Theater Reviews

Susan Granger’s review of “Grey Gardens” (Playwrights Horizons)

Tapping into America’s endless curiosity about Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, “Grey Gardens” examines the lives of the former First Lady’s eccentric aunt and cousin, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie, a former debutante. The concept was inspired by the Maysles brothers’ 1970’s film documentary.
Taking its musical cues from the popular songs of the Twenties, Thirties and Forties, the first act, set in 1941, imagines what the Beales’ life was like, including bits with pre-teens Jackie and Lee Bouvier, as well as a party celebrating Little Edie’s engagement to handsome/ill-fated Joe Kennedy Jr., a union which was later called off. The second act, filled with Seventies tunes, depicts both decrepit Edies in all their squalid glory in 1973, still ensconced in the rancid, cat-infested East Hampton mansion called Grey Gardens, conveyed by Allen Moyer’s set, supplemented with projections.
Doug Wright’s book, Michael Korie’s lyrics and Scott Frankel’s musical compositions include many of the Beales’ famous bons mots, such as “If you can’t get a man to propose to you, you might as well be dead” and “The relatives didn’t know that they were dealing with a staunch character, S-T-A-U-N-C-H.”
While director Michael Greif has assembled a top-notch cast, including Christine Ebersole, Mary Louise Wilson, John McMartin, Bob Stillman, Sara Gettlefinger and Matt Cavenaugh, without better book/lyrics/music, examining the mother/daughter dynamic, it adds up to little more than a bizarre, campy curiosity about weird hothouse socialites who had absolutely no conception about how to fend for themselves when their fortune vanished. But 84 year-old Little Edie gave this project her blessing just before she passed away in 2002. And – for those who care – Grey Gardens was bought in 1979 by Washingtonians Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee, who claim that it’s haunted.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Property Known as Garland” (Actors Playhouse)

So much is known about legendary Judy Garland, one of the most charismatic performers of the 20th century, that it’s hard to come up with new material – and that’s the problem faced by Billy Van Zandt in this boring Off-Broadway bio-play, based on a ghoulish recording of the diva’s ramblings before a performance.

Directed by Glenn Casale, the drama takes place backstage in Copenhagen in 1969 on the night of Judy’s last concert. After she’s roused by a Danish “go-fer” (Kerby Joe Grubb) who is told to fetch mashed potatoes and green beans, memories and anecdotes come spilling out. There are rants on her mercenary mother and M.G.M.’s kingpin Louis B. Mayer, who once referred to her as a “hunchback.” She complains about being fired from “Annie Get Your Gun” and replaced by Betty Hutton and losing the Oscar she felt she deserved for “A Star Is Born.” There’s a running joke that has Judy referring to every actor she mentions as a “drunk” while she’s sitting at her dressing table imbibing Blue Nun. She even has vitriol for her audience, accusing her loyal fans of exploiting her like everyone else.

Best known as the heroine of horror/action movies like “The Fog” and “Return to Escape from New York” and, most recently, HBO’s mini-series “Carnivale,” Adrienne Barbeau (a.k.a.: Mrs. Billy Van Zandt) plays Garland. Curiously, she doesn’t even attempt an impersonation. Rather than imitating Judy’s distinctive speech patterns, Ms. Barbeau sounds more like aristocratic Katharine Hepburn.

While the play is lacking, voluptuous Ms. Barbeau isn’t. Remember that she originated the role of Rizzo in “Grease” on Broadway three decades ago. With strong bone-structure and sensational looking at 60, she gave birth to twins just nine years ago – at age 51. Neverthless, a Star Is Not Born with this venture.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Pajama Game” (American Airlines Theater)

