Loney's Show Notes

Poster for Broadway's revival of "Hair"

The Season Ends with a Bang, Revivals hit the Broadway Stage and the Outer Critics Circle's Nominations and Awards for 2008-2009 Season
Season's-End Now New Season's-Beginning, Geyser of Vomit in God of Carnage!, Neil LaBute's Now OK with Women in reasons to be pretty, Torture can be Fun in Chris Durang's New Crazy-Family-Drama: Why Torture Is Wrong, Sigmund Freud & Olympia Dukakis in Craig Lucas' Singing Forest at the Public, Jane Fonda Back on Broadway To Pursue Beethoven-Research in Bonn-Archives: 33 Variations, Tovah [Golda Meier] Feldshuh Plays a Righteous-Gentile in Irena's Vow, Lack of Chemistry onstage in Impressionism, White-Haired Jane Alexander Escapes Old-Folks-Home in Chasing Manet, Born-Again-Christian vs. Catholics in Savannah-Disputations, Only a Shadow of Dr. Martin Luther King in The Good Negro, Inked-Baby Needs Focus, Fired Wall-Streeter Joins The Dishwashers, Wordy Play on Words/John Cullum in Heroes, George Orwell's 1984 a Warning for Our Times!, The Cambria: Fugitive-Slave Frederick Douglass Escapes to Ireland!, Baghdadi-Bath at LaMaMa, Luv's Murray Schisgal Writes New Plays in Yiddish for Folksbiene!, Godot: Don't Wait Too Long To See It!, Mary Stuart Lives Again!, August Wilson Finds His Shining-Man & Song: Joe Turner's Come & Gone, Thornton Wilder's Our Town Revisited way down on Barrow-Street, Lusty Old Norman Delights Three-Times in Norman Conquests, Geoffrey Rush Goes Out with Comedic-Style in Ionesco's Exit the King, Angela Lansbury in Verey-High-Spirits in Blithe-Spirit!, DH Lawrence at the Mint: Widow Holroyd no Lady Chatterley, Desire may be Under the Elms, but there are Tons of Rocks Hanging-Up-Above!, Anti-Semitic French-Police Eager To Help Gestapo Round-Up Jews in Arthur-Miller's Incident at Vichy, Lack of Chemistry onstage in Accent on Youth/ Lack of Chemistry onstage in The Philanthropist, Wild Black Kid on Rampage: Zooman & the Sign, Pearl of a Play at Pearl: Molière's Tartuffe, Mini-Shakespeare-Fest: Hamlet, Henry V, & Merchant of Venice, Movies-into-Musicals: Billy Elliott: The Musical & Shrek: The Musical, Native-American Genocide: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, next to normal a Musical-Revelation, The Subway-Car To Nowhere: Happiness at Lincoln-Center/Manhattan's Toxic-Assets Dumped on New-Jersey: The Toxic Avenger Fights Back!, Rock of Ages Rocks!, Rooms More than Mere-Musical!, Dolly Parton's 9 To 5 Not as much Fun as her Horse-Opera Dinner-Theatres, Only Gisela May Could Be Lola Blau: Maybe She Was!, Hair Revival Lets Sunshine In on Broadway!, ¡Aqui se habla Español! West Side Story Returns!, Lack of Chemistry onstage in Guys & Dolls, Pickle-Family-Circus' Lorenzo Pisoni: A Childhood of Humor Abuse, Frank Blacker Amazing in Southern Gothic Novel: But Only on Wednesdays!, Audience Very Much Awake for Mike Birbiglia's Sleepwalk with Me!, Urban Indian Uneasy Off the Reservation, Nights at the Opera: Rusalka, Fledermaus, & Falstaff, Passionate St. Matthew at BAM, Cirque du Soleil returns to Randall's-Island with Kooza, New Victory's New-Victories: Black Violin, Rock ‘n Roll Penguin, & Queen of Colors, Wooster Group's La Didone in DUMBO, Peter Harvey, Karinska, & George Balanchine in Dresden at the Semper-Oper, Nominations & Winners: Outer-Critics-Circle Awards at Sardi's!

The Powel Crosley Theatre on Sarasota Bay.

