Theater Thaw
January 13, 2010
Setting aside the wonders of Broadway, The Gilbert & Sullivan Fest tucks in at City Center and the Off-Broadway scene is popping with a new play by Sam Shepard. Here’s a selective guide to some promising shows:
Off Broadway
59E59 Theaters: Just completing its popular “Brits Off Broadway” series Jan. 3, this up-and-coming arts complex has three productions waiting in the wings: Rough Sketch (opens Jan. 17), The Man in Room 306 (opens Jan. 20) and Happy Now? (opens Feb. 9). Want cutting-edge theater imported from all over the world? Interested in previewing shows that have gigs at the International Edinburgh Fringe Festival? Prefer fresh contemporary works to retooled classics? This theater is your best bet. 59 E. 59th St., 212-753-5959. [Read more]
No Small Fry
December 18, 2009
When the going gets tough, this teacher goes to the Comic Strip Live Theater. Jack Freiberger’s new solo show, They Call Me Mister Fry, is a love letter to teachers, based on the true story of his first year as a 5th-grade teacher in South Central Los Angeles. Written by and starring Freiberger, this work combines the optimism of Patch Adams with the gritty reality of an inner-city classroom. [Read more]
A Zippy ‘Zero’
December 4, 2009
If it takes a star to play a star, then toss some stardust on Jim Brochu, who brilliantly shines in Zero Hour at St. Clement’s Theater. Starring and written by Brochu, this new solo work is a kind of homage to Zero Mostel, the legendary actor who left an indelible mark on American theater.
Brochu, who first met Mostel backstage in 1962 during the run of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, learned first-hand that Mostel never minced words or tolerated fools.<!–more–> In spite of the actor’s lacerating tongue, however, Brochu had a deep admiration of Mostel. This show draws upon that genuine feeling.
A brilliant Jim Brochu captures famed actor Zero Mostel’s legendary arched eyebrow. Photo by Stan Barouh
Zero Hour invites you to be a time-traveler through a wide swath of the 20th century. We eavesdrop on stories of Mostel’s boyhood on the Lower East Side, where he acquired his nickname “Zero,” purportedly an average of his elementary school marks. His penchant for stand-up comedy was quickly noticed by theater personalities as he shuttled from the Borscht Belt to Manhattan’s upscale supper clubs in the 1940s. Beyond café society, his big break in New York was performing the lead in Ulysses in Nighttown, an adaptation of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. This was followed by his literally transforming role from human to hoofed pachyderm in Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. Success had landed with a heavy thud all right. But both acts would be topped by his incredible turns on Broadway in Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, which firmly cemented Mostel’s stardom in the 1960s.
Curiously, the most compelling scenes in Zero Hour are the evoking of Mostel’s “blacklist” years and his love-hate relationship with Jerome Robbins. Mostel, whose testimony before the House of Un-American Activities Committee was highly publicized and career damaging, found it difficult to forgive Robbins for divulging to the committee names of theater professionals. Nonetheless, we see here how Mostel eventually was forced to come to terms (sort of) with Robbins, when the director-choreographer saved Forum from being a Broadway flop in 1962.
Brochu knows he is treading on hallowed ground here. But this biographical show never overreaches. Wisely, he doesn’t attempt to outdo his inspiration. In fact, he basically plays his voluble role sitting behind a small desk—dressed in a nondescript shirt, neck scarf and pants—finessing a portrait of the naïve reporter who is interviewing him. Yet during those scenes when he is re-enacting key moments from Mostel’s career, Brochu will raise his eyebrows to an incredulous height, affect a dramatic pose and give us a crackling glimpse of one of the actor’s routines. Under the apt direction of Piper Laurie, this is a bioplay, not a rehashing of Mostel’s classic performances.
Along with praise for the piece, I must say that a bit more music or some actual footage of video recordings from Mostel’s original stage performances would add more zest to the evening. The set design by Josh Iacovelli is suitably ragtag and has that devil-may-care aura. But for all its Bohemian atmosphere, a fleeting glimpse of the real Zero Mostel on screen might serve as effective punctuation to this production.
Still, Brochu is as theatrically right as he can be here. And by being intelligently himself, Brochu gives us a mesmerizing portrait of Mostel.
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<em><strong>Zero Hour</strong></em>
Through Jan. 31
Theater at St. Clement’s
423 W. 46th St.
Tickets, $35 to $55, are available at 212-239-6200 or
<a href=”http://www.telecharge.com”>www.telecharge.com</a>
Making Her Mark at Miller
September 17, 2009
When George Steel left as executive director of Miller Theater in 2008 to head the Dallas Opera—he now is running New York City Opera—no one needed to look far for his replacement. Melissa Smey, the Miller’s general manager for eight years, became its new director, and she will continue programming the theater’s unusual mix of contemporary and baroque music, putting her own stamp on one of Manhattan’s most innovative venues. [Read more]
A ‘Bad Boy’ to Get Your Blood Racing
August 26, 2009
Dog days of August slowing you down? Well, the new production of Euripides’ The Bacchae at the Delacorte Theater can set your blood racing again. Directed by JoAnne Akalaitis, the ancient Greek story is alive and kicking with a multi-racial cast.
The last New York staging of The Bacchae was at the 2008 Lincoln Center Festival, with Alan Cumming playing a flamboyant Dionysus in the National Theatre of Scotland production. The problem is that it breezed in and out of the city so quickly that many theatergoers missed the opportunity to see the adapted classic. [Read more]
A Soul for Greek Drama
August 5, 2009
Theater legend Andre De Shields will be upping the star-voltage in the Central Park production of Euripides’ The Bacchae at the Delacorte Theater, which begins its run on Aug. 11. Having just come off his star turn in Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe at the Clurman Theatre, the Hell’s Kitchen resident is at the top of his game, and poised to create a Tiresias that would make Euripides himself smile. [Read more]
Theater, Life and What Comes Next
May 27, 2009
There is much to savor in Reflections: An Evening of Short Plays, currently running at Theatre Row’s Lion Theater. Presented by The Resonance Ensemble, the program is partly inspired by Samuel Beckett and Thornton Wilder, and offers world premieres of Ian Strasfogel’s Compromise, Alvin Eng’s Their Town and Michael Feingold’s What Happened Then , with revivals of Beckett’s Catastrophe and Anton Chekhov’s Swan Song. Though each work can stand on its own, all the dramas are thematically interconnected, and all are meditations on theater, life and what comes next. [Read more]
‘DISTRACTED’ PUTS FOCUS ON KIDS, MEDS AND MOMS
April 23, 2009
If you want to know how hard it is to raise kids—or to be one these days—go see Distracted. It’s a frenetic, funny and heart-wrenching take on one mom’s search for answers about her son’s possible ADD. And it works because Cynthia Nixon is in the lead role.
The Sex and the City star shows off her acting chops playing Momma, an earnest suburbanite who is increasingly manic because Jesse has become a “problem” at school. He has no friends, disrupts class and won’t do homework. Things aren’t so great in the house either. Jesse doesn’t sleep, keeps the TV blasting and gets into furious f-word screaming matches with his mother. He is all of 9 years old. [Read more]
