LEND ME A TENOR

For my first wedding anniversary, my husband indulged my love of live theater and took me to see the current run of Lend Me A Tenor at The Music Box Theatre on 45th Street. This version of Ken Ludwig's VERY funny farce was directed by Stanley Tucci and stars Tony Shaloub, Brooke Adams, Anthony LaPaglia and Justin Bartha. It was, in a word, HILARIOUS! Just great fun all around. The actors were clearly having a great time and Stanley Tucci's directing was superb.

One of the things I love about watching comedy is also one of the things that scares the crap out of me when it comes to directing comedy, which is that you need to walk a very narrow line. You never want to push for a laugh but at the same time sometimes you need to go pretty far out on the edge to get the laugh. If you don't know where that line is, then regardless of how hard the actors are trying, it can be a pretty interminable hour and a half. If the audience isn't laughing, you've got nothing. In my opinion, drama is much more forgiving. What I thought Stanley Tucci did marvelously was walk that line. He knew exactly how to direct this comedy and there were some gags in this show that I will not give away here but that were literally "fall out of the chair" funny. (At one point, I did in fact slip out of my chair laughing.) One last thing, at live theater, although people don't usually get out of their seats before the house lights come up, I definitely recommend staying through the curtain call and not bolting as soon as the lights go down on the show. Lend Me A Tenor has a brilliant gag as part of it's curtain call which is truly not to be missed.

Seriously folks, if you get a chance and you want to laugh, go see this show.

Anyone Can Whistle including GOD!

Anyone Can Whistle is one of Sondheim's lesser known musicals, and because it's his 80th birthday this year, even the lesser known musicals are getting productions. For something like five days this month NY City Center did a "staged reading" of Anyone Can Whistle. Now, for those of you who are familiar with staged readings they can fall on a WIDE spectrum ranging from a few actors standing on stage around music stands to a full on production with musical numbers, a band, costumes and sets that the actors move around in while happening to be carrying their scripts.

This version of Anyone Can Whistle fell in the latter category. It had a 29 person cast, including Sutton Foster, Donna Murphy, and Raul Esparza (who in my head is my Broadway Boyfriend - I'll digress for one second and say that I first fell in love with Raul Esparza when I saw him in Company, and the specific moment he became my BB was when I saw him sing "Being Alive." That was when I knew that I would have to see Company again and that he would forever hold a place in my heart. Now, I try to see him in everything (though budget often prohibits that) and I was thrilled when he turned up in the DVDs of the (sadly cancelled) show Pushing Daisiess and am hoping he turns up many other places as well) but alas, I digress.

What was I saying? Oh, right, there was a 29 person cast and though the sets were on the minimal side, I would bet that the budget for sets and costumes alone in this production was more than my entire budget for Dreamers of the Day. And, on the full musical production number front, they didn't scrimp at ALL. In fact, in this show, there was one of the most incredible dance moves I've ever seen...I'm going to try to describe it:

So there's this whole massive dance number in the middle of the show. It's like 15 minutes long. And it is chaos - beautiful, controlled chaos. The entire 29 person cast is running and dancing around the stage (no small feat because the orchestra was also on the stage - upstage center). It's basically this massive chase scene where a small group are chasing a larger group and one by one throwing the larger group into jail (which is Stage Right). So one dancer in particular is being pursued by 4 other dancers and the pursuee starts on the Stage Right side and starts to run, flat-out towards the proscenium arch on the other side of the stage. Her four pursuers are right behind her running with her and, just when it looks like she is going to smash right into the arch two pursuers grab her outstretched arms on either side of her and, with their support, she runs up the proscenium arch and flips over to land face down on the stretched-out-in-front-of-them-forming-a-cradle-like-landing-place-arms of the other two pursuers. Let me say that again...She RUNS UP THE PROSCENIUM ARCH AND FLIPS OVER!!! It was unbeLIEVABLE. In the middle of a crowded theater I believe I actually said out loud "HOLY S**T!" (luckily the music was very loud). RUNS UP THE PROSCENIUM ARCH AND FLIPS OVER! I've done a little computer diagram of the running up the arch thing:

It was AWESOME! Truly one of the most amazing things I've seen on stage. And then came the possibly the most amazing thing I've ever seen on stage. Are you ready?

So, in the program was the following note: "All patrons attending the Saturday matinee performance of Anyone Can Whistle are invited to attend a post-performance dialogue. Members of the artistic team will be joined by musical theater historian Robert Kimball and members of the cast. The discussion will immediately follow the performance and will run approximately 45 minutes." Now, usually when there is a talk back this means that maybe an actor or two will come out and, if you're really lucky the director or writer might appear and take some questions. It's great if you're a theater person but otherwise, a lot of the time, it's not something people care much about.

So, I'm there with Mom and Dad (by the way, thanks, Mom and Dad, for being Sondheim lovers, and for bringing me along with you to all of these Sondheim shows. Have I mentioned that you guys TOTALLY ROCK?!?!) and we're talking about whether we want to stay for the talk-back. When we saw Company the first time there was a talk back that we happened to be around for and it was really cool so we decide, sure, we'll stick around afterwards and, if some of the actors come out, it'll be worth it...and if it's boring then we'll just leave. But for me, any chance to see my BB for a little while more is comPLETely worth it.

