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Off-Broadway Review: Donald Margulies' "Dinner with Friends"

Dinner with Friends
Written by Donald Margulies, directed by Pam Mackinnon
Performances through April 13, 2014
 
Pettie, Burns, Shamos and Hinkle in Dinner with Friends 
(photo: Jeremy Daniel)
Donald Margulies’ marvelous Dinner with Friends is such a psychologically and dramatically acute play that—despite its 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and rave reviews for its New York premiere—it appears to be less than the sum of its parts. Margulies’ artful construction of his tragicomic drama about how the disintegration of one marriage leads to soul searching in another fits together so smartly that it comes off (to some, anyway) as a mere clever conceit. But this remarkable play is anything but, as the Roundabout’s unmissable revival demonstratively shows.
 
Married couples Gabe & Karen and Tom & Beth have been best friends for 12 years, since the former couple set up the latter during a Martha’s Vineyard weekend. The play begins as Beth blurts out to her two friends after a scrumptious dinner that Tom—missing since he’s away on business—wants a divorce because he’s screwing a stewardess. (Turns out she’s a travel agent.) After he discovers that Beth spilled the beans without him there to defend himself, Tom goes to their house late that night to tell his side of the story because, as he says, Beth—who spoke first—now has the upper hand: he’s right, as Karen’s disgust at his arrival shows.
 
The play covers a lot of narrative ground in two hours—even showing that fateful Vineyard introduction to begin Act 2—but its magnificence stems from its covering (and uncovering) fertile psychological terrain in such a natural and unforced way that it might appear facile to the undiscriminating.
 
The dialogue among these four heartrendingly real people (always a Margulies strength) is penetrating, poignant and often priceless in its humor. Take this tart exchange when Karen reacts negatively to Beth’s news that she is getting remarried…too soon, for Karen’s taste.
KAREN: I spent years trying to get away from my family and my last ten doing everything I could to make a family of my own. I thought if I could choose my family this time, if I could make my friends my family.
BETH: Congratulations. The family you’ve chosen is just as fucked up as the one you were born into.
 
Or Gabe and Karen discussing Tom’s revelation that Beth was cheating early in their marriage.
KAREN: We saw them practically every weekend in those days, when would she have had time to have an affair?
GABE: I don’t know—during the week?
 
Margulies’ ability to create three-dimensional characters—also on display in Collected Stories and The Model Apartment to Brooklyn Boyand Time Stands Still—is second to none. And in director Pam Mackinnon’s keenly-observed staging—greatly assisted by Allen Moyer’s superlative sets, whose fragmented look underscores what these two relationships are becoming—the cast is unsurpassable. Darren Pettie’s Tom adroitly treads a fine line between unredeemable and believably contradictory; as Beth, Heather Burns gives a textbook lesson in delicately playing a wife unmoored from her husband: no tics or mannerisms, just a naturalness that’s as becoming as it is affecting.
 
Marin Hinkle, as Karen, expertly navigates the landmines which appear as her well-ordered world buckles when her friends break up, forcing her to reevaluate her own marriage. And Jeremy Shamos’ Gabe is a subtle psychological portrait of a man who—as Karen tellingly notes—doesn’t say much. Whether silent or speaking, Shamos gives an honest glimpse of a husband who realizes that, while his marriage might not be perfect, it’s his life and he’ll try and make it work.
 
Donald Margulies is a peerless observer with fresh insight into familiar subjects, and Dinner with Friends is a particularly rich mine of discovery for his characters—and for us.
 
Dinner with Friends
Laura Pels Theatre, 111 West 46th Street, New York, NY

roundabouttheatre.org

"Pompeii" Is a Blunderous Marvel

"Pompeii"
Directed by Paul WS Anderson
Starring Kit Harrington, Emily Browning, Kiefer Sutherland, Jared Harris, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica Lucas, Carrie-Anne Moss
Action, Adventure, "Drama"
98 Mins
PG-13

If you're willing to overlook an awful script, torpid acting and cheeseball direction, Pompeii packs the requisite fireworks and dimwitted gumption to glide through its 100 minute screen time. Told with the panache of an envious porno production assistant, Pompeii is the equivalent of a kid hopped up on candy trying to recount the events of Gladiator but getting a handful of plot points confused with Armageddon. It's a disaster of wonderful proportion and, quite simply, a blunderous marvel to behold.

