The Aficionado Makes His Broadway Debut

I ventured into the Big City today to see a play reading with the added possibility of taking in an evening performance of Next to Normal. I waited in the rush line for a long time and didn’t go anywhere – I was the 69th or 70th person there, so when my good friend Chris Lavin arrived, we decided to ditch that and go venturing about the city.

There aren’t too many Broadway shows that have a Sunday night performance. However, I recalled that one of the shows that was open for business was the smash hit revival of Hair at the Al Hirschfeld. So we left Theatre Row, where we saw the reading, and moved upward just in time for the rush lottery.

Time was on our side. We arrived just in time to be handed an entry slip, drop it in the hippie-ish bucket and go for a brief walk up 8th Avenue. We arrived back just as they commenced the drawing, and lo and behold on my first time ever participating in a show lottery, I was the third name drawn.

Things only got better as we settled into our box seats (I’d never sat there before – another in a series of firsts) drinking in the ’60s ambience, hearing the actors backstage in their final warm-up and the occasional sight and sound from onstage where the band is located, as the show curtain nonchalantly billowed. The energy from the audience was already amped, as the house was divided between children of my generation, and those children of the original production’s generation (many showing up proudly in their tie-dye t-shirts).

From the roar of the crowd at the dimming of the houselights to the curtain call, everything about this revival of Hair is spot-on. The cast, most of whom were involved in the previous incarnations in Central Park, is superb. Gavin Creel joins the crew for the Broadway engagement making for an ideal hero in Claude. Will Swenson is Berger, the unwielding, pleasure bound leader of the tribe who is something akin to a strung-out bunny rabbit. The two actors anchor the production with the roles originated by the shows creators Gerome Ragni and James Rado. The entire company works as a fluid, organic ensemble with so much of how they move and dance and interact with the audience appearing as though they were coming up with it on the spot. Bryce Ryness scores as Woof, who sings “Sodomy” and lusts for Mick Jagger. Megan Lawrence is a riot as Claude’s mother. Sassy beltress Saycon Sengbloh was on for Sasha Allen as Dionne tonight, and to give you an idea of just how good she was: the others didn’t realize she was the understudy until I told them after the fact, outside the theatre. A standout in the ensemble was the hilarious Andrew Kober as Claude’s conservative father and giving us his best Dame Edna meets Hyacinth Bucket as Margaret Mead.

The musical itself holds up remarkably well, in spite of a flimsy book. The score, one of the last musical theatre scores to really hold mainstream popularity, is as vibrant and rich as ever. Galt McDermott’s music and Rado & Ragni’s lyrics shock, titillate, unnerve and impact us in ways that seems surprising for a show that has been a staple for decades. However, even forty-two years removed from its initial off-Broadway incarnation, the show maintains uncompromising relevancy with the world in which we live. The hippie movement may have died out, but the underlying messages still hit the same chords. There are still cases of social injustice and unrest, unpopular wars, dissension at the establishment, etc. Kudos to director Diane Paulus and choreographer Karole Armitage for breathing such exuberant life into a well-worn piece. They adapted their environmental staging for the proscenium and immediately shut up the naysayers who felt this production wouldn’t work inside. The actors climbed all over the audience and up into the mezzanine, there’s something electric seeing the cast bounding around the house engaging the entire audience. This production works, and how.

Many subsequent musicals have tried to follow the same formula, but there is none that quite reaches the heights of this particular show. Hair today is more relevant than Spring Awakening could ever hope to be.

This production of Hair also offers one of the rarest of opportunities for avid theatregoers: after the curtain call, the audience is invited to join the cast onstage to sing and dance the reprises of “Hair” and “Let the Sunshine In” in a glorious 5-10 minute dance party. It must be said here, that I am not the type to actively participate, and usually slink around like a wallflower. In fact, I usually need to be drunk in order to work up the nerve to do something like this. However, sitting up in my box seat and completely in the moment, I saw our friend and fellow blogger Esther onstage (Chris Caggiano was also in the house tonight!) and immediately seized the opportunity to grab my friend and head down and up onto the stage at the Al Hirschfeld, where we completely rocked out.

There we are, a hundred or so of us audience members and the entire cast. The three of us are dancing up a frenetic, intoxicating storm surrounded by total strangers and one of the brightest ensembles in NY. The stage is searing under the oppressive heat of the lighting. The rock band (so marvelously led by Nadia Digiallonardo) was pulsating through us as we moved. We came together as a community of one, but each one of us in that moment was the center of the universe. Such life-affirming vibrancy comes only so often in a person’s life.

