A weekend of theatre

Cynthia Nixon and Josh Stamberg, in Distracted.

I'm "home" in Philadelphia for spring break. Philadelphia means nothing to me. Its close proximity to New York City does. Thus, I spent the entire weekend there seeing shows. Three shows in two days.

First up was Roundabout's Distracted at the Laura Pels, starring Cynthia Nixon. I love the Laura Pels Theatre. So many good times there, seeing the great Blythe Danner in Suddenly Last Summer (twice!), and The Marriage of Bette and Boo last summer. I wasn't sure what to think of Distracted, because I had intentionally not checked out any reviews. I was stunned by it. It was fabulous. The set...cannot be described without pictures. I've never seen anything like it. Unbelievably high tech, and way too cool. Cynthia Nixon, as expected, was wonderful - and very unlike anything I'd seen her in. The entire cast was great, and the play was both thoughtful and funny. I highly recommend it.

Saturday night was 33 Variations, starring Jane Fonda, Colin Hanks, and Samantha Mathis. Well. I don't think I need to tell you about the brilliance that is Jane Fonda. That goes without saying. She was outstanding, as were Colin Hanks and Samantha Mathis. The set and the direction of the play - fantastic. Almost awe-inspiring. The play itself, I thought, was lacking however. I found my attention veering off now and then, which is rare for me in the theatre, and it seemed almost contrived in its attempt to align the life of Jane Fonda's character with Beethoven himself. The writing just seemed...lazy to me, reliant on conventions. That said, that's no excuse to miss this play. You don't miss Jane Fonda. You just don't.

Sunday, we took in a matinee of Exit the King, which officially opens later this week. The show starred Oscar winners Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon (both of whom I have adored for years and years), as well as Lauren Ambrose (from one of my favorite shows, Six Feet Under) and the always hilarious Andrea Martin. With a cast like this, I was convinced the show couldn't fail. But the play is just one giant question mark. From beginning to end, you have absolutely no idea what's going on, or what the point is. It's an absolute farce, but there's no substance there. And the ending, while somewhat riveting (thanks to the nuanced acting of the play's two formidable leads), comes out of left field and is altogether baffling. I admire the effort - and the performances are all absolutely winning (I had no idea Lauren Ambrose had a flair for the melodramatic and nonsensical - she's fantastic) - but the play itself, unless I missed something somewhere along the way, is rather pointless.

I have been obscenely blessed by the theatre gods the last couple weeks, and I have to be thankful for that. But I do have to say that the shows I've seen in Chicago recently really do eclipse what I've seen in New York of late. I wonder what that says. As I noted to my mother this weekend, I wish Broadway was in Chicago and Chicago was in California. Then life would truly be perfect.

Zip!

I'm back in Chicago now, back to a dreaded 8:30 am class on Mondays, and back to roommates. But Saturday night, I was in New York. Funny, to think in the last three days, I've gone from Philadelphia to New York back to Philadelphia and finally to Chicago.

I spent all of six hours in New York, after taking the train up with my friend Leslie to see a show. Which, of course, is typical. Aside from the theatre scene, New York means very little to me. The show we saw was Pal Joey, currently doing a limited run at Studio 54.

My thoughts on the show are quite mixed, though more on the favorable side. Both Martha Plimpton and Stockard Channing were fantastic, despite not being known for their musical talent, and Matt Risch, the newcomer who played Joey, was fine. Now, I adore Rodgers and Hart, and of course the music was absolutely sublime - but I think the problem was more with the libretto. Much of the time, the story felt incongruous with the music, as if the music had to reach in order to seem even vaguely in context with the content of the scene. Like one of those jukebox musicals - i.e. Mamma Mia! and Crazy for You. This detracted a lot from my enjoyment of the show, but not fortunately not entirely.

I would recommend seeing it, for the performances of Martha Plimpton and Stockard Channing, and for the experience of seeing the inside of the legendary Studio 54, which truly is a sight to be seen. But the music is the heart of Pal Joey, so if you can't see it, it's no extraordinary loss. Just run out and buy the wonderful 1995 recording starring Patti LuPone, Peter Gallagher, and Bebe Neuwirth.

The next shows are my list are, hopefully, The Seafarer at Steppenwolf, the Chicago leg of the Spamalot tour with Richard Chamberlain, and Our Town at Lookingglass. And over spring break, the epic-ness that is Jane Fonda on Broadway in 33 Variations followed by Susan Sarandon and Geoffrey Rush in Exit the King. Should be a good season.

A Slump Grows on Broadway

In the course of journeying through the internet - which I am in the habit of doing, something tells me you are too - it occurs to me that The Hip Thing to blog about right now is the economy.

I could dip my foot into this esoteric pond of bitching and moaning - not to be confused with the proactive pond of doing - but then the terrorists win. But since they are persuasive terrorists, I'll meet them halfway. (Possibly someone from Homeland Security will stumble upon this and I'll be on my way to Guantanamo within the hour.)

Let's talk theatre. I'm an admitted theatre junkie. Philadelphia is my homeland, though I live primarily in Chicago these days, and New York is that one and a half train hour ride I take only when there are shows to be seen. I've never been to the Statue of Liberty, I have little interest in Central Park, and the Empire State Building is just that skyscraper I catch a glimpse of on my way from 42nd Street to Penn Station. Some might say I have a bias.

However. I often hear people complaining about the high price of theatre tickets these days - "astronomical!" they say, "sky high." Maybe. But these are live shows we're talking about, comrades. This isn't like going to the movies. Do you have an idea what it costs to put on a production eight times a week? Actors, crew, ushers. And these people are not rich, let me tell you. You do not do theatre for the money, you do it purely for love.

On January 4th, nine Broadway shows closed for good. Nine. In the coming weeks, quite a few more shows will go dark. Why? Because the first casualty of an economic crisis is entertainment.

Well. I hope you'll all be satisfied with your joyless existences, listening to the radio for entertainment like your forefathers did while you watch Broadway come crashing to its knees. But seriously, folks? Once you've taken care of the rent, groceries, and your electric bill - buy theatre tickets. Think of it as supporting a good cause.

At the very least, the experience will last you a lot longer than Pay-Per-View wrestling or porn.