Off-Broadway Roundup: Sept. 11 Revisited; Hearts vs. Minds

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 20 September 2011 10:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Sweet and Sad
Written and directed by Richard Nelson
Starring Jon DeVries, Shuler Hensley, Maryann Plunkett, Laila Robins, Jay O. Sanders, J. Smith-Cameron

Completeness
Written by Itamar Moses
Directed by Pam Mackinnon
Starring Brian Avers, Aubrey Dollar, Meredith Forlenza, Karl Miller

Civilized people having civil conversations, Richard Nelson’s stock-in-trade, reached its apogee with last fall’s That Hopey Changey Thing. Too bad that such lively talk turns dull in Sweet and Sad, a Hopey Changey sequel that finds the Apple family of the Hudson River town of Rhinebeck together on the afternoon of September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that changed America.

Where Hopey Changey was filled with delicious, diverting political discourse, Sweet and Sad merely marks time as its characters dance around one another, discussing any little thing to avoid the September 11 elephant in the room: their avoiding “big” topics makes the rest of the dialogue a muddle. (That Nelson has Marian Apple’s teenage daughter commit suicide some months before the play begins smacks of dramatic desperation, an attempt to conjure an event that‘s as personally cataclysmic and traumatic as September 11 was for our collective psyche.)

Indeed, it’s not until the last 30 minutes, when they can no longer avoid the issue, that talk returns to 10 years earlier and their emotions finally, touchingly well up. Nelson uses Walt Whitman’s The Wound Dresser not only for his play’s title but also to pad his running time. Uncle Ben recites the poem as a run-through for his doing the same at a memorial service later that evening, and its vivid description of the Civil War’s horror makes an obvious if unoriginal parallel to our unbrave new post-September 11 world.

The acting sextet (comprising Jon DeVries, Shuler Hensley, Maryann Plunkett, Laila Robins, Jay O. Sanders and J. Smith-Cameron) is as good an ensemble as in the previous play, and Nelson says he will return to the Apple family for at least two more episodes in their lives. Let’s hope that the Apples (and Nelson) can get back on track, conversing  pointedly as in Hopey Changey, rather than wanly as in Sweet and Sad.

Completeness is an overstuffed romantic comedy about exceptionally smart people--graduate students and their professors--who are more adept with their minds than their hearts. Itamar Moses’ play nods to Tom Stoppard’s and Michael Frayn’s work in its melding of the cerebral and the romantic, his characters alternating between spouting arcane, nearly incomprehensible (to this layman) gibberish about mathematical theories and problems to solve, then stammering, hemming and hawing about their inability to find love that’s satisfying.

The play revolves around computer scientist Elliot and molecular biologist Molly, grad students who leave their current lovers (his another grad student, Lauren, hers her faculty advisor, Don) to get together. But they discover that being compatible physically and mathematically doesn’t mean they are soul mates. Moses does, however, provide an open ending, where it’s possible that they may try again, which may end in failure like their attempted  problem-solving through algorithms.

Moses’ uneven dialogue never gets a handle on these people. While they run their mouths about mathematical matters, they pepper their talk with inarticulate interjections like “like” and “f++k” and other unscientific terminology. If Moses was taking satirical swipes at these supposed brilliant characters by showing how they become tongue-tied when dealing with matters of the heart, that would be one thing, but since they speak like that all the time, that’s doubtful.

Pam Mackinnon directs energetically, but she’s flummoxed by the wrongheaded scene where the two supporting actors appear in front of the audience as themselves to no discernable point. On David Zinn’s nicely appointed set that stands in for student apartments and school study areas, a fine acting quartet acquits itself well, particularly in the schizophrenic dialogue they‘re forced to say. 

In all, despite its allusions to high science and higher love, Completeness feels strangely incomplete.

Sweet and Sad
Performances through September 25, 2011
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY
http://publictheater.org

Completeness
Performances through September 25, 2011
Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
http://playwrightshorizons.org

For more by Kevin Filipski, visit The Flip Side blog at http://flipsidereviews.blogspot.com

Kevin's September '11 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 20 September 2011 07:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week
The Big Bang Theory: Season 4 (Warners) and Sanctuary: Season 3 (MPI)
The Big Bang Theory, about the relationships between nerdy brainiacs and a brainless beauty, gets comic mileage from its central trio: Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons and underrated comedienne Kaley Cuoco. Sanctuary, about a scientific team tracking down and studying terrifying creatures, balances small-scale stories with extravagant visual effects.

Both series (especially Sanctuary’s elegantly weird visuals) gain immeasurably from Blu-ray’s higher resolution; Theory bonuses include cast interviews and a gag reel, while Sanctuary bonuses include featurettes about the cast, music, effects and creators.