All in all, this revival is exhilarating. Invigorating. Rousing. Infectious. Transcendent. Cathartic. And fill in any other superlative you can think of. Hair is back on Broadway and better than ever. I want to go back as soon as I’m able (I think I know how I want to spend my birthday this year…)

I’ll always remember tonight as one of the best of my entire life. I hope your experience at the show is the same.

The Aficionado Goes to Town, Part 2

Reasons to be Pretty – I have a soft spot in my heart for the Lyceum Theatre. The shows that I have seen there have been failures, including Souvenir, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and [title of show] – all of which I enjoyed immensely. So whenever there is anything playing at the house (which has a notorious reputation for housing flops), I tend to anticipate seeing something of merit. Once again, there is something incredibly special going on at the Lyceum: playwright Neil LaBute is making his Main Stem bow with the transfer of Reasons.

Before the play starts, our hero (Tom Sadoski in a stellar turn as a well-read, non-confrontational slacker) has compared his girlfriend’s face unfavorably with that of a younger new coworker. The idea that he prefers his girlfriend because she “has a regular face” pushes his character into a seemingly endless maelstrom, causing the character to re-examine himself and the direction of his entire life. The curtain rises on the middle of the break-up of these characters, with Broadway newcomer Marin Ireland making one of the most auspicious Broadway debuts this season as the girl who is permanently scarred by this one off-hand remark. Ireland is unafraid to expose the rage and vulnerabilities of her character, with one showstopping monologue in which she announces her ex’s faults to a crowded mall food court. (During this scene one night, an audience member clearly got carried away and started to yell back at her. The night I saw it, a gentleman in the orchestra section gasped a clearly audible “Oh, fuck!”)

Their friends, a married couple and coworkers, provide stark contrasts. Steven Pasquale is spot on as the boorish best friend and Piper Perabo quite impressive as his pregnant wife, a security guard at the factory where the men work (also the best friend of Ireland, and the person who tells her what happened). By the end of the play, Sadoski’s character has done the impossible: he’s grown up, taking great strides in his establishing his moral fiber and standing up to someone who is nothing more than an adult bully. The two hours interceding are engaging, surprising and captivating. I have to confess, I have never experienced any other LaBute plays, but many people with whom I have talked have expressed reticence to seeing this particular play because of the way he treats women in his work. The play at hand offers an eviscerating critique on our contemporary society and its obsession with the superficial, the final entry in LaBute’s trilogy of plays that involve our obsession with appearances (the other two being The Shape of Things and Fat Pig).

The Tony race is pretty much between the hit God of Carnage and the struggling underdog Reasons to be Pretty. However it plays out on Tony night, I can’t help but stress that both plays should be seen. I may be the only one to think this, but I find that they make great companion pieces, with GoC an unrelated sequel of sorts to r2bp. Both plays are four-handers involving two couples who find themselves at odds with one other, ultimately finding themselves isolated and fending for themselves after some terrifying displays of honest human behavior and emotion. r2bp is a play that captures what it’s like to find oneself a few years out of college, with little aim or direction and wasting life trapped in static relationships and dead-end jobs. GoC looks upon the archetypes about 10 or 15 years later, with characters who are wiser, more confident and settled into careers, marriage and family obligations, with very little changed as it is still every man and woman for his or her self. I had seen GoC first and while watching the themes being bandied about in r2bp (including some genuine primal rage from Pasquale’s character in the second act), I kept being drawn back to my evening at the former play. Plus, in about ten or fifteen years down the line I could easily see this cast reuniting for some Carnage. Just my $.02.

As for the Tony awards, one will emerge victorious but both plays are epic wins this season.

Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard

The lovely Patricia Routledge made a guest appearance on Steptoe and Son, a popular Britcom that was refashioned for American audiences with Redd Foxx in Sanford and Son. I post the episode because not only does she play a medium in the Madame Arcati vein, but I find her changes in persona to be a look into how she played her “Duet for One” in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Screen to Stage?

Talk Film offers “a few pitches for slightly less mainstream movies that really need to be musical-ified…” in response to the impending Spiderman, The Addams Family and American Psycho (really…?) While the article may be tongue in cheek, you just never know who might pick up on it. Can you imagine a singing and dancing Predator?

However, in response to their selection of Army of Darkness, there was already the Evil Dead musical (though truth be told, Army of Darkness is a lot more fun to watch). Though wouldn’t it be amusing to see Bruce Campbell try a musical? I’d bet he’d be up for it; he could get some pointers from his childhood friend Doug Sills (yes, I’ve read If Chins Could Kill).

