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Leading Ladies On Stage—Sutton Foster in “Sweet Charity”; Laura Osnes at 54 Below

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 23 December 2016 13:52; Written by Kevin Filipski

Sweet Charity

Music by Cy Coleman; lyrics by Dorothy Fields; book by Neil Simon

Directed by Leigh Silverman; choreographed by Joshua Bergasse

Laura Osnes: The Roads Not Taken

I’ve said it many times: we are in a golden age of sublime theater singer-actresses, and two of our very best are Sutton Foster and Laura Osnes. It’s always a treat whenever either of them are on stage, and when they appear in smaller spaces, so much the better. That’s what we get as Foster is killing it in Sweet Charity in the cozy confines of the Signature’s Linney Theater, while Osnes recently performed her captivating cabaret show at the intimate club 54 Below.

Sutton Foster (center) in Sweet Charity (photo: Monique Carboni)

Foster and director Leigh Silverman must deal with long shadows in Sweet Charity, based on Federico Fellini's classic 1956 tragicomedy The Nights of Cabiria, which starred the director’s beloved wife Giulietta Masina in the title role; Bob Fosse’s original Broadway production starred the director/choreographer’s beloved wife Gwen Verdon. So four legends of film and theater tower over this proto-feminist musical, whose tuneful and hummable score is by Cy Coleman, clever lyrics by Dorothy Fields and amusingly sassy book is by Neil Simon.

Foster’s Charity—the put-upon but endlessly optimistic dance hall hostess whose every romantic relationship ends in tears—is a dazzling creation, filled to the brim with the star’s bottomless well of charisma, pizzazz, charm and spunkiness. She can drop Simon’s sharp one-liners like nobody’s business, she can sing like a dream and her dance moves can put most of her peers to shame. As one example of many, her scintillating tap number during “If My Friends Could See Me Now” is such a show-stopper in every sense that it threatens to topple the tenuous hold Silverman has on the material.

Apparently, Sweet Charity must now be tweaked to make it palatable today: no one would believe such a beguilingly sweet thing as an almost willing doormat for men, so this hopeless romantic has been turned into a slightly more hopeful realist. Foster’s sass is less naïve ingénue and more bruised lover, and the show’s final number has become “Where Am I Going?”, originally sung by Charity before, not after, her final amorous entanglement ends in disappointment.

Such directorial intrusion doesn’t totally destroy the show: Derek McLane’s spare set, Jeff Croiter’s moody lighting, Joshua Bergasse’s serviceable choreography, the solid supporting cast and tight six-piece (all-female!) band contribute to its entertainment quotient. And Silverman knows enough to leave her star front and center, and she makes Sweet Charity as much her own as she did Anything Goes, Violet and The Wild Party. No one can do it all quite like Sutton Foster.

Laura Osnes

Minnesota native Laura Osnes made her auspicious Broadway debut in 2007’s revival of Grease, then consolidated that with winning turns in shows as varied as South Pacific, Bonnie and Clyde, Cinderella and Bandstand (coming to Broadway in the spring). For her current solo show at 54 Below—which she’s performed several times in the past couple years—she has looked at other musicals which, for various reasons, ended up not panning out for her, under the cute title Laura Osnes: The Roads Not Taken.

Opening with “Not for the Life of Me” from Thoroughly Modern Millie—which gave Foster her first Tony in 2002—Osnes proceeded through an alternate career that, in its offbeat way, is almost as impressive as what she ended up doing. Punctuated by thoroughly charming explanations of why this or that show didn’t turn out right for her (something else came along, she didn’t get called back, etc.), Osnes beguiled the audience with her bright, clear soprano in numbers from classic musicals like Fiddler on the Roof, Brigadoon, My Fair Lady and a pair of Sondheims, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd—all of which sounded tantalizingly right when she performed songs like “Show Me,” “Soon” and “Green Finch and Linnet Bird.”

Equally satisfying were her forays into more recent shows: she agily brandished the puppet Kate for “There’s a Fine, Fine Line” from Avenue Q, sang the hell out of the title song from Bring It On (which is not in the show any more, she wryly noted) and dueted with guest star Rob McClure in a sensitive “What I Meant to Say” from My Paris. There was of course the requisite “Popular” from Wicked, but that was offset by “Let Me Your Star” from TV’s Smash and a lovely “What Baking Can Do” from Waitress, which she was in the running to take over from Jessie Mueller. Instead, she’ll return to Broadway in Bandstand, which she gave the audience a taste of with “Worth It.” When I saw it at the Paper Mill last year, Osnes’s emotionally focused performance was the show’s highlight, which it undoubtedly will be on Broadway as well.

