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Theater Reviews: "The Bridges of Madison County" On Broadway; "Stage Kiss" Off-Broadway

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 20 March 2014 21:39; Written by Kevin Filipski

The Bridges of Madison County

Book by Marsha Norman; music & lyrics by Jason Robert Brown; directed by Bartlett Sher

Previews began January 17, 2014; opened March 20

Stage Kiss

Written by Sarah Ruhl; directed by Rebecca Taichman

Performances through April 6, 2014

Pasquale and O'Hara in The Bridges of Madison County (photo: Joan Marcus)

The Bridges of Madison County has the most thrilling musical curtain raiser in recent memory, for one reason: Kelli O’Hara, who has already cemented her position onstage among a crowded current field of talented singing actresses. Indeed, with such magical voices and personalities as Sutton Foster, Audra McDonald, Sierra Boggess and the two Lauras, Benanti and Osnes, alongside O’Hara, this is truly a new golden age on and off Broadway.

When she walks onstage for the first of composer Jason Robert Brown’s wannabe operatic songs, O’Hara brings a joyful sense of real drama to this melodically and lyrically clichéd introduction to Bridges’world of the flatlands of Iowa’s farms, where Francesca—Italian-born wife and mother who has spent the last two decades dutifully raising her family far away from Naples, where she met her GI husband Bud during World War II—spills her soul.

Little else in this show about the brief but torrid affair between Francesca and Robert, a National Geographic photographer who happens by after her husband and two teenage children leave for the Indiana State Fair with their prize steer in tow, rises to that level of passion. It’s primarily due to Robert James Waller’s trashy source novel—Clint Eastwood’s 1995 film, starring Eastwood and Meryl Streep, made its protagonists older, providing a melancholic sense of a missed chance at last love—which Marsha Norman’s book cannot overcome.

Instead, Norman’s book wallows in a cutesy middle America, saddling Francesca—and us—with a busybody neighbor and her husband, about whom far too much is made as the affair runs its course. Then there are Brown’s routine lyrics and derivative music: the latter has pretentions to deeper emotions in romantic arias and duets for the adulterous lovers, but they only reach our hearts due to O’Hara and an equally superb Steven Pasquale.

O’Hara, a meltingly lovely actress who makes us fall deeply for this woman yanked from her world to begin a new life only to find an unlikely escape, and Pasquale, an intelligent actor whose powerhouse singing voice hasn’t been heard on Broadway until now, make a winning couple. Although it’s strange that O’Hara decided to sing with her accent (while speaking, she sounds at times like Arianna Huffington, whose Greek homeland is hundreds of miles from Naples), the pair’s passionate duets make Brown’s songs sound more tuneful than they really are.

Hunter Foster—Sutton’s brother—invests the stock character of Francesca’s husband Bud with a pathos unearned on the page, while Cass Morgan and Michael X. Martin are less irritating than they could have been as neighbors with too much stage time. Michel Yeargan’s set, comprising bits and pieces of kitchen furnishings and one of the fabled covered bridges of the title, is cleverly utilized by director Bartlett Sher, as the supporting cast brings the pieces on and off stage. That they sit at either side when not in on the action is a less felicitous directorial decision.

Despite many drawbacks, O’Hara and Pasquale make this lukewarm musical a white-hot, irresistible romance.

Fumusa and Hecht in Stage Kiss (photo: Joan Marcus)

Sarah Ruhl returns with another heavy-handed, shaky mix of comedy, parody, sentimentality and absurdism: Stage Kiss is a wooden and, finally, quite pointless bit of affected whimsy in which two performers, decades after an affair in their younger days, reunite for the revival of a bad play and discover that the sparks they try to produce onstage are being reproduced backstage and fall for each other again.

Though unoriginal, this isn’t bad material from which to extract a funny, even relevant comedy: real life vs. show biz might be an old-hat concept, but one might find small nuggets of truth and hilarity in the interactions of self-absorbed actors, playwrights and directors. Too bad Ruhl finds few of those nuggets in the story of He and She, who re-meet cutely at the first reading of an awful play that’s been unearthed after years of neglect.

