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Reviews
Hudson Valley Summer 2004—Sutton Foster at Caramoor and Sandra Bernhard at Bard
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 20 August 2024 02:57
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Sutton Foster at Caramoor
July 13, 2024
Katonah, NY
caramoor.org
Sandra Bernhard at Bard
August 9 and 10, 2024
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Fishercenter.bard.edu
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| Sutton Foster performing at Caramoor (photo: Gabe Palacio) |
Broadway superstar Sutton Foster has gone from strength to strength since Thoroughly Modern Millie introduced her to musical-theater audiences. Just this year, the Tony-winning actress stepped into the Sweeney Todd revival before returning in spectacular fashion to a role seemingly written for her in the slight but delectable revival of Once Upon a Mattress, in which Foster starred for a two-week Encores run before bringing it to Broadway. Originally a vehicle for Carol Burnett, the show hinges on Foster’s magnificent performance, which combines her unmatched vocal prowess, comic timing and physical aptitude.
For her one-night-only concert at Caramoor this summer, Foster was something else again. Resplendent in a green dress, Foster looked as cool as a cucumber on a hot and sticky July evening, even joking with her long-time musical director and pianist Michael Rafter that he was probably sorry to be wearing a suit and tie. (Rafter did look uncomfortably sweaty but accompanied Foster superbly throughout, as on the amusing references to the balmy weather in Christine Lavin’s hoot of a tune, “Air Conditioner.”)
Onstage, Foster is effortlessly charming and natural, a combination of her Georgia birthplace and Michigan upbringing. Opening with “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story, Foster leaned heavily on showtunes but sang a bountiful and entertaining mix of old and new, serious and funny, sentimental and witty: Willy Wonka’s “Pure Imagination” gave way to Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You” while Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne” was followed by Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.”
Foster’s pristine soprano was on display in songs as diverse as Jason Robert Brown’s “Stars and the Moon,” John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders” and “Goodnight My Someone” from Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, which Foster memorably starred in on Broadway with Hugh Jackman in 2022. She closed with a lovely “Til There Was You,” her character Marion’s signature tune from the same show.
But the best moments were the more intimate ones, especially the humorous but touching stories she told about her young daughter, Emily, for whom she sang “Raining Tacos,” or when she brought out a chair, sat down and crocheted—her favorite hobby, as chronicled in her entertaining memoir, Hooked—while singing. Whether in character or as herself, Sutton Foster remains one of our musical treasures.
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| Sandra Bernhard |
In the “I Know I’m Getting Old Department,” it’s been exactly four decades since I first saw Sandra Bernhard, at the old Tralfamadore Café in Buffalo (now it’s Electric City). In the many times I’ve seen her since, whether off-Broadway, at Joe’s Pub or at City Winery, she still hilariously and savvily dissects our curdled celebrity culture. And her latest appearance, at the striking, mirrored Spiegeltent on the Bard College campus (the first of her two evenings there), showed that Bernhard has lost none of her ability to wrench singular insights out of our political and social-media climate.
Of course, with the fast-moving political events of the past few weeks, culminating in Kamala Harris and Tim Walz resuscitating the Democratic ticket in the upcoming election, Bernhard was in her element. Right after her opening song—“Ride Like the Wind,” by Christopher Cross, which she made her own and showed off impressive vocal chops—Bernhard wasted no time ecstatically conveying how she felt about the new dream team. In fact, she got so carried away with her joy over the ascension of Harris that she spoke for nearly half an hour before launching into her next song, an affecting version of “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” by Lisa Marie Presley.
Although hilarious, Bernhard’s commentary isn’t standup in the traditional sense—her “jokes” are instead anecdotes that highlight the absurdities in our daily lives, permeated by telling details that mark her singular storytelling genius. A recent trip to the Hamptons to visit friends, for example, provided grist for Bernhard, who described the ride out east on the Jitney bus and the return journey on the Long Island Rail Road, which entailed a change of train and a sympathetic conductor who didn't believe that she was old enough to buy a senior ticket.
Her 90 minutes onstage toggles between perfectly pitched stories and songs as disparate as Rod Stewart’s “Reason to Believe,” Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and, in a terrific tribute to Tina Turner, the Beatles’ “Help!” done in Tina’s inimitable style. Backing was her tight three-piece band—drummer Andy Martinek, guitarist Oscar Batista and pianist Mitch Kaplan, Bernhard’s longtime music director whom she jokingly introduced as playing with her since 1885.
After closing the main set with a hard-hitting take on the late-'80s Lita Ford anthem, “Kiss Me Deadly,” Bernhard returned for a couple of encores: her ubiquitous but soulful version of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” and a poignant tune by the British boy band East 17, “Stay Another Day.” It was another satisfying trip to Sandyland.
