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NYC Theater Roundup: Brits Off Broadway 2014
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 13 May 2014 04:17
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Playing with Grown Ups
Written by Hannah Patterson; directed by Hannah Eidonow
Previews began April 29, 2014; closes May 18
The Love Song of Alfred J. Hitchcock
Written by David Rudkin; directed by Jack McNamara
Previews began May 1, 2014; closes May 25
It’s that time of year again: Brits Off Broadway, a staple of New York theater since 2005, returns, providing another chance to see an imported stable of talented writers, performers and directors bringing their shows from across the pond. Chief among these, of course, is the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where master playwright Alan Ayckbourn has plied his elevated trade for decades. This year, Ayckbourn brings three works here—two new plays and a double bill of one-acts—which open in June. Meanwhile, I caught two Brits stagings: one impressive, the other not.
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| Hughes and Jackson in Playing with Grown Ups (photo: Carol Rosegg) |
A concise comic drama, Playing with Grown Ups explores an increasingly common “new” reality: a wife in her late 30s can’t deal with her newborn. Joanna, literary historian who “resurrects” forgotten women writers, is married to Robert, who teaches film courses at the local university. Baby Lily has frazzled Joanna, making her unable to handle the routines of parenting: when Lily cries, needs to be fed or changed, Joanna goes berserk. So Robert inviting his colleague and close friend Jake—also Joanna’s former flame—to their place for dinner is not the best idea, especially since Jake brings his latest conquest: 17-year-old student Stella.
Playwright Hannah Patterson and director Hannah Eidinow might ratchet up the drama until its overwrought finale, which falls flat even if, as shown onstage, it’s about the only place the story and characters can go. But despite that miscue, Patterson writes precise, literate and amusing dialogue for these characters—although Stella is far too mature for her age (which is 16 in the script; is 17 more palatable for American puritans?)—and Eidinow directs persuasively.
Daisy Hughes plays Stella with a commanding winningness that makes believable her superiority to the three adults, played compassionately by Trudi Jackson (Joanna), Mark Rice-Oxley (Robert) and Alan Cox (Jake). Despite flaws, Playing with Grown Ups treats its adult subject matter with intelligence.
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| Miller in The Love Song of Alfred J. Hitchcock (photo: Carol Rosegg) |
As a fan of the Master of Suspense, I was predisposed to like The Love Song of Alfred J. Hitchcock. So it’s too bad David Rudkin’s underwhelming psychodrama regurgitates clichés about Hitch, from his overbearing mother to his problems with women in general.
Initially, Love Song promises drollness, as Martin Miller—who looks like Toronto mayor Rob Ford—gives an impersonation of Hitch, not a caricatured impression: he credibly approximates Hitch’s voice, gait and physicality. But since Rudkin merely skims over moments in Hitch’s life—equating a couple of them with Psycho and Strangers on a Train, complete with obvious musical and dialogue cues for those who miss the similarities—the show becomes painfully inert, despite director Jack McNamara’s attempts to enliven the proceedings.
It’s somewhat perverse trying to resurrect an original film director in the medium of theater. Although Hitchcock would have found a clever way around it, Rudkin and McNamara are unable to find a stage equivalent. The Love Song of Alfred J. Hitchcock—even the title’s allusion to T.S. Eliot’s poem Prufrock is a desperate bid to gild itself by association to a greater work of art—commits the cardinal sin of being dull, which Hitchcock’s best films never were.
Playing with Grown Ups
The Love Song of Alfred J. Hitchcock
59 E 59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street, New York, NY
britsoffbroadway.com
NYC Music Roundup—‘Here Lies Love’ @ the Public; Britten, Chenoweth @ Carnegie
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 09 May 2014 22:37
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Here Lies Love
Concept, music & lyrics by David Byrne; music by Fatboy Slim; directed by Alex Timbers
Choreographed by Annie-B Parson
Previews began April 14, 2014; opened May 1
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
April 30, 2014
Kristin Chenoweth
May 3, 2014
Carnegie Hall, 57th Street & 7th Avenue, New York, NY
carnegiehall.org
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| Here Lies Love (photo: Joan Marcus) |
It’s easy to see why Here Lies Love, which has returned for an open-ended run, is a hit with audiences and reviewers: this show about Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, has music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and was directed by Alex Timbers, a director of endless visual inventiveness who involves the audience in the show to such a degree that it becomes an “event” for those in attendance.
