All in Review
Deeper cuts from the Bob Dylan songbook are roughly interpolated into “Girl from the North Country”, a new musical by Irish playwright and director Conor McPherson. Heavy on mood, this original Depression-era story offers a compelling look at a mélange of ordinary, forgotten people on the margins of low-rent society, but the effort is hampered by Mr. Dylan’s anachronistic songs and their poor integration into the plot. This one left me chilly and detached.
Belgian auteur Ivo van Hove presents a reimagined version of “West Side Story” for the 21st Century; employing his signature style of theatremaking, this production is thrilling and revelatory, breathing new life into a beloved classic with new choreography, precision cuts to the text, new orchestrations, a superb ensemble cast, and groundbreaking use of video and live filmmaking. The result marks a true summit of achievement in theatre-making and a highlight in a lifetime of theatergoing. It demands to be seen.
Transport Theatre Group Company presents the first New York revival of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”, featuring a new book by Dick Scanlan. Despite an energetic star turn by Beth Malone, the titular character operates in a single mode, and the Meredith Willson score is unremarkable. This attempt to shoehorn a 21st century approach into the shell of a 20th century musical founders.
After 46 years away from New York, audiences at City Center finally have a chance to see what Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s 1974 flop “Mack and Mabel” is all about thanks to a new Encores! production. The result is bittersweet—both thrilling and sad. Jerry Herman’s score shines, alongside performances by Douglas Sills, Alexandra Socha, Lilli Cooper, and a top-notch ensemble, and the atmosphere of old Hollywood is superbly spun. Still, this is not a musical masterpiece, but a beloved curiosity—a good musical that almost works. Perhaps someday, it might.
A look at two new musicals that opened recently off-Broadway: The New Group’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” and Roundabout Underground’s “Darling Grenadine” (critic’s pick!).
Roundabout Theatre Company presents a sterling revival and Broadway debut of Charles Fuller’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Soldier’s Play”, a thrilling and tautly constructed military murder mystery set among the segregated barracks of an Army base in 1944 Central Louisiana. Kenny Leon directs a terrific ensemble, led by David Alan Grier and Blair Underwood, in one of the best productions Roundabout has presented in recent memory.
Laura Linney stars in an unnecessary and poorly adapted stage version of Elizabeth Stout’s acclaimed 2016 novel, “My Name is Lucy Barton”. Despite a grounded and forthright performance from one of the greatest actors of her generation, the play never satisfactorily justifies its existence.
Richard Jones directs a new adaptation of Ödön von Horváth’s 1937 noirish procedural “Judgment Day” by playwright Christopher Shinn, performed in the Park Avenue Armory’s drill hall on a grand scale. The experience is mesmerizing and effective, even if not essential to the text.
“Jagged Little Pill”, the new Alanis Morissette musical, is a moving mood board collection of disparate images, sounds, and text in search of cohesion; commendably containing an original story touching on relevant themes of today, like drug addiction and sexual assault, the musical sounds great and is well-performed, but suffers from conceptual whiplash as if composed by a committee following focus group instructions.
“Sing Street” is an undercooked musical (play with music, really) adaption of the 2016 hit indie Irish film. A sweet coming-of-age story with a gorgeous heart, the stage version gets none of the charm or quirkiness of the film right, and the thin, surface-deep story does not sustain its length. Still, it remains a promising property that has the potential to be a knockout on stage, perhaps after more time in development.
The York Theatre Company in Midtown East presents the first mainstage production of their 50th anniversary season with “Anything Can Happen in the Theater: The Musical World of Maury Yeston”, a delightful new musical revue in tribute to composer and lyricist Maury Yeston.
Playwright Matthew Lopez’s “The Inheritance” is a an epic, novelistic, and enjoyably consumed two-part, six act, six and half hour long play that is a loose adaptation of E. M. Forster’s “Howards End” set among a contemporary group of gay men living in New York contending with the legacy of AIDS and what it means to be gay today. Flaws are overcome by the strength of the staging, and the play is humorous, heartbreaking, and deeply memorable. A must see.
