Legally Blonde
- The Musical
Wednesday
2:00pm & 8:00pm
Thursday 8:00PM
Friday 8:00PM
Saturday 2:00PM & 8:00PM
Sunday 2:00PM, 7:00PM & 8:00PM
The Palace Theatre
Reviewed
by Katharine Heller
katharineheller.com
To compare Legally Blonde the Musical
to great theater would be like putting
a Twinkie up against the Miso Black Cod
at Nobu. But goddamn it, sometimes, nothing
beats a good Twinkie.
Based on
the box office hit of the same title,
Legally Blonde rarely strays
from the original script. For the five
of you who are not familiar with the premise
of the story, I'll sum it up. Beautiful
Delta Nu sorority sister Elle Woods is
crushed when her beau Warner dumps her
before leaving for Harvard Law. Elle applies
and gets
accepted to Harvard (even though I would
assume the application deadline had passed-
I never quite got that part, although
the rest of the story is perfectly plausible)
in hopes to win back her man. Long story
short she realizes she doesn't need Warner,
makes some new friends and solves a murder
case in court along the way.
The stage
translation is exactly what you would
expect, complete with spunky dance numbers,
an energetic young cast and tunes so catchy
I might consider quarantine for a good
few hours after the show. I still cannot
get the opening number, aptly called "Omigod,
You Guys!" out of my head. No, seriously,
it's pretty frustrating.
The fresh
faced and immensely talented Laura Bell
Bundy as Elle carries the show with grace
and confidence. Right behind her are Richard
H. Blake as the arrogantly hilarious Warner
and Christian Borle as her sweet love
interest, Emmett. The obvious cast standouts
however are Chico as her faithful Chihuahua,
Bruiser, and Chloe the Bulldog as Rufus.
(Rufus is the dog of Elle's friend Paulette
played
by the singly named human, Orfeh.)
The amusing
book, written by Heather Hach with music
and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell
Benjamin, includes other engaging numbers
such as the infamous, "Bend and Snap!"
and "Gay or European". With
crisp direction and choreography by Jerry
Mitchell, this family friendly show is
a lot of fun. Just make sure those you
see it with have a sweet tooth.
Tickets
$40.00-$110.00 212-307-4747 www.ticketmaster.com
Palace Theatre
|
1554 Broadway
BILLY
THE MIME in
AMERICA LOVESEXDEATH
Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at 7:00PM
Thursday through Saturday at 7 PM and
10 PM
August 23rd – September 29th
Opens September the 6th
The Flea Theater
Never a Mumblin’
Word
Reviewed
by William S. Gooch
In America’s
short history, three overarching themes
dominate the cultural landscape: love,
sex and death. We love sex, we love violence,
and we are in love with what we love,
even if it is bad for us.
In AMERICA
LOVESEXDEATH, Billy the Mime has
created a mélange of vignettes
that illustrate the lives of famous and
infamous Americans. Using very few props
and, of course, no dialogue, Billy the
Mime has formulated a production style
that gives the audience an insider’s
view into a particular cultural event
or phenomenon.
The standouts
in the 12-plus vignettes performed on
September 5 at the Flea Theater were,
“The Abortion,” “The
Sixties,” “Thomas & Sally–A
Night at Monticello,” “A Night
with Jeffrey Dahmer,” “ A
Night in San Francisco: 1979,” and
“The Clown & The Beautiful Woman”.
Although each vignette lasts no more than
five minutes, Billy the Mime expertly
conjures up images that remind us how
much these cultural events and icons have
informed our lives.
In “The
Sixties,” Billy the Mime helps the
audience experience such cultural images
and icons as Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix,
Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, and the
Summer of Love. With an arched back, puckered
lips and defiant strut, Billy puts an
ageless rock star front and center. Folded
arms and the peace sign bring to mind
the 37th President, and mimed scenes of
protest and police brutality evoke anti-war
demonstrations.
“Thomas
& Sally–A Night at Monticello”
is perhaps the most racially sensitive
subject of the evening. Billy the Mime
comically presents Thomas Jefferson as
a man of the southern gentry with a dirty
little secret. Between minuets with folks
of his social class and standing, Jefferson
surreptitiously sneaks out for a little
hanky panky with sweet Sally Hemmings.
With each clandestine rendezvous, Jefferson’s
lust for his café au lait mistress
grows stronger. Jefferson’s lustful
urges are so powerful that he can barely
resist the smell of Sally’s sexual
sweetness on his fingers while dancing
the minuet.
