Category Archives: Theater

Great New Jersey Theater!

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Some shows you enjoy, some inspire a “meh,” and some occupy a “don’t miss!” category. In our family, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is in that last group, and the new production at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, which opened Saturday and runs through June 1, knocks it out of the park! STNJ artistic director Brian B. Crowe and the cast reveal and revel in every bit of the penetrating wit that makes this show perennially popular.

The crux of the story is that two young women are determined to marry men with the given name Ernest, a name epitomizing sober seriousness. Unfortunately, they’ve fixed on a pair of society gentlemen of the complete opposite temperament. Neither is named Ernest, though both pretend to be. Even worse, because a man needs certain credentials to marry a society daughter, the origins of one of them are completely unknown. It’s left to dowager Aunt Augusta to get to the bottom of the case, or suitcase, as it were.

While the play is most definitely a comedy, and in this production the audience appreciated the humor immensely, the humor works because of Wilde’s spot-on observations about human behavior at the extremes.

Christian Frost plays Algernon Moncrieff, nephew of Aunt Augusta, and Tug Rice plays Jack Worthing, aspirant to the hand of her daughter, Gwendolen. Not only do these two actors deliver their lines with perfect comic timing, their body language and gestures make the always-slightly-ridiculous situation even more so.

Marion Adler is perfection as the unyielding Lady Augusta Bracknell, with Carolyne Leys her besotted daughter, Gwendolen. She believes all is well with her engagement to Worthing until she meets his hitherto unknown and suspiciously beautiful ward, Cecily Cardew, played by Joyce Meimei Zheng. The two young women immediately feign deep friendship, but you know the claws will come out once the unmasking of the pseudonymous Ernests begins.

In smaller roles, Richard Bourg plays both manservant to Algernon and later to Jack. Though he’s in the background, his reactions to the young people’s shenanigans add a great deal. Alvin Keith plays the country parson being tapped to christen or re-christen the men with new names, and Celia Schaefer plays Miss Prism, tutor to Cecily, who unexpectedly holds the key to the whole dilemma.

The young men may not be Ernests, yet, but they are definitely Earnest when it comes to love!

A word about the set. There are three scenes (Algernon’s flat, Worthing’s country garden, and, finally, his drawing-room), and the design accommodates all three with just enough elegant detail. Delicious costumes and atmospheric lighting effects in the garden scene too. STNJ productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online.

Theater Extravaganza!

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Last weekend we enjoyed an unforgettable theater weekend. Thanks to gifts, we did not have to remortgage the house to snag tickets for two of the hottest, most interesting shows currently on Broadway: Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in Othello and George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck.

For more than 400 years, audiences have found Shakespeare’s plays so perfectly capture human motives, failings, and dilemmas that they continue to offer important commentary, however far removed we are from their creation. Good Night and Good Luck, an adaptation of the 2005 film, is set some 70 years ago—an eternity in the age of texting and instant messaging—but it too lent itself painful timeliness. Do such works speak to audiences today? They did last weekend. Is their message lost on today’s audiences? Not for a New York minute.

Othello, you’ll remember, is the story of a vaunted Venetian general whose chief aide, feigning loyalty but secretly vindictive, sows doubt about the faithfulness of Othello’s wife, Desdemona. Suspicion builds, and this false story eventually so enrages Othello that he murders her and, in this version, the play ends with death upon death. What devastating power lies have. And, once accepted, how difficult they are to dislodge.

A major theme of the play is reputation. Iago famously says, “Who steals my purse steals trash; ʼtis something, nothing . . . But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.” Even in his last speech, the suicidal Othello is concerned about how he will be perceived thereafter.

In Shakespeare’s time, although news of a person’s transgressions—real or imagined or maliciously crafted—might eventually reach the ears of many people or the few who mattered; today, such reports are instantly accessible to a worldwide audience and wreak havoc with the ideas of privacy and safety and innocence. Whether they are true or not seems irrelevant. The point is to hurt. In the face of this onslaught, we are “perplexed in the extreme,” as Othello says, and damaged in some cases, beyond repair.

George Clooney has had a long interest in the topic of how fear stifles political debate. In this project, he and co-writer Grant Heslov took the Army-McCarthy hearings as their subject. Senator Joseph McCarthy was infamous for his sensational accusations that various individuals were Communists based on slender or no evidence. His particular targets were the federal government, universities, and the film industry. It was a fearful time. Tremendous pressure was brought on television journalist Edward R. Murrow and his co-producer Fred Friendly to tread lightly around McCarthy, as anyone who opposed him would very likely become his next target.