Under the Sun of Sarasota
Great American Newspapers Are Dying: How Can Arts-Journalists & Theatre-Critics Survive?, American Theatre-Critics Confer in Circusy-Sarasota, Keeping Cool with Theatre-Ghosts, Downtown & Strung-Out Sarasota, Prodigious Performing- ts in Sarasota, The Ringling-Complex: Celebrating The Greatest Show on Earth, The John & Mabel Ringling Museum of Art/Howard Tibbals’ Amazing Miniature Howard Bros. Circus!, The Ringling Circus-Museum/Historic Asolo Opera-House & the olo-Rep, Florida-Studio-Theatre in Three Venues, Golden Apple’s Dinners & Musicals, The Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Van Wezel Hall: The Color Purple Overwhelms…

Lyn Nottage's ruined, Lisa Loomer's distracted and Broadway's without Mr. Schoenfeld
In Memoriam: Gerald Schoenfeld/Louis de Rougement Is Shipwrecked!/Cynthia Nixon is Distracted/Becky Shaw Not Quite Shavian/Third Story Not about Upper-Floor Burglars/Geo. W. Bush Should Impersonate Will Ferrell!/Candide Revelations about Voltaire’s Sex-Life/New-York-Governor Cornbury Cross-Dresses!/Behind the Wheel To Silver-Lake/Watch-Out for White-People!/Leaves of Glass, Not Grass!/Eight from Edinburgh/Gore Vidal & Tim McVeigh in Terre Haute/Dublin’s Gate-Theatre Gay-Duo/Fresh Kills Both a Dump & a Metaphor!/Mercedes Ruehl Rules in American Plan/Irish Aristocrats Unable To Function on Their Own/Look Where It Comes Again: Hedda Gabler Returns!/Redemption & Renewal: Magical Winter’s Tale at BAM/Chekhov-Revisited: Cherry Orchard also at BAM/Uncle Vanya in a Russki Country-Barn!/Some Target-Margin Blocks on The Camino-Real/Bill Prosser on Tennessee Williams’ Late Plays/Closed by Popular-Demand: Story of My Life/This Beautiful City: Born-Again in Colorado-Springs!/Immense Revolving-Set for Met’s New Trovatore Nothing To Crow About!/Hampson’s Ageing Onegin/Mark Morris Outshines & Overshadows Gluck’s Orfeo/Anna's Lucia at the Movies!/Two-Hander Search for the Golden-Fleece: Jason & the Argonauts/Wales-Week in NYC: Lonesome Valley & Clymau: Prince-of-Wales Executes Adulterous-Wife!/A Play of One’s Own: Virginia Woolf & SITI’s Freshwater/Magic of Shaolin: Kung-Fu & a Lost-Son/Lansky of the Jewish-Mafia/Rosemary Harris as the Pink-Lady/Clytemnestra Cries Out from the Ukraine!

What's on in the cold weather?
Tovah Feldshuh Saves Polish-Jews!/Moses on Steroids!/Craig Lucas Offers Prayer/Chris Noth in Farragut North/Foster-Brother in Dust/Ken Russell’s Mindgame Set Shrinks!/Saturn Returns [Three Times] at Lincoln Center’s Newhouse/Bare Wood-Frame for New House Under Construction/Mamet Returns Twice in Same Season: Buffalo-Speed/Druid Irish Cripple from Galway-Innishmaan!/Rabe’s Streamers Once Again/Dynamic Kevin T. Carroll in Home/Set-Devastation in Sarah Kane’s Blasted/Hallie & Horton Foote Move To Booth/Trio of Outstanding Young Billy Elliots!/Shrek Has Clever Lindsay-Abaire Lyrics/Let’s Get Road-Show Really on the Road!/Irish-Espionage in Improbable Frequency/Hoofer-Letters: Vaudeville-Man/Israel Bashevis Singer Sings: Moshe Yassur’s Gimpel Tam/Doubts about JP Shanley’s Musical, Romantic Poetry/Glittering Mock-Ziegfeld Schlock in Pal Joey/1950s Family-Values Live Again in White Christmas!/Tons of Shredded-Paper in Snowshow/Irish Rep’s Christmas in Wales/Crystal-Meth Perils in New Victory’s Cranked/Brilliant Lepage Faust Staging at Met/Renée Fleming in Christian Lacroix Gowns as Massenet’s Thaïs/Delightful Art-Deco La Rondine/Euro-Trash Don Giovanni/Visual Splendors of Queen of Spades/Abstractly Asian-Influenced Tristan und Isolde with Linda Watson/Met-Opera Ticket-Lottery: $25 for Orchestra-Seats!/Mortier Deserts City Opera/Five Hoppers Inspire Impressive New American Opera: Later the Same Evening/Wal-Mart Walton Patroness of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet/Mike Daisey Worried About Nuclear-Holocaust: If You See Something…/Williamsburgher Danny Hoch Mocks Newly-Arrived Gentrifiers!/Pina Bausch Channels Bollywood in Bamboo Blues at BAM/Liza Survives the Palace/Hieronymus Bosch Soars at Minetta Lane/Subversion & Perversion in Weimar Girls/Snooping in Thornton Wilder’s Correspondence/42nd Street Theatres Revisited by Mary Henderson & Alexis Greene: What Theatre-Goers Have Lost.

