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Film and the Arts

January '17 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 04 January 2017 13:53; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Downton Abbey—The Complete Collection

(PBS)

The most watched PBS Masterpiece offering in history is this six-season series created by Julian Fellowes, who meticulously recreated the insular worlds of both masters and servants on a British estate, stretching from pre-World War I to the roaring (but still ominous) ‘20s.

What began as a sort of Upstairs, Downstairs for a new generation soon became an absorbing soap opera in its own right, with the likes of Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern and Hugh Bonneville playing the gentrified family members whose own domestic dramas are played out while their servants’ own lives undergo scrutiny. This 21-disc set comprises all 52 episodes from the half-dozen seasons, as well as plenty of bonus features that include on-set featurettes, interviews and five hours of previously unseen material.

Hamlet

(Opus Arte)

Young British actor Paapa Essiedu was one of the highlights of the recent Shakespeare Live! at Stratford for the 400^th anniversary of his death (shown on PBS), speaking Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech with clarity and power, so it’s heartening that he plays the part with intelligence and charisma in Simon Godwin’s otherwise unexciting staging at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The supporting cast is undistinguished except for Natalie Simpson’s emotive Ophelia, while directorial liberties obscure rather than illuminate. At least Essiedu shows he’s one of Britain’s great acting hopes. Hi-def video and audio are good; extras are Godwin’s commentary and behind the scenes featurette.

Hermann Prey—The Schubert Song Cycles

(C Major)

One of the best German lieder singers of the past half century, Hermann Prey was especially compelling performing his beloved Franz Schubert, and this disc brings together video recordings of him singing the three great Schubert song cycles: Die schone mullerin, Schwanengasang and Winterreise.

He’s in peak vocal form, and his piano accompanists (Leonard Hokanson on the first two, Helmut Deutsch on Winterreise) are with him every step of the way. Audio and video (these are recordings from 1984 and ‘86) are adequate; extras are Prey’s intros for all three cycles and a 50-minute documentary about his career.

Mefistofele

La Traviata

(C Major)

Recent stagings of two classic 19^thcentury operas are distinguished by top-notch casts, beginning with Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, brought into the musical stratosphere by peerless bass-baritone Rene Pape as the devil, tenor Joseph Calleja as Faust and a riveting Kristine Opolais as Margherita.

Verdi’s Traviata has at its center Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko, who makes the courtesan Violetta her own and may be well on her way to becoming the new Anna Netrebko, now that Netrebko has settled into a comfortable middle age. Both discs feature first-rate hi-def video and audio.

The Night Has a Thousand Desires

(Mondo Macabro)

Spanish softcore auteur Jess Franco made this 1984 pseudo-erotic thriller, characterized—as always—by his leading lady’s penchant for frequent disrobing, which, since the actress in question is Lina Romay (who’s easy on the eyes, whatever her merits as a thespian), it’s a not unpleasant way to spend 94 minutes.

Dramatically, Franco’s style is inert and turgid, but he does occasionally make things interesting if not entirely engrossing. The film looks decent enough on Blu-ray; extras comprise a Franco documentary and interview with horror-film buff Stephen Thrower.

DVDs of the Week

Britain’s Bloody Crown

(Athena)

Historian and English monarchy expert Dan Jones has made an engaging four-part document of royal history, essentially going over the same Wars of the Roses territory that the recent PBS Masterpiece series The Hollow Crown did via Shakespeare.

But even though Jones makes such red rivers of royal blood—through corruption, double-crossing and endless wars—come alive, he’s hamstrung by one of my ownbetes noires, re-created historical events, which even when done well as they are here seem inadequate to illuminate historical events.

The Secret Agent

(Acorn)

This adaptation of one of Joseph Conrad’s classic novels (albeit not as well-known as Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim) is centered by an accomplished performance by Toby Jones as a British businessman and family man who doubles—to the behest of no one, not even his wife—as a Russian spy.

This sumptuous three-hour adaptation, originally made for British TV, has several sequences where it spins its wheels dramatically and narratively, but overall it’s a stimulating, even at times gripping, piece of work.

CD of the Week

Manon Lescaut

(Deutsche Grammophon)

Giacomo Puccini’s tragic romance doesn’t really need another recording at this date, but when the lead role of that fatal beauty is sung by none other than Russian superstar Anna Netrebko at the top of her considerable vocal game, then why not?

Marco Armiliato sensitively conducts Puccini’s ravishing score in this performance from the most recent Salzburg Festival; too bad Netrebko’s husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov, is not up to snuff as Des Grieux, Manon’s bewitched lover.

Broadway Review—New Musical “A Bronx Tale”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 03 January 2017 13:26; Written by Kevin Filipski

A Bronx Tale

Book by Chazz Palminteri; music by Alan Menken; lyrics by Glenn Slater

Directed by Robert DeNiro and Jerry Zaks; choreographed by Sergio Trujillo

Opened December 1, 2016

Nick Cordero and Hudson Loverro in A Bronx Tale (photo: Joan Marcus)

Of all the musical adaptations that have cluttered the Broadway landscape recently, I didn’t have much hope for A Bronx Tale. Based on Chazz Palminteri’s autobiographical one-man stage show—itself turned into a 1993 film directed by and starring Robert DeNiro—it follows a young Italian boy, Calogero, befriended by a Mafia hood who becomes his strangely credible second father of sorts.

