Category Archives: Broadway

“Are you ready to wake up?”

The best part of this promotional tag line is its potential to ring so true. I didn’t even realize I was asleep, and it took a show like this to shake off the stupor of my 41-year-old mind. With its Russian origin and modern/historical juxtaposition of style and story, this is a gloriously immersive piece of theater. It started as one of the most intimate productions, and despite its transfer to Broadway proper it’s managed to retain such intimacy. Performers toss out treats to the audience, who are seated in a jewelbox of a theater, interspersed with cozy tables lit with lamps and buffeted by stairs and even a bar that seamlessly blends into the action.

Prepare to be drawn into the world and then deliciously bound by a rope of seductive red velvet. Such ties are pretty and soft to touch at first, but they close tightly, choking out reason and sense in the service of want and desire.

One of the most inventive musicals in years, ‘Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812’ leads with its heart – vital, passionate, and cruel in the way it wants and wants and wants – then crushes with its head – the analysis of the ways in which we give and receive love, in the way love is both a tool and a symptom, the poison and the antidote – and by the end I realized that not only was this waking that wild and dangerous part that lives inside most of us in our youth, but also jostling the preconceived limits of the modern-day musical. On both fronts, this comet delivers.

Josh Groban gets the headlines and the billing, but Denae Benton is the real star of this production. Lucas Steele does everything he can to steal the show, and his antics in ‘The Abduction’ – in the form of all those vocal and physical gymnastics (and a fierce head of blonde hair that defies gravity and logic) – ensure that he is not forgotten. And though as Andrey he is missing for much of the evening, Nicholas Belton casts a shadow and a spell with a simple silhouette that most performers can only dream of conjuring.

This magically immersive experience succeeds thanks in no small part to the winsome and gregarious cast of characters that appears in and around the audience without ever infringing on their space. It’s a tricky fine-line, but they walk it (and dance it, some even in stilts) in thrilling fashion. Speaking of fashion, the costume design by Paloma Young is a spectacular mash-up of military garb and street-punk passion, with details of Russian bears and insignia, and a green coat that Anatole wears which I simply must have for the fall season. Coupled with some astounding choreography in an intricate theater-in-the-round set-up, it’s as much a visual treat as it is a sonic delight. Yet all the flash and pizzazz would not amount to much if there wasn’t a story of awakening – both in Natasha’s venture into the first triangle of love, desire, and reason, as well as within Pierre’s discovery of meaning at a point when he’s almost given up. Every performer is invested here, and the end result is one of rich rewards, where the audience is completed enchanted by this world on the edge of war. [Even the moment-shattering possibility in the ringing of a ‘Halloween’ ring tone (which Groban later referenced in a stinging tweet) could not mar the emotional crest that the end of the evening reached.]

If you’ve ever been wrecked by love, ever sunken to the ground with the fresh wound of the heart that it seems only youth can feel, you should be touched and moved by the sort of grace that Pierre offers to Natasha at the end of the evening. That great comet of passion – so wondrous and wicked and wild – is a clarion call to life. It wakes us all up – a reminder that love can be as deliriously destructive as it can be tenderly gracious. All you can do is hold on, revel in those moments when happiness is at hand, and, when all else fails, smash your glasses on the floor.

It’s difficult to be good when you’re human, but impossible to be great if you’re not. When we think back on the origin of this country, we tend to idolize our Founding Fathers as demi-gods. They came up with one of the most perfect systems of a democratic government, one that will hopefully withstand the current attack from He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, and the sheer genius of it instills all involved with a certain magical power. We forget that they were human. ‘Hamilton’ reminds us that being human means wanting freedom. It also means wanting a certain glory ~ whether that’s as a politician, a President, a father, a sister, a son or a mother.

To be honest, I had little to no interest in seeing this one. History and hip-hop never held much of an allure, and when a musical is hyped-up as much as ‘Hamilton’ has been there is little chance it will live up to expectations. Happily, I was mistaken in my reluctance. ‘Hamilton’ soars, and sings, and moves the audience so profoundly that you feel the world, and your experience in it, shift slightly after you’ve seen it.