The most
macabre vignette on the program was that
of “A Night with Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Billy the Mime acts out Dahmer meeting
his victims, drugging them, killing them,
cannibalizing them, and storing their
heads in the refrigerator. Again, using
only mime and movement, Billy takes the
audience on this psychopathic journey
without missing a beat. He unapologetically
and eerily becomes Jeffrey Dahmer.
If there
is one drawback to AMERICA LOVESEXDEATH,
it may be that some of the vignettes are
cultural and age specific. Case in point,
in “ A Night in San Francisco: 1979,”
anyone under the age of 30 may not have
understood the reference to gay night
clubs, multiple sex partners, and the
beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Still
AMERICA LOVESEXDEATH does what good performance
art should do: educate, entertain and
inspire. And all accomplished without
a word mumbled.
Marcel Marceau
eat your heart out!
Tickets
for AMERICA LOVESEXDEATH are
$35 Tuesday through Thursday, $40 Friday
and Saturday. For tickets, visit www.theflea.org
or call 212-352-3101.
Flea Theater|
41 White Street
Between Church and Broadway
Margaret Garner:
Medea in Sepia Tones
September 29th @ 8PM
New York City Opera
Reviewed
by William S. Gooch
Most great
stories in grand opera have tragic heroines.
There is Flavia Tosca in Tosca,
Cio Cio San in Madama Butterfly,
and Lucia in Lucia Di Lammermoor,
just to name a few. These operatic heroines
usually kill themselves, someone else
or go insane while singing gloriously
about lost love, lost innocence or betrayal.
No shrinking violets or dutiful wives
and daughters here, only fully fleshed
out, passionate women fit the bill.
In Margaret
Garner, America has its first African
American tragic heroine. Based on the
true story of fugitive slave, Margaret
Garner, who murdered her own daughter
rather than have her return to a life
of chattel slavery, the opera details
the horrors of American slavery while
showing one woman’s determined fight
for freedom and human dignity.
With music
by Grammy Award winning composer Richard
Danielpour and libretto by Nobel and Pulitzer
Prize Award winning author Toni Morrison,
Margaret Garner combines rich atonal sounds
with the revelatory expediency of Morrison’s
words. “No more, no more”
cry the slaves and their progeny in the
opening scene of the opera. With this
defiant affirmation, Morrison sets the
tone for Margaret Garner. Unlike
the passive, morally questionable characters
found in Porgy and Bess, Morrison
imbues each slave character with vision
and righteous fervor. She also employs
language that magnifies the indignities
of chattel slavery. “How much, how
much, for a mammy, pickaninny and a buck.”
Danielpour’s
mixture of haunting melodies and dissonant
chords illuminate the humanity of the
slaves and their hopeless situation. By
weaving gospel rhythms and the conviction
found in Negro spirituals into the music,
Danielpour accomplishes the difficult
task of bringing authenticity without
sacrificing dramatic urgency. If there
is one flaw in the score, it’s evident
in the second act where the music fails
to dramatically support several climatic
scenes. However, Danielpour is effective
in the choral scenes, particularly the
courtroom scene where the whites menacingly
chant, “She is not like us.”
As Margaret
Garner, Tracie Luck brings a rich, mahogany
mezzo-soprano voice to her debut at New
York City Opera. Her voice is utilized
best in the aria before her rape where
she convincingly sings, “Love is
the only master my heart obeys.”
Unfortunately, Luck’s lack of rage
and desperation renders a milquetoast
portrayal of Garner. The historical Margaret
Garner was a defiant slave who not only
killed her daughter to prevent her from
being returned to bondage, but also courageously
stood on trial for her crimes. This resolute
defiance never quite comes across in Luck’s
performance.
On the
other hand, Lisa Daltrius gives a vocally
powerful performance as Cilla, Margaret’s
mother-in-law. With a transcendent voice
that rings with celestial vibrancy, Daltrius
creates a character that believes that
freedom is just and ordained by God.
Gregg Baker
in his New York City Opera debut as Robert
Garner—Margaret’s husband—brings
his deep, resonant baritone—familiar
to many New Yorkers from his Metropolitan
Opera performances—back to the New
York stage. Baker portrays Robert Garner
as a man on a mission. His bittersweet
love duet, “ You are my shoulder,
you are my spine,” with Tracie Luck
is absolutely gorgeous.
Although
Margaret Garner lacks dramatic
cohesion and falls flat musically at times,
it does expand the American operatic repertoire
of tragic heroines. Finally, we have an
American Medea. And she comes draped in
rich, sepia tones.
Margaret
Garner will be performed at New York
City Opera through September 29.
See nycopera.com
for more details.