Broadway Play Review—“Job” with Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 15 August 2024 18:27
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Job
Written by Max Wolf Friedlich; directed by Michael Herwitz
Performances through September 29, 2024
Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street, New York, NY
jobtheplay.com
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| Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon in Job (photo: Emilio Madrid) |
Max Wolf Friedlich’s two-hander Job opens with a bang, as Jane, an obviously rattled young woman, is pointing a gun at Loyd, the middle-aged man who’s her therapist. After some back-and-forth, Loyd is able to talk Jane down and she puts the gun in her purse, where it remains for most of the play while they engage in a sort of cat-and-mouse dialogue. We gradually discover who they really are—or do we?
It turns out that Jane lost her job at a tech firm after a public meltdown filmed by her colleagues went viral; she is meeting Loyd as a condition for reinstatement, if he gives her the green light to return. Loyd is the model of therapist decorum, a former hippie who’s become respectable; he’s certainly sympathetic to Jane’s plight. Conversely, Jane is, understandably, jittery, worried and ever more frantic—and Job is at its cleverest when it reveals, by degrees, how she’s arrived at this state. There is some amusing repartee about the generation gap between the 20ish Jane and 60ish Loyd as well as discussion of the unfortunate proliferation of technology in all of our lives.
But despite Friedlich’s cleverness, Job remains pretty thin gruel. Both characters come off as chess pieces being moved around the board: neither is fully developed and their conversations are heavily loaded with dramatic irony, especially as we arrive at the final twist, which is unsettling to be sure, linking Loyd with the horrible videos that Jane must watch day after day as a content moderator—their grossness overwhelmingly led to her breakdown. But that gimmicky twist also overwhelms what the play is trying to say but never delves too deeply or insightfully into. It’s as if Friedlich started with his appalling reveal and built a skeleton of a story to surround it, however shakily.
Job does contain two tremendous performances: Peter Friedman (as the always professional Loyd) and Jack Lemmon’s granddaughter Sydney Lemmon (as the frenzied Jane) are brilliant sparring partners who make Job an 80-minute demonstration of superlative acting. Director Michael Herwitz’s staging, on Scott Penner’s appropriately claustrophobic set, nimbly echoes Jane’s state of mind through Cody Spencer’s expressively spectral sound design and Mextly Couzin’s artfully disjointed lighting, letting us briefly wonder whether what we are witnessing is real.
When all is said and done, though, Job is a mere shaggy-gun story.
National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America PLay Carnegie Hall
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 07 August 2024 09:02
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Chris Lee
At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium on the evening of Monday, August 5th, I had the exceptional privilege to attend a fabulous concert—as part of World Orchestra Week—featuring the superb and precocious members of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America—along with musicians from the Polyphony Ensemble—under the stellar direction of the eminent Marin Alsop.
The event began marvelously with an exciting account of Samuel Barber’s excellent and undervalued Symphony No. 1, Op. 9, which bears the unmistakable imprint of that extraordinary composer, who provided this program note for the work’s New York premiere:
The form of my Symphony in One Movement is a synthetic treatment of the four-movement classical symphony. It is based on three themes of the initial Allegro non troppo, which retain throughout the work their fundamental character. The Allegro opens with the usual exposition of a main theme, a more lyrical second theme, and a closing theme. After a brief development of the three themes, instead of the customary recapitulation, the first theme in diminution forms the basis of a scherzo section (Vivace). The second theme (oboe over muted strings) then appears in augmentation, in an extended Andante tranquillo. An intense crescendo introduces the finale, which is a short passacaglia based on the first theme (introduced by the violoncelli and contrabassi), over which, together with figures from other themes, the closing theme is woven, thus serving as a recapitulation for the entire symphony.
The opening movement is variegated in character, alternately intense and subdued, while the second possesses a relative and not unexpected levity, if with some agonistic moments. The loveliest component of the score is the lyrical third movement, which is slightly reminiscent of the orchestral music of Jean Sibelius and reaches a powerful climax—and the finale too builds to a forceful conclusion.
The renowned soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet then entered the stage to brilliantly perform George Gershwin’s jazzy, exhilarating Rhapsody in Blue from 1924, orchestrated by Ferde Grofé—this rendition was sparkling, dazzling and unusually lucid. Enthusiastic applause elicited a delightful encore: Victory Stride by James P. Johnson—the author of the “Charleston”—arranged by Nicholas Hersh.