For the most delightful romp on the Broadway, you can’t beat the revival of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’s classic “The Pajama Game,” based on Richard Bissell’s novel “7½ Cents,” starring handsome Harry Connick Jr., lovely Kelli O’Hara and deliciously dictatorial Michael McKean. It’s the hottest ticket in town!
Making his Broadway debut, Harry Connick Jr. has the looks, the charm, the charisma and the voice to play Sid Sorokin, the new superintendent at the Sleep-Tite pajama factory, where garment workers, under the leadership of the union’s grievance committee’s rep Babe Williams (Kelli O’Hara), are striking for a seven-and-a-half-cent an hour raise back in 1954. Connick’s silky tones enliven “A New Town is a Blue Town,” as well as crooning “Hey There,” and Kelli O’Hara (fresh from “Light in the Piazza”) brings down the house with him in “There Once Was a Man.” Their sexual energy ignites! But the show-stopper is when Connick hits the keyboard in “Hernando’s Hideaway.”
Contributing greatly to the sweet smell of success is director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall, who is responsible for many of the updates, including having the musical’s famous “Steam Heat” number done not by flirtatious Gladys (Megan Lawrence) but by lovestruck Mae (Joyce Chittick) with two nimble dancers (David Eggers. Vince Pesce). That’s the famous Bob Fosse number catapulted Shirley MacLaine from Carol Haney’s understudy to Hollywood since MacLaine caught the eye of producer Hal Wallis and an agent for Alfred Hitchcock who were in the audience.
Derek McLane’s set and Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes suit the mid-’50s perfectly.
Movie lovers may remember the 1957 screen version starring John Raitt, who originated the role, as Sid and Doris Day as Babe as Babe with Barbara Nichols as “Poopsie.” But this version is the best of all. It’s giddy, great fun!

Susan Granger’s review of “Festen” (Music Box Theater)

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Based on a 1998 film by Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens, Rukov and Bo Hr. Hansen, part of the cult-like Dogme 95 movement, “Festen” revolves around the bizarre homecoming that marks the celebration of a wealthy Danish patriarch’s 60th birthday.
Helge (Larry Bryggman) and Else (Ali MacGraw) have three children; there were four but one recently committed suicide. As the assembled revelers, their partners and extended families gather ’round, tended by trusty servants, the elder son Christian (Michael Hayden) delivers a stark and startling toast, revealing all the abuse and anger that has bubbled below the surface for years. Repression is subsequently discarded by everyone else as the long-kept secrets of this dysfunctional family are aired.
Since “Festen” was so successful in London, it’s remarkable how unconvincing the American cast is, particularly when forced into performing perverse rituals like singing and dancing amid the disturbing emotional chaos. While seasoned stage actors Larry Bryggman and Michael Hayden struggle to maintain some calm semblance of veracity, television performers Julianna Marguilies and Jeremy Sisto, playing other siblings, verge on hysteria, while Ali MacGraw’s obvious trepidation about making her Broadway debut results in a stiff, self-conscious recitation of her lines, few as they are. Like several of her screen characters, she’s mainly required to look attentive and attractive.
Director Rufus Norris augments the sinister austerity of David Eldridge’s adaptation, while designer Ian MacNeil, costumer Joan Wadge, lighting designer Jean Kalman and musician Orlando Gough keep the audience enveloped in real and figurative shadow, gathered around a long banquet table that’s reminiscent of The Last Supper. While the London play was described as “shocking,” the only shocks here are the tasteless racial epithets hurled at a black guest. The question of the patriarch’s guilt or innocence, which was prevalent in the film, has been lost in translation, resulting in a decidedly dull party that one would rather not attend.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Woman in White” (Marquis Theater)

The most remarkable aspect of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new $8.5 million musical, “The Woman in White,” is the scenery. And the star is really William Dudley, the show’s set and video designer and creator of the amazing visual effects. This is the first Broadway show in which spectacular computer-animated images dominate the stage.
Indeed, as the melodramatic thriller begins, a train – with its wheels rumbling – comes barreling toward the audience before it comes to a screeching halt. Off steps the young tutor Walter Hartright (Adam Brazier) who has been engaged by their uncle (Walter Charles) to teach art to the two Halcombe half-sisters, plain-but-clever Marian (Maria Friedman) and lovely-but-victimized Laura (Jill Paice), who marries the abusive, fortune-hunter Sir Percival Glyde (Ron Bohmer). Then there’s Glyde’s Italian amoral accomplice, Count Fosco (Michael Ball), and the eerie, mysterious titular character (Angela Christian).
Inspired by Wilkie Collins’ Victorian-era novel, playwright Charlotte Jones’ book stretches thin over the course of three hours, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s melodic score, while lush, never comes close to his previous musicals, despite David Zippel’s lively libretto, particularly in the patter song, “You Can Get Away With Anything.” Director Trevor Nunn elicits remarkable performances from his cast, particularly Maria Friedman, who exudes dramatic power, and Michael Ball, whose exuberance for the sybaritic life is contagious.
Frankly, the off-stage drama of Maria Friedman’s courageous battle with breast cancer is far more moving than what’s on the stage at the Marquis Theater.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Odd Couple” (Brooks Atkinson Theater)

