from the archives of: www.newyorkcool.com
Johnny Guitar
Tuesday -Saturday @ 8PM
Matinees: Wed, Sat & Sunday @ 3PM
Century Center Theatre
A funny hot western for the romantic feminist in us all!
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Oh, Johnny,
you’ve got my heart. Johnny Guitar, a
musical comedy based on the 1954 western classic
of the same name, has translated beautifully
to the stage. Johnny is a hoot of a show, campy
enough to tickle the most jaded fancy, but
mainstream enough to be fun for the entire
family.
Here is the synopsis from the press release: "Johnny Guitar, the musical,
is set in a small town in the New Mexico mountains, circa 1885. The story
centers on Vienna, a sultry saloonkeeper who built a booming business 'on
her back'. Though Vienna is the ultimate bad girl gone good, her nemesis,
the pent-up Emma, sees things differently. A domineering cattle tycoon, Emma
controls the town with an iron fist but loses her grip when she falls for
the dangerously hot-headed Dancin' Kid. By the time Johnny Guitar, a tall
stranger with a secret past, rolls into town, the stage is set for an epic
showdown."
Johnny is a jewel with a great set, music and book. The Director (Joel Higgins),
Choreographer (Jane Lanier), and the marvelous cast exhibit wonderful comic
timing. In fact the timing is so amazing, theater students should see this
show to study it alone. Steve Blanchard is wonderful as Johnny, and Judy
McLane is marvelous as Vienna, the role created in the movie by Joan Crawford.
She brought down the house every time she said, “Oh, Johnny.” The
night I attended there were two understudies, Kristie Dale Sanders as Emma
(the role created by Mercedes McCambridge in the movie) and Grant Norman
as the Dancin’ Kid. The only way I could have told that Ms. Sanders
and Mr. Norman were understudies was via the program insert. They rocked
and looked born to their roles.
One more thing: Everyone needs to go out and buy a replica of Vienna’s
red peignoir set. And I do mean everyone. Trust me, you will definitely want
one after you see this show.
Tickets are $65 through Telecharge.com but be sure to check for specials
such as one advertisement that stated that kids under 16 are admitted FREE
to all matinee performances with the purchase of a full-price adult ticket.
Century Center Theatre
| 111 East 15th Street
Tracy Lett’s
“BUG”
Tuesdays - Fridays at 8 PM
Saturdays at 3 and 8 PM
Sundays at 3 and 7:30 PM.
Opens Sunday Feb 29th at 3PM
Open Run - The Barrow Street Theatre
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Tracy Lett’s
Bug is one bugged-out show. Filled with varmints
and crawling with vermin, it is one of the best
shows I have seen off Broadway.
As you enter the theater there is a wonderful
advertisement in the ticket office warning that
the show contains nudity, violence and cigarette
smoking. And the show certainly contains a lot
of nudity and violence, but it is so fast paced
the characters have little time to smoke until
the very end - but I don’t want to give
away too much too soon.The eerie theme is launched
in the beginning when we see the drugged-out
Agnes (the wonderful Shannon Cochran) standing
in the doorway of a seedy Oklahoma City motel,
casually smoking a cigarette, listening to the
trucks whizzing by as an ignored phone rings
in the background. She then leaves the door
wide open while she looks for something to drink
in the bathroom. This directorial choice is
a great metaphor for the rest of the story,
for Agnes is always forgetting to “shut
the door."
Soon her lesbian friend RC (the talented Amy
Landecker) arrives with Peter (the amazing Michael
Shannon) in tow. When RC leaves, she leaves
Peter (as a present?), and once Peter is in
the door, he never leaves. And with Peter come
the bugs, with the bugs comes the paranoia and
with the paranoia comes the apocalypse.
Tracy Letts has written a very provocative script
that is both scary and darkly funny. And Dexter
Ballard has done a great job directing; he really
knows how to use the space between the lines.
The lighting (Tyler Micoleau) and set (Lauren
Helpern) were right on the money; I have stayed
in those motels and they nailed it. The talented
cast also features Reed Birney, who does a clever
turn as the smiling Dr. Sweet (a clever choice
of a name) and Michael Cullen who portrays Agnes’s
ex-husband Goss. Mr. Cullen does a fabulous
job playing the menacing and perplexed Goss.
So go see Bug, it’s “buggin’.”
Bug is running a the new Off-Broadway 199-seat
Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow Street (at
7th Avenue), New York, NY 10014. (1/9 to Christopher
St./Sheridan Square, or A/C/E/F/V to West 4th
Street.) Tickets: all seats, all performances
are $55 except Fridays & Saturdays at 8
PM which are $60.Tickets: Purchasing Tix: Telecharge
at 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com or Barrow
Street Theatre box office two-hours prior to
every performance. Group sales and box office
at 212-243-6262. Websites: visit: www.Bugtheplay.com
The Barrow Street Theater
| 27 Barrow Street | West Village
Eric C. Bailey is
Fully Committed
May 6th through the 16th
Fleetwood Stage
New York's most chi-chi
restaurant; VIP movers & shakers; the celebrated,
notorious and hoi-polloi -- one out of work actor
copes with his family, his career and the reservation
list. This wild romp of 37 characters and just
one actor is a hilarious tour-de-force. FULLY
COMMITTED by Becky Mode is produced by Fleetwood
Stage (FS), Westchester's own resident professional
theatre company, beginning May 6 at FS on the
New Rochelle waterfront.