But Here Lies Love is also a colossally lightweight affair that relies so much on gimmickry that it collapses on itself, which could be a metaphor for the corruption of power that finished off the Marcos regime. The show’s paltry idea—that Imelda enjoyed going to clubs while traveling the world as the Philippine first lady so the songs and the staging provide a club atmosphere for the entire 90 minutes—is reflected in the music: Byrne’s and Slim’s songs are interchangeable, unmemorable and repetitive. Exceptions are the title song, a soaring ballad whose chorus sounds like the “oh oh oh” bridge of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and “The Fabulous One,” a rousing anthem for Marcos’ political opponent (and anti-Marcos martyr) Benigno Aquino, which has the spiky wit and rhythmic vigor of the Talking Heads’ heyday. But the rest are sheer noise, smothered as they are by Slim’s relentless club beats.
That leaves Timbers’ staging, which utilizes the LuEsther Hall space of the Public Theater to great effect. Various risers and platforms are endlessly movable so the action can be seen on all four sides of the audience (there are seats upstairs for those who don’t want to stand for 90 minutes or be herded like sheep from one side of the floor to the other). Flexible stagehands keep everything and everybody on the move—the clever choreography is by Annie-B Parson—ensuring audience members aren’t run over.
In his Broadway show Rocky, Timbers brings part of the audience onstage and moves part of the stage into the audience. Here, he melds audience, stage and performance together. But despite his cleverness, Here Lies Love is shrill, loud and paper-thin: in other words, a perfect club show.
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Carnegie Hall’s final Britten Centenary concert was a doozy: Britten’s War Requiem—one of the towering works of the last century—was performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and three soloists under the baton of conductor Robert Spano. War Requiem is one of those works that, no matter how many times I’ve heard it on recordings, has never lost its ability to reduce me to a quivering, drained mass of jelly in the concert hall. And this was no exception.
Composed for the 1962 consecration of a new Coventry Cathedral in England after the 14th century original was destroyed by Nazi bombing, Britten’s pacifistic masterpiece sets the standard Latin Mass for the Dead alongside poems of Wilfred Owen, himself killed in the trenches of World War I. The piece’s masterly structure is so brilliantly designed as to be unique in Britten’s—or anyone else’s—canon, and believers and non-believers alike find themselves emotionally shattered at the conclusion of this unforgettable plea for peace.
Spano and his orchestra’s taut reading captured the music as it alternates between soaring expansiveness and anguished intimacy, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus (placed in the balcony) and the orchestra’s own chorus sounded luminous throughout. Soprano Evelina Dobraceva and baritone Stephen Powell sang with immense power, while tenor Thomas Cooley—a last-minute replacement for an ill Anthony Dean Griffey—showed that he’s no stranger to Britten’s music, singing with authority, soulfulness and strength in a sterling performance of a work for the ages.
A few nights later, another vocal powerhouse in the form of soprano Kristin Chenoweth appeared at Carnegie: her Evolution of a Soprano was a delightful, stirring journey through the acclaimed award-winning actress-singer’s brilliant career, from her Christian upbringing in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma to her current musical theater eminence.
The diminutive Chenoweth had the audience in the palm of her hand from the start, telling hilarious stories in between numbers from Broadway shows she starred in and some she one day hopes to (a song from Mame), which she sang in a gleaming yet powerful voice that somehow emanates from her 4’11” frame.
Special guests were boy soprano Sam Poon, who sang a lovely duet with Chenoweth from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem; a trio of backing vocalists, helping bring the house down with the Christian song “Upon This Rock” (before which Chenoweth sagely told those who aren’t Christian that they shouldn’t worry, it would be over in four minutes); singer-composer Andrew Lippa, serenaded by his heartfelt same-sex love song “One Day”; and opera superstar (and Chenoweth’s self-professed idol) Deborah Voigt, who joined in for an hilarious “Anything You Can Do” from Annie Get Your Gun.
But no one eclipsed the star, who ended on a subdued but entirely appropriate note: finally eschewing her microphone, she sang an emotional, unamplified “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables that sent her audience home sated and ecstatic.
Here Lies Love
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY
herelieslove.com
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
April 30, 2014
Kristin Chenoweth
May 3, 2014
Carnegie Hall, 57th Street & 7th Avenue, New York, NY
carnegiehall.org
May '14 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 06 May 2014 03:49
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Art of the Steal
(Anchor Bay/Starz)
The targets in Jonathan Sobol’s caper flick—the Guttenberg Bible and a Seurat painting—are not the usual Hollywood fluff, although the zany motley criminal crew led by Matt Dillon and Kurt Russell as double-crossing half-brothers is.