Sweet Charity

Performances through January 9, 2017

The New Group @ Signature Theatre, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

thenewgroup.org

Laura Osnes: The Roads Not Taken

Performances through November 30, 2016

54 Below, 254 West 54th Street, New York, NY

54below.com

Director Peter Berg's Illuminating Look At "Patriots Day"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 22 December 2016 16:38; Written by Brad Balfour

Patriots Day
Directed by Peter Berg
Screenplay by Peter Berg, Matt Cook and Joshua Zetumer
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, J.K. Simmons, Michelle Monaghan, Alex Wolff.

With workman-like efficiency, veteran director Peter Berg uses his latest film, Patriots Day, to provide some insight into what happened, who it affected, and how everyone reacted to the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist bombing. This action-packed "whodunnit" offers an opportunity to make a little sense of something that should never have had to be understood. Dramatizing the dual remote explosion of two pressure cookers placed near the finish line serves several purposes — to celebrate survivors, first responders and investigators while providing a breakdown of just what took place before that day, at the bombings’ moments and the week that followed.

patriots day poster Though he’s not a director who does things with an “arty” touch, his sure-handed work here offers enough details and nuance that makes this film a bit more than just a big-budget TV movie. From the start, stories of the essential participants — Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons) and nurse Carol Saunders (Michelle Monaghan) — are interwoven as the day begins. Once the bombs explode — unflinchingly shown in graphic detail — Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) joins this visceral chronicle that suspensefully delineates the ever-expanding manhunt for the culprits.

Included in the cast is Berg regular Mark Wahlberg as Police Sergeant Tommy Saunders — a composite of several key figures — who joins other law enforcement figures in a race against time to track down the bombers before they try again, even possibly, in New York. Though Wahlberg’s sincerity gives life to this stitched-together character, we could do without his mundane speech-ifiying.

Much to Berg’s credit, he tried to give attention to one or another detail that lends insight into most of the players, from those who died, who were maimed, and who discovered the killers, or contributed to the capture of the Tsarnaev brothers; he even examines their lives as well including that of converted Muslim wife Katherine. But this film doesn’t delve that deeply into their motives or psychology; it instead focuses more on how the aftermath of the bombing impacted on the lives of everyone involved — and how they’ve survived ever since.

Without being overbearing about it, Berg’s Patriots Day serves several notions so that this a film worth viewing and talking about afterwards — especially since incidents like this one keep happening. It’s no work of profundity but the more we can analyze what happened before, the better we can get at preventing future attacks.

December '16 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 21 December 2016 04:35; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Creepshow 2

The Driller Killer
(Arrow)

The first Creepshow (1982) was fun, but its 1987 follow-up Creepshow 2 is far less memorably more of the same: its three segments have their moments (especially the third, with Lois Chiles’s manic performance as an adulterous wife who keeps running over the same man), but the overall effect is of desperation and a far cry from the original.

Abel Ferrara’s insane Driller Killer (1979) stars the director himself as a tortured artist turned title murderer: if you’re into Ferrara’s twisted worldview, by all means help yourself. Both films have excellent restored transfers; extras are interviews, commentaries and features, with Ferrara’s documentary, Mulberry St., on Driller.

In Order of Disappearance
(Magnet)

Stellan Skarsgard’s intense performance as a grieving father who tracks down those drug dealers responsible for his son’s fatal overdose is the obvious reason to watch director Hans Petter Moland’s muddled but entertaining black comedy.

The violence seems real, pouring out of the father’s sorrow and revenge, which Skarsgard plays perfectly, even during the film’s final (and intentionally ridiculous) shootout. There’s a superior hi-def transfer; extras are brief interviews.

The Man Who Skied Down Everest
(Film Detective)

Bruce Nydnik and Lawrence Schiller’s Oscar-winning 1975 Best Documentary is a still-astonishing chronicle of the 1970 quest by Japanese daredevil Yuichiro Miura to climb and ski down the world’s highest mountain.

Douglas Rain’s narration (from Miura’s own diaries) is at times redundant, but the incredible camerawork, which catches seemingly every moment of this superhuman attempt—including some of the most amazing feats ever shot—is what makes this a classic of its kind. The film looks splendid on Blu-ray.

Otello
(Sony Classical)

Giuseppe Verdi’s classic opera might even outdo Shakespeare’s play for dramatic intensity and sorrowful tragedy, and Bartlett Sher’s new Met Opera staging catches all of that, thanks to sensitive conducting by Yannick Nezet-Segun and exceptional playing by the Met Orchestra.

Then there are the emotionally rich portrayals of Aleksandrs Antonenko as Othello, Zeljko Lucic as Iago and Sonya Yoncheva as a heartbreaking Desdemona. Both the hi-def video and audio are impressive.