Like the eponymous cuisine offered at this four
star eatery, a global fusion of the high and mighty,
wanna-be's and never-was, wheedle, bribe, cajole,
demand, harangue, intimidate, vex, taunt and even
charm for their favorite table or their clutch
on the life of Sam Peliczowski, reservationist.
Assailed by restaurant patrons and staff, belittled
by agents and associates, Sam is trapped in the
basement room of his brutish survival job - he
can't get home for Christmas, land an audition,
nor engender a response from a personal ad.
FULLY COMMITTED is drawn from playwright Mode's
experiences as reservationist, waitperson and
coat-check, at top of the line Jim McMullen's
and Bouley restaurants in NYC and was developed
- along with Mark Setlock - at the Adirondack
Theatre Festival, Lake George NY. It premiered
at NYC¹s Vineyard Theatre, September 1999
before transferring to a commercially successful
off-Broadway run. One of the 10 Best Plays of
2000 declared TIME (magazine); Delicious! Delight!
Rarely has a playwright pegged so entertainingly
the insecurity at the heart of the New York sense
of entitlement. Very funny! proclaimed THE NEW
YORK TIMES. Mode has since written for HBO, CBS,
ABC, Disney, Nickelodeon and Columbia Pictures;
a TV pilot of the play is being developed for
ABC, along with Tribeca Films.
Eric C. Bailey, featured as Lucky in GODOT, returns
as the sole cast member. Bailey has also been
seen in FS MACBETH and THE COUNTRY GIRL and just
appeared as Demetrius in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
at Brooklyn's Waterloo Bridge Playhouse.
FULLY COMMITTED by Becky Mode plays May 6 - 16 at Fleetwood Stage, 44 Wildcliff
Drive, New Rochelle, adjacent to Hudson Park, Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays
at 8pm, Saturdays at 5 & 8pm, Sundays at 3pm. All general admission
seats are $30 each, with youth, senior and group discounts. Charge tickets
on-line or call the box office at 914-654-8949. Visit www.FleetwoodStage.org
for more information, or call 914-654-8533. Tickets $30 Box Office 914-654-8949
More information is available at www.fleetwoodstage.org and www.eric-bailey.com
Fleetwood Stage in New
Rochelle NY
Lear deBessonet"s
The Eliots
Thursday through Sunday @ 8 PM
April 29th - May 9th
An added matinee, May 8th at 2 PM
Center Stage
Before The Osbournes There Were...THE ELIOTS
Stillpoint Productions
is proud to present the world premiere of the tumultuous
story of The Eliots conceived and directed by Lear
deBessonet. The Eliots is a poetic performance
piece based on T.S. Eliot and his estranged wife
Vivienne's relationship. The play, provoked by
the recent biography "Painted Shadow: The
Life of Vivienne Eliot, First Wife of T. S. Eliot,
and the Long-Suppressed Truth About Her Influence
on His Genius" by Carole Seymour Jones, is
staged with the same aplomb as the poetry and prose
of T.S. Eliot, particularly "The Waste Land." The
Eliots explores their disturbed relationship, and
its emotional influence on his work through a collage
of text and movement, responding to the scope and
cadence of Eliot's language, his spiritual acuity,
and baffling personal life.The Eliots adopts a
collage aesthetic modeled after "The Waste
Land" - combining history and rhythm, high
and low culture, the obscure, beautiful, and colloquial,
with massive stylistic shifts," says director/
writer Lear deBessonet. "Once you know the
story of his relationship with Vivienne, his works
seem to be a séance calling it back to life.
He reincarnates both Vivienne and himself over
and over again in different fictionalized forms,
and that is precisely how we are going to investigate
their story."
The cast includes Julie Kline, Chris Healy (Nicholas and Alexandra, dir. Anne
Bogart, Yokastas, dir. Richard Schechner), Lethia Nall (As You Like It at
The Public Theater, dir. Erica Schmidt; Come To Leave dir. Allison Eve Zell;
Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink, a NYC Premiere, Alter Ego), Nate Schennkan (Katherine
Profetta's 131 at PS122), and Ryan West (Off-Broadway: PANIC! (HOW TO BE
HAPPY!)).Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444
or by going to www.smarttix.com
Center Stage |48 West 21st St.,
bet. 5th and 6th
Tim Robbin’s
“Embedded"
Tuesday - Thursday @8pm
Friday @7pm & 10pm
Saturday @2pm & 8pm
Sunday @2PM
February 24th – March 28
The Public presents The
Actor’s Gang production of “Embedded”,
written and directed by Tim Robbins. “Embedded” is
a ripped-from-the-headlines satire about the
madness surrounding the Mideast conflict. This
raucous and outrageous comedy from The Actors'
Gang skewers cynical embedded journalists, scheming
government officials, a show-tune singing colonel,
and the media's insatiable desire for heroes.
The San Francisco Chronicle called "Embedded" "a
savagely witty commentary on the media frenzy
accompanying the war in Iraq."
Tickets $50 (Special Spring Fever 3-Play Package at $114) (212) 239-5258 or www.telecharge.com
The Public
Theater |425 Lafayette Street| East Village
