OK, SO THEY WEREN’T EXACTLY DANCING in the aisles at the New World Stages Theatre the night that I attended The Rock & Roll Man. Forget that I said that. What the audience was doing to show their love for everything that was flashing before their eyes during the musical’s fast-paced two act wonder-filled 2 hours and 20 minutes was hooting, hollering, whistling, laughing, clapping, snapping their fingers, gyrating in their seats and most surprising of all shedding nostalgic tears of joy, all of this while basking in the glorious glow of Rock & Roll.
One would think that the target audience for this musical, which features the life and times of American Alan Freed (1923-1965), the American who promoted large mixed-race acts which helped spread the importance of rock and roll music throughout North America and beyond, would be the grey-headed seniors like myself.
LITTLE DID ANDREW LLOYD WEBER KNOW when he saddled his most recent musical with the ill-chosen name Bad Cinderella that he was handing theater critics here in New York a cudgel with which to beat his latest Broadway production to a pulp.And beat it they did, savagely so, to the point of forcing it to close at the Imperial Theatre on June 4, 2023 after only 33 previews, 85 regular performances, with a loss rumored to be in the neighborhood of $19 million dollars.I might add, more or less, this same play, a retooled feminist version of the Cinderella fairytale then named solely Cinderella, opened at Gillian Lynne Theatre in London’s West End to mostly warm reviews after several pandemic-related stops and starts on June 25, 2021.
ALFRED UHRY’S MUSICAL PARADE, co-conceived by Hal Prince with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, is now playing to sell-out crowds and rave reviews, and back on Broadway after 25 years (for a limited run through Sunday, August 6) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City. A long time in coming, Parade took its first Broadway bow at Lincoln Center Theater in 1998 under the direction of Harold Prince where it won a Tony Award for best score and book. It ran for 39 previews and 84 regular performances.
In a major reworking in September of 2007, Parade, directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford at the Donmar Warehouse in London, opened to positive reviews. As one critic noted, “the Donmar production establishes Parade as an ambitious, musically daring piece that deserves praise attempting to intertwine the political and the personal.”
PICTURES FROM HOME currently running thru April 30 is the most delightful and thought-provoking play currently gracing the Broadway stages at this very moment. Featuring the tried-and-true Danny Burstein, Nathan Lane, and Zoë Wanamaker – three stellar actors at their very best – the play is wowing audiences with loads of laughter, wisps of tears, and nostalgia to boot, for one hour and forty-five intermissionless minutes. As to be expected, with such accomplished illuminate, be prepared to add a 7-minute tsunami of an uproariously well-deserved curtain bows.
HAVING LIVED IN New York City’s East Village for many decades, the very neighborhood where much of the action in Anthony McCarten’s currently running Broadway play The Collaboration takes place, and where art world legends Andy Warhol (1928-1987) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) – here beautifully channeled by actors Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope – could frequently be seen roaming the streets.
Billed as “A Penetrating Portrayal of A Queer Giant,” performance artist John Kelly’s explosive gay-themed show “Underneath The Skin,” – bolstered by actor/dancers Hucklefaery, Estado Flotante, and John Williams Watkins, each playing multiple characters, a slew of videos, (one featuring Lola as Gertrude Stein), lots of song and dance, oodles of simulated male to male sex, and a cornucopia of informative lecture-like projections, all centering around the life and work of little known historical footnote Samuel Steward (1909-1993), channeled to a fare-thee-well by Kelly is currently holding court at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City at the Ellen Steward Theatre through Thursday, December 22.
Just when you think Shakespeare might be too Old School for the 21st century, headlines pop up to remind us that WS was pretty clever about the constants of human behavior. ABC Network worked itself into a tizzy recently when the two anchors of “GMA3”, its afternoon spinoff of “Good Morning America,” were revealed to be romantically involved. GASP! The tabloids and social media had such a hot time revealing all that the president of ABC News “temporarily removed” the anchors from the air because their romance had “become a distraction.”
“You Will Get Sick,” currently playing Off Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre here in NYC through Sunday, December 11 is the most riveting, and mind-stretching play that I have seen this season. The reason being, is that you really have to pay close attention to know where you are at any given moment, as there are more twists and turns then a frog in a blender. Blink and you are in another world.
What is it to become a word? To become or even create an emotion that doesn’t exist…at least not yet. How much power does the artist have to convince and make believe? The awesome power to make one believe. How much potential does movement theatre actually have? In this world? Now. These questions have been the driving force in writing this piece – Playwright Bridgette Loriaux
Every once in a while, a little-known theater company, usually from a distant city, mounts an amazing ground-breaking theatrical production, brings it to New York City for a limited run, and then returns to their home base leaving us all lusting for more.
I seem to remember reading, in all of the hoopla surrounding the Baryshnikov Art Center’s Production of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, somebody saying “Unlike anything that you ever saw before.” This talking head could also have said, as audiences were soon to find out, that this production, adapted, created, reimagined, and directed by Kiev born Igor Golyak, and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov is a work of genius. Obviously, the great Chekov is embedded deeply in their bones.
Titled “The Orchard,” Golyak’s two-version production (both live and virtual), presented as a limited run, opened on June 16 and closed on July 3rd. Way too soon if you ask me. Hopefully, it will be brought back somehow, somewhere by a theater-loving angel.
To ensure that the audience’s eyes and ears were glued to the stage throughout, director Golyak cleverly chose to use what some critics deemed the star of the play, an imposing vertical 12-foot metal crane-like arm placed center stage on an all-blue set (Anna Fedora). It serves coffee, sweeps the floor, acts as a tree, a person, a bookcase, a place to hide from danger, and a beeping camera that films the play’s goings on. More importantly, it serves to direct our eyes to the play’s imminent action.