The great historical panoply of the founding of our nation plays out amid the personal trials and tribulations of Alexander Hamilton, and it’s interesting to note that with all of the great, and oft forgotten, acts that he accomplished, his personal story here is what may be the most moving. The complexity of his relationships with women (the Schuyler sisters, both of whom he seemed to love, and only one of whom became his wife) and his tender yet tricky relationship with his son form the emotional heft even as the drama of the birth of America takes center stage. Aaron Burr’s ambivalent and ultimately ruinous relationship with Hamilton illustrates what can happen when two soon-to-be-legendary characters clash, and the delicate balance between competitive friends is a golden thread that runs throughout the show ~ shining, tarnishing, and tempting as the glory each of them seeks.

For anyone expecting a dry and dull re-telling of the American revolution, you will be pleasantly surprised. From the revolutionary colorblind casting to the infusion of rap and hip-hop into a traditional musical, the storied phenomenon is rightly justified. Its timeless message of inclusion and acceptance is more profound than ever. Opening with a quick dramatic vamp that recalls ‘Sweet Charity’ or ‘Gypsy‘, this is the sort of game-changing musical that relies on the tried and true construct of the art form, while giving it glorious new life. You’ll learn something in the quick cadence of words, but it will entertain at every turn, and when combined and intertwined with the song-writing brilliance of Lin-Manuel Miranda, this musical hybrid becomes something wonderful.

The Chicago cast does justice to the powerful material, and there’s not a weak link in the bunch. The hilarious turns from the King of England are the stuff of musical comedy magic. ‘You’ll Be Back’ begins his trio of crowd-pleasing numbers, and the dead-pan upper-crust delivery belies the deadly aim of his intentions. The moving turn of Hamilton’s wife Eliza brings a graceful purity and steely conviction to a situation that requests of her the most difficult task of all: forgiveness. Her fiery rendition of ‘Burn’ is stunningly-spine-tingling in its damnation, but it is her grace at the very end that completes the story. No one here is one-dimensional, with the possible exception of the King of England ~ but he’s so funny and tuneful it doesn’t matter.

Hamilton’s search for greatness, and his unyielding belief in his country, is at once heroic and damning, and his journey ~ fraught with heartache, pain, loss, love, weakness and redemption ~ transcends the story of America into one of universal truth. Near the end of the production, Hamilton poses a question and the proposal of an answer: “What is a legacy?… It’s planting seeds… in a garden you never get to see.”

This may be Miranda’s greatest legacy as well ~ a piece that has electrified Broadway, and now the rest of the world. The cost of being a good father and husband is weighed against the cost of being a great leader, and everyone pays dearly for both, in the best and worst ways. Yet that is the human experience: brilliant and brutal and beautiful even in its failings. It’s a profoundly American experience too, and the theatrical world can add this to its own history.

At the end, the question of what remains when the tree of history is shaken gets poignant examination as the cast ponders, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” The quiet ones may not get the glory, but they often get the final word. They are the ones writing it. Eliza tells the last part of this tale, proof that history does not end with the death of those who changed it, but lives on in the rest of us. ‘Hamilton’ is a work of art that will do the same.

Perched near the rafters and almost out of sight, she is the one who holds my gaze and focus. Even with the gaudy cavalcade of memories flashing in front of her, the swirling, restless instrumental of the title song and the cacophony of images that came before, she remains the focus. There, crouched down like a wounded bird, Glenn Close oversees the dramatic penultimate scene of ‘Sunset Boulevard’. It is a genuine testament to the star power of Norma Desmond, and Close herself, that she maintains her transfixing pull even in this most insignificant moment, as Joe Gillis waits for the arrival of Betty Schaefer, and Norma hides in the background. Though she does nothing but cower and watch from above, my eyes are drawn only to her, which is how the entire evening has gone.

A once-in-a-lifetime event is one thing, but a twice-in-a-lifetime event is somehow more special. Encores by their nature don’t customarily create the same kind of bang their original incarnation conjures, but in the case of Glenn Close, her second turn as Norma Desmond is filled with as many fireworks and revelations as the first time she walked so regally down that legendary staircase.

Though the staircase and surroundings are different this time around, the passion and intensity of Close’s performance have sharpened to a razor-sharp theatrical experience. In the minimalist revival, that grand staircase is largely in her mind. Making up for the missing majesty of the original production’s levitating mansion is a 40-piece orchestra, and Close’s own larger-than-life performance. The latter comes with two decades of perfecting her craft and surviving in an industry where women over fifty still largely suffer the same fate as Ms. Desmond herself. (Give or take a bullet or two.) Without the baggage of excessive scenery, the music comes to the forefont, as do the performances of the four leads.