Nevertheless, Murrow and Friendly produced a famous See It Now documentary using clips of McCarthy himself and his wild accusations. Commenting on the Senator’s words, Murrow said, “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty” and warning against letting fear push the country into an age of unreason. The production definitely wants to establish parallels with current-day politics, and one of its biggest laughs comes when a newsman laments that he hasn’t quite understood what’s been happening in the past few years and says, “It’s like all the sensible people flew to Europe and left us here.”

Both plays benefit from excellent casts, including Clooney and Gyllenhaal, who are not stage actors. Othello has a spare stage that adapts to whatever configuration is needed, whereas Good Night and Good Luck has a very specific set, a 1950s newsroom, with all the chaos of a production about to go on air. Both work.

Sense and Sensibility: See it!

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Congratulate The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey for producing a version of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility that lives up to its title! It showcases both a fine theatrical sense and the complicated interpersonal sensibilities of the classic story. Adapted by British playwright, theatre director, and screenwriter Jessica Swale and directed for STNJ by Nisi Sturgis, it opened September 7 and closes September 22.

It’s in 1797 England that we find the Dashwood family, comprising a widow (played by Lynette R. Freeman) and her three daughters—Elinor (Mandi Masden), a model of good sense, Marianne of heightened feelings (Billie Wyatt), and inquisitive, adolescent Margaret (Terra Chaney). A conniving sister-in-law (Kayla Ryan Walsh) deprives them of their inheritance, and they must retire to a modest country life. The two older girls are of marriageable age, and Elinor falls for Edward Ferrars (Patrick Andrew Jones), previously engaged in secret and seemingly unattainable; Marianne falls for the dashing Willoughby (Christian Frost) who returns her affection, and she is also adored by mature, reliable—and therefore unappealing—Colonel Brandon (Sean Mahan).

That group of actors makes up most of the cast, except for utility infielder Patrick Toon, who appears in many guises and has dozens of offstage costume changes, portraying each character to perfection. In fact, except for the two older sisters (Masden and Wyatt), all cast members play multiple roles, including that of stagehand. It was a particular pleasure to see Chaney move so convincingly from little sister and budding naturalist to sly fiancée to a street gossip. These multiple personas all work, except when Mrs. Dashwood reappears as Willoughby’s fiancée. The age difference was insurmountable, but all the other female cast members were otherwise engaged, one might say. Masden and Wyatt’s strong performances make you yearn for the happiness of these young women. Lovely costumes too, thanks to Sophie S. Schneider.

Swale’s adaptation is faithful to the novel and some of the judicious cuts Emma Thompson made for the 1995 screenplay. Fidelity to material and memory produces deep associations, even if act one does become rather long. The versatile set by Brittany Vasta nicely accommodates, with some well-choreographed rearrangements of furniture, the various houses, rooms, and outdoor settings where the story takes place, leaving much to the imagination except for lovely verdure.

Austen’s works, including this one, continue to capture audiences by their fundamental emotional truths. The characters in Sense and Sensibility are trapped in the conventions of their time—women didn’t work or inherit, honorable men lived up to their marital commitments—yet most find their way to happiness in ways that satisfy them and the audiences of today. Modern constraints may be different, but they nevertheless exist. STNJ productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online.

The Book of Will

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Tomorrow I’ll post short reviews of two movies we recently enjoyed—and you might, too!—but today, for readers who live in the New York-New Jersey area, I’m recommending The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, on stage now through July 28. The story is clever, the acting is superb, and it’s no surprise that it was beautifully directed by Bonnie J. Monte, STNJ’s former Artistic Director who clearly knows exactly what she’s doing. Don’t miss it!

The story is this: A few years after Shakespeare’s death, members of the King’s Players lament his loss as well as the fact that poorly trained actors are using bastardized scripts to produce inferior versions of their adored plays—Lear, Macbeth, As You Like It. They recite the names in a litany of despair. Burbage says, “Just because that little froth can hold a skull he thinks he can play Hamlet? My soul is written into that part, and I’ll play The Prince till I die, and after that? They better use my skull for Yorick so I can spend eternity silently judging all else.”

It occurs to one of them—Henry Condell (played by Michael Stewart Allen)—that they know the plays best and they should produce an “authoritative version.” His friend John Heminges (Anthony Marble) doesn’t underestimate the amount of work this will entail, but by scouring attics and drawers and lodgings of other Shakespeareans, one way or another, through one difficulty after another, they cobble together “The Book of Will.” That is, the First Folio.

They saved for us the Shakespeare we know to this very day. And the audience is rewarded with witty use of familiar text snippets woven throughout the script. They were heroes of the first water.