Director Paul WS Anderson's chutzpah is a blunted sword that he wields like it's Excalibur, hacking through logic like Theon Greyjoy taking off Sir Rodrick's head. (If that one went over your head, let's just say it's a mess.) There's nothing necessarily redeeming about the self-serious way the material is approached except the beautiful irony of it all. It's the perfect storm of narrative retardation unaware of the extent of its disability. At least the poor thing isn't sentient enough to know it's severe limitations. Rather than bring it out to pasture though, we're stuck playing the schoolyard bullies who circle and laugh. At least pointing and mocking here is acceptable.

No one deserves our disapproving derision more than swooning stars Emily Browning and Kit Harrington who make use of their screen time ogling one another; eye fucking like its Jr. Prom all over again. Doe-eyed and bitterly boring, each takes their acting lessons from the book of Stares and Glares 101. Their chemistry is always overshadowed by the mountain in the distance, a spark to the raging conflagrations surrounding them. Their romance, a dog shit hue of puppy love.

Certifiable shame that it is, Harrington can't survive outside the confines of Game of Thrones, a magical realm where he's nothing short of awkwardly charming. Armed with a sword and shambling in sandals, Harrington's Milo is the gladiator's version of rebel without a cause. "Are you not entertained?" his character plagiarizes, but with the snarky attitude of a hipster teen. No John Snow, we're not. Stick to your side of the Fire and Ice equation. No matter what ridiculous number of abdomen muscles you've packed on, things just work out better when you're buried in furs and adventuring in a perma-snowstorm.

Browning on the other hand is all kinds of bad news bears. She's supposed to be brave and rebellious as Cassia but comes off as a little girl playing princess. She's a vacuum of talent, a worm hole of thespianism, a black thumb for film. Does everything she touches wilt into a bouquet of poison oak or does she just have an agent with a grudge against her? Seriously, the girl hasn't touched a good project with a ten foot pole and Pompeii is no exception. Seeing her on the receiving end of a half-dozen bitch slaps is as magical as things get.

Dishing out those slaps is Kiefer Sutherland's General Corvus, a poorly acted douche of a man who we meet at the top of the story slicin' and dicin' through Milo mum's windpipe who later, quite conveniently, stews a bit of a rapey crush on Cassia. Apparently suffering from a knack of amnesia, Anderson forget to include the bit where Corvus stumbles across the fountain of youth. How else can you explain the fact that Corvus hasn't aged a day in 17 years? There's no way the people making this behemoth could have just forgotten a detail like that. RIGHT?!!

Then again, the script does seem like the result of a late night session the writers spent with a bong, a bag of Doritos and a Gladiator DVD. Seriously, there are lengthy scenes airlifted directly from Gladiator. It's one thing to homage and another entirely to play something off as your own work. Let me give you a particularly face-palming example: During a prominent gladiator showcase, the slavemaster attempts to recreate a Roman massacre from recent past where a slew of barbarians were slaughtered like caged chickens. Milo and friends are primed for the pointy end of a skewering stick, but wait! the enslaved gladiators band together to overcome momentous odds, defying the will of their superiors and winning the goodwill of the people. Sound familiar? I guess at the very least, they're ripping off some solid stuff.

The only other character of note, Atticus, is also the one we're left pining for more time with. As a African gladiator brute, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is immensely watchable and the easy star of the show. His is the only character we don't want swallowed up by a wall of lava, the only one we're hoping won't be sworded to death. Spoiler: both happen. 

Throughout the affairs, Mr. Anderson doesn't ever let us forget that there's a volcano involved and with CG technology what it is now, Mt. Vesuvius is clearly a main character (or at least the one we're supposed to play the most attention to). It must feel robbed then that it didn't even get an IMDB billing. If CG characters were eligible for a share of their awards gold, old 'Suv' would be a clear early frontrunner.

Watching the computer generated Mt. Vesuvius blow is destruction porn at its most bukakesque. Gobs of moltenus rock spew from the hot top like a 12-year old Paul WS Anderson discovering his manhood. If this is his take on a pissing content, he proudly strikes a pose and demeans your fifth grade science experience. Baking soda and vinegar ought to be ashamed.

Writer team Janet Scott Batchler (Batman Forever), Lee Batchler (Batman Forever) and Michael Robert Scott (Sherlock Holmes) are the lack of brains behind Anderson's unwieldy brawn, the Tonto to his rebooted Lone Ranger, the brain dead Himmler to his logic-genociding Hitler. Theirs is the glory of this spirited romp through seven levels of screenwriting purgatory. "King logos is dead, long live computer graphics!" they collectively chant. Together, they have ushered in a nuclear meltdown of a story, ineffaceably half-witted and boldly dopey.

