Saints Go Marching OnExactly three years ago this week,
I reviewed Kate Fodor's fear-of-God-inducing
100 Saints You Should Know during its initial Off-Broadway run at
Playwrights Horizons.
For those New Yorkers who didn't have an opportunity to see that incarnation, you'll now have a chance to see another production.
Rebecca Hengstenberg is directing Pat Clune, Pat Dwyer, Catherine Goodman, Eddie Vona and Ellen Warner in a strictly limited engagement for this provocative play at
The Shell Theater (300 West 43rd Street 4th floor) this September 22-25 at 8:00 p.m. and September 26 at 2:00 p.m.
100 Saints You Should Know is described by
SmartTix as follows:
Theresa is estranged from her family and working as a cleaning woman when she is surprised by the desire to learn how to pray. Matthew, the priest whose rectory she cleans, is stunned and heartbroken by the realization that he no longer knows how to talk to God. When Matthew disappears one day, Theresa feels compelled to track him down, and her search changes both of their lives.
While I regret not being available to be there for any of next weekend's performances -- especially given how moved I was three years ago by Fodor's compelling story of life and death as faith intersects with doubt -- I certainly wish I'd be able to see it anew.
If you have a chance to see the production, please let me know what you think. For tickets, please click
here.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
In keeping with the new that unfairly discriminate against bloggers, who are now required by law to disclose when they have received anything of value they might write about, please note that I have received nothing of value in exchange for this post. Labels: 100 Saints You Should Know, Catherine Goodman, Eddia Vona, Ellen Warner, Kate Fodor, Off-Broadway, Pat Clune, Pat Dwyer, Play, Rebecca Hengstenberg
SOB's Best Of 2007-08: Best New PlaysIf you're a fan of new plays over musicals, this was truly your year. The 2007-08 Theatrical Season marked a resurgence in exceptional plays.
Personally, I was fortunate to see 18 new plays, not only coast-to-coast across America, but also in London. And guess what? I actually
enjoyed most of them, making my picks for the "Top 5" the most difficult category to select.
However, reigning supreme at the number one spot is a show I instantly fell in love with the first time I saw it last summer at a regional theatre (and for regular readers, you'll allow that I was way ahead of the curve on this one). Now that it's on Broadway, I'm preparing to take it in for second time there and third time overall. As the best play I've seen this year, let alone the past decade, it has set a new standard by which I've begun judging all other productions.
Here is my personal "5 Best" list for the past twelve months:
5 - 100 Saints You Should Know (Mainstage Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, New York, NY)
At the intersection where faith and disbelief collide,
Kate Fodor’s arresting and provocative new play
100 Saints You Should Know provided a frequently humorous, yet ultimately circumspect morality play about a woman finding herself on a spiritual quest. What still resonates and lingers with me is the purity in which Fodor wrote this compelling piece, seemingly without any agenda or ax to grind about faith or religion. To that end, she succeeded brilliantly without being heavy-handed or preachy. It didn't hurt that her script was aided tremendously by the world premiere's uniformly exceptional Off-Broadway cast, including the graceful dignity offered by
Lois Smith, the sassy adolescent insolence of
Zoe Kazan, or the tender awkwardness that comes with burgeoning teen sexuality as portrayed by
Will Rogers.
Regardless of your religious beliefs or lack thereof,
100 Saints You Should Know was well worth seeing and knowing.
4 - Mauritius (Biltmore Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, NY)
Some plays just don't get the respect they deserve.
Theresa Rebeck’s surprisingly thrilling and highly entertaining
Mauritius was among them. Thanks to
Doug Hughes’ taut direction, Mauritius provided one of those exceptionally riveting, edge-of-your-seat theatrical experiences -- a veritable roller coaster ride of delicious deception that literally pulled no punches. In fact, the play about two half-sisters arguing over the rightful ownership of a potentially invaluable stamp collection left behind by their now deceased mother packed quite a wallop that is typically as rare in theatre as the collection’s two 19th Century stamps from Mauritius.