The long-awaited revival of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” reunites the dynamic duo from “The Producers,” Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. They’ve generated so much box-office excitement that the show is virtually sold out for the entire length of its so-far limited Broadway run. So it’s a shame that the comedy doesn’t quite live up to its hype.
Into the messy, eight-room Upper West Side apartment where Scotch-sodden, slobby sportswriter Oscar Madison (Nathan Lane) lives moves the meticulously prissy, nerdy neatnik Felix Unger (Matthew Broderick), whose marriage has just collapsed. The two old friends-forced-to-live together tandem reprises but never quite recreates the 1965 stage roles originated by Walter Matthau and Art Carney and the 1968 screen interpretations by Matthau and Jack Lemmon. And the terrific supporting cast includes poker buddies Rob Bartlett, Lee Wilkoff and Brad Garrett, making his Broadway debut after winning three Emmys for his role as the sad-sack cop brother on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” while Olivia d’Abo and Jessica Stone are charmingly ditsy as the giggly British Pigeon Sisters who drop by for dinner. Only Peter Frechette’s performance as a distressed accountant seems discordant with the comic rhythms of Neil Simon’s impeccable dialogue, filled with hilarious one-liners.
While director Joe Mantello milks every twist and nuance, he gives Nathan Lane a free hand, perhaps even encouraging his overplaying, which results in Matthew Broderick’s restrained, even stiff counterpoint. As a result, there’s little emotional resonance to their forced intimacy. Despite that inherent drawback, the production is superb with John Lee Beatty’s sets amusingly depicting both the pre- and post- Felix periods in Oscar’s rent-controlled flat, Ann Roth’s costumes and Marc Shaiman’s jazzy incidental music.
Inevitably, a revival of “The Sunshine Boys” looms somewhere in the future – for Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” (Lyceum Theater)

Martin McDonagh’s gleefully ghoulish and brutal black comedy, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” ostensibly revolves around an unhinged Irish terrorist out to avenge his dead cat. Yet it’s really an absurdist allegory about the cycle of violence and the IRA.
It all begins in 1993 in a simple cottage in Inishmore, County Galway, where a moronic, pony-tailed teenager, Davey (Domhnall Gleeson), and his elderly neighbor, Donny (Peter Gerety), are confronted with the limp body of Wee Thomas, a cat found dead on the road. It’s the beloved pet of Donny’s son Padraic (David Wilmot), a psychotic Northern Irish lout who is in the midst of torturing a local drug dealer (Jeff Binder) when he hears the news that his cat is “sick.” Rushing home, he confronts a trio of IRA thugs (Andrew Connolly, Dashiell Eaves, Brian D’Arcy James) as well as a feisty, lovestruck lass, Mairead (Alison Pill), with a BB gun. By the time the ensuing mayhem gets resolved, the stage is awash in a gory orgy of body parts and blood.
“It’s incidents like this does put tourists off Ireland,” Donny observes astutely.
Best known for “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “The Pillowman,” Martin McDonagh has crafted an unpredictable, dangerously daring, idiosyncratic satire. British-born but with subversive Irish roots, McDonagh is blessed with the gift of gab, dealing with anger management issues with tremendous theatrical excitement.
It’s not easy to play simpletons whose bodily temperature exceeds their IQs, but the entire cast is superb, particularly Domhall Gleeson and David Wilmont, who originated their roles in British production. Credit the cleverly captivating direction of Wilson Milam, who staged the play in 2001 for England’s Royal Shakespeare Company and earlier this year off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company.
It’s taken several years for “Lieutenant of Inishmore” to mount a production in the United States – because of its shock value – and, looking to the future, Martin McDonagh is now at work directing “In Bruges,” his first full-length feature film.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Pillow Man” (Booth Theater – 2004-2005 season)

