| . | 04/25/2009
Editor’s Notes: Rock of Ages, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Mary Stuart, Reasons To Be Pretty
By: Jeannie Lieberman
Maybe it’s because rock music makes me shudder that I took Italian opera baritone Ulysses Borgia, a former rock singer, with me as “interpreter” to Rock of Ages, who promptly told me that the show was “cheesy” since it was all the old commercial rock songs (I wouldn’t know) but I was getting on the inside tract, especially as he sang the otherwise barely intelligible lyrics in my ear – very special – and he introduced me to Eddy Ojeda of “Twisted Sisters” whose songs are in the show (enough name dropping). As they sang “You don’t always leave with the dreams you come in with” – well, my dream was simply to survive the evening and I left considerably more informed and enthusiastic. It’s still not my music but many of my peers there were enthusiastic and I will admit to waving the little light they gave us in true rock concert style – even learned the hand sign for approval!
(see Eugene Paul’s review)
Maybe it’s because I was feeling sensory overload from seeing 5 shows a week for over a month that my goal at Joe Turner’s Come and Gone was simply to stay awake during this 2 1/2hour revival of August Wilson's early opus. Instead I was instantly drawn into this mesmerizing play, both earthy and poetic, about the ever surprising array of characters living in a Pittsburgh rooming house in 1911 when blacks were still shifting around looking for themselves and people in their lives in this post slavery era. Bartlett Sher’s direction has made the mix of ordinary and mystical dialogues even more magical. Hearts are broken, mended, dreams deferred, redesigned. Each performer is so compelling I resented being interrupted by an intermission! Wilson's signature use of superstition to end his plays usually seemed to me a cop-out, but this time it was brilliant and, misty eyed and deeply touched, I wanted to linger on to savor this absolutely best play of this season so far!
(see Eugene Paul’s review)
Maybe it’s because I came in hyped by “insiders” that I was ready to believe that Mary Stuart, about the fictitious confrontation between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth, Queen of England, for control of England, was the best play of the season. Its not! I have always had one ear to the ground (vox populi) and the other to the stratosphere (fellow critics/theater cognoscenti). The very audible voice of the people surrounding me with a cacophony of coughs and snores indicating a definite lapse connection with the play, while my critical ear rebelled at the overlong first act and an additional half hour’s mess of extraneous misgivings after the play’s obvious climax (the execution of one of the queens). Also, to be perfectly honest and admittedly unprofessional, the magnificent, robust Janet McTeer, as Mary, towered not only over the male actors who plotted against her (an attempted rape scene was a joke) but also was a head and shoulders taller than her historically formidable rival, Harriet Walter, as Elizabeth, compromising the credibility of a supposedly equal contest there. Even in the curtain calls McTeer was resplendent in a regal crimson gown, her adversary diminutive in staid high necked black. Nolo contendere.
(see Andy Smith’s review)
Maybe it’s because I had already been privileged to enjoy God Of Carnage, the absolute blue ribbon of mature (?) upscale couples’ infighting (see Victor Gluck’s review), that I was able to categorize Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty as the bare knuckles, immature, blue collar version. Compared to French writer Yazmina Reza’s elegant (de) construction of their descent into battle, this one begins with a non-stop, profanity laced, incoherent tirade of a young woman vs. her live-in boyfriend over his slur on her comparative lack of beauty a propos of beer fueled testosterone verbiage between the two buddies, overheard and tattled on by the wife.
There is a reason that there are no capitals in the title as this is a lower case, low class, low aspiration society, with seething, irrational anger and insecurities. Still in his infuriating, singularly chauvinistic mode LaBute continues to grovel in the ugliness of male/female relationships (or lack of) but this one’s neatly vengeful ending makes it a guilty pleasure.
(See Andy Smith’s review)
…more, much more, as the race continues to the Tonys finish line
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