We get far more scenes from this play, with intentional howlers in the dialogue and characters, than we should: maybe Ruhl wants her own play to look better by comparison. The trouble is, Stage Kiss isn’t much better than the two fictional plays it lampoons (yes, there’s another in the second act).

After an overlong first act with endless scenes of readings and rehearsals from the fictional play, the second act shows Ruhl briefly finding her footing, with amusingly lively banter among the characters crowded into He’s apartment: namely He’s girlfriend and She’s husband and daughter. However, after silly talk about souls breaks the brief spell, another lousy play that He and She decide to take on becomes the semi-focus of Ruhl’s unfocused play. Groaningly obvious jokes and one-liners abound, and when the play turns serious at the end, it’s a desperate move to find Meaning in what could have made a decent skit with a few chuckles.

Jessica Hecht gives a bizarre performance, with off-kilter line readings that better fit the characters in the plays-within-the-play than they do She, while Dominic Fumusa is a charismatic, winning He, who’s an actor that’s humorously bad at accents. A few seasons back, Ruhl’s Broadway play In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play was a wonderful surprise: after her increasingly less felicitous The Clean House, Eurydice, Dead Man’s Cell Phone and now Stage Kiss, it’s obvious that The Vibrator Play was the exception that proves the Ruhl.

The Bridges of Madison County

Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street, New York, NY

bridgesofmadisoncountymusical.com

Stage Kiss

Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

playwrightshorizons.org

Film Review: "The Muppets: Most Wanted"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 20 March 2014 00:59; Written by Matt Oakes

"The Muppets: Most Wanted"
Directed Sean Bobin
Starring Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, Tina Fey, Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz
Adventure, Comedy, Crime
112 Mins
PG

From the first musical number, TheMuppets: Most Wanted admits what it's up to. "We're doing a sequel," the beloved Jim Henson puppets croak and caw, "that's what we do in Hollywood. Though everyone knows that a sequel's never quite as good." And even though Kermit might be spot on with his sentiment, starting things off with this kind of disclaimer doesn't offer a ton of hope to an expecting audience. Following that mantra of mediocrity, director and writer James Bobin offers up a Muppets that's fully tolerable but never exceptional.

Film Review: "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 19 March 2014 00:57; Written by Matt Oakes

"The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Directed by Wes Anderson
Starring Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman, Lea Seydoux, Owen Wilson, Bob Balaban, Mathieu Amalric, Tom Wilkinson
Comedy, Drama
100 Mins
R

Fiennes, Brody, Dafoe, Goldblum, Murray, Law, Swinton, Ronan, Norton, Keitel, Schwartzman, Seydoux, Wilson, Balaban, Amalric, Wilkinson. Wes Anderson's latest may have more big names working for it than ever before but their characters are more paper thin than they've been, more fizzle than tonic, more Frankenstein's creations than humans. His company of regulars - joined by a vast scattering of newbies - are relegated to playing furniure-chomping bit roles, filling the shoes of cartoonish sketches, slinking in long shadows of characters. From Willem Dafoe's brutish, brass-knuckled Jopling to a caked-up and aged Tilda Swinton, gone are the brooding and calculated, flawed and angsty but always relatable characters of Wes yore. In their place, a series of dusty cardboard cutouts; fun but irrevocably inhuman.

Here in 2014, Anderson's ability to attract such a gathering of marquee names to his eccentric scripts has never been as potent. He's a talent magnet and his tractor beam is set to high. It's just too bad that this gathering of the juggalos is as caricaturesque as they are (arguable even more than the animated Fantastic Mr. Fox). But what can you expect when your face is painted up and you're dressed like a Slovenian underground fashion show. Upon dissecting what he's got to offer, the seemingly indelible Wes Anderson appeal is as clear as day.

