ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
BY IRV RIKON
PLAY REVIEW: DR. RADIO AT FLORIDA STAGE
The press release from FLORIDA STAGE in Manalapan reads "DR. RADIO, A Completely Original New Musical From the Directors of Cagney and Some Kind of Wonderful," two of last season's big hits. And it's true. Collaborators Christopher McGovern and Bill Castallino have created a sweet, enchanting musical play that cannot be pigeonholed into any category and defies easy description. To be sure, there is a love story of sorts, a singing psychic and a guy who springs up in the air every now and then, but in this tale, that's life.
The one-act play is set on Cannon Street, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The time is transitional. Radio is still king and is personified by Benjamin Weitz, a radio repairman otherwise known as Dr. Radio. But television is coming of age, and coming to Cannon Street is Kate Cuorecantare, who is planning to sell TV sets right next door to Dr. Radio's store. Then there's Peggy McAdams, bent on finding the gold she suspects old Mrs. McKeever left when she passed away, and of course that's to be found somewhere on Cannon Street. There's also Rudolpho Garcia, the guy who springs up in the air and chaperones Peggy when he's not leaping. Finally, the psychic, Madame Agnieska Pilchowa,
may not know all, but she breaks into song and dance whenever the opportunity presents itself, which is often. I told you, this doesn't fit into any category!
Despite that, Dr. Radio is such a fun play, one gets caught up with the characters and their screwball situations (as in a 1930s, early 1940s motion picture "screwball comedy".) Bill Castellino, who wrote the book, also expertly directs and choreographs. The one big dance number is sheer delight to watch, yet everything just moves captivatingly along. His partner, Christopher McGovern, wrote the music and lyrics, while also serving as musical director. For the record, orchestrations were handled by Glen Rovinelli.
The cast is marvelous. Wayne LeGette, who is Dr. Radio, returns to Florida Stage. Between visits, he's won several Carbonell Awards, and it's good to have him back. He has a wonderful singing voice. Margot Moreland, another multiple Carbonell Award winner, makes her Florida Stage debut as a persuasive television salesperson. Irene Adjan has three times won a Carbonell, and she demonstrates her golden talents here. Nick Duckart apparently has not yet won a Carbonell, but he will. One can't help but love him as Rudolpho. Finally, Elizabeth Dimon. If you attend local theater, you've seen her. Earlier in the season, she appeared in Palm Beach Dramaworks' production of Copenhagen. Not only does she have a host of Carbonells, she almost steals this show as the psychic.
In a season which has brought us a number of really good, even memorable musicals, here's another one to see. It's different from the all the rest, and that's a genuine part of its charm. Closing date is May 2.
FLORIDA STAGE moves to the Kravis Center beginning July 15, when previews commence for another brand-new musical entitled Low Down Dirty Blues. Closing date on that one will be September 5. For tickets and additional information telephone 585-3433 or online: www.floridastage.org.)
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Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT -BY: IRV RIKON - NOVEMBER 15th.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT - BY: IRV RIKON
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TWO THEATER REVIEWS
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For more than 40 years, Fanny Brice was arguably America's best known, most beloved comedienne. Long before there was Lucy or Carol, Mary, Maude or Rosie, Ms. Brice starred in variety shows, burlesque, on Broadway, the Ziegfeld Follies, movies, radio and, finally, television.
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In David Bell's play, Fanny Brice: The Real Funny Girl, being given its World Premiere production through November 24 at THE MALTZ JUPITER THEATRE in Jupiter, she tells her life story to a book writer and to us, the audience.
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Hers was indeed quite a story, but the play fails to live up to expectations. Ms. Brice was married three times, in her youth to a young man whose name escapes memory, later to Nicky Arnstein, a Wall Street manipulator who eventually wound up in federal prison, later still to Billy Rose, a Broadway producer who loved the limelight.
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As important as these men were to Fanny, equally so was Florenz Ziegfeld, who pushed her along the road to Stardom. Mr. Bell's script, though, tends to leap from man to man, leaving the tale rather disjointed. Worse, it's hard to attribute real emotions to any of these people. It's mentioned, for example, that Ms. Brice had two children, but nothing further is said about them or how Fanny felt about motherhood and raising kids.
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Both Arnstein and Billy Rose are treated as arch-villains, the former as a strong, silent type, the latter as a little hustler. In other words, they're one-dimensional stock characters, not flesh-and-blood living people.
