SPRING 2011 THEATERGOING: NOTABLE EXPERIENCES

Lil' ol me in front of the Friedman Theatre, W. 47th Street, home to Good People on Broadway, starring Becky Ann Baker, Tate Donovan, Frances McDormand, and Estelle Parsons.

Good People, presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, written by Pulitzer-Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire is truly the highlight of my Spring theatergoing.

Frances McDormand gives a towering performance as “Margie” a down-on her luck “Southie”, (working class) woman recently fired from her menial job working from a dollar store. Her friend and landlady (Becky Ann Baker and Estelle Parsons) tell her that perhaps a way to remedy her impoverished circumstances is to ask an old flame who has moved back into town, now a successful doctor (Tate Donovan).

Summoning her courage and thinking of her and her mentally challenged daughter Joyce’s circumstances (unseen), Margie makes her way to Dr. Mike’s office, and eventually his “comfortable” Chestnut Hill home where an inevitable confrontation ensues between Margie, Dr. Mike and his pretty literature professor wife, Kate.

The play explores class and racial divides, and also of what it means to truly identify with a culture or way of life growing up; and of the life choices we make in order to live. The play bristles with ambiguity and sadness, and Ms. McDormand truly delivers a transparent performance that simmers with anger and resignation at the blink of an eye.

Her truly human performance is a timely one in which we all can identify with: Someone who is unemployed, someone who has to have a purpose in life to keep going; and of someone who truly has to find a way to speak and act in order to survive. She’s human, and we truly remember what she goes through. On a final note, the play is also about the results of good luck and chance encounters in which play a role in what eventually defines our destiny.

Ms. McDormand’s performance ranks in probably what is my top three female play (not musical theater performances) in terms of the scope of the humanity they brought to their portrayals: Cate Blanchett’s Blanche from the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s revival of A Streetcar Named Desire; and of Vanessa Redgrave’s disturbing and heartbreaking Mary Tyrone in the 2003 Broadway revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

BAM's 2009 Production of Streetcar- Cate Blanchett as Blanche DuBois

Vanessa Redgrave in Long Day's Journey Into Night

Anything Goes, starring Tony Winners Sutton Foster and Joel Grey, a revival presented by the Roundabout Theater Organization is truly a fun experience for all musical theater lovers. Right now it’s in preview performances and not set to open until April. But watching musical theater actors and dancers at the top of their game and having a fun romp with Cole Porter’s witty songs is what makes this revival worth revisiting since the 1989 Lincoln Center revival starring La Patti LuPone. Highlights include Laura Osnes and Colin Donnell’s romantic duet (“De-Lovely”), Mr. Grey and Ms. Foster’s hilarious duet, “Friendship” and a rock-rolling ensemble performance of “Blow Gabriel Blow”.

The show is a farcical one with a far-fetched plot: Ms. Foster plays Reno Sweeney, a singing evangelist who promotes behavior consisting of debauchery and decadence traveling aboard a ship via New York to London in the early 1930s. Among the passengers of the SS American include a lovesick tycoon’s assistant (Colin Donnell) in love with an engaged debutante Hope Harcourt (Laura Osnes) traveling with her stuffy and prim mother, (Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter); the lonely tycoon in love with the elder Mrs. Harcourt (Fosse and Sondheim veteran John McMartin), and Public Enemy #2 Snake Eyes (Mr. Grey) and his moll.

While the zaniness of the musical seem to run out at times, with the occasional middling direction; it is Ms. Foster’s tap dancing numbers that save the show and truly enthralls.

Her energy is boundless, especially in the expanded title number and its tap sequences that have been tailor-made for her amazing triple-threat abilities.

Starring: Sutton Foster, Joel Grey, John McMartin, Jessica Walter, Colin Donnell, Laura Osnes and directed by Kathleen Marshall.

Strange Adventures and Winging It

Me eating at the Noodles of the World, Atlantic City at the Borgata

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown at the Belasco Theater: Starring Patti LuPone, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Sherie Rene Scott and Laura Benanti.

Okay. The twenty inches of snow that's just been dumped in South Jersey, New York, and all over the Northeast is just plain ridiculous. I miss living in the Northeast, but enough is enough. Snow's something that makes me happy that I've moved to sunny Florida even though I miss NYC and all of its cultural trappings.

I was supposed to go to New York on the day after Christmas from South Jersey. It's been fun over there--visiting an aunt and an uncle on my mother's side. Two cousins too. One visiting from the Philippines. Anyway, plans were dashed. I think just like the rest of the world's, who were also in the same predicament as I was in.

Two friends, Gina and Walter from Brooklyn were supposed to take me back with them. They were in the neighboring town of Mount Holly, twenty minutes away from Blenheim, the town I was staying at. They too got stranded in the snow.

So...what happened?

I watched most of The Wire, Season 2 and got to know the stevedores. Poor Frank, Nick and Ziggy Sobatka. Human trafficking also played a huge part. It's all about the death of American manual labor in Baltimore. I have two episodes to go....

My aunt in Blenheim saw that I had a hankering for Chinese food. She suggested a 2AM run to Atlantic City at the Noodles of the World Restaurant. My cousin Kristina came along for the ride. Yummy General Tso's Chicken. Dumplings. Pad Thai. So delish. I exploded internally. Also coffee, carrot cake, and croissants afterwards. Three in the morning I tell you!

Kristina and I saw Auntie on the slot machines. Wow. Had no clue she was into gambling. Gambling! Holy toledo! And She actually won some cash. No kidding.

The next day, Gina and Walter finally rescued me from snowy Jersey. Not that I wanted to escape my family, but I needed to get to NYC. Pronto. Auntie decided to take us to a jumbo, super buffet. Popular with us Asians. So yummy. We all pigged out. Including Kristina, Walter and Gina.

An hour before arriving to New York, I scored tickets to see the Lincoln Center Production of Pedro Almodovar's film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Patti LuPone, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Sherie Rene Scott and Laura Benanti starred. Weak first forty-five minutes until Laura Benanti's zany and loony character shows up. Using her knowledge of Sondheimisms, she delivers a hilarious song about being needy on the phone. Did I mention her boyfriend was a terrorist? The rest of the show? So-so. Middling songs. Talent wasted and underused at times. Dead earnestness for Sherie Rene Scott's not a good thing. She was screaming to be cut loose. Patti LuPone gets a torch song, but it was pedestrian at best. Brian Stokes Mitchell was the weakest link of the leads. He just gets to use that hot baritone of his and literally sing, nothing but bla bla blahhhh....

Tapas after. Gina and Walter and I ran into an old friend and his boyfriend. Had delicious cheese and Malbec. Lots of chicken liver and toasted baguettes. Then night night in Brooklyn.

Strange enough, I accomplished all this just by taking it easy and not planning everything. Isn't that nice?