In the jungle of Hollywood, roles are mostly relegated one of two ways: the tentpole blockbusters, where characters are written like ham steaks - vessels for plot diversions, jukeboxes for one-liners, sarcophagi for the next action scene - and the smaller budgeted "independent" movie, wherein the tone is usually somber, the scenery is left unchewed, and emotional preparation ought to be through the roof. Anderson's films flirt a very thin middle ground, a Bermuda triangle between indie cred and mainstream. To his credit, it looks like a blast.

Inside his pictures, Anderson's stars are afforded a chance to play dress up in the midst of gorgeous sets at exciting locales. What's not to love? Plus, this particular project had an added advantage: European travel. For these thespians, being a part of Anderson's playground is like being a kid again. However, their childishness is more apparent here than in any of Anderson's finest work (save for maybe Moonrise Kingdom). But through the haze of these colorful yet superficial oddities shines Ralph Fiennes' Monsieur Gustave, a beacon of complexity in an otherwise skin-deep cast of characters.

Gustave is a relic of the past. He's an icon of chivalry, a servant dedicated to his craft, a well-groomed pet for his adoring clientele. He sluts it up for the elderly ladies who pass through his hotel (but he enjoys it too, so he tells us), making him a bit of a tourist attraction in himself. A hot springs for wilting feminine physiques, Gustave becomes the recipient of a pricy artifact (an ironic art piece called "Boy with Apple" - the customary brand of wry Anderson platitudes) when one of his doting golden-agers (Swinton) bites the dust. With her family trying to discredit him and blame the murder his way, Gustave must go on the run.

The cat and mouse, European romp to follow is as much an episode of Tom and Jerry as it is The Great Escape. Fiennes' soulful gravitas brings immeasurable life to what is otherwise a series of cartoonish escape plots and hijinks. Anderson's offerings are easy to consume and his persnickety eye for detail and Fiennes' brilliant performance brings life by the pound to the otherwise far-fetched proceedings.

In this recent turn in his career, Wes Anderson has almost becoming a mockery of Wes Anderson. Though I thoroughly enjoyed The Grand Budapest Hotel it lacks the rounded emotional honesty of his pre-Fox efforts. He's lost the intellectual intensity he had going in Rushmore, The Royal Tenanbaums and (I know I'm in the minority here) Darjeeling Limited, largely replaced by quirk by the bucket and enough billable names to make your head spin. Nevertheless, Fiennes is magical; a perfect vessel for Andersonisms, the savior of the show.

B+

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March '14 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 18 March 2014 03:22; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Beyond Outrage

(Magnet)

By now, we know what to expect from Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano’s modern yakuza crime dramas: sporadic outbursts of operatic ultra-violence compensating for a lethargic grasp of characterization and plotting.

This sequel to the tightly-wound Outrage has moments of marvelously delirious mayhem—best is the slow death of a traitor by a baseball pitching machine—yet it seems too familiar and, at times, lazy. The movie does look superb on Blray; lone extra is an hour-long making-of.

Dark House

(Flatiron/Cinedigm)

Here Comes the Devil

(Magnet)

For its first half, Dark House sets up an interesting tale of a young man searching his sordid family history only to find outright horror; too bad the second half—full of ridiculous decisions like the hero head-scratchingly allowing his pregnant girlfriend near the malevolent doings—completely falls apart.

No such luck with Here Comes the Devil, which is ludicrous from the start, despite setting up its situation as matter of factly as possible; however artfully done, this devil children flick is risible throughout. Both hi-def transfers look great; extras include making-of featurettes.

Frozen

(Disney)

This formulaic animated feature, from Hans Christian Andersen The Snow Queen, was one of Disney’s biggest hits ever, despite (or because of) its bland “be yourself” mantra: too bad its characterizations and comic relief compare badly with earlier and better flicks from the Disney vault.