Brent Harris plays the very theatrical Richard Burbage and sly printer William Jaggard to perfection, though it’s Jaggard’s son Isaac (Isaac Hickox-Young) who repeatedly rescues the project. Pearce Bunting brings Will’s old enemy Ben Jonson to disreputable life, and three women—Amy Hutchins, Carolyne Leys, and Victoria Mack—soften the men’s sometimes disputatious tendencies, but are no softies themselves.

Every theatre-lover today owes them big time!

STNJ productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online.

Take a Bow, Broadway!

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We’ve seen two stage musicals in the last month to take note of: The Outsiders and Days of Wine and Roses—both with fine pedigrees as movies, and, in the case of The Outsiders, the popular young adult book by SE Hinton.

The Outsiders

Playing at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, The Outsiders’ director, Danya Taymor, and her team brought together a terrific cast of young actors to play the teenage antagonists—the socs (pronounced sohsh, an abbreviation for “social,” denoting the teens from wealthier families) and the greasers (their opposites). Actor Brody Grant received a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Ponyboy Curtis, as did Joshua Boone and Sky Lakota-Lynch for their performances. It’s a coming-of-age crime story involving the perennial friction between those on the inside of a group and those not. The book and music were strong (both nominated for Tonys), and the high-energy choreography and fight choreography were spectacular.

I’d never read the book nor seen the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola movie (maybe you remember the amazing cast–Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, et al.), so it was all new to me. It received a too-tepid review in the Washington Post, in which the reviewer seemed troubled by the musical’s occasional divergence from the story’s previous two incarnations. No problem for me, of course. Nor for those who selected it as a nominee for a Tony Award for best musical, best direction, best book, best original score, and, no surprise—best choreography—this year! Among other nominations. Well worth seeing.

Days of Wine and Roses

Studio 54 has mounted a nicely staged production of The Days of Wine and Roses, based on the 1962 movie classic (Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, et al., directed by Blake Edwards). Directed by Michael Greif, the musical version stars Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James, both of whom received Tony nominations for their roles. This is O’Hara’s twelfth Broadway show, and she’s been nominated for seven Tony Awards (winning for The King and I), an Emmy, an Olivier, and two Grammys. Jones is a four-time Tony-nominated, Grammy-winning actor, also with more than a dozen Broadway appearances on his resume. Needless to say, they’re up to the musical demands.

You may recall the story. Farm-girl Kirsten Arnesen (O’Hara) is working in San Francisco and meets city slicker Joe Clay (James). He talks her into taking her first drink, and it’s all downhill from there. Since the pivotal role of brandy alexanders in the story is the main thing I remember about the movie, I can’t say how closely the musical tracks the film.

The sets are cleverly done for a smallish stage, and the book by Craig Lucas and music/lyrics by Adam Guettel are pretty good. In 90 minutes, no intermission, the cast has to take you through some dramatic and heart-wrenching falls. Byron Jennings does a memorable turn as Kirsten’s father too. It won’t leave you laughing, but it’s a fine show.

The Scarlet Letter

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Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, brings to thrilling life the world premiere of Kate Hamill’s adaptation of The Scarlet Letter, directed by Shelley Butler, from February 9’s opening night through February 25th. In the hands of Hamill, Butler, and a superb cast, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s poignant story moves along with both speed and passion.

Hamill has made something of a cottage industry out of adapting classic works, becoming one of the country’s most-produced playwrights. While Hester Prynne has numerous feminist fans, and while Hester’s story set almost 400 years ago reverberates loudly today, Hamill has not written a polemic. Instead, her Scarlet Letter is a story of love and revenge, almost equally thwarted.

Hester Prynne (played by Amelia Pedlow), a member of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, is a presumed widow, her husband lost at sea for some two years. When she becomes pregnant, she’s accused of adultery, whipped, and must wear a scarlet A, always. Despite efforts to humiliate her, she remains a dignified, affectionate mother.

Resplendent and full of his authority, Governor Hibble (Triney Sandoval) cannot persuade Hester to say who baby Pearl’s father is. Hester’s husband (Kevin Isola) unexpectedly returns in the guise of a doctor and blackmails her to keep his true identity secret. He’s determined to discover the father, not out of love or loyalty, but a desire for control. Meanwhile, the town’s clergyman, Rev. Dimmesdale (Keshav Moodliar) sermonizes about guilt and sin. Addressing the theater audience as his congregation, Moodliar’s delivery is pitch-perfect, and his portrayal of the conscience-stricken Reverend inspires great sympathy.

The governor’s prunish wife, Goody Hibbins (Mary Bacon), is not sympathetic. She’s embittered by unsuccessful pregnancies, and claims Hester has bewitched her. We know, as Hawthorne did, what a dangerous accusation this is, only a few decades before the Salem witch trials. (One of the presiding judges was Hawthorne’s great-great grandfather, John Hathorne—the only one of the judges who never repented his actions.)