If I ever see another vontz, it'll be too soon!
Why The Disconnect & Delay in Show-Notes Reports, STRANGE BED-FELLOWS: Between the Sheets with Gregor Samsa & Franz Kafka, THE ANGEL IN THE ARK, Or A Dream of Hay-Fever Transmuted Into A Revelation…, THE DREAM THAT SAVED MY LIFE, Changing Dream-Channels at Mid-Night From Bad to Worse, DREAMING THE FUTURE OR WISH-FULLTHINKING?, Imperfect Mental-Telepathy From the Sierra Foothills to El Salvador, A NEW WAY TO REPORT ON PRODUCTIONS PAST & PRESENT, Old Musicals in Revival, Other Entertainments/Other Venues, A Very Mixed-Bag, Puppets at La MaMa: "KO'OLAU" & "THE DOLL SISTERS, " Moments-Musicaux, Annual Arts Awards & Prizes, THE THEATRE HALL OF FAME, THE THEATRE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION AWARDS, THE BRENDAN GILL PRIZE. A vonz, by the way, is a bedbug.

Previous articles from Loney's Show Notes

Croyden's Corner

"Billy Elliot The Musical"
It is no wonder that "Billy Elliot" won so many Tony awards. Rightly so. If you want to have a total theater experience and a memorable evening full of joy and exuberance, see "Billy Elliot, " a remarkable achievement. Although "Billy Elliot" is listed as a Broadway musical, it is not an ordinary one. With a poignant story and some terrific acting, besides unusual dancing, and gifted young people who make up the plot, I assure you will be happy when you come out of the theater and will long remember it. By Margaret Croyden.

Waiting For Godot
What a pleasure to see grown up theater once again, to listen to a play with ideas, and to be in the presence of Samuel Beckett, the literary genius who knew how to express man's deepest feelings about existence, and inability to accept it for what it is, and always will be. The story is simple. Two tramps are on a bleak road waiting for someone called Godot. By Margaret Croyden.

Desire Under The Elms
The current production of O'Neill's "Desire Under The Elms, " which originated in the Goodman Theater of Chicago, illustrates the perils of cutting down a masterpiece, as well as other producing issues. By Margaret Croyden.

"Mary Stuart"
Political history aside, the play while historically misleading gives two actors, Jane Mcteer and Harriet Walter, an opportunity to act up a storm. And they do. Each has a big scene, and each dominates the stage in her own way. By Margaret Croyden.

"Blithe Spirit"
Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit" has always been a favorite vehicle for those who love English drawing room comedies and English manners. This is the kind of play that on matinee days in London, when the house was full of women, tea was served in the intermission, and the audience was quite adept in handling tea on their lap. By Margaret Croyden.

"Hapiness, " a Musical
"Happiness" is about ten people who find themselves on a train that stops on the tracks and won't move. All are trapped. But one by one they get out. But getting out means they are about to meet their maker. So the train has been a stop to heaven or to hell. Take your pick. By Margaret Croyden.

"Exit The King"
Ionesco wrote "Exit the King" as a farce. But sometimes for an accomplished comic, virtuosity can have its price. Australian screen actor Geoffrey Rush, with his admirable physical abilities, errs on the side of too much clowning in this production. By Margaret Croyden.

"God of Carnage"
"God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza, who gave us the delightful play "Art, " is a memorable work, full of humor, gaiety, and a certain madness all within the framework of a hilarious farce. Underneath the comedy are Reza's ideas on marriage, children, Wall Street, do-gooders, poseurs, liars and fools--emblems of the bourgeois class which she patently scorns. By Margaret Croyden.

Samantha Mathis, left, Colin Hanks, and Jane Fonda perform in "33 Variations, " currently running at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York.

"Jane Fonda in 33 Variations"
Fonda undertakes a most unusual character. She plays a music scholar who has a deadly disease with little time to live. Nevertheless, obsessed with Beethoven's many years of writing the 32 variations based on Anton Diabelli's little waltz, she wants to ferret out why Beethoven spent so much time with this project. She decides she must go to Bonn to research the master's life. An interesting idea to be sure. By Margaret Croyden.

"Speed the Plow"
In "Speed the Plow, " running at the Barrymore Theater, David Mamet is still ranting about the evils of American business. The actor Raul Esparza portrays a nasty overly ambitious, unfaithful friend remarkably. His fast pace, his terrific body language, his movements are unique. In fact, it is one of the most worked-out performances this season. By Margaret Croyden.