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Playwright Bell was influenced by the mega-hit stage musical and motion picture, Funny Girl, which thrust Barbra Streisand into stardom when she portrayed Fanny Brice. That script, he felt, over-glamorized and told not The Real Story. The fact is, however, in viewing a musical about Flo Ziegfeld and the Follies, plus Billy Rose, who owned the renowned Diamond Horseshoe nightclub and staged lavish Broadway productions, (Jumbo even featured a live elephant,) you expect glamour and pretty girls elaborately gowned: that's the milieu in which such folks worked.
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In the '30s, gangsters were glamorized and, to this day, despite the recession through which we're living, Wall Street holds glamour for most of us. But this production has just four actors; the action takes place backstage in a dark, dingy-looking theater; the producer clearly has an eye on future productions this season.
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Meanwhile, on this production the theater is skimping, and it shows.
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As for the cast, all four are good. Marya Grandy, as Fanny Brice, lacks the charisma to be thoroughly convincing, but she's certainly adequate. As Flo Ziegfeld, Frank Kopyc is very good both acting and singing, and I enjoyed Stef Tovar as Billy Rose in what I perceive to be a thankless role. Lance Baker's role, as Nicky Arnstein, is equally hopeless.
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The big saving grace lies with the songs and musical numbers, several of which Fanny included in her routines and are still audience-pleasers.
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Lost in Yonkers, Neil Simon's autobiographical Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning comedy, runs at the Maltz December 1-13. La Cage aux Folles, another Tony Award winner, one of Broadway's all time biggest hits, with a great score by Jerry Herman, plays January 12 - 31. The producer is planning to go all-out, with "beautiful show-girls and colorful production numbers". For reservations and additional information, telephone 575-2223
Clive Cholerton, the new Artistic Director of THE CALDWELL THEATRE COMPANY, Boca Raton, makes an auspicious debut in producing The Voysey Inheritance. This drama, which runs through December 13, was written in 1877 by British playwright Harley Granville-Barker and adapted for contemporary audiences by the award-winning David Mamet (whose American Buffalo will be shown at Palm Beach Dramaworks starting February 19.)
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The Caldwell's own publicity speaks of this in terms of the Bernie Madoff scandal, which does its production a disservice. It's a much better play than art imitating life or vice versa. Mr. Mamet leaves the play in England. The year is 1903. The family is in the library of their estate, where all the action takes place. In a tense opening scene between Mr. Voysey (Peter Haig) and his son Edward, (Terry Hardcastle,) it develops that the older man's firm, in which family members work, has been bilking investors.
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The money is gone, and the family inheritance will be basically nothing. Most of the rest of the play describes everyone's reaction, especially Edward's, to the news. And when word get out, as it must, the public also reacts to having been swindled.
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At its best, this is a multiple character study, a joy to watch, all the more so for the reason contemporary writers seldom write in terms of character. We've all grown accustomed to viewing situations rather than the people who get caught up in them.
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Mr. Cholerton directs, his pace perhaps a bit too deliberate at the outset, but the play gathers steam and the director with it. Besides, he's working with a large cast of excellent actors, many of whom have garnered Carbonell Awards as "Best" actor or actress. Besides Mr. Hardcastle, who is brilliant in his role, and Mr. Haig, who has never given a bad performance locally, the cast includes Marta Reiman, Lourelene Snedeker, Dennis Creaghan, Dan Leonard, Jim Ballard, John Felix, Kathryn Lee Johnson, Stephen G. Anthony and a pair of newcomers.
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While several are not onstage for very long, that's all the more reason to pay close attention. This is the kind of play which cannot be described in detail, for that would diminish the fun of it. The plot is always interesting and seemingly timeless in its endless variations, but the greatest pleasure comes from watching a flawless cast do its thing.
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Alberto Arroyo designed the excellent period costumes and Tim Bennett designed the set totally appropriately, as invariably he does. Thomas Salzman did the same with lighting. It's a serious play, although some audience members giggled at superficial similarities to the Madoff case, but if you like good drama and acting that puts it across, this is for you. Go see it.
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Chemical Imbalance, a farce based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, runs January 3 - February 7.
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
ENTERTAINMENT REVIEW - BY: IRV RIKON
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
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BY IRV RIKON
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TWO PLAY REVIEWS TO OPEN THE 2009 - 2010 SEASON
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Our local theatrical season has opened with two masterworks, one old, one a World Premiere, therefore brand-new. We'll start with the World Premiere first.