A hotpot of narrative no-no's hyped up on its own garishness and blinded by the Hot Pocket consumerism driving the thing, Pompeii is a disaster of a disaster movie in the best of ways. The cart is miles before the horse as this movie is no more than an excuse to see a volcano go boom-boom. Like a toddler experimenting with an Easy Bake Oven, Pompeii is majorly overcooked, a hot mess of epic proportion. But Anderson's is the rare and wonderful movie that transcends the expression "it's so bad, it's good". It's literally a masterclass on the topic. One could write a thesis on how Pompeii proves Paul WS Anderson is the new Ed Wood and likely walk away with a honors degree. Simply put, I loved and hated it in equal measure. It was so dumb that I applauded.

C-

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February '14 Digital Week III

Blu-rays of the Week
Afternoon Delight
(Cinedigm)
What could have been a plot comprising familiar clichés—frustrated wife meets stripper whom she tries to help, only to ruin her own—is instead, in director Jill Soloway’s sure hands, an unnerving study of people dealing with personal disappointment.
 
The movie ends too predictably, but prior to that, Soloway and her cast—Kathryn Hahn, Juno Temple, Josh Radnor and Jane Lynch—have made a worthwhile adult drama full of painful humor. The Blu-ray looks first-rate; extras are a commentary and deleted scenes.
 
The Best Man Holiday
(Universal)
Director Malcolm D. Lee demonstrates that Tyler Perry doesn’t have a monopoly on soulful saccharine: this reunion of beloved characters is smartly filled with likable performers (Saana Lathan, Terrence Howard, Nia Long) who keep the soap opera silliness from getting completely out of hand.
 
But several false endings and an eye-rolling NFL game sequence make it tough to take it seriously, even if it obviously pleased a lot of people—so your mileage may vary. The Blu-ray image looks fine; extras include Lee commentary, gag reel, extended/deleted scenes, making-of featurette.
 
Gravity
(Warners)
A dazzling technical achievement—special effects, sound design and photography combine for a hell of a popcorn movie—this 91-minute rollercoaster ride keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
 
But this thin drama about astronauts in danger in outer space is, despite Sandra Bullock’s committed performance, not nearly the game changer critics, audiences and the Academy would have you believe: director Alfonso Cuaron cleverly visualizing his conceit, but when talk turns to Best Picture and Best Director, I ask: huh? The hi-def image is excellent; extras include hours of featurettes. (release date February 25)
 
Killing Kennedy
(Fox)
Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s best-seller spawned this routine recreation of what led JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald to that fateful November day in Dallas.
 
Although Rob Lowe’s Jack and Ginnifer Goodwin’s Jackie are caricatures, Will Rothhaar’s Oswald and Michelle Trachtenberg’s Marina Oswald are credible portrayals that are the most authentic thing about this by-the-numbers reenactment. The hi-def transfer looks good; extras include interviews and a making-of featurette.
 
DVDs of the Week
The Cheshire Murders
Glickman
(HBO/Warner Archive)
Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s chilling documentary Cheshire Murders devastatingly shows how a horrific multiple murder destroyed and tore apart more than one family; logical questions are asked, like did the police response exacerbate the situation, and will the death penalty give closure or bring back the victims? (We know the answers.) 
 
Glickman, James Freedman’s affectionate documentary, tells the fascinating life story of Marty Glickman, the Jewish track star who was barred from competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics who later became a beloved Knicks and Giants broadcaster.
 
Classic English Literature Collection—Volume 2
(PBS)
This mega-box set collects four adaptations of great English books that are distinguished by fine performances and handsome production values: an intense Jodhi May dominates Henry James’ eerie Turn of the ScrewRafe Spall and Elizabeth McGovern star in E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View; Freddie Fox takes the title role in Charles Dickens’ unfinished last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Billie Piper is an outstanding Fanny in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.
 
These great-looking and accomplished films might be conventional but are well worth watching. Extras comprise a selection of memorabilia that includes the four authors’ illustrations and hand-written letters.
 
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology
(Zeitgeist)
Slovene psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek’s provocative filmic analysis, shown in The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, returns in this follow-up, which comprises singular readings of everything from The Sound of Music to A Clockwork Orange. 
 
However, that director Sophie Fiennes has to go out of her way to have him in amusing settings like in front of the mirror in Taxi Driver or the boat from Jaws is a sign that his thought-provoking theses can’t support a 135-minute long film: their hit-or-miss quality eventually wears thin. The lone extra is a 30-minue Fiennes and Žižek Q&A.
 