About Hedda Gabler
Mary Louise Parker has taken on one of Ibsen's greatest dark heroines. This is admirable in itself, but there is a gap between what's realized in this Roundabout Theater production and what happend when there is a deep understanding of the play and the role. By Margaret Croyden.

Meditations on being charged by an American Buffalo
David Mamet is one of the most successful contemporary playwrights and has always created a stir in the theater. With a good deal of positive recognition, he continues to work in all the media."American Buffalo" is a case in point. First produced in 1977 on Broadway, it has been revived yet again this year. After so many years, can Mamet be evaluated differently? By Margaret Croyden.

"The Grand Inquisitor "
With "The Grand Inquisitor, " Peter Brook has forsaken big productions for simple storytelling on an almost bare stage. In his earliest book, "The Empty Space, " he declared that his main effort in theater would be storytelling (not dominated by great pyrotechnical inventions) by actors on a simple stage who, by themselves, could make theater come alive. In "The Grand Inquisitor" he has carried out his long desired wish tell a story (without complicated theatrics) with actors who can live on stage who can be present, and just "be." By Margaret Croyden.

The real man in "A Man for All seasons"
Frank Langella is a real thoroughbred. An actor whose presence dominates the stage, he captures every moment, displaying an honesty and theatricality that few actors can achieve. More importantly, he has the energy to give life to a work what might otherwise be boring. "A Man For all Seasons, " a revival of many years, patently comes to life because of Langella. Not that the play is uninteresting. It is about nobility of a certain kind, the kind that remains constant. It is about consistency of beliefs, no matter the price. Perhaps some might find the subject talky and overly intellectualized, which can be hard to take, but Langella overcomes all the pitfalls of the play. By Margaret Croyden.

Yawning at "The Seagull"
If one is bored by Chekhov, something is wrong. First of all, London's Royal Court theater director Ian Rickson failed to energize the actors. They stand around, sit around, and talk without much obvious motivation although the text, as written, is full of life and vigor. To be sure, Chekhov's characters do talk, but beneath the conversations are the characters' complicated feelings. What they say is not as important as their inner life, in opposition to their talk. Chekhov's dialogue may be bizarre, amusing, illogical, even insensible but none of it can be played at face value. At the heart of the play are the contradictions of the characters, their underlying emotions, sometimes hidden, sometimes exposed, so that they say is not as important to what they really feel. This is what gives a Chekhov play its demensions. By Margaret Croyden.

Top Girls by Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill, the British playwright has always had a successful run with her body of work. Her plays have been presented in New York several times and received with great enthusiasm and respectable notices. This revival of "Top Girls" which opened twenty years ago at the Public Theater under the directorship of the great Joe Papp, also received unanimous praise. Last year one of Ms. Churchill's plays "Drunk Enough to Say I love You" had a similar approval. In fact Ms. Churchill's entire body of work since the nineteen seventies has won large audiences and much acclaim. Each time one of her plays is announced in New York, she is sure to create a fuss; she caters to a very special audience.

Previous articles from "Croyden's Corner"

Wehle's World

Shining through the Gloom thanks to BAM’s 2008 Next Wave Festival
BAM’s Next Wave Festival’s 2008 season began with two exciting productions that proved to be great antidotes to the depressed mood that pervades so much of our lives these days.What better way to come out of the doldrums than to take a trip to BAM to discover such treasures as The Reykjavik City Theatre and Vesturport’s adaptation of Buchner’s “Woyzeck” with original music by Australian rocker Nick Cave and Bad Seed’s violinist Warren Ellis? By Philippa Wehle.

"Surrender" is not surrender!
"Surrender" is a masterful achievement on all fronts. Not only have Josh Fox and The International WOW Company succeeded in producing an important piece about the war in Iraq, but the interactive nature of the show allows both soldiers and observers to get a much closer look at what it means to volunteer for duty, to train, kill and be killed, than we ever get from televised reports of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.. How they manage to harness the energies, dedication and enthusiasm of a new group of amateur players each time the show is performed is equally remarkable. Unfortunately, this memorable show only runs for three weeks. I can only hope that it will find other sponsors and another space so that many more people can observe war close up. By Philippa Wehle.

Other Contributors

Harold Pinter.

Harold Pinter at a dinner party in Turkey, where the playwright challenged the U.S. ambassador
British playwright Harold Pinter died on December 24, 2008. He was a man committed to political freedom and did his part to promote it. By Lucy Komisar.

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