Broadway
Reviews – New York City
Broadway has always been an important form of entertainment.
Some call it the entertainment for the classes and those who
had the depth to understand the real story behind the show
being played.
While in New York, don't forget to make time for the costumes,
the scenery, the make-up, and the props of Broadway and Off-Broadway.
Do take a peek into these interesting plays and musicals
scheduled to come to Broadway for year 2005 --
Bye Mom!
Bye, Mom! Or, How Not to Bury Your Mother is a new comedy
by Susan Austin Roth.
This hilarious play is all about a stubborn Jewish mother,
her obsessed daughter and her married lover and three sons--a
nebbish, a nerd, and an airhead.
As the story unfolds, all converge in Florida and the result
is, as the press release puts it, "a nasty little comedy
about the lack of family values and the joy of family feuding."
Though the narrative is engrossing and manages to tickle our
funny bones at just the right moments. Roth's plotting could
do with more confidence in her (considerable) ability to conjure
an almost Chekhovian picture of the absurd collision of a
family whose, deep and unshakable love for one another makes
them weirdly functional against the odds.
By the end of Bye, Mom! We’ve come to believe in and
like her exaggerated creations, are rooting for their happiness.
That's a fine accomplishment for any mother.
The Lonely Way
The Lonely Way is a new adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's
-- Der Einsame Weg, which has been translated by Margret Schaefer
and Jonathan Bank. Bank, artistic director of Mint Theater,
directs this production.
This play is about a brilliant but failed artist named Julian
Fichtner, who has arrived at middle age with nothing to show
for his lifelong pursuit of pleasure, freedom, and self-expression.
After years of restless wandering, Julian returns home in
the hopes of giving meaning to his existence by getting close
to his 23-year-old son, a young soldier who has no idea that
Julian is his father.
Vicki R. Davis's abstract set, decorated sparingly by Frank
Gehry's stark mod furniture, is lovely; it provides a strong
visual clue to the play's focus on ideas rather than conventional
plot. Ben Stanton's lighting does an outstanding job establishing
mood, time, and place. The costumes, by Henry Shaffer, emphasize
the timelessness of the work and also give us something pretty
to look at, especially in the case of Bostnar's and Skinker's
wardrobe.
At the helm, Jonathan Bank does his usual expert work, giving
each of his actors the platform they need to state their case
and play to the galleries and winning our sympathies.
Many times throughout the play, the people on stage seem incredibly
aware that that's exactly where they are—acting in the
metaphorical drama of life that Shakespeare first postulated.
If only all of us could be so clear about our choices and
follies as we battle the unknowable destiny of events.
Happy Days
Worth Street Theater Company presents Beckett's famous existential
comedy Happy Days at Classic Stage Company. Worth Street’s
artistic director Jeff Cohen has directed this heartwarming
play starring Lea DeLaria and David Greenspan.
Happy Days traces the life of a middle-aged woman named Winnie.
It is implied strongly that the Earth is barren of much life,
and that she and Willie are resigned to living out what remains
of their days within their limitations.
Winnie speaks almost the entire text of the play, wonders
what she will do when words fail her, as they always do. She
enacts her rituals, her text economical, constructed as an
exercise in futility. But throughout, she is given moments
of profound beauty and yes, comic lines that ring with an
ache of truth. “Oh earth,” she says, “You old
extinguisher.”
Beckett’s work is a tightrope walk, and failure is more
common than success. Much like Shakespeare. In Beckett, though,
there are so few elements that a single actor or choice can
take away most of the pleasures. So it is with this production,
sadly.
In this interesting play, Beckett quotes Shakespeare’s
famous line: “Laughing wild amid severest woe.”
This production has indeed strikes the right balance between
the seriously funny and wild.
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