I’ve never been a fan of computerized animation, and the clunky visuals didn’t change my mind, while the songs, especially the annoyingly anthemic Oscar-winner “Let It Go,” are no better. Oh well: at least the Blu-ray looks top-notch; extras include a cutesy making-of, deleted scenes, music videos and Andersen featurette.

Kill Your Darlings

(Sony)

This intriguing investigation into the Beat writers before they became the Beats is not only a first-rate character study but also a thoughtful précis of America’s postwar literary scene, before Allen Ginsberg, Williams S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac became famous (or infamous).

John Krokidas’s assured direction and the unshowy acting by Daniel Radcliffe (as Ginsberg), Ben Foster (as Burroughs) and the rest of the cast give the film an authenticity that makes the killing at its center more than a mere plot twist. The Blu-ray transfer is excellent; extras comprise an audio commentary, deleted scenes and interviews with Krokidas, Radcliffe and others.

Mandela—Long Walk to Freedom

(Anchor Bay/Weinstein Co)

This biopic of one of the 20^th century’s great men is earnest to a fault, but perhaps director Justin Chadwick and writer William Nicholson cannot be faulted for being so reverent to Nelson Mandela’s eventful life, although there are nods toward the complexities of a man who was no saint and his equally human wife Winnie.

What is unequivocal is Idris Elba’s towering portrayal of Mandela, which is a performance for the ages; Naomie Harris is nearly his equal in the smaller but pivotal role of Winnie. The Blu-ray looks splendid; extras include a Chadwick commentary and featurettes.

Saving Mr. Banks

(Disney)

Director John Lee Hancock’s handsome-looking biopic details the squabbling between Mary Poppinscreator PL Travers and Walt Disney himself over how her beloved nanny would be transformed into a movie: with songs and animation, to her eternal chagrin.

This sturdy if sentimental recounting is halfway between a warts-and-all portrait and a Disney whitewash, with Tom Hanks an OK Walt and Emma Thompson a deviously prickly Travers, making for an unfair fight. The hi-def transfer looks quite good; extras are deleted scenes and featurettes.

Swerve

(Cohen Media)

Set in the picturesque Australian outback, this inferior thriller from the Body Heat school of Hitchcock knockoffs follows a loner who finds himself embroiled with a lonely wife and her dangerously unbalanced (and crooked) husband.

Director Craig Lahiff, despite the right sordid atmosphere, omits plausible (or, at least, not risible) plot points, limping to a fizzled-out conclusion; Emma Booth, an Aussie Jennifer Lawrence, makes the wife more complicated (and sizzling) than she is on paper. The Blu-ray image is stellar; extras comprise several interviews.

DVDs of the Week
Above Suspicion—Set 3

(Acorn)

Kelly Reilly—who got her big break stateside in Flight, and who stars in a new TV series Black Box, in April—again lends her unique presence to another gripping mystery as a DI who teams with her former boss (an always terrific Ciaran Hinds) to solve the murders of a promiscuous young actress and her drug buddies.

Reilly and Hinds’s offbeat chemistry is delicious to watch, so it’s too bad that this well-scripted, superbly-acted series of mysteries has now run its course. Maybe one day we’ll get a follow-up feature film—or another series—with these two characters.

Girl Rising

(Cinedigm)

Nine touchingly humane stories of remarkable young women from around the world demonstrate how important it is to educate females in such countries as Afghanistan, Egypt, Napal and Pakistan, which contributes to ending poverty and illiteracy.

With several celebrities providing voiceover narration—ranging from Kerry Washington, Meryl Streep and Frieda Pinto to Anne Hathaway and Liam Neeson—Richard E. Robbins has made a worthy film on a worthy subject. Extras include a director’s welcome, outtakes and behind the scenes and location vignettes.

Rogue—Complete 1^st Season

(e one)

This DirecTV original series follows Grace, an undercover detective who tries solving the brutal murder of her young son, looking for a traitor in the midst of the sordid underworld in which she works.