Charles Busch's
Die, Mommie, Die!
Tuesday - Friday @8:00pm
Saturday 7:00pm & 10:00pm
Sunday 3:00pm & 7:00pm
October 18th - February 21, 2008
New York Stages
Reviewed
by Allison Ford
When
Charles Busch floats onto the stage in
the first scene of Die, Mommie,
Die!, he is met with a wide round
of applause, both for the character he
creates as an actor, and the world he
creates as a playwright.
Besides
being an extremely gifted comic actor
and drag legend, Mr. Busch is a gifted
playwright, who creates a world that is
singularly decadent and bizarre, and lovingly
received by his dedicated audiences. His
quirky comedies are throwbacks to classic
film genres, and Die, Mommie, Die!
is one of the fullest realizations
of Mr. Busch’s warped version of
the past. Mommie takes place in the psychedelic
60’s in the life of a faded singing
sensation, her dysfunctional family, and
her surly domestic help.
Busch
plays Angela Arden, a grande dame of yesterday,
who wears ballgowns to do the gardening,
and hides a dark secret. She was a singing
sensation who married her producer, subsequently
fading into the oblivion of former star,
taking lovers and puttering in the garden.
When her husband discovers her infidelity
and threatens to divorce her, she exacts
her revenge on him, forcing her disgruntled
children to exact theirs on her. As Angela,
Busch is superb – the perfect manifestation
of self-indulgence and narcissism that
would make even Gloria Swanson proud.
The rest of the cast is equally spectacular.
The characters of Angela’s daughter
and son, based on Oedipus and Electra,
are perfect sendups of sixties archetypes
– she as the mod swinger, and he
as the hippy gay college dropout.
Mr. Busch’s
plays defy easy explanation or categorization.
Psycho Beach Party, another standout
among his works, parodies Beach Blanket
Bingo¸ Vertigo, and
classic B-movie thrillers. Die Mommie,
Die! is no exception, taking inspiration
from, as well as paying homage to, several
films from the “wacko aging star”
genre, including Whatever Happened
to Baby Jane, Sunset Boulevard,
and Mommie Dearest. Angela Arden
could be Norma Desmond on an acid trip.
In fact, there’s one of those in
the second half of the play.
Although
the world of the play is the not-so-distant
past, it never feels irrelevant or staid,
and although the setting is distinctly
American, it feels like more of a fantasy
than reality; a perfectly idealized version
of a specific place and time. The world
of this play (and the movie based on it)
is one of bouffant hairdos, housecoats,
dream sequences, minidresses, skinny ties,
and shag carpeting. It’s brightly-colored,
completely ridiculous, and incredibly
bizarre. In this world, the daughter has
an Electra complex, a poisoned suppository
is a murder weapon, and Mommie is played
by a man. The character of Angela is so
suited to Busch’s personal strengths
and comic quirks, that it is difficult
to imagine any real woman having the same
success playing her.
Mr. Busch’s
talent is to take his plays to a completely
hyperdramatic place – he follows
the crazy all the way to the top, and
the end result is grounded in some version
of reality, but obviously far, far removed
from it. This is a world where the leading
lady can utter lines like “I’ve
banished all my yesterdays,” with
all the conviction and melodrama of a
Scarlett O’Hara. And it works. Not
only is the play itself scathingly funny,
the performances of the cast are pitch-perfect;
stylish and energetic. The play is directed
by Carl Andress, a veteran of Mr. Busch’s
plays, having also directed Shanghai
Moon, and The Tale of the Allergist’s
Wife. Such a stylized and particular
play would be disastrous without the proper
energy and direction, but Mr. Andress
understands the style that Mr. Busch is
trying to achieve with his plays; the
delicate balance between melodramatic
camp and modernity. Despite living in
the past, Mr. Busch’s plays all
tend to deal with some of his favorite
themes, homosexuality (both latent and
manifest), Judaism, and pop psychology,
so the ultimate feel is very modern and
relevant.
The scope
of the story and the characters is limited
- Mr. Busch doesn’t attempt to reinvent
the wheel, or produce epics of Shakespearean
depth. His aim is to be funny. He is a
natural successor to John Waters; purveying
camp with a subversive and loving touch.
The secret, perhaps, is that even though
the world of the play is madcap and ridiculous,
we never doubt Mr. Busch’s love
for it. Only a great lover of camp and
melodrama could make us care so much about
these ridiculous characters and their
ridiculous misadventures. We’re
laughing with them, not at them.