Pussy Riot—A Punk Prayer
(Cinedigm)

There are less obvious ways to get a Russian dictator’s attention, but protest punk group Pussy Riot skipped any subtlety by making its blatant anti-Putin statement in a Moscow church, virtually guaranteeing their imprisonment (two members got two years for “hooliganism”—another had her sentence commuted and two other members left the country).

This straightforward documentary, which follows the trials, is interesting without being very illuminating. Extras include interviews.

Stage Reviews: Britten's 'Billy Budd' at BAM; 'After Midnight' on Broadway

Billy Budd

Composed by Benjamin Britten; directed by Michael Grandage
Performances February 7, 9, 11, 13, 2014
 
After Midnight
Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle
Tickets on sale through August 31, 2014
 
Britten's Billy Budd (photo: Richard Hubert Smith)
Aside from the Met Opera’s revival of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,the Benjamin Britten Centenary in New York barely took notice of what was, along with works by Richard Strauss and Hans Werner Henze, the greatest opera oeuvre of the 20th century. But the Brooklyn Academy of Music partially rectified that situation—albeit a month late—by welcoming England’s Glyndebourne Opera, whose electrifying Billy Budd again proves beyond doubt Britten’s theatrical and dramatic mastery.
 
No Britten stage work (with the possible exception of his final operatic masterpiece, Death in Venice) so brilliantly explores the composer’s recurring theme of the destruction of innocence as Billy Budd, which was adapted from Herman Melville’s novella about an angelic midshipman fated to his tragic demise when he clashes with the inscrutably evil Claggart on board the British warship Indomitable, helmed by the benevolent Captain Vere.
 
It’s Vere who is the emotional center of any Billy Budd, since Britten originally wrote the role for his lover and best interpreter, velvet-voiced tenor Peter Pears. Happily, director Michael Grandage’s gripping production boasts an indelible Vere in the form of tenor Mark Padmore, whose nuanced portrait of a proud man fiercely torn between military duty and morality is unforgettably moving. Jacques Imbrailo, as Billy, sings with great beauty and intelligence: his final mournful aria has rarely sounded so poignant. Claggart might be evil incarnate, but Brindley Sherratt sings the part with the requisite nuance to develop the character’s ambiguities.
 
The men of the Glyndebourne Chorus—which has a major role in this all-male opera—sound majestic throughout, particularly in the thrilling pre-battle scene that’s as exciting as anything Britten ever wrote. It’s all been skillfully conducted by Sir Mark Elder on Christopher Oram’s gigantic unit set, a cross-section of the ship that makes palpable the claustrophobia overwhelming the characters and their story. Would that this Billy Budd could run for more than a mere four BAM performances: it deserves to weigh anchor in New York City awhile longer.
 *****
I saw a scintillating show called Cotton Club Parade in 2011 as part of City Center’s Encores. Now rebranded After Midnight for an open-ended Broadway run, the show is as good as—maybe even better than—I remembered.
 
This spectacular revue, set in Harlem of the early 1930s, recreates a typical Cotton Club show of that era with the amazing Jazz at Lincoln Center All-stars performing tunes of Duke Ellington (who led the Cotton Club house band back then), Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, among others,; terrific dancers filling the stage with their wondrous art; and the wonderful singers—several doubling as dancers—whose vocal stylings bring a glorious musical age to vivid life.
 
With the onstage band often acting as foil to the performers, After Midnight rolls out its 26 musical numbers, tumbling in one after another, each a mesmerizing set piece for dance, song or both, from the explosive Ellington opener, “Daybreak Express,” to the joyous Ellington finale, “Cotton Club Parade.”
 
Dule Hill, our debonair guide for the evening (speaking texts by Langston Hughes), sings and dances with infectious enthusiasm; the redoubtable Adriane Lenox brings down the house—twice!—with boozily hilarious versions of “Women Be Wise” and “Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night”; Phillip Attamore and Daniel J. Watts are tap dancers of amazing variety; and American Idol alum Fantasia Barrino—whose last appearance was February 9—soulfully performs standards “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Stormy Weather”. (K.D. Lang replaced her starting tonight, and Babyface and Toni Braxton will do the honors in March.)
 
The music, in Duke Ellington’s original arrangements, can’t be beat, while director Warren Carlyle’s inventive choreography keeps everything moving—but it’s the performers whose singing and dancing make After Midnight essential Broadway entertainment.
 
Billy Budd
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, New York, NY
bam.org
 
After Midnight
Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 West 47th Street, New York, NY
aftermidnightbroadway.com

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