Although the drama’s 10 episodes are fast-paced and action-packed, at the center of it all is a great, gritty Thandie Newton as our complex heroine: I for one have been waiting for this kind of performance from her since she came to our attention in Australian John Duigan’s films of the ‘90s likeFlirting and The Leading Man.

Show Boat

(Warner Archive)

Frankenstein director James Whale’s 1936 film version of Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II’s legendary Broadway musical is dramatically uneven and occasionally draggy, but the songs—in strong performances by Paul Robson (“Ol’ Man River”) and Allen Jones and Irene Dunne (“You Are Love”), among others—remain indelibly stamped in one’s memory.

Overall, it’s stylish, effective entertainment which also shows that Hattie McDaniel (later immortalized in and stereotyped by Gone with the Wind) was a multi-talented actress, comedienne and singer.

Vikings

(BBC)

This isn’t the action-adventure series with a plethora of sex and violence on the History network; instead, it’s an intelligent if (mostly) unsexy documentary featuring archeologist Neil Oliver, who goes beyond the usual Norsemen clichés for a nuanced examination of their voyages of exploration and battle, as well as their complex legacy.

The three one-hour episodes—which include visits to far-flung sites as Russia, Scandinavia and Greenland—provide new insights into an unfairly maligned historical group.

CDs of the Week

Anne Akiko Meyers—The Four Seasons/The Vivaldi Album

(e one)

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, a dazzling virtuoso and formidable interpreter, brandishes her 1741 “Vieuxtemps” Guarneri instrument to give a dynamic take on one of the most overplayed showpieces ever written, Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

Along with making Seasons sound fresh and full of feeling, she also performs a richly textured account—doing all three solo parts—of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Three Violins and, as a nice throw-in, Arvo Part’s Baroque-inspired Passacaglia.

Gustav Holst/Frederick Delius

(Halle)

Francis Poulenc—Stabat Mater

(Harmonia Mundi)
Three astonishing choral/vocal works by two unheralded 20^thcentury English composers—Holst’s The Hymn of Jesus for chorus and Delius’s Sea Drift for baritone and choir and Cynarafor baritone—receive stirring performances by Halle’s orchestra and choirs, with Roderick Williams an emotive soloist, all under the baton of Sir Mark Elder.

Poulenc’s masterly religious compositions—topped by his opera Dialogues des Carmelites—also include his 1950 Stabat Mater and 1959 Sept Repons de tenebras, both given expressive readings by soprano Carolyn Sampson, Cappella Amsterdam, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Daniel Reuss.

Prokofiev—Piano Concerto No. 3/Symphony No. 5

(Mariinsky)
Sergei Prokofiev is one of the few composers whose most crowd-pleasing works are also among his best—and this recording has two of his most popular masterpieces, courtesy of the indefatigable conductor Valery Gergiev and Mariinsky Orchestra.

Peerless Russian pianist Denis Matsuev scintillatingly plays the solo part in the masterly Third Piano Concerto, which combines dexterous technical workouts with those unforgettable melodies which came so easily to him. Gergiev also leads his forces through the Fifth Symphony, whose deft, light touch is anchored in brilliant orchestration. There’s a bit of a messy Fifth finale, but that’s the only slip-up here.

Mark Rivera—Common Bond

(Red River)
For his debut solo album, Mark Rivera—saxman extraordinaire best known for Foreigner and Billy Joel hits, along with being longtime music director of Ringo’s All-Starr Band—shows off his multi-instrumental prowess on guitar, percussion, flute and keyboards, and a pleasant voice that carries him through such pop-rock tunes as “Loraine” and “Turn Me Loose.”

When Rivera lets go—both singing and tooting his way through a rollicking cover of Hendrix’s “Spanish Castle Magic” (with Joel on keyboards) and crooning a piano ballad, “Rise”—it makes you wish he’d do it more often.

Reviews

Theater Reviews: "The Bridges of Madison County" On Broadway; "Stage Kiss" Off-Broadway

Film Review: "The Muppets: Most Wanted"

Film Review: "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

B+

March '14 Digital Week III

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