Sully
(Warner Bros)

In Clint Eastwood’s absorbing if not particularly resonant reconstruction of the celebrated “Miracle on the Hudson” in 2009, Tom Hanks gives a functional but unilluminating portrayal of one of America’s most celebrated heroes, airline pilot Sully Sullenberger.

Far better because less encumbered by hero worship is Aaron Eckhart as the unsung co-pilot; in the thankless role of the worried wife phoning husband Sully, Laura Linney is all classy understatement. The film, a relatively brief but still padded 96 minutes, looks fine on Blu; extras comprise three making-of featurettes.

DVDs of the Week

Disorder
(IFC)

Alice Winocour’s involving thriller centers around a wonderfully complicated central relationship: a French Iraq war vet with PTSD becomes a bodyguard for the trophy wife of a wealthy businessman, and when deadly home invaders arrive, his skills come in handy to save her, her child and himself.

Deftly combining action with introspection, Winocour has made a volatile drama buoyed by superb performances by Matthias Schoenaerts and Diane Kruger.

Little Men
(Magnolia)

Ira Sachs’ latest New York City-set comic drama is a well-observed but meandering study of teenagers who become friends amid the linked difficulties of their family lives: even at 85 minutes, the film feels stretched out, as if it’s little more than a sketch turned into feature length.

Sachs’ usual strength is his cast, and Little Men is no exception: the boys are truthfully played by newcomers Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri, and there’s good work from Alfred Molina, Talia Balsam, Jennifer Ehle and Greg Kinnear as the adults in their lives.

The Pond Theatre Company Inaugural Production - Mike Leigh’s Abigail's Party

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 19 December 2016 02:57; Written by Brad Balfour

Abigail's Party
Written by Mike Leigh
Directed by Lee Brock
Starring Lily Dorment, Colleen Clinton, Sarah Street, Nick Hetherington and John Pirkis

Anytime there’s an opportunity to see something created by award-winning British playwright/filmmaker Mike Leigh, it’s usually a worthwhile experience — though it’s not necessarily a pleasant one.

While rife with humor, The Pond Theatre Company’s recent production of Leigh’s 1977 play “Abigail’s Party” makes for an engaging, sometimes frustrating, work. It’s not frustrating because of any flaws in the writing, acting or staging — in fact the prim and proper setting of a 1970s English middle-class living room offers an ideal setting for the acidic and dark experience that was offered on this stage. The Pond, a brand new theater company focused on Irish and British plays (this is its inaugural production) did a bang-up job with both this cast and the direction by Lee Brock.

Rather, it’s the characters themselves that make it torturous, not because of any artificiality in dialogue or action; rather, it’s because the people are so real you want to step on stage and smack them few times throughout the two hours that commences here.

Pop songs insinuate themselves throughout the play which reveals the banality of these characters as they come in and out of this living room. Once the boozing begins, the action gets launched and the acidic dialogue really kicks in.

None of the characters are particularly bright or interesting; they really have nothing significant to say. And most annoying is Beverly who pushes everyone into guzzling more drink — as if to excuse her own angry, stupid uptightness and her need to justify her own failings which get smoothed over by intoxication. Though it seems like she just wants everyone to enjoy themselves she’s really catalyzing chaos through her own self-loathing.

abigail cast The basic action is deceptively simple. Set in the London suburb of Essex, Beverly (Sarah Street) and Laurence (John Pirkis) invite new neighbors Angela (Lily Dorment) and Tony (Nick Hetherington) over for a welcome drink. They’re joined by Susan (Colleen Clinton), another neighbor whose 16-year old daughter Abigail is having a party at her flat. She’s come to the neighbor’s flat to escape the party’s outward chaos only to experience an inner turmoil stirred up in this tacky living room.

As they drink throughout the night, they comically and tragically drop their guard — and emotional disaster ensues. The anger inherent in much of Leigh's material is really present here with little ornamentation. His goal of flailing the English middle class is succinctly accomplished. And this early work of his illustrates the evolution of themes he explores in later plays and films.

Much like American playwright Neil Labute, Leigh unapologetically shows how ridiculous people can be in the most conventional of settings but, unlike his fellow playwright, they aren’t entirely unredeemable — just boorish.

Sadly, this play’s run has ended but there are more productions coming up in collaboration with the Barrow Group (a 30-year-old award-winning theater company) at their West 36th Street home.

For future productions go to: www.thepondtheatre.org

TBG Theatre at The Barrow Group
312 West 36th Street, 3rd floor
New York, NY 10018

866-811-4111

www.barrowgroup.org