Mayer decided not to bloat it with cheesy dialogue to detract from the gorgeous people singing fantastic songs, dancing to cool choreography, and basically rocking our faces off. That also keeps the show at just over 90 minutes plus a fun curtain call, which makes it about perfect for adrenaline junkies with short attention spans (or people who are seeing a long-ass show like Jerusalem or The Intelligent Homosexual's ... the same day).

All together, there's less than five minutes of dialogue in American Idiot. Instead of a more traditional style of jukebox storytelling--which is often clumsily tacked onto a score of unrelated songs (Mamma Mia, All Shook Up)--Mayer and Green Day frontman and lyricist Billie Joe Armstrong give a sketch of character arcs for the leads (and a blank canvas for the large ensemble) and let them stand in for a whole generation of angry, aimless, impulsive youth desperate to break out of tiny towns and meaningless lives but unsure how. In the meantime, they settle for anything that gets their blood pumping: music, sex, drugs, fighting. It's a visceral show, aimed at the gut more than the head, and if the lyrics sometimes don't quite match up to the already thin plot (Extraordinary Girl???), no one cares much because the songs are damn catchy, and there are a million other details vying for attention.

I've seen this show an excessive number of times. Truly. And I'll see it again when the tour comes through Boston. The performers have been almost universally fantastic (late replacements for Will, Tunny, and St. Jimmy aside). And the set design, projections, and dances are so overwhelming that I could probably never see everything no matter how many times I might go. I love seeing what the understudies, who've had such different voices, bring to the songs gorgeously arranged by Tom Kitt. The added strings and the strength of so many great voices makes them so lush. I'll never get tired of the cast recording, even if it's overproduced and pop-sounding compared to the raw live show.

The show has been full of fantastic dancers, too (Leslie McDonnell, Declan Bennett, Andrew Call, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Gerard Canonico, and Mikey Winslow in particular), who performed the crap out of choreography that is perfectly matched to the style and energy of the show. I was sitting at Junior's splitting a slice of devil's food cheesecake with a friend after the show a few months ago and I mentioned how much I love the choreography. He said he didn't think there was much to it, which surprised me, but he admitted that West Side Story-style dancing would definitely have felt wrong. I love how Steven Hoggett exaggerates and smooths out the movements of kids who hang out in convenience store parking lots looking for trouble and turns it into (often-concussive) dance. The posturing in picking a fight with other kids killing time at the 7-11 and the struggle between new parents Will and Heather as she moves out are perfect. And the bombing dance, combined with actual night-vision footage from Iraq, is stunningly brutal. (I look forward to comparing it to the movement he created for the war scenes in Black Watch.) There's also a flying scene. (No, really.) My friend hadn't really considered any of that to be choreography, which I think speaks to how organic it feels to the music and the characters.

That bizarre flying scene is a duet between Extraordinary Girl (originally played by the golden-voiced Christina Sajous) and Tunny (originated by Stark Sands, the only one I've seen who's been up to the role). I get that it's a dream sequence, but even so it just doesn't belong in the show. EG glides down in a burka, which she then removes piece by piece, like a stripper, to reveal a midriff-baring I Dream of Jeannie outfit. Then they fly around (him in his hospital gown) singing the song Extraordinary Girl, which has lyrics that are probably the worst fit in the show (war is definitely not an ordinary world, the song mentions Whatsername, whom EG and Tunny have never met, etc.). It's a great song and flying is fun(!) but, like 3-D for movies, just because you can put something in your show doesn't mean you should.

The show itself is great, but the choices by director Mayer and casting director Jim Carnahan (who both also handled Spring Awakening) deserve much of the credit for Idiot's success. Individually he found the best people for each role (regarding the original cast), and their chemistry together was palpable. I really am in love with most of this cast (ensemble included) and can't wait to see what they do next. (Below the jump, I go on at length about the cast, especially Michael Esper and Tony Vincent, and talk about their other projects.)