The second half of the concert was even more remarkable: a mesmerizing version of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s enthralling Scheherazade, Op. 35, from 1888. The first movement, titled The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship and marked Largo e maestoso, is stirring and enchanting, while in the succeeding Andantino, The Legend of the Calendar Prince, the exquisite melodies evoke the Orient. The wistful third movement—The Young Prince and the Young Princess, an Andantino quasi allegretto—is somewhat playful at times, and the Allegro molto finale is propulsive and exuberant, although it closes quietly and mysteriously. Another rapturous ovation was rewarded with a second wonderful encore, a new piece by Laura Karpman entitled Swing.
August '24 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 07 August 2024 01:04
- Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week
The Beautiful Summer
(Film Movement)
Director/co-writer Laura Luchetti’s empathetic and sensitive coming-of-age saga follows the introspective 17-year-old Ginia (played, in a starmaking turn, by the terrific Yile Yara Vianello), who is simultaneously confused and excited by her attraction to Amelia (persuasively embodied by Deva Cassel, daughter of Italian actress Monica Bellucci and French actor Vincent Cassel), who’s a headstrong model for local artists.
With a 1938 Turin setting that is both evocative and quietly chilling—Il Duce Mussolini’s fascists are hovering in the background—Luchetti’s gorgeously realized feature was one of the happiest surprises of this year’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema series at New York’s Film at Lincoln Center in June.
(Abramorama)
The creation of Electric Lady Studios—immortalized on Jimi Hendrix’s classic album Electric Ladyland—is the subject of John McDermott’s entertaining documentary, which lands us in late ’60s Greenwich Village alongside Hendrix’s legendary engineer-producer, Eddie Kramer, and others involved in the planning, construction and running of the first artist-owned music facility in rock.
Hendrix music is generously played and the talking heads (which include John Storyk, the studios’ architect; and two of Jimi’s band members, Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox) are chatty and revealing in this valuable chronicle of an indispensable music studio, later populated by the likes of John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie and the Clash.
Modernism, Inc.
(First Run)
Director Jason Cohn’s enlightening account that explores how architect Eliot Noyes transformed American design in the mid-20th century smartly condenses a knotted history of design into something digestible, spirited, but never dumbed down.
Fond remembrances and paeans from his family members, colleagues and historians blend with well-chosen vintage footage to present this nuanced portrait of Noyes’ ongoing importance to contemporary design, from his playful but norm-shattering designs for IBM and Mobil to his family’s unique home.
(Submarine Deluxe)
Although this documentary’s stated aims are lofty, even necessary—simulating a possible insurrection on January 6, 2025, four years after the real-life attempted coup to overturn a lawful presidential election, with many actual politicians and government insiders playing a fictional presidential cabinet and advisors—what we’re actually watching ends up less than the sum of its parts.
Directors Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber turn this plausible doomsday scenario into an effective if derivative pulse-pounding thriller, but the reality of what happened on January 6, 2021 is still too raw to make this well-intentioned cautionary tale more than an intriguing but manipulative curio. The best moments are unfiltered comments by real veterans Chris Jones, Kris Goldsmith and Janessa Goldbeck (CEO of VetVoice, which originated the staging of this scenario), who emotionally discuss how imperative saving democracy is. More of their reality and less of the actual war game would have made this a more powerful—though, admittedly, entirely different—film.
Blu-ray Release of the Week
June Zero
(Cohen Media)
In Jake Paltrow’s accomplished anthology feature, which tells the fragmented stories of several ordinary people on the periphery of the 1962 execution of Nazi Adolf Eichmann (which occurred just after midnight on June 1, hence the film’s title), is burnished by intelligence and sympathy.
The three tales, which move from humor to horror, are followed by a bittersweet epilogue, as Paltrow takes the measure of a young nation grappling with shared traumas that nevertheless leave room for triumph over tragedy. Paltrow’s 16mm images look quite striking on Blu-ray; too bad there’s no interview or commentary that contextualizes this complex historical drama.
Gerhard—Don Quixote (Complete Ballet)
(Chandos)
Roberto Gerhard (1896-1970) isn’t as well-known as fellow Catalan composers Xavier Montsalvatge and Federico Mompou, but his music is just as original, especially in his melding of popular and classical forms with a more rigid 12-tone method. His delightful zarzuela/operetta, The Duenna, might be the best example, but his other stage works have the same captivating variety. The works on this disc all originated in the 1940s, after Gerhard left his beloved Spain following the civil war and settled in England.
There’s the attractive suite for the ballet Allegrias as well as the complete ballet Don Quixote, one of Gerhard’s most enchanting and gorgeous scores. Rounding out this recording is Pedrelliana, originally written in 1941 but revised 13 years later; it’s a heartfelt memorial to Gerhard’s beloved teacher Felipe Pedrell. Juanjo Mena leads the BBC Orchestra in vigorous renditions of this often exuberant music.
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