With Terence Stamp and Jason Jones making an amusingly ragtag Interpol team, the adversaries are offbeat enough to keep this 90-minute heist movie afloat, even if it evaporates from memory when it ends. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras include making-of featurettes and director commentary.
Hit the Deck
(Warner Archive)
This colorful 1955 musical directed by Roy Rowland might not be an obvious winner in the era of Guys and Dolls, An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain, but its killer cast (Debbie Reynolds, Jane Powell and Ann Miller) performs songs like “The Lady from the Bayou” and “More Than You Know” while hoofing it up to Hermes Pan’s choreography.
This musical about sailors may not be On the Town, but it’s endless Technicolor fun all the same. The movie looks splendid on Blu-ray.
Mobius
(Lionsgate)
Director Eric Rochant’s breakneck thriller features The Artist Oscar winner Jean Dujardin, typecast as a suave Russian double agent in Paris who falls for his latest mark, played by a stunning Cecile de France.
There are enough dizzying double crosses to make the viewer forget the many inconsistencies that are par for the course in the spy genre, and Tim Roth and John Lynch provide solid Anglo support. On Blu-ray, the fantastic locales and glamorous stars look their hi-def best; extras include interviews.
Mr. Jones
(Anchor Bay/Starz)
The storyline of this found-footage horror film—a couple looking for peace and quiet stumble upon an infamous sculptor whose malevolent works start terrifying them to within an inch of their lives—is acceptable.
Too bad that, after a strong set-up, the payoff has scant originality or scares, even if Sarah Jones and Mark Steger are a credible couple and director Karl Mueller stretch this out to 80 watchable (if forgettable) minutes. The hi-def transfer looks fine.
Parsifal
(Sony Classical)
Salome
(Arthaus Musik)
In his reverent Metropolitan Opera staging of Richard Wagner’s final, ethereal opera Parsifal, director Francois Girard has a formidable cast—Jonas Kaufman as Parsifal, Rene Pape, Katarina Dalayman and Peter Mattei—performing vocal magic under conductor Danielle Gatti’s sensitive baton.
Richard Strauss’ still biting Salome, from Oscar Wilde’s play about the teenager who danced for John the Baptist’s head on a platter, has a sexy Salome in Swedish soprano Erika Sunnegardh in Gabriele Lavia’s otherwise adequate 2010 production. Both operas look and sound smashing on Blu-ray; Parsifal extras include backstage interviews.
Toto—Live in Poland: 35thAnniversary Tour
(Eagle Rock)
Who knew that Toto—a band whose last hit was in 1982—was still performing for fans around the world? Based on the Polish crowd’s fervent response to this 2013 concert, apparently Toto is still a big deal.
Hits “Africa,” “Rosanna” and “Hold the Line” get huge responses, of course, but surprisingly so do deep album cuts like “Hydra” and “St. George and the Dragon”; original members David Paich and Steve Lukather (whose blistering guitar solos are the highlights of the show) are well-augmented by an army of session men and vocalists. The concert looks and sounds impeccable in hi-def; extras are interviews with band members.
Veronica Mars
(Warners)
I know I’m not the target audience for this by-the-numbers comic mystery based on a TV series I never watched, but Rob Thomas’s overlong movie version moves at a snail’s pace, has little dramatic urgency and true comedy, and is populated with cardboard characters, lazy plotting and phoned-in performances.
Many fans signed up to fund this through Kickstarter; let’s hope that they feel they got their money’s worth. The Blu-ray image is top-notch; extras include interviews and deleted scenes.
DVDs of the Week
The Address
(PBS)
In his new 90-minute PBS documentary, director Ken Burns shows how the most famous speech in American history—Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address—endures for each generation, as seen at a Vermont school for boys with learning difficulties, as the students create their own sense of self-worth and accomplishment by memorizing and reciting it.
By also allowing several students to narrate the speech’s historical context, Burns once again brings American history alive for a new generation. Lone extra is Steven Spielberg reciting the speech.
China Beach—Complete Season 3
(StarVista)
The third season of this groundbreaking Vietnam War television drama—about the unsung women who served our country—was originally shown during 1989-90.