Perhaps a bit too late to consider it just a trend as it continues to dominate the theatre scene. This year alone, two of the four best musical nominees are screen to stage adaptations, one is an interpolated jukebox show and the last man standing is a wholly original musical. At least The Addams Family is doing something different.

A Weekend in the Country


Saturday was one of those perfect days that will linger long in my memory for a variety of reasons. I was down in the city for a marathon of The Norman Conquests and had the added pleasure of spending my day in between shows and intermissions with the Brian Williams of theatre bloggers, Steve on Broadway and his partner Doug. Between the first two plays, we had a light lunch at Pigalle, where we reveled in what we had seen in the first play, excited for what was to come. My thanks to both for their company throughout the entire day and also for introducing me to the wine bar Clo located in the Time Warner building (4th floor, for you lushes out there!) In between the good times we were having with food and wine (and of course, the witty conversation), there was the good time being had by all of us at the Circle in the Square Theatre.

Truth be told, I knew very little of The Norman Conquests when I first heard of this revival. In fact, it wasn’t until I saw the marquee that I had even known that the Old Vic revival was coming to NY.

So in deciding to undertake a Saturday marathon of Alan Ayckbourn’s brilliant “trilogy of plays,” little did I realize I would be experiencing a series of firsts. I had never before seen any of Alan Ayckbourn’s works. I had never attended a full-day marathon of theatre. I had never before seen any production presented truly in the round. And I had never before seen the movements of chess pieces so beautifully excoriated before in my entire life. There was some slight trepidation at the idea of committing myself to three successive plays, especially if I didn’t like the first one I was pretty much committed to endure the rest. As the action in act one, scene one began I settled in comfortably. The writing is immediately sharp and witty, before I even knew what was going on I had this innate feeling settle in me that I was going to enjoy the experience. I just didn’t realize at that point just how much I was going to love it.

The Norman Conquests is not a Coast of Utopia-like retelling of the events leading up to and around 1066, but is about Norman and his dysfunctional family consisting of his wife, her sister, their brother, the brother’s wife and a dim veterinarian who is in love with the sister. (Got it?) There is an offstage gorgon of a mother who is never seen but whose colorful past has had quite an impact on the three blood siblings.

Each play is concurrent with one another. When an actor leaves a scene he or she is generally making an entrance into another play that has already been seen or will be seen. Table Manners, the suggested first play in the trilogy, is located in the dining room. Living Together shows the action in the living room and Round and Round the Garden, the suggested finale of the evening takes place in the lawn.

Without giving too much away, because discovering the complexities of the plot and characters is one of the joys of experience, Norman is a lazy assistant librarian who frustrates and titillates all around him. Over the course of a weekend, harrowing truths are exposed, outrageous sexual romps take place and certain familial chaos ensues.

The play is anchored by one of the most superb ensembles I have ever had the privilege to watch onstage – each performance an epic win. The bearded, wild-maned Stephen Mangan, in an inspired tour de force performance is the slovenly yet lovable yet ribald solipsist cad Norman, whose libido knows no bounds. The catalyst of action is the initial plan for Norman and his sister-in-law Annie to go for a salacious holiday at the scandalous East Grinstead. Needless to say, no one goes anywhere the entire weekend. That’s when the fun starts. Mangan, with seemingly limitless energy takes Norman to outrageous heights in a memorable turn that in my humble opinion deserves the Tony. For a visual: Think of him as Sasha Baron Cohen doing The Ruling Class. The funniest performance by an actor in NY since Mark Rylance in Boeing Boeing. Ben Miles is the sad sack veterinarian Tom, who is an unfailingly loyal – if chaste – companion. His earnest demeanor, and slow to act responses (a scene with him in a miniature chair at the dinner table is worth the price of admission) as well as his being the only innately good character (he’s dull to the characters in the play, but never to us in the audience). So impressionable was he that his entrance at the top of the third play warranted applause. Paul Ritter is Reg, Annie’s brother, a rather likable if bland person who is married to Sarah and whose hobby is inventing ridiculously complicated games that no one (especially his wife) likes to play. One of the many highlights of the play is his tirade against the absurdity of chess movements.