Citizen Kane (Warners)
Rightly celebrated as The Great American Movie, Orson Welles’ towering debut remains a remarkable achievement, with an innovative narrative structure that still works strongly 70 years later. And the sterling Blu-ray transfer only enhances Gregg Toland’s lustrous B&W compositions, as well as throwing Welles’ youthful genius into sharp relief: he never topped himself in the next 40+ years of making (or trying to make) movies.

Warners’ anniversary edition includes extras like the controversial documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane, an HBO movie, RKO 281, based on the documentary, Roger Ebert and Peter Bogdanovich commentaries and featurettes.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (Magnolia)

How much you enjoy this record of Conan O’Brien’s post-Tonight Show firing North American comedy tour will depend on your allegiance to the talk-show host: simply put, if you’re a rabid Coco fan, you don’t need to be told to watch this pleasant if inconsequential documentary; if you’re not, you won’t become a fan after watching it.

The movie’s guerrilla shooting style and talking heads interviews don’t look appreciably better on hi-def; extras include additional footage, an O’Brien interview and commentary.

Henry’s Crime (Fox)
Set in a drably working-class Buffalo (with the Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown standing in for an intimate local theater), this unassuming, ultimately innocuous comic drama is about a quiet man, after serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, falls in love with a local actress and sets about planning a heist with the hardened criminal with whom he shared a cell.

Keane Reeves is too wooden in the lead but Vera Farmiga and James Cann lend color as the actress and partner in crime, respectively. Director Malcolm Venville’s dull color palette is recreated faithfully on Blu-ray; there are no extras.

Last Night (Miramax/Echo Bridge)
Movies don’t get much more glamorous than Massy Tadjedin’s sophisticated-looking but superficial examination of a couple dealing with temptations of both flesh and spirit. Keira Knightley (never more ravishing) and Sam Worthington (without Avatar’s blue pigment) are the couple.

That Sam has the chance to cheat with the equally gorgeous Eva Mendes makes his predicament even more difficult. A listless Guillaume Canet rounds out the quartet. Glitzy shots of Manhattan look stunning on Blu-ray; no extras.

Meek’s Cutoff (Oscilloscope)
Kelly Reichert’s minimalist western about lost settlers on the Oregon Trail in 1845 turning to a captured Indian to lead them to desperately-needed water is nicely shot (in academy ratio) by cinematographer Chris Blauvelt but puts its characters through predictable paces.

The cast is part authentic (Michelle Williams, Will Patton, Bruce Greenwood), part disastrously contemporary (Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan). Reichert’s effective editing keeps one hopeful about the outcome of what, disappointingly, turns out to be a shaggy-dog allegory about Presidents Bush and Obama. The film does have a glorious hi-def transfer; the lone extra is a making-of documentary.

3 Women (Criterion)
Robert Altman’s dreamscape, while not a direct rip-off of Persona, is so influenced by Ingmar Bergman’s superior character study that it makes one wince while watching it.

Still, for all its half-baked ideas and dime-store psychology, Altman’s visual sense and superb actresses (Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall, both never better) keep interest, no matter how silly his antagonists become. The Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray transfer gives this 1977 drama an appropriately grainy look; Altman’s enlightening commentary is included.

X-Men: First Class (Fox)
Matthew Vaughn’s prequel to the smash hit movie franchise introduces several mutant characters in a convoluted plot tying their coming-of-age exploits alongside the tense world situation between the two superpowers in 1961: but combining the Cuban missile crisis with comic book silliness is a waste of (overlong) storytelling.

The performers, from Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy to January Jones, Rose Byrne and Jennifer Lawrence, do their best but are outclassed by CGI effects and makeup, all looking superb on Blu-ray; extras include a making-of documentary and deleted and extended scenes.

DVDs of the Week
Bill Cunningham New York (Zeitgeist)
This engaging chronicle of the New York Times’ legendary photographer shows Bill Cunningham’s unique take on both his work and navigating the busy New York City streets for decades.

Cunningham comes off as eccentric but appealing, and his photographs--which are still being published every Sunday in the Times’ Style section--superbly balance the fashion world with the everyday world. Extras include additional scenes and interviews.

Rescue Me: The Sixth Season and the Final Season (Sony)
Denis Leary’s no-holds-barred drama limped to its end with the seventh season finale; both the sixth and seventh seasons are included in this five-disc, 19-episode set, continuing the immature shenanigans of Tommy Gavin, his women (superbly played by Andrea Roth and Callie Thorne) and his fellow firefighters.

Too bad the show’s copout finale (only one character dies in what looks like a conflagration) sums up its inability to deal seriously with life-or-death situations without screaming and drinking. The tremendous cast (minus the incredibly dull Adam Ferrara) smooths over the writing’s rough patches. Extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel and cast and creator interviews.