Once again, the show owes its success to stars Dana Delany and Marg Helgenberger and the many period songs that evoke both nostalgia and emotion, from Cream’s “White Room, “Sunshine of Your Love” and “Strange Brew” to Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” Extras are interviews, commentaries, gag reel and deleted scene.
Falling in Love
Islands in the Stream
(Warner Archive)
Falling in Love, Ulu Grosbard’s saccharine 1984 romance with Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep as marrieds who meet on their way to work each morning and fall in love, has little chemistry between its stars, which allows Dianne Wiest and Harvey Keitel to steal the movie.
In Franklin J. Schaffner’s musty 1976 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream, George C. Scott gives a characteristically crusty portrayal of the flawed hero in a hackneyed story about family, art and war.
The Story of the Jews
(PBS)
Simon Schama, author of numerous books and host of television documentaries about art history, returns with his multi-part exploration of a most expansive subject: the history of the Jewish people.
A mere five hour-long episodes can’t hope to convey the fullness of that rich history, but Schama invests the subject—dealing with European anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages to the Holocaust—with his animated and deeply personal touch, which makes the series an intelligent and powerful viewing experience.
Suzanne Vega—Solitaire Standing
(MVD)
This 2003 Rome concert, comprising a baker’s dozen of Suzanne Vega’s classic songs, lasts barely an hour: Vega also recites four of own poems, which her friend Valerio Piccolo translates for the audience.
Vega is in fine form throughout, especially on her best songs like the opening “Marlene on the Wall,” “The Queen and the Soldier” and “Solitude Standing,” the title track from her 1987 breakthrough album that featured her two biggest hits, “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner” (which she saves for last, of course). The lone extra is a Vega interview.
April '14 Digital Week V
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 30 April 2014 00:51
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Big Bad Wolves
(Magnet)
That this gripping Israeli thriller was named best movie of 2013 by Quentin Tarantino gave me pause, since I don’t share his taste for trashy flicks: but directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s shocking revenge drama is riveting throughout—at least until an ending that reeks of desperation.
Showing how ordinary people can do horrible things—like kidnaping and torturing a man suspected of brutally murdering children—the directors show off endless style to spare. The Blu-ray image looks stellar; extras are making-of featurettes.
(Kino)
Director Jess Franco—never one to shy away from controversy—made his own Satanic nuns/witches entry in 1973, a couple of years after Ken Russell’s own blatantly pornographic Inquisition horror flick, The Devils.
In Franco’s version, nubile young nuns hike up their outfits and writhe around in their beds, often with political and religious leaders for hypocritical shenanigans. Although extremely risible, Franco’s belief in his film’s seriousness keeps it watchable; a few sexy actresses also help his cause. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras include a Franco interview and deleted footage.
Gimme Shelter
(Lionsgate)
Despite Vanessa Hudgens giving her all as a runaway teen trying to improve life for herself and her unborn baby, this crassly manipulative drama based on a true story is directed with a sledgehammer by Ronald Krauss, who sees spiritual uplift where others see dramatic clichés.
A frightening turn by Rosario Dawson as her drugged-up mother and an inspirational appearance by James Earl Jones as a good reverend help those not in thrall to the message keep watching. The Blu-ray image looks excellent; extras include deleted scenes with commentary and making-of featurette.
(Cohen Media)
Claude Chabrol’s two feature films starring his favorite detective—Chicken with Vinegar (1985) and the eponymously titled Inspector Lavardin (1986)—are impeccably crafted, naturally, yet are otherwise small-scale murder mysteries long on atmosphere but short on wit.
Jean Poiret’s inspector seems more at home in the two Chabrol-helmed TV mysteries included as bonuses—The Black Snail (1988) and Danger Lies in the Words (1989)—which are more entertaining than the features. The movies look good if soft on Blu-ray; extras on the features are audio commentaries.
Mr. Selfridge—Complete Season 2
(PBS)
The second season of this absorbing series about how American Harry Selfridge built London’s biggest department store at the turn of the last century is another superior soap opera, its plot threads showing characters like Jeremy Piven’s self-absorbed Selfridge and a glamorous Frances O’Connor as his wife in their overlapping professional and personal lives.
Especially for those who can’t wait for their next Downton Abbey fix, this is an excellent (and highly original) substitute. The hi-def transfer looks fine; extras include a behind the scenes featurette and deleted scenes.