But despite such innately unmusical material, A Bronx Taleworks handily onstage. Palminteri’s book nicely balances the comic overtones of a streetwise kid’s growing up in the 1960s with the serious undertones of Sonny’s violent way of life. Even the romantic subplot between teenage Calogero and his girlfriend Jane plays out in an era of racial strife—Jane is black—giving added weight to what would otherwise be frivolous high school happenings.

Director Jerry Zaks’ forte is the zestiness of the staging, although the sudden violence and intense confrontations may be co-director DeNiro’s contribution. Always a clever hand with stage movement, Sergio Trujillo provides shapely and vigorous choreography. If Glenn Slater’s lyrics are passable at best and shopworn at worst, Alan Menken’s songs remain pleasantly entertaining al a Jersey Boys, which the framework of this show vaguely resembles.

The large cast is uniformly good, even if Richard H. Blake and Lucia Giannetta, both engaging as Calogero’s parents, have too little to do. Ariana Debose makes a winning Jane, and if Bobby Conte Thornton is a little too on the nose as the grown-up Calogero, Hudson Loverro is an irresistibly appealing presence as the young boy.

Best of all is Nick Cordero as Sonny, whom Palminteri played in the movie. In a bit of serendipity, Cordero also played Cheech in the Broadway version of Bullets over Broadway, which Palminteri had also played in Woody Allen’s classic movie. So Cordero has always shown adeptness at portraying hoods with a brilliantly uncanny way of simultaneously playing into the mobster stereotype and hilariously, even touchingly, transcending it.

That Cordero also has a fantastic stage presence—which he puts to thrilling use in his solo number, “One of the Great Ones”—earns him the overused sobriquet “show-stopper.” A Bronx Taleis a fun diversion, but Cordero makes it well-nigh unmissable.

A Bronx Tale

Longacre Theatre, 220 West 48th Street, New York, NY

abronxtalethemusical.com

Writer/Actor Laoisa Sexton Let's Fly “The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 23 December 2016 19:48; Written by Brad Balfour

The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal
Written by Laoisa Sexton
Directed by Alan Cox
Starring Laoisa Sexton, John Keating, Johnny Hopkins and Zoë Watkins

Within the relatively streamlined two hours of "The Pigeon in The Taj Mahal," a new play written by Irishwoman Laiosa Sexton, the words spoken by this odd quartet reveals more than just offbeat slangy patter; it presents both a lost inner world and the isolated world of Ireland’s West Country lifers.

When Eddie The Pigeon (John Keating) first appears on stage — a skeletal drink of water with a graying afro rooted on his head — his repetitious babble suggests someone with Asperger’s syndrome. His lives in a decrepit Winnebago — a home once shared with his now-deceased mother — surrounded by Elvis’ music and photos, and not much more. He works as a junkyard security guard and does little else, that is, until the night Lolly (Laoisa Sexton) lands on his doorstep, dropped off there while in a drunken, battered stupor.

Set in a rural trailer park, these two seem to be from very different cultures yet when they confront each other that night they connect in odd ways. He represents an older world of winding roads and lost pathways that not even tourists visit. Though she’s steeped in contemporary accouterment like iPhones and contemporary pop music, Lolly also comes from another kind of isolated life, one of poverty and the seemingly dead-end scene of drunken partying and mutually abusive long-term relationships.

Once Pigeon carries her into his hovel, where she’s revived by a spot of hot tea, the banter shifts from monologue to a dialogue of sorts — two conversations sometimes intersecting, other times passing by with shared misunderstanding. Clearly, he’s excited to find a young woman in smeared makeup and ripped tulle; he exclaims, “You have the uncommon beauty [of] a swan in a dirty lake!”

Dressed like a rumpled-yet-glittery punk-ified bride, Lolly wakes from her addled state acting aggressive yet also intrigued. At once threatening and manipulative, she alternates between being a waif and seductress who can’t quite get a handle on her mark. And when her pal Auntie Rosie (Zoë Watkins) arrives in an equally shattered-and-tattered state, frenzied interplay ensues. Within the banter lies both comedy and pathos. The dynamic between both camps — one lost in the past, the other in the present — highlights how both have become disconnected from realities that urbane city dwellers like us New Yorkers — are normally linked to.

In a funny way, there’s a relevance to this play, as if it’s about people who could be considered the “deplorables.” Especially once coke-head boyfriend Johnny (Johnny Hopkins) arrives to retrieve his consort/victim and joins in on the “dis-assemblage.”

Without stating any profundity here — especially because not much really happens — Sexton’s clever text and Alan Cox’s tight direction keeps the shambling conversation going. While they don’t really say anything that substantial, they survive in their various addled states without knowing exactly what to say — or think. They just drive forward without much reason or purpose but somehow we, as an audience, get it. The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal shows just how much these four people, and those whom they represent, try to survive — at least through this one night.

Rush to see “The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal” at the Irish Repertory Theatre (132 W. 22nd St., NY NY) before it closes this December 31st for its uniquely Irish verbal gymnastics; this convoluted and arcane wordplay makes it worth catching.

To learn more, go to: https://irishrep.org/

The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal

November 27 -December 31st, 2016

Irish Repertory Theatre
132 W. 22nd St.
New York, NY 10011

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

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