Making the most of Joe Gillis, Michael Xavier is on stage more than anyone else, and it’s his performance that must ground, and ultimately up-end, the show. Gillis has to be both relatable, but somewhat unlikable – an opportunist who may or may not be the moral compass of the evening. Xavier is so audience-friendly that he runs the risk of overplaying the sympathy card, but whereas previous Joes were petulant or petty, his characterization is more moving – the ideal foil for Norma’s own obsessions. He provides the cynical heart around which the show revolves. In a less showy role that requires perhaps more care in retaining the complexity of a man torn between right and wrong, integrity and success, loyalty and passion, Xavier brings the exact balance necessary to set the story on its tragic trajectory. As his love interest Betty Schaeffer, Siobhan Dillon is the lone bright spot of innocence and idealism on a darkened stage of damaged dreams. The emotional sordidness of Norma’s storied life is given gravitas and unconditional support by Max, her loyal manservant, here brought to bullishly protective life by Fred Johanson. It is Max who must deliver the chilling last revelations of the evening, both of his past with her, and her non-existent fans of the present.

That 40-piece orchestra, on center stage for the entire evening, gives a depth and richness to what may be Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most challenging score – a jazz-inflected slice of noir, with a couple of soaring arias fit for an opera. The orchestra beefs things up most noticeably in Desmond’s legendary ride to Paramount Studios, where a musical reprise of ‘The Perfect Year’ is given pomp and processional status.

Being scaled back to the bare bones somehow invigorates this production with new life and urgency. The four main characters are front and center, and their storyline comes into brittle crystalline focus. The relatively static and claustrophobic confines of the Desmond mansion are conveyed in abstract form, with a simple jumble of chandeliers and clever lighting. A car chase is conjured through ingenious use of the staircases and allows the orchestra to deftly move through a tricky 5/4 time signature.

While the show will never be one of the great classic musicals, Close’s performance is astounding, and remains the big draw for this theatrical experience. I sat mesmerized by the wonder of her returning to the role for which she won the Tony Award twenty years ago, and imbuing it with even more layers of richness and relevance. Her Norma is haunting in a different way this time around. It is a softer, more nuanced portrayal, yet she maintains a ferociousness that makes plausible her character’s once iconic star status, and her domination, but simultaneous vulnerability.

Her voice may not be the bold clarion of a typical Broadway belter, but Close makes the most of it, turning her arias into monologues, where the technical prowess of a perfect voice would be at odds with the tattered desperation she must convey. To revive a show two decades after it closed on Broadway, with the same leading lady at the helm, is the stuff of miracles. With Glenn Close imperiously commanding Norma Desmond’s staircase of the past, it’s the stuff of legend.

A bright spot in the darkly twisting trajectory of ‘Sunset Boulevard’, the role of amiable Artie Green is played by Preston Truman Boyd, who makes his Hunk of the Day debut in this post. He joins his onstage pal Joe Gillis (Michael Xavier) in this week’s build-up to my return to a favorite show. Boyd brings levity and warmth to the musical, especially the rousing Act One closer ‘This Time Next Year’ and his website illustrates an impressive theatrical roster.

The year was 1995. Vague shadows of palm trees played behind the emblematic street sign. Shades of the sunset glowed richly – ambers and salmons burnt through with mottled rust. Emblazoned on the curtain in the Minskoff Theatre was the title of one of the hottest tickets in town: SUNSET BLVD.

Glenn Close was nearing the end of her opening run as Norma Desmond, for which she won a Tony Award, and somehow I’d managed to score seats for my Mom and me. We were in the very last row, but even in a theater as expansive as the Minskoff, I knew Ms. Close would put on a show.

We were not disappointed. In fact, it remains one of the most transfixing and mesmerizing moments I’ve ever had the luck to witness on Broadway. Close was phenomenal – ferocious and fierce, tender and touching, all manic and magic and tragic at once. She brought a brittle humanity to a woman whose circumstances were unmatched by most of us, yet we understood her plight and her pain, and her insatiable need for love and adoration. Norma Desmond would never be easy to like – the truly great ones never are – they are too complex and polarizing, they demand too much and try too hard. For those very reasons they are the ones who are remembered.