He is one
of the best humorists working in the theater
today, and despite the fact that his plays
are most thoroughly enjoyed by viewers
who know the films he references, his
work is never inaccessible. To Charles
Busch, the over-the-top world of Angela
Arden, Die, Mommie, Die!, and
the rest of his work is a world that’s
modern, and relevant, and funny. Audiences
are so devoted to his plays and his characters
because the tongue-in-cheek humor and
the references to classic films feels
like an inside joke. Luckily, he lets
us all in on it.
Ticket
Price Info: $35.00-$91.50
Order Tickets By Phone: 212-239-6200 &
800-432-7250
New
World Stages |340 West 50th Street
New York, NY 10019
Minimum
Wage
Thursday and Friday @ 8:00 PM
Saturday @ 8:00 and @ 10:30 PM
The Green Room at 45 Bleecker
Reviewed
by Katherine Heller
http://www.katharineheller.com
There are as many
unfortunate stigmas attached to fast food
employees as there are with new Off-Broadway
shows. Both can contribute to feelings
of animosity, impatience and in rare cases,
physically nausea. But luckily when the
two merge in the new Off- Broadway musical
Minimum Wage, the result is a
night delicious and satisfying fun.
What immediately
sets this show apart from most musicals
is the fact that it's all acappella. The
talented cast of five blend harmonies,
tunes and yes, awesome beat boxing to
perform such songs as "Shake Your
Booty With Danger and Balls." Created
and written by Charlie LaGreca, brother
Jeff LaGreca and with the musical assistance
of Sean Altman, Minimum Wage
follows the lives of five fast food workers
at the fictional and aptly titled "Happy
Burger".
The show
begins when the you enter the basement
of the theater at 45 Bleecker, as the
Happy Burger staff/cast welcomes you with
gifts, paper hats and yes, a job application.
We soon learn that we are actually there
as part of a "new trainee" session
about the wonder of Hamburgerology which
includes multitudinous lessons about the
grill, french fries, Connecticut (you'll
see) and meat, to name a few. Due to a
series of unexpected events, it is up
to the Happy Burger employees to run the
seminar which has ordinarily been done
by their boss via satellite. If we, the
audience, pass the rigorous test at the
end, the eager group of workers can attend
a local acappella competition. The rest
of the hour and a half we are not only
taught about All Things Fast Food, but
we learn a little bit about what makes
each character function, facilitate and
fry.
This is
quite possibly one of the funniest shows
I have seen in a long time. The experience
from beginning to end was reminiscent
to that of a hilariously dysfunctional
family dinner, one that you wish would
never end. All of the characters were
so well defined and complemented each
other exquisitely. This is no doubt because
this is not their first run. A two-time
veteran of the New York Fringe Festival,
the cast has also been working together
for almost ten years as an award winning
acappella troupe. It's not just their
chemistry on stage that makes this show
special but the heart that goes into it.
And it's also pretty friggin' hilarious.
My favorite moment of many was the introduction
of Kooky The Happy Burger Clown, played
to perfection by Tony Daussat, who answers
audience questions with his own brand
of therapy. Other knockout moments include
the aforementioned "Shake Your Booty
With Danger" performed by the incredibly
talented, Elana Meulener, and the sweet
homage to family, "Dreams,"
which actually made me cry. I know.
Jeff LaGreca
gives a knockout performance as Hux, the
steadfastly dedicated brother of Orewell
(his real brother Charlie). Bill Caleo
is a superb as Bradbury, the troubled
yet adorable fry cook who really means
well as long as he stays away from a grill
(I'll let you figure that one out at the
show). And Charlie LaGreca should not
only be commended for his extraordinary
performance as the eager and simpleminded
Orwell, but for his stupendous beatboxing
skillz. (Yeah, I used a "z".
It's that good.) Guy Stroman's excellent
direction is very present based on the
notable ensemble work.
This is
the kind of show I would everyone I know
over the age of 14 to. While it is overall
a comedy, it is clearly not just a bunch
of sketches; the through-line of the plot
is genuinely poignant- remembering the
value of dreams. And while it may seem
like leaving a fast food job for an hour
to sing is a mediocre goal, this enthusiastic
gang reminds you that it is the little
joys that make life worth working for.
And unlike my last fast food experience,
I want to go back.
Minimum
Wage opens Saturday, October 20th
at 8:00 at 45 Bleecker. Showtimes are
Thursday and Friday at 8:00 PM and Saturday
at 8:00 and 10:30 PM. Tickets are $45
and can be purchased through www.Telecharge.com
or by calling 212-239-6200. For a limited
time, $25 tickets are still available-
check out www.burgerboys.com.
The
Green Room at 45 Bleecker