Onto the ladies: Amanda Root, in a stunning turn, is the harried Sarah, the busy-body sister in law with her own agenda who is best described as a soul sister to Veronica in God of Carnage. Root, looking like Brenda Blethyn and sounding exactly like Judi Dench gets some of the best moments of the three plays, and some of the biggest laughs with her exasperating performance. The delightfully original Jessica Hynes, who I recognized from a brief role in Shaun of the Dead, is Annie, the unkempt spinster who is forced to look after mother (soul sister to Ivy Weston perhaps?) and is exasperated in her loneliness and in Tom’s chastity. Rounding out the cast is Amelia Bullmore as Ruth, Norman’s work-obsessed wife, who for the sake of pure vanity refuses to wear her eyeglasses. Bullmore has the most physical comedy bits – watching her tackle a lawn chair in the third play was one of the many original, truly laugh out loud hilarious moments offered. Together, all six create one of the most vibrant ensembles I have ever seen in my life. If there is an argument for a Tony award for Best Ensemble Cast, I offer these six organic, interwoven characterizations as exhibit A.

Each situation and character is so grounded in his or her reality (even the oblivious Norman), that there is nothing but total validity in the onstage action. From the pure British comedy of Table Manners to the darker, pensive tones of Living Together and the farcical chaos of Round and Round, these are characters that are fully realized, whose lives are anchored in such melancholy which in effect only makes the plays funnier. Much of the credit belongs to Matthew Warchus. He took a weak farce like Boeing Boeing and turned it into the must-see comedy of last season, winning the show the Tony for Best Revival and Best Actor in a Play for Rylance. He is also responsible for the helming the juggernaut hit God of Carnage, another spectacular comedy tour de force, firmly establishing himself as the di rigueur director of stage comedy in both London and New York. He’s competing against himself for the Tony this year, but I hope his magnanimous work on The Norman Conquests will edge out for the win.

The designers revel in the period setting of the play – the 1970s. The furniture, the costumes and hairdos are all throwbacks to a more garish time in pop culture, with wonderful use of the limited space to accomplish so much. There is a miniature of a country house and town that hovers above the set prior to each act, creating a clever “curtain.” As it is raised, there is a complete replica of the same miniature upside down. There are some dangers, some wine got splashed into the crowd, popped buttons flew out like bullets and most amusingly, during a game of catch a ball flew out into the crowd, where an audience member actually caught it and immediately just tossed it back. Amused but unfazed, the actors just carried right on as the ball was given back to them by the appreciative crowd.

I feel like I have to weigh in my $.02 on the suggestion that you can see any and/or all the plays in no particular order. Having seen the plays in the suggested order (Ayckbourn claims the order came out of necessity not intent), I must say it proves most beneficial to see them starting with Table Manners, which establishes most of the characters, then to see Living Together with greater intensity, followed by Round and Round the Garden. The experience of the final play hinges greatly on what you have seen prior for total effect as it in essence ties together the loose ends, with some of the biggest surprises in the entire text. If you have a Saturday available to you, go for it. Table Manners begins at 11:30AM, Living Together at 3:30PM and finally Round and Round the Garden at 8PM. If you can only see just one, you should see… no wait, I think it’s imperative to see all three. Regardless of the fact that they have been written to stand alone, the overlying arc of the entire trilogy has an immensely exhilarating payoff. I didn’t think of it so much as seeing three different plays, but more like an extensive three act play set over the course of seven and a half hours. And I could have sat for another seven and half hours more with this cast and these incredible characters.

The Norman Conquests is hands down the best thing I have seen all season. It is also one of the most thrilling theatrical experiences I’ve ever had in my life, adding it to my top three alongside the opening nights of The Light in the Piazza and August: Osage County. Of all the theatre I’ve seen recently – and it’s been quite a lot, this is the production that best exemplifies why I love the experience in the first place.

Now, who wants to do another marathon with me?

"The Norman Conquests" Quirky Question Contest

NormanFans.com is tickled to announce…

The Norman Conquests Quirky Question Contest
(try and say that six times fast)

Calling all bloggers, surfers, and theater freaks!

Wanna win $100?

Send us an awesome “quirky question” for anyone in the cast of the Broadway production of The Norman Conquests (btw – 7 Tony and 5 Drama Desk Award Nominations) and we’ll select the best quirky question as our winner. And even if you don’t win, your question will be put in the pool of questions that will be sent to our cast, and if an actor likes your question enough to respond to it, we’ll post your question and its response on our upcoming NormanFans Blog.

And then you’ll be famous!

Below’s the skinny on who’s in Norman.

Hint – quirk is always strangely pertinent!

You can send as many questions as you want to:

norman@normanfans.com

Deadline: May 25, 2009 – Winner Announced Day Later