For her part, Ms. Close brought a definitive reading to a character it seemed impossible for anyone other than the original Gloria Swanson herself to play. Two decades later, all talk is that she’s making the role just as powerful and impactful as that first time, with layers of depth and experience adding nuance and sparkle to her performance. Critics are raving, audiences are packing in (Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg are two of the latest to stop by), and everything’s as if we never said good-bye.

I think back to the first time my Mom and I saw the show, in the last row of the Minskoff Theatre. It was a matinee, and the light of day was shut out for a couple of hours of pure theatrical magic. As the overture began, and the dark tones of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s lush score rang out, we sat on the verge of something epic. As Ms. Close descended that serpentine staircase to frenzied applause, the magic that was in the making revealed itself in stunning form. We sat rapt for the entire show, wholly enchanted by the spectacle and the performance unfurling before us, and when it was over I realized that Norma would be haunting my life for some time thereafter. That’s the power of an actress like Ms. Close.

I’d have the fortune to see a number of other Normas inhabit the house on the boulevard (most notably, and enjoyably, Betty Buckley – who should definitely be courted to return to the role if at all possible), but I never forgot the first time I saw Glenn Close give her amazing bravura performance. In two weeks, and from the front row, I’ll get to return to that infamous address to witness the wonder of her doing it all over again.

Despite the ominous noises sounding from above and outside the surroundings of the bleak (if magnificent by New York standards) apartment of ‘The Humans,’ it’s the plaintive cries of laughter and tears from the people within that gives this play its most terrifying clamor. While it is very much a New York tale, ‘The Humans’ is also a tale for all humanity. Set at a Thanksgiving dinner, it’s an unflinchingly stark look at one family under the eroding influence of time. Each of them seeks purpose and meaning in his or her own, often-troubled, way – and it’s to playwright Stephen Karam’s credit that they barely get any resolution.

Tension mounts as secrets are revealed, but this isn’t a pot-boiler. Rather it’s a look at the crushing and devastating toll time takes on a family, and what strange, frightening and terrifying creatures we are behind the safety of our make-shift homes. As secrets are revealed, the post 9/11 world of New York City tries to rebuild itself amid the wreckage of time that will not be stilled. The subsequent healing of a family finds difficult fruition in their increasingly-tenuous ties to each other. An aging grandparent, lost to dementia, further shows the relentlessness of time, as does the physical deterioration of the matriarch and the ongoing sickness of a daughter. No one is getting any younger here. Worse than that, even the youngest characters have their unspoken issues, told in omissions and conversations hidden from view.

There is a refreshingly touching take on the overly-sentimentalized notion of marriage, positing the idea that it’s an institution that can be the foundation that keeps everything – even a family on the verge of falling apart – together. That echoes with its own death-like knell, and as with many things happening here it’s an idea that is as poisonous as it is hopeful.

Despite a late-hour revelation, the love among the family is tangible – they even go so far as to sing together at one point. This is ensemble acting at its best – each actor so attuned to their character they know each and every move inside and out. That ease with one another becomes paramount as outside forces – and possibly other-worldly events – threaten with every bump in the night.

Under the masterful direction of Joe Mantello, the play works so well due in no small part to the excellent ensemble. Together, they manage to craft the vibrant beating heart of a family, even in the most doleful of surroundings. Written with a brittle and brutal eloquence, ‘The Humans’ is a dark, modern take on how our own family life can sometimes feel like a foreign land. As evening descends, and a brief glimpse of what may or not be a supernatural being or a neighbor hurries past, it’s difficult to tell who is more scared – the humans on the inside or whatever’s on the outside peering in. As each room goes dark, it illuminates just how alien-like we sometimes seem from a distance, and how reassuringly human too.

Last year’s Tony Award for Best Musical went to ‘Fun Home’ and on our latest trip to Broadway we finally got around to seeing it. Well-worth the wait, and the accolades, this was one amazing work of art. Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, this is not your typical Broadway musical, but don’t let that deter you. I resisted for so long because I just didn’t see how a musical of a closet-case suicide could be enjoyable on any level. Then, when I realized that the ‘Fun Home’ of the title was a shortening of ‘funeral home’ I thought there was no way they could make this work. I was wrong.

