Saturday in review (12/03/2011): Once / Sons of the Prophet

We took a quick two-show (day) trip to New York yesterday. I was excited to see Once at the New York Theatre Workshop for the second time, and to share it with hubby and Lisa. We're all completely in love with the show. The music is great, of course, which everyone who has seen the movie knows. And the story is simple and lovely. So I knew that the magical trio of Enda Walsh, Steven Hoggett, and John Tiffany would make the transition from screen to stage incisive, artistic, and haunting--and distinctly theatrical. (As usual, I am right.)

On the way out, we bought tickets to see it again in January (their second time, plus we'll be bringing our excellent hosts from Chez Church Korner with us). I already have a ticket for next weekend, so that group outing will be my fourth time seeing Once at NYTW. I can only assume it will transfer and get a Broadway cast recording later, and I'm sure I'll wear out that CD because the new arrangements are lush. Lisa and I disagree about how well Once will do in a larger space. She's wrong: It'll be awesome. But go see this gorgeous show with this crazy-talented cast it in this intimate theater with this charming set design while you have a chance. Not a bad seat in the tiny house.

TIP: Take a $20 bill to the NYTW box office immediately and buy yourself a ticket to any Sunday evening performance between now and Jan. 15 (if the show extends, it would only be one additional week). $20 gets you a great seat to any Sunday evening performance. In advance. (Cash only.)

Then we had another repeat show, of sorts. FINALLY, we saw the New York transfer of Sons of the Prophet at Roundabout's Laura Pels, which we had all loved at the Huntington in Boston. The play is much, much stronger but a bit less satisfying. A very unnecessary plotline has been removed, and it's been shortened to 1:45 with no intermission. Joanna Gleason's character is kind of charmingly daffy in a way that it's much easier to sympathize with now, making her much more real in a funny-but-heartbreaking/charming-but-infuriating way. I found her to be so grating in the earlier production, so this part of the rewrite is the most exciting of the changes. I laughed out loud less often at this incarnation, which is fine, but I also cared a bit less about the Douahiy family and what would happen to them, which is not so good. But the paring down has made the connections between characters make so much more sense, especially between the reporter and the older brother, Joseph, who is the heart of the show.

Since they've narrowed the story to fewer conflicts, I wish they'd hit those that are left a bit harder. For example, in the wake of current examinations of society's obsession with football culture, and the ways its stars are treated preferentially, I wish that the pivotal event of the car accident and the controversy surrounding the high school student's delayed punishment were explored more. And with our current economic woes, it's also a great opportunity to look more at issues of "personal responsibility" and the intersections of race and class. (I wish it also touched a bit on the intersection of sexual orientation and class.) Yes, I realize that would get rid of some of the streamlining that makes the current production so much better than its previous version. And, really, the script is SO much stronger now. But maybe it's time to go back in and messy things up a bit. I hope playwright Stephen Karam and director Peter DuBois will continue to refine the play before gets produced regionally. (I assume this play will start popping up EVERYWHERE next season.)

Sons of the Prophet is closing January 1, and I am trying to find a way to see it again before it does. And you should go see it, too.

Casting announced for NYC transfer of Sons of the Prophet

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/153356-Santino-Fontana-Joanna-Gleason-Lizbeth-Mackay-and-More-Cast-in-Roundabouts-Sons-of-the-Prophet


I hope everyone will go see the New York production of Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet. I fell in love with the play during its Boston tryout (saw it twice), and I am very excited to see it again at the Roundabout this fall. In fact, I like it enough that I will be dragging everyone I know to see it. (My review of the Huntington production is here.)

I am, however, a little disappointed about the roles that were recast--and a bit about the roles that were not, too. (I'm looking at you, Joanna Gleason--please tone down your character a bit!) But I'm sure this production will still be great because the play is so well written. I loved Kurz in the role (indeed, I was completely charmed by his performance, and my only complaint was that he's not built like the runner the character is supposed to be). So I am quite sad I won't get to see him in this again. But I understand that Fontana has name recognition in the NY theater community, and I'm sure he'll be very good. [ETA: Went back and did my homework. They are actually just un-recasting the role, as Fontana was supposed to play the role at the Huntington but had to drop out for the extension of The Importance of Being Earnest.] I am, however, so very glad that Lizbeth Mackay is transferring. She doesn't appear until the end, but I think hers was the best performance in the play. Her scene is truly beautiful, and she is beautiful in it. I promise, I am allowing for the possibility that the new cast will wow me.

In addition to just being excited to see this play I love again, I am stoked to have the opportunity to see what, if anything, is changed in the play itself. And the new set. If you liked Karam's Speech & Debate, please check out Sons of the Prophet. If S&D was too silly for you, check out Prophet anyway because it's just as funny but also more serious.

Previews begin September 30 at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre/Laura Pels Theatre. The show officially opens October 20 and will run through December 23, though I hope it will be extended. If you're 18-35, be sure to sign up for Roundabout's HipTix program for $20 seats to any of their productions.

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.