Child abuse, murder, mutilation – it’s a veritable, verbal horror story. It’s the Brothers Grimm under the cold, creepy, macabre influence of Charles Addams, Charles Manson and Kafka. Intrigued and repelled? So is the audience.
The play opens in a jail cell. Police officers Tupolski (Jeff Goldblum) and Ariel (Zeljko Ivanek) are interrogating Katurian K. Katurian (Billy Crudup), a hapless writer, about his connection to several child-murders that have occurred in the area. Apparently, Katurian’s crime is having written grisly, gruesome short stories that have, seemingly, inspired copy-cat killings. Questioning turns to bullying and evolves into torture. In a nearby cell, Katurian’s mentally impaired brother Michal (Michael Stuhlbarg) is also being interrogated. His screams reverberate.
Weaving Katurian’s brutally descriptive, violent stories-within-stories, playwright Martin McDonough (“The Beauty Queen of Leenane”) toys with moral ambiguity, launching an emotional roller-coaster ride. His darkly sinister fantasy is imaginatively staged by director John Crowley, who cleverly builds on Scott Pask’s production design. But the static confinement of the claustrophobic sets becomes tedious and the routine dialogue is often trite, even boring.
What keeps the audience riveted are the mesmerizing performances. Billy Crudup is intense, bewildered and indignant, battered by his past, and heart-tugging Michael Stuhlberg evokes true pathos. Their scenes together are amazing. And the good cop/bad cop play effectively off each other: Jeff Goldblum’s sinister, droll stillness contrasts with Zeljko Ivanek’s explosive temper.
Eerily haunting and deeply disturbing, “The Pillowman” is tough, thought-provoking theater.

Susan Granger’s review of “Sweet Charity” (Al Hirschfeld Theater: 2004-2005 season)

“Break a leg” means good luck for stage actors, but it almost felled Christina Applegate, who broke a bone in her foot during an out-of-town tryout in Chicago. Determined, she refused to give up and gamely managed to open on Broadway. Tenacious, she is. Charismatic, she isn’t.
The musical revolving around Charity Hope Valentine, a plucky taxi dancer who keeps falling in love with the wrong guys, demands a terrific actress, skilled dancer and strong singer. Gwen Verdon originated the role back in 1966; Shirley MacLaine followed with a 1969 screen adaptation. Christina Applegate, best remembered as the teenage Kelly Bundy in “Married…With Children, can dance but her voice is thin, even reedy, and her acting is, charitably, contrived.
With a score by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and a book by Neil Simon (who was inspired by Federico Fellini’s “Nights of Calabria” about a sweet Italian prostitute), the musical really relied on the eroticism contributed by its original director/choreographer Bob Fosse.
In this revival, directed by Walter Bobbie and choreographed by Wayne Cilento, that’s gone – or softened into marshmallow fluff. The best number remains “Big Spender” which still has the Fosse flair. Janine LaManna and Kyra Da Costa spark as Charity’s friends/co-workers – who shine defiantly in “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” – while Paul Schoeffler scores as a self-absorbed actor, Denis O’Hare delivers as a shy, prissy accountant and Ernie Sabella is amusing as Charity’s tough-but-tender-hearted dance-hall boss.
To put it bluntly, while Christina Applegate would make a splendid road company Charity, she’s simply not up to high Broadway standards – and its high prices.

Susan Granger on “Moonlight and Magnolias” (Manhattan Theater Club: 2004-2005)

If you love old movies the way I do, particularly “Gone With The Wind,” you gotta relish the nostalgia of “Moonlight and Magnolias.” Fiddle-dee-dee – it’s sheer theatrical fun!
Behind-the-scenes delight begins before the curtain rises with screen tests of wannabe Scarlett O’Haras like Susan Hayward, Paulette Goddard, Lana Turner, Jean Arthur and Vivien Leigh.
Inspired by real events and set in 1939 in the office of producer David O. Selznick, the broad comedy revolves around how “Gone With the Wind” was hammered into shape over a frantic five-day period by Selznick, legendary script-doctor Ben Hecht and Clark Gable’s favorite director, volatile Victor Fleming, whom Selznick snatched off the set of “The Wizard of Oz.”
Problems abound: Hecht has never read Margaret Mitchell’s best-seller, dismissing it as “moonlight and magnolias,” so neurotic Selznick and rugged Fleming act out the story for him.
To Selznick’s consternation, Hecht realistically points out that “no Civil War movie ever made a dime” and that the slave-abusing heroine is not only unsympathetic but amoral. Unable to leave the office confines during the sleepless marathon, the men munch peanuts and bananas supplied by Selznick’s harried secretary, Miss Poppenguhl. Unseen but always lurking in the background is Selznick’s tyrannical father-in-law, M.G.M. studio mogul Louis B. Mayer.
Writer Ron Hutchinson and director Lynne Meadow relish the bantering farce, faltering only when trying to delve into Hollywood’s Jew-Gentile dilemma. Douglas Sills captures Selznick’s meticulous, maniacal obsession, while David Rache, Matthew Arkin and Karen Trott get laughs as the insecure Fleming, skeptical Hecht and loyal Poppenguhl. Frankly, my dear, it’s hilarious!