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Take your seat at FLORIDA STAGE in Manalapan. The time is the present. The setting for Seth Rozin's Two Jews Walk Into a War is the partially-destroyed chapel of the only remaining synagogue in Kabul, Afghanistan. At the very opening of the play, a bomb or shell hits the house of worship, destroying more of it and causing the two men in what's left of the building to scurry. An unlikely subject for a comedy, which this is, it's also poignant and mesmerizing, faultlessly acted and directed, with onstage effects that can boggle your mind. In short, FLORIDA STAGE's World Premiere production is a show not to be missed.
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The comedy begins at the outset, because the two men hate each other and hurl insults as though to prove it. The poignancy likewise comes early, because they realize they are the only two persons left of their "community". They'll have to work together to salvage whatever they can. Perhaps somehow they might even "re-populate" Jewish Kabul. But this is a thought-provoking play. Like everything else around, their beloved Torah, the sacred first five books of the Hebrew Bible, has been destroyed or at very least has disappeared. If God is to save them, don't they need the Book? One of the men has memorized the Torah; the other finds paper on which to write, so the former dictates to the latter, and the creating of a new Holy Book is begun.
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But what does God say to his now-tiny community or, for that matter, to any other? Why is this said in one paragraph or sentence and something else in another? Or why does God omit His ideas altogether, implying something or possibly nothing? Throughout all this, two men bicker, one dictating, the other writing Holy Writ, each disagreeing as to the meaning of God's words and, even, questioning the punctuation separating the words.
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The play's men are Jewish, but the scope of the play is universal. What is a "community"? When God speaks, what is said? What does He say when He remains silent, as with the Holocaust? Is there a God? These are heady subjects even in a philosophy or theology class, but the odd thing is that, as audience, you never stop laughing. This play is funny! Yet it's also heart-warming and, ultimately, sad.
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The acting? Superb! One expects great Jewishness from AVI HOFFMAN who, after all, wrote the popular Too Jewish and Too Jewish, Too! The real surprise is Scottish-born GORDON McCONNELL, who deserves another best-actor Carbonell Award for his role here. Everyone associated with this production deserves an award. As for Mr. Rozin, who wrote the work, in my humble judgment, he easily moves to the ranks of one of America's best contemporary playwrights.
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Whatever your religion, or if you have none, this is a play to see.
If laughter is what you like, you'll appreciate this. If you love brilliant acting, rush over to FLORIDA STAGE. Here's the season's first real theatrical treasure, and it runs until November 29. (For tickets and additional information, telephone 585-3433 or ( www.floridastage.org )
***
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House has been recognized for over a century as being a landmark play and one of the most influential ever written. During the 1960s, leaders of the Women's Liberation Movement heralded it. Nora leaves her husband and children and slams the door. Bang! Now PALM BEACH DRAMA WORKS in West Palm Beach is reviving it. Although the drama is long by today's measurements, its story actually begins sometime earlier. Nora's husband Torvald, a banker, had been ill. To affect a cure, he'd been advised to get away. But he lacked funds. Unbeknownst to Torvald, Nora had forged a signature in order to obtain a loan for him, thereby saving his life. Now the man from whom she procured the loan wants a position in her husband's bank. If he fails to get what he wants, he will expose Nora. The truth is eventually revealed. Torvald, hidebound, uptight, is totally revolted by the woman he has always treated as a "doll". Now he scolds, chastises, humiliates her. She can take it no more. She leaves, slamming the door. Bang!
Our local theatrical season has opened with two masterworks, one old, one a World Premiere, therefore brand-new. We'll start with the World Premiere first.
-
Take your seat at FLORIDA STAGE in Manalapan. The time is the present. The setting for Seth Rozin's Two Jews Walk Into a War is the partially-destroyed chapel of the only remaining synagogue in Kabul, Afghanistan. At the very opening of the play, a bomb or shell hits the house of worship, destroying more of it and causing the two men in what's left of the building to scurry. An unlikely subject for a comedy, which this is, it's also poignant and mesmerizing, faultlessly acted and directed, with onstage effects that can boggle your mind. In short, FLORIDA STAGE's World Premiere production is a show not to be missed.