So, Mom and I run to the bathroom before the talk back and Dad hangs out with our coats in the theater. We're on this crazy long line for the bathroom when we hear a swell of applause from the crowd and I say to Mom, "Oh, I bet Sutton Foster just walked out on stage."

Then there's another swell of applause, "Oh, I bet that was Donna Murphy and my BB" and then there's a huge swell of applause, much louder than the other two swells and I look at Mom with the expression of, "yeah, I have no idea who that was for." Not two seconds later, this woman runs into the bathroom and says (probably to a friend in one of the stalls but we all benefitted from her announcement) "get out here NOW, Stephen Sondheim just walked on stage."

WHAAAAAAT!!!?!??!! God is on STAGE!!!!! To hell with the bathroom trip. There's a mad rush out of the bathroom, our bladders forgotten for the next 45 minutes and we run out to the audience, and there, no lie, not 50 feet away, was Stephen Sondheim. STEPHEN F**KING SONDHEIM!!! In the same room!!! Stephen Sondheim! No kidding, for me, it was like seeing the Beatles. I'm pretty sure there were tears. Here's my picture, which totally didn't come out but I swear to god, the white blurry dude holding the microphone IS Stephen Sondheim. It was AWESOME.

And, as if that weren't enough, the whole cast was there too. Including my BB:

He's the dark blue fuzzy dude in the middle. He's wearing a beret. Heh, a beret. How friggin' cute is my blurry BB?

ANYWAY, it was awesome. God spoke for like 45 minutes (just as the note in the program promised) about the show and the original very brief production and about changes that were made and about theater in general. The cast spoke about their involvement in the show and how they came, in the middle of all of their busy schedules, to do a very short run of a very complicated and dare I say, odd little show. It was exactly the sort of thing I love about live theater. You want a glimpse of the behind the scenes? You want to know what it was like to put it together? You want to know what they think works best and what they think isn't working at all? You don't have to wait for DVD, folks. You just have to find a show that's willing to do a talk back and HOPE that you're lucky enough for Stephen Sondheim to walk on stage. I know I keep saying it, but AWESOME! Awesome, awesome, AWESOME!

Luke Duke and Wilhelmina Slater can SING!

Went to see Sondheim on Sondheim so I thought I'd enter a little review of it here on the blog. I don't think this will come as a surprise to anyone who knows me but I LOVED it. Seriously, Stephen Sondheim is a GOD!

I went expecting a revue of Sondheim songs - basically a concert - not really what I want when I'm seeing a Sondheim show, but then again, Sondheim is a god so it's not like it was going to be bad. And, don't get me wrong, concerts are great and all, it's just that I'm not a big concert fan. So, I went in expecting some great songs, sung well by some good actors and that was that...except that wasn't that. The show was so much more than a few musical theater actors wandering around the stage and singing. There was this really interesting revolving, moving set of television screens which had images and interviews playing on them. The show followed Sondheim's life roughly chronologically and playing on the screens were clips from all different interviews Sondheim has done in the past (and I suspect one or two that he did specifically for this show). He would talk about how he came up with certain songs, or why a particular song was cut from a show or altered to serve the show better and interspersed with these interviews, the actors would perform the songs he was discussing in the interviews. It was pretty cool. And the actors are extraordinary. Barbara Cook, Tom Wopat and Vanessa Williams headline the show and they are wonderful.

Now, when I saw it, it was still in previews and there were a couple of technical glitches that they were still working out. I assume by now those glitches have been un-glitched. There was only one disappointment I had with the Sondheim songs and it was regarding a song from Company. In the versions of Company that I know and love there is a song called "Getting Married Today." It is one of my all time favorite Sondheim songs. It's about a woman who is about to get married and she starts to panic and realizes that she can't get married after all and it's one of those Sondheim, tongue twisting, really fast, lyrically beautiful and funny songs that I just LOVE watching an actor really nail.

"Great, Jess, so what's the problem?" Well, the problem, dear readers, with its presence in Sondheim on Sondheim was that they did a version called "The Wedding is Off" and it wasn't the same version. In fact it was almost a completely different song. So, my issue with it was twofold. On the first fold: I wished that I was hearing the version I'm familiar with because I love it. On the second fold: It wasn't clear if they were performing a version that was originally written but never performed or if they were doing a version that was simplified for this production because the actor didn't have the time to learn the more complicated version. And, honestly, either issue would have been fine, but I wish they had explained it. Since the whole show was sort of a behind the scenes glimpse into Sondheim's work and productions, the lack of explanation about that particular song felt kind of glaring. If it was a change made specifically for this show, I rather wished that they hadn't performed it at all...That being said, that was really my only "complaint" about the whole show. It was great fun all around and, for a Sondheim buff, it was an absolute joy.