Vera (Acorn Media)
Brenda Blethyn’s intelligent performance as tough-as-nails detective solving violent crimes is the focus of this absorbing four-episode mini-series shot in picturesque villages of the Northumberland section of England.

Alongside Blethyn’s usual excellence is good support from David Leon, Wunmi Mosaku and Paul Ritter as her harried co-workers and guest stars like Gina McKee, Kerry Fox and John Lynch, who portray suspects or witnesses. This is gritty storytelling done well, as is usually the case with these BBC productions.

Von Heute auf Morgen (Dynamic)
Arnold Schoenberg’s absurdist, atonal 1929 comic opera, about the disarmingly simple story of a bickering couple, works better in theory than execution, for Schoenberg’s unwavering 12-tone music doesn’t really allow the comic aspects to breathe.

But the energy of this 2008 Venice production gives the work its due, glossing over the writing’s bumpiness: the singers (Georg Nigl, Brigitte Geller), musicians (Orchestra del Teatro la Fenice) and staging (by Andreas Homoki) are all exemplary.

CDs of the Week
Falla: Piano Music (Harmonia Mundi)
20th century Spanish master Manuel de Falla’s entire oeuvre for solo piano fits easily onto one CD, and it’s explored with a combination of sure technical prowess by pianist Javier Perianes.

Perianes also exquisitely performs Falla’s grandest composition for piano and orchestra, Nights in the Garden of Spain, accompanied by the sensitive playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Josep Pons.

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben/Four Last Songs (BIS)
Works from opposite ends of Richard Strauss’s long and storied career--an early, blistering orchestral tone poem and four delicately scored late songs--are performed with the necessary delicacy and bravado by the Rotterdam Philharmonic, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s steady conducting.

Soprano Dorothea Roschmann sings the Four Last Songs with subtlety, wringing every emotional moment from Strauss’s exceptionally elegant score.

Theater Review: Sondheim's 'Follies' Returns

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 16 September 2011 10:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Follies
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Goldman
Directed by Eric Schaeffer; choreographed by Warren Carlyle
Starring Bernadette Peters, Jan Maxwell, Danny Burstein, Ron Raines

Is there a perfect musical? Maybe not, but Follies has nearly everything: James Goldman’s superbly savvy book; Stephen Sondheim’s memorable and character-defining music and lyrics; a sly flashback structure, alternating between nostalgia and razor-sharp relationship dissection; and, of course, meaty musical moments for top-notch performers.

Unfortunately, Follies productions have been imperfect, starting with 1971’s original. The forgettable 2001 Broadway revival directed by Matthew Warchus wasted Blythe Danner and Judith Ivey, while the 2007 Encores! staging (with a scintillating Donna Murphy) sadly never transferred to Broadway. Eric Schaeffer’s new production, which began at Washington’s Kennedy Center, takes place on Derek McLane’s shrewdly rundown theater set, but never gets a firm handle on the show’s vignettes.

Follies’ main flaw? It introduces former Follies girls but gives all but the main characters Sally and Phyllis a lone chance to shine in songs driven not by narrative but nostalgia. Schaeffer efficiently stages them thanks to Warren Carlyle’s clever choreography, and veterans like Elaine Paige, Rosalind Elias and Mary Beth Peil make a good impression, but they are simply fodder separating the dramatic scenes among the lead couples.

Sally is married to Buddy but still carries a torch for Ben, who’s married to Phyllis. After they get reacquainted in the first act, they eventually rediscover long-dormant feelings--shown in flashbacks as the youthful foursome mirrors the present-day one--while the second act displays their heightened emotions in rousing, musical-within-a-musical form, each receiving a solo spotlight to convey those feelings.

As Sally, Bernadette Peters (a youthful 63, by the way) is as lissome as ever, breaking hearts with the poignant showstopper “Losing My Mind”; as Buddy, Danny Burstein tirelessly moves about the stage, bringing down the house with “The ‘God Why Don’t You Love Me‘ Blues”; as Phyllis, Jan Maxwell is as bitingly funny and adorable as ever, even if she overdoes the blustery comic hurt in “Could I Leave You?”; as Ben, Ron Raines is reliably sturdy right through the show’s final number “Live, Laugh, Love.”

Whenever Schaeffer doesn’t satisfactorily navigate Sondheim and Goldman’s seminal musical waters, the stars and Sondheim’s great, lasting songs come to the rescue. 

Follies
Marquis Theatre
1535 Broadway, New York, NY
Previews began Aug. 7, 2011; opened Sept. 12; tickets on sale through Jan. 1, 2012
http://folliesbroadway.com

For more by Kevin Filipski, visit The Flip Side blog at http://flipsidereviews.blogspot.com