Saturday, October 8, 2011

September 2011: NYC


Anything Goes

I resisted seeing this revival before now because in general I'm resistant to farces and to Sutton Foster. This production didn't make me any more appreciative of either though I will say that it's just a matter of taste, the audience around me was very enthusiastic. The only thing that really excited me was the title number Act 1 finale, it's pure musical heaven. Luckily, it was the number performed on the Tony Awards so I can relive it over and over again.




The Mountaintop

The premise of this play, a meeting between Martin Luther King and a hotel maid the night before his assassination, didn't really interest me, but the fact that this play won the Olivier Award in London over Red, Jerusalem, and Enron did. It starts rather mundanely, but really takes off (about halfway through) once we leave the realistic world behind. I won't say more at the risk of spoiling it other than to say that the ending on "the mountaintop" is so theatrical and thrilling that it easily forgives the first half tediousness. Bravo to the designers and Angela Bassett for pulling it off. Samuel L. Jackson acquits himself nicely and will surely get even better with more performances under his belt.




Silence!

This parody of Silence of the Lambs is a lot of fun despite being overly long (and with an intermission only serving to make money for Theatre 80's bar, which is about as large as the theatre itself). I was disappointed to learn that Brent Barrett was no longer performing the role of Hannibal Lector (to rehearse for Chicago Shakespeare's new production of Follies), but would actually see this again when it moves soon to another Off-Broadway theatre with plans to lose the intermission and about 20 minutes.




Zarkana

Cirque du Soleil premiered two resident shows this summer on opposite coasts. Zarkana in NYC presents one of the most elaborate stage productions I've ever seen. A multitude of constantly moving set pieces fill Radio City Music Hall's huge stage. With this show, Cirque continues to push the boundaries of circus arts in exciting ways, though only rarely are the acts not completely dwarfed by the cavernous proscenium (justification for the elaborate production design to help fill it in). It also marks the second occasion (the first being Banana Shpeel) that Cirque has created an original score using English lyrics with mixed results. I think I actually prefer Cirque typical gibberish, which results in a more ethereal experience.

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