Darya Denisova, Jessica Hecht, Juliet Brett, Mark. Photo: Maria Baranova.
Brilliantly encasing the entire production is Carol Rocamora’s translation of Chekov’s last play, The Cherry Orchard (1904). Though most of the play’s original language was kept, a few scenes, though barely noticeable, were cut and rearranged. Eliminated was Dunyasha. the maid, and her would-be lover. Added to the play’s mix, quite effectively was a giant stage-covering scrim which intermittently featured on its surface live text, video, and close-ups of the actors in real time. Equally absorbing were several speeches delivered in ALS sign language, as well as in French, Russian, and German. Also, slipped into the play’s text, adding a touch of twenty-first century was mention of the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv.
Trofimov played by John McGinty takes center stage in The Orchard. Photo: Maria Baranova
Another beguiling addition to the stage was a robotic silver metal dog that could be seen playfully scampering about the stage. Able to do tricks, as well as play dead, it was an audience favorite. Aside from Firs’ (Baryshnikov), the long-time estate’s keeper appearing to open up the house, the play truly begins with the arrival of Lyobov Andreevna Ranevskaya (Jessica Hecht) to the family’s estate in the Russian countryside. Ranevskaya had run off to Paris with her lover to escape the grief she felt over the loss of her young son. And now she is back.
Following in her fashionable entrance, we meet her brother Gaev (Mark Nelson), her adopted daughter Varya (Elise Kibble), her natural daughter Anya (Juliet Brett), and their servants. They are there to try and save the beloved home and cherry orchard from being auctioned off due to an unpaid mortgage. Rounding out the cast, each with their own intricate story which links them closely to the family, is Darya (Charlotta Ivanova, also Golyak’s wife), Pyotr (John McGinty, hearing- challenged in real life), a frightening Russian-speaking, Passerby (Llia Volak) in black military dress, another Golyak nod to the ongoing Ukrainian war, and Lopakhin (Nael Nacer), the now rich, former peasant who ends up buying the Orchard.
L to R – Darya Denisova, Nael Nacer, Jessica Hecht, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mark Nelson. Photo:Maria Baranova
Lopakhin’s idea to save the orchard which unfortunately falls on deaf ears, is to turn the estate into a tourist attraction by creating rent-paying summer houses on the property. We realize that times are a-changing – the Russian revolution of 1917 which marked the end of the Romanov dynasty is only 11 years away – when Lopakhin gloats, after he buys the estate that he and his father were never allowed into the family’s home. His only regret is that the beautiful Ranevskaya does not come along with his purchase of the estate.
The virtual live production, with the same 2 hour running time, features the play’s most dramatic scenes, punctuated by performances by Baryshnikov as Anton Chekov, and Hecht as his wife and mistress. Here the viewer follows Chekov into a virtual replica of the Baryshnikov Arts Center building where we could enter various rooms where we hear both Chekhov speaking in Russian with subtitles, and his wife and mistress, often quoting letters, talking about their lives.
L to R – Darya Denisova, Nael Nacer, Mark Nelson, Elise Kibler, Jessica Hecht, John McGinty, Juliet Brett, Mikhail Baryshnikov. Photo: Pavel Antonov.
Happening at the same time we get to see the audience sitting in the theater, some who are participating in the estate’s sale, flashed on the scrim. The virtual performance ends outside the now sold arts center with Baryshnikov, this time as Firs, slowly walking away with his belongings. In the live theatre production, after everybody leaves, and Firs forgotten by the family he has served all his life is alone. Firs, hearing the sounds of the cherry orchard’s trees being chopped down in the background just before everything vanishes, he sadly comments to himself that, “Life has slipped by as though I hadn’t lived.”
For those lucky enough to catch either version of the play, both magnified by an army of design wizards and technical geniuses, from Scenic Design (Anna Fedorova), Costume Design (Oana Botez), Lighting Design (Yuki Nakase Link), Projection Design (Alex Basco Koch), Sound Design (Tei Blow), Robotic Design (Tom Sepe), Emerging Technology design (Adam Paikowsky). Interactivity Design (Anna Hrustaleva), to a ASL sign language expert (Alexey Prosvirnin), and a clowning coach (Alita West), the experience, hypnotic to say the least, was not unlike watching a giant aquarium filled with a frenzy of tropical fish. This, primarily due to the effect of the giant scrim which ironically both distanced ourselves, as well as brought us a lot closer to the play’s action.
By Edward Rubin, Senior Contributing Editor
Note: Masks required in building and theatre, along with proof of a vaccination, and a valid government issued photo ID.
Technical: Scenic Design: Anna Fedora, Costume Design: Oana Botez, Lighting Design: Yuki Nakase Link, Projection Design: Alex Basco Koch, Sound Design: Tei Blow, Clowning Coach: Aelita West, Music Composition: Jakov Jakoulov, Emerging Technologies: Adam Paikowsky, Robotics Design: Tom Sepe, Hair/Makeup: Anna Hrustaleva, Interactivity Design: Alexander Huh, Virtual Sound Design: Alexey Prosvirnin, Director of ASL: Seth Gore, Director of Photography: Leanna Keyes, Production Manager: Jason Reis, Associate Producer Virtual: Zachary Meicher-Buzzi, Production Stage Manager: Jennifer Rogers
The Orchard conceived, adapted, directed, and reimaged by Igor Golyak and based on Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard as translated by Carol Rocamora, opened on Thursday, May 16, 2022 for a limited run through Sunday 3rd at the Baryshnikov Arts Center at 459 275 West 37th Street in Manhattan. Running time is just under 2 hours with no intermission. For more info or to buy tickets call 617-942- 0022 x 1 or log on www.theorchardoffbroadway.com