Against all odds, ‘Fun Home’ finds the humanity and, indeed, the fun, in the troubled lives of those captured in the superficially idyllic, antique-laden environs of Maple Avenue. But to call this a feel-good musical is simply not possible. If it soars, it’s because it seers. If it flies, it’s because so many of the characters have their wings clipped. Yet somehow it remains defiantly buoyant. The very weighty themes, and the inevitable collapse and destruction of this happy home, conspire to weave a tapestry of the human condition and the evolving culture of gay acceptance – but that doesn’t mean the proceedings are ever without love. It’s just that sometimes the love is harder to detect and feel when you’re hiding from the truth.

That masked duality finds frenetic form in the father figure who is at the tragic heart of this story. In his Tony-winning turn as the closeted Dad whose daughter also turns out to be gay, Michael Cerveris conveys anguish, hope, and elation within minutes of each other, and it’s a performance that manages to be as sinister and menacing as it is morbid and soulless. Is he bitter, resentful, or secretly glad that his daughter would live in a better world than him? Is he secretly envious of the life she has an opportunity to lead? Or is he simply relieved that his children might have a chance of belonging and being true to themselves in ways that he could only ever imagine?

His daughter Alison, seen at three stages, and equally mesmerizing in each, is the narrator looking back at the events of her family’s life and trying to make sense of it all. This is her story even more than it is her Dad’s, and as she pieces together the events of her childhood, it is with both anguish and acceptance as she begins to see the ways in which he was trapped.

Most moving is the way that art and beauty are used as balms and ways to forge and find forgiveness. Adult Alison talks in captions, befitting her illustrator dreams, trying to contain and align the past, making sense of memories, yearning to understand through retrospective observation and mindful re-creation. Our memories are not always ours alone; the mind blunts some areas while sharpening others, and sometimes that skews the truth.

That there is indeed fun to be found in this funeral home is rather a miracle in itself, and like the best moments in many of our lives, this fun is tempered with terrible tragedy and the changing times of our cultural history, when being yourself meant salvation for a daughter and death for a father. The way their story unfolds is difficult to watch, particularly if you know what’s coming, but it’s also affirming in its own way. Rather than preaching its message of tolerance and acceptance, it merely shows the opposite end of a time and era before it seemed possible. There is an incredible power in that, and the current cast more than ably translates that power into thrilling musical theater.

The very first time I saw Audra McDonald on stage was in the brilliant ‘Master Class’ with Zoe Caldwell. Back then, in the long-ago 90’s, she played a supporting role to an imperious diva – Maria Callas – yet she absolutely stole the show with a purity and grace and innocence that was both beguiling and beneficent. As written by Terrence McNally, it was Ms. Caldwell’s tour-de-force, but Ms. McDonald’s talent could not be ignored, and she won a Tony for the turn.

The next time I saw Audra McDonald was in the original run of ‘Ragtime‘ – for which she also won a Tony (which was quickly becoming a good habit). Her voice lifted that production, and as much as it was an ensemble piece, she managed to shine and hit the high notes that confirmed her break-out status.

Since then she’s won a few more Tony Awards, but I didn’t get the chance to see her again until HBO broadcast her stunning turn as Billie Holiday in a recording of ‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill’ – and what a revelation it was. As I was watching, I was struck by a certain full-circle moment wherein Ms. McDonald had taken the proper lead role that mirrors the monstre sacré to which she had to be subservient in her ‘Master Class’ role. In this production, it is McDonald who plays the diva, and she does it with the fiery exhibition and subtle devastation that makes a Broadway play strike to the very heart of the human spirit. When she slams down the piano cover or fills her own cocktail glass with ice and liquor, she completes the transformation into the iconic status she merely flirted with in ‘Master Class.’ It is a gratifying promise perfectly kept.

This is a mesmerizing performance, punctuated by the brilliant rendition of Ms. Holiday in which McDonald not only inhabits her voice and mannerisms, but takes it to a searing, desperate and doomed emotional level wherein fear and adulation and the ultimate craft of an artist’s brilliance collides with her subject’s iconography. It would be easy to emulate and imitate, but McDonald goes wondrously beyond such mimicry: she becomes Holiday in a way that resurrects her history, and offers both redemption and condemnation. There is truth in that, and courage, and an amazing show that’s as difficult to witness as it necessary for the soul.