-
The comedy begins at the outset, because the two men hate each other and hurl insults as though to prove it. The poignancy likewise comes early, because they realize they are the only two persons left of their "community". They'll have to work together to salvage whatever they can. Perhaps somehow they might even "re-populate" Jewish Kabul. But this is a thought-provoking play. Like everything else around, their beloved Torah, the sacred first five books of the Hebrew Bible, has been destroyed or at very least has disappeared. If God is to save them, don't they need the Book? One of the men has memorized the Torah; the other finds paper on which to write, so the former dictates to the latter, and the creating of a new Holy Book is begun.
-
But what does God say to his now-tiny community or, for that matter, to any other? Why is this said in one paragraph or sentence and something else in another? Or why does God omit His ideas altogether, implying something or possibly nothing? Throughout all this, two men bicker, one dictating, the other writing Holy Writ, each disagreeing as to the meaning of God's words and, even, questioning the punctuation separating the words.
-
The play's men are Jewish, but the scope of the play is universal. What is a "community"? When God speaks, what is said? What does He say when He remains silent, as with the Holocaust? Is there a God? These are heady subjects even in a philosophy or theology class, but the odd thing is that, as audience, you never stop laughing. This play is funny! Yet it's also heart-warming and, ultimately, sad.
-
The acting? Superb! One expects great Jewishness from AVI HOFFMAN who, after all, wrote the popular Too Jewish and Too Jewish, Too! The real surprise is Scottish-born GORDON McCONNELL, who deserves another best-actor Carbonell Award for his role here. Everyone associated with this production deserves an award. As for Mr. Rozin, who wrote the work, in my humble judgment, he easily moves to the ranks of one of America's best contemporary playwrights.
-
Whatever your religion, or if you have none, this is a play to see.
If laughter is what you like, you'll appreciate this. If you love brilliant acting, rush over to FLORIDA STAGE. Here's the season's first real theatrical treasure, and it runs until November 29. (For tickets and additional information, telephone 585-3433 or ( www.floridastage.org )
***
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House has been recognized for over a century as being a landmark play and one of the most influential ever written. During the 1960s, leaders of the Women's Liberation Movement heralded it. Nora leaves her husband and children and slams the door. Bang! Now PALM BEACH DRAMA WORKS in West Palm Beach is reviving it. Although the drama is long by today's measurements, its story actually begins sometime earlier. Nora's husband Torvald, a banker, had been ill. To affect a cure, he'd been advised to get away. But he lacked funds. Unbeknownst to Torvald, Nora had forged a signature in order to obtain a loan for him, thereby saving his life. Now the man from whom she procured the loan wants a position in her husband's bank. If he fails to get what he wants, he will expose Nora. The truth is eventually revealed. Torvald, hidebound, uptight, is totally revolted by the woman he has always treated as a "doll". Now he scolds, chastises, humiliates her. She can take it no more. She leaves, slamming the door. Bang!
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At a time when American women are equal to men and, indeed, during this economic downturn, when they are frequently a family's breadwinner, Ibsen's masterpiece can seem antiquated. It's not. This is a Norwegian play, a WESTERN play. Around the globe countless women are still regarded as "dolls" or sex slaves or whatever it is the men in their lives will make of them. A Doll's House would not be welcomed in conservative Muslim countries.
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Unfortunately, this production is flawed. At the beginning, director William Hayes has Nora (Margery Lowe) flutter about the stage, her nerves on edge for fear of what may come. By the time her fears are realized, she is flat-out hysterical. That isn't Ibsen's Nora. It's the director's. Ibsen's Nora was level-headed when she forged a signature. She had options. She chose one, a risky one, but she chose it. At the end, she again has options: to stay and live with this insufferable man, to whom she is as a puppet to a puppeteer, or to go. A long time ago, if push came to shove, she knew what her choice must be. Slam the door. Bang!
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Even a flawed production of Ibsen warrants a look-see if only for the reason, after Shakespeare, Ibsen was arguably the greatest playwright who has yet lived. Moreover, the acting here is always interesting and good, despite the fact I question how the work is interpreted. The costumes and stage set are excellent, and you're free to put your own spin on Ibsen's words, so go. Closing date is November 29. (For tickets and additional information, call 514-4042 or online: ( www.palmbeachdramaworks.com )
Even a flawed production of Ibsen warrants a look-see if only for the reason, after Shakespeare, Ibsen was arguably the greatest playwright who has yet lived. Moreover, the acting here is always interesting and good, despite the fact I question how the work is interpreted. The costumes and stage set are excellent, and you're free to put your own spin on Ibsen's words, so go. Closing date is November 29. (For tickets and additional information, call 514-4042 or online: ( www.palmbeachdramaworks.com )
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