Il Sorpasso
(Criterion)
The English title, The Easy Life, perfectly encapsulates Dino Risi’s brilliantly ironic comedy that careers into tragedy in its final moments, as playboy Vittorio Gassman and naïve student Jean-Louis Trintignant (both never better) aimlessly root around Tuscan and Roman roads one weekend.
Risi, an uneven director, made this singular masterpiece and decent films like Scent of a Woman (not the awful Pacino remake); Criterion’s release marries a typically splendid hi-def transfer with a plethora of extras like interviews with Risi, Trintignant and Gassman, documentary excerpts and a 2006 doc about Risi, A Beautiful Vacation.
Super Skyscrapers
(PBS)
This fascinating mini-series, which takes the measure of 21stcentury building, highlights a quartet of new skyscrapers that defy the usual blueprint of finding ways to go higher, literally and figuratively: Manhattan’s Freedom Tower and One57, London’s Leadenhall Building and China’s Shanghai Tower.
Covering the many months of planning and construction, the four hour-long programs provide revealing close-ups of how technology continues to revolutionize how we live and build in increasingly smaller spaces. The hi-def transfer is superlative.
The Best Offer
(IFC)
In Giuseppe Tornatore’s latest melodrama, Geoffrey Rush plays an unscrupulous auctioneer intrigued by a disturbed young woman who wants to sell her family’s heirloom artworks while (literally) hiding behind a family secret.
Rush makes a properly flawed hero, Sylvia Hoeks is beguilingly fresh as the mystery woman, but Tornatore never quite gets a handle on this intense and at times overripe material.
(Kino)
This old-fashioned atmospheric horror film remakes Rebecca (sort of) as the master of the mansion discovers he may have a murderous doppelgänger out there killing innocent townspeople.
In the lead, John Turner does a decent job, as does the rest of the cast; director Robert Hartford-Davis keeps the dramatic clichés to a minimum while moving along to an obvious but satisfying finish. The lone extra is a director interview.
(Lionsgate)
Chilean director-writer Sebastian Lelio’s immersive character study about a middle-aged divorcee who enters into a tentative relationship with an older man is centered on the remarkable Paulina Garcia in the title role.
By not making her a caricature or blatantly begging for sympathy, Garcia makes Gloria a nuanced and immensely sympathetic character whose sexuality is made plausible but remains in the context of this ordinary woman who’s really quite extraordinary. Extras are onset footage set to the film’s songs.
To Chris Marker An Unsent Letter
(Icarus Films)
Made by his frequent collaborator, photographer Emiko Omori, this look back at the singular artistry of meta-cinematic genius Chris Marker—creator of the classics La Jetee and Sans Soleil—has a personal, home-movie quality that will please Marker’s admirers.
The reminiscences—from fans, fellow artists and film historians—show a healthy, even humorous appreciation for Marker the man as well as the director, including a priceless anecdote about how the publicity-shy Marker made his own image disappear from a photograph on public display.
(MPI/IFC)
In Iain Softley’s unnerving thriller, Tuppence Middleton and Alexandra Roach give ferocious portrayals of friends torn apart by a fatal fire that one survives without any memory of what happened—or does she?
Softley lets the facts slowly but surely become uncovered, but his leading actresses—and the always sublime Frances De La Tour and Kerry Fox in small but pivotal roles—make this a tense nail-biter. Extras are interviews.
CDs of the Week
John Adams—The Gospel According to the Other Mary
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Composer John Adams’ “passion oratorio” is certainly a heavy-duty, serious piece: but, much like Peter Sellars’ diffuse libretto comprising bits from the Bible along with words from personalities as diverse as 12thcentury mystic Hildegard von Bingen and 20th century writer primo Levi, Adams’ patchy music moves from soaring chorales to dully minimalist vocal lines.
Despite the shaky dramatics, it’s beautifully performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, a vocally strong cast led by Kelley O’Connor and Tamara Mumford, all held together by conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
(Sony Classical)
Sure, she’s a charming, lovely, talented Russian soprano, but please don’t call Olga Peretyatko a new Anna Netrebko (not even Netrebko is Anna Netrebko any more): she has a vocal style all her own, as she proves repeatedly on this buoyant collection of virtuoso arias and songs from heavy hitters Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, Gounod and Bizet.
Peretyatko’s creamy soprano sounds luminous on all 13 of this disc’s tracks, and conductor Enrique Mazzola and the NDR Symphony Orchestra provide her with accompaniment as sensitive and exacting as her singing.
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