Most of the play takes place when Pearl is about four, and special mention must be made of the puppet that plays Pearl, animated and voiced by Nikki Calonge. As Hamill said about the decision to use a puppet, “In some ways a real child is too real. The magical thing about puppets is that they accomplish the real and the otherworldly.” Feisty, stubborn, uncharming Pearl seems determined to displease the Puritans, chanting, “I love sin! I love sin!” By clever staging, Calonge becomes Pearl’s shadow. You don’t forget she’s there, but it’s Pearl who shocks Goody Hibbins.

The admirable but minimalist sets work hand-in-hand with the sound design to move you quickly from scene to scene, town to country. A memorable production, beautifully presented!

Two River Theater in Red Bank, N.J., is easily reachable from NYC by New Jersey Transit. For tickets, call the box office at 732-345-1400 or visit the Box Office online.

A Man for All Seasons

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The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s production of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, directed by Paul Mullins, opened October 21 and runs through November 5, 2023. The story of Sir Thomas More, a man who not only has principles but sticks to them, seems a timely offering for our more elastic era. Of course, you may conclude that, in his case, that virtue went too far. Here a strong cast and excellent production provide much to consider.

Hewing closely to history, More (played by Thomas Michael Hammond) has become the Chancellor of England during the reign of Henry VIII (Roger Clark). Henry is determined to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon. He has several reasons for this, but the most powerful may be that she has failed to produce a male heir. (Centuries later, science would prove that a child’s sex is determined by the father. Henry should have been looking in the mirror.) The Catholic Church, of course, opposes the divorce, and Spanish officialdom, represented by its emissary Sigñor Chapuys (Edward Furst), regularly pleads Catherine’s cause. More’s conscience won’t let him support the King’s plans, despite the loyalty he demonstrates by various other actions. Nor does he speak out against them.

The principal cast includes several additional notable characters, which the cast plays with great skill and gusto: the always a bit dodgy Duke of Norfolk (Anthony Marble), More’s devoted wife Alice (Mary Stillwaggon Stewart), his daughter Margaret (Brianna Martinez) and her fiancé William Roper (Ty Lane), whose political views shift with every wind. Also, rising politician Richard Rich (Aaron McDaniel) demonstrates his convincing slipperiness, Thomas Cromwell is less admirable here than in Wolf Hall (James McMenamin), and “The Common Man,” (Kevin Isola). Isola makes the most of the array of often-comic characters he plays—More’s servant Matthew, a boatman, a publican, a juror, a jailer. His every appearance is welcome. Additional cast and production credits in my review at TheFrontRowCenter.

In general, a readiness to compromise or to achieve the King’s desired ends by whatever argument necessary characterizes Rich, Norfolk, and Cromwell, in direct contrast to More. The play challenges you to think about the role of a counselor. Is it solely to follow the leader’s dicta or is it to help a leader onto a more conciliatory and constructive path? For all his staunch refusals to speak out on the era’s great questions—the divorce and the establishment of the Church of England with the King at its head—More does have opinions about these matters. He simply believes his silence will protect him from accusations of treason. In my view, he’s splitting legal hairs too.

STNJ productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online.

The Pianist

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The world premiere of Emily Mann’s theatrical adaptation of Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir, The Pianist, opened at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick last weekend and will run through October 22. Directed by Mann, the show has an original score by Iris Hond.

The Pianist is Szpilman’s recounting of the annihilation of the Jews of Warsaw, and how he—a leading young Polish pianist and composer—survived. He had many dark days, but his music both consoled him and inspired him to keep living.

Why now? You may recall that Tony Award-winning Mann’s career has emphasized social justice, through such works as Having Our Say and Gloria: A Life. Szpilman’s story is, of course, a cautionary tale, and taking it on now is a timely move, as surveys show the Holocaust receding in public memory and as anti-semitic rhetoric and attacks are on the rise. It’s dangerous to ignore those past lessons, when around the world extremist leaders grow increasingly prominent. Who might their net targets be?

A terrific cast has been assembled for this production, including Russian-born actor Daniel Donskoy, who makes his American stage debut as Szpilman, bringing both passion and intelligence to the role. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. In Szpilman’s nuclear family are his father (played by Austin Pendleton), mother (Claire Beckman), sisters Regina (Arielle Goldman) and Halina (Georgia Warner), and brother Henryk (Paul Spera).

Henryk can’t stop warning his family about fascism’s deadly implications, as the dark cloud descends on Warsaw. The parents don’t want to hear—or believe—it. Much like Szpilman, his father loses himself in music, almost obsessively playing his violin, but bit by bit, the ability to maintain the illusion of normalcy or that it can ever be regained, disappears along with the city’s food supply.

Several other actors—Charlotte Ewing, Jordan Lage, Robert David Grant, and Tina Benko—take on multiple roles as resistance fighters, people who try to help Szpilman or not, and Nazis. The play’s short scenes build and deepen Szpilman’s despair, as the whole is knitted together by the piano score of Iris Hond, which combines her original music, classical pieces, and Szpilman’s own work.

Anyone who needs evidence of the significance of this production need only read the biographical sketch for actor Claire Beckman, which concludes with her gratitude to Emily Mann for including her in this work of art “and by extension my great grandmother Anna Frankova Pickova, murdered in Terezin in 1943.”

The Pianist is on stage at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. Tickets available here or by calling 732-246-7717.

On Stage: And A Nightingale Sang . . .

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A business trip to Las Vegas kept me from attending the opening weekend of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s new production, And A Nightingale Sang . . ., but I didn’t want to go without mentioning it to friends in the area, and encourage you to see it. A not-very-often produced play by Scottish playwright C.P.Taylor, it’s on stage for only one more week (through Sunday, July 30). Taylor was a native of Newcastle upon Tyne, and his characters speak with the broad Geordie dialect that must have been a bear for the actors to master (which they did!). This accent will be familiar to viewers of the television mystery series, Vera.

And a Nightingale Sang . . .the story of a northern England family during the Blitz and how, as one character says, Hitler changed their lives. There are lots of funny moments and sad ones too. The actors, particularly Monette Magrath whose role involves breaking the fourth wall and helping the audience understand how the pieces fit, do a remarkable job keeping up. Something—often more than one thing—is always happening.

Older sister Helen (played by Monette) believes she’s plain until she meets the friend (Benjamin Eakeley) of younger sister Joyce’s (Sarah Deaver) fiancé, Eric (Christian Frost). The men are in the army, training for battle, and the play’s six scenes take place at pivotal points in the war. The mother (Marion Adler) is religious—to a fault you might say—and her husband (John Little) distracts himself with playing the piano, including the title song, and politics. The grandfather (Sam Tsoutsouvas) always weighs in where he’s not wanted.

Retiring Shakespeare Theatre artistic Director Bonnie Monte chose this play for the aptness of its moment “as I read about what the Ukrainians are dealing with on a daily basis,” she says. Big world events affect individual people and families in a personal and private way.

Mention must be made of the set design by Brittany Vasta, economical in space for the small stage, but with multiple areas to hold the disparate action and suggestions of the war’s destruction. The lighting (Matthew E. Adelson) and sound (Drew Sensue-Weinstein) designs effectively evoked the terror as planes overhead drop their bombs nearer and nearer. Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, contact the Box Office.

The Rose Tattoo

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Tennessee Williams’s “heart-breaking and heart-soaring” story, The Rose Tattoo, launches Bonnie J. Monte’s final season (33rd!) as Artistic Director of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. And Monte’s long-standing affinity for Williams’s work shines. A full cast of 16 adults and three children is rare these days and brings this beautifully conceived and executed production to life through June 18.

The Rose Tattoo, like Streetcar, focuses on two couples, Serafina Delle Rose (played brilliantly by Antoinette LaVecchia), haunted by memories of her dead husband, Rosario, and reluctant to capitulate to the outlandish wooing of Alvaro Mangiacavallo (Anthony Marble), a would-be suitor whose patronymic is even ridiculous. The physical comedy between them is laugh-out-loud perfect.

The other couple is Serafina’s 15-year-old daughter Rosa (Billie Wyatt) and her recently met sailor, Jack Hunter (Isaac Hickox-Young). Rosa is determined to be deflowered, despite the mores of her Sicilian community; Jack is tempted, but unwilling to risk decades in the brig. Their longing for each other is palpable.

In Serafina’s all-consuming grief, she stalwartly believes her lusty marriage was absolutely perfect. The audience knows better. Serafina also subscribes to a superstitious Catholicism and waits for the Virgin Mary to tell her what she should do with her life. These beliefs tether her to the past and warp her relationship with the here-and-now and with her daughter. Nosy neighbors, a hapless priest, and a malevolent “witch” are among the secondary characters who keep the plot racing along. Offstage, Sarafina’s garden is frequently threatened by a neighborhood goat—traditional symbol of unbridled lust—that continuously needs to be corralled, both literally and figuratively.

In all, The Rose Tattoo is a fine start to an exciting season! STNJ productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online.