With a superb ensemble collection, Rebeck spun a diabolically delicious yarn.
Alison Pill scored with a truly extraordinary, breathtaking performance by inhabiting the darkest recesses of someone willing to sell her very soul for a shot at money. To say she delivered a nuanced portrayal would be an understatement. While the Tonys inexplicably passed over her performance, Pill further cemented her reputation as Broadway's top young actress.
Mauritius met with my stamp of approval on virtually every level.
3 - From Up Here (New York City Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, NY)
Liz Flahive's poignant, yet darkly funny
From Up Here provided an auspicious debut for this budding playwright, particularly as she instilled her fully realized characters with compassion, along with a heaping healthy dose of what troubled teens need more than anything else: hope. Flahive ably underscored how hope requires elevating the teenage human spirit to a loftier place where they can see that life doesn't begin and end in the place perhaps mistakenly called "high" school.
In one of the year's most profoundly moving male performances,
Tobias Segal deftly exhibited all the knotty tableau of emotions ranging from utter dejection to glimmers of hope his tortured soul endures. Mark my words, this is one hot young actor whose name you'll want to remember.
Julie White gave a tightly wound, measured performance laced with an appropriate blend of humor and anxiety for a mother who's at the end of her rope. She was truly brilliant. In a very honest, straightforward manner,
Will Rogers once again nailed the coming to wits angst inherently found both among those growing up and those who must deal with fragile youth.
What really struck a chord with me is that for all the awkwardess that most youth must go through,
From Up Here gave immense direction by pointing the way out via a revelatory, resonating route that made live theatre suddenly relevant again.
2 - The Seafarer (Booth Theatre, New York, NY)
Conor McPherson's chilling new play
The Seafarer was so damned good, it's practically enough to put the fear of God in you. In his mesmerizing new and often funny morality play set on Christmas Eve, McPherson proved he's all aces. Both writing and directing this cautionary tale, he magnificently constructed a harrowing, on the edge of your seat nailbiter that was as much about giving the devil his due as it is about the potential for redemption for two card-playing good-for-nearly-nothing drunks for brothers.
As one of those brothers, the astounding
Jim Norton appeared to have literally drunk himself blind. His performance was matched by an utterly unrecognizable
Conleth Hill as one of the brothers' card-playing mates.
All in all, this was one helluva great play.
1 - August: Osage County (
Downstairs Theatre, Steppenwolf, Chicago, IL/
Imperial Theatre, New York, NY)
Was there any doubt?
Since first being blown away by this now Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece by
Tracy Letts way back last August in the Windy City, I've devoted considerable space to the best-written, best-acted play I've
ever seen at Chicago's
Steppenwolf, and that's no small feat. In
August: Osage County, Letts has constructed an absolutely brilliant, riotous script that provides for one stellar performance after another by its excellent ensemble.
Now six months into its acclaimed Broadway run, the play runs even deeper, packing a more lethal, visceral punch than what I saw in Chicago, hitting even harder with greater precision that I would not have even thought possible. Credit
Anna D. Shapiro for sharpening this play into a razor-sharp, whip-smart American classic. And it's even funnier, too.
Deanna Dunagan (Violet) single-handedly delivers a bravura performance for the ages as the matriarch of the Weston clan. But she's matched by an equally stunning ensemble, with
Amy Morton giving as good as she gets, and even better, as Violet's daughter Barbara;
Rondi Reed's Mattie Fae is likely to remind you of your favorite, if she wasn't so crazy, aunt; and
Francis Guinan as Mattie Fae's long-suffering husband Charlie offers a sweet dignity to the proceedings, especially when considered against one of the play's many revelations exposing the startling truth about his own son.
Since first seeing the show last summer in Chicago, I've known that I've witnessed something very, very special in the world of live theatre. Upon considerable reflection, I can attest that this is
the best new stage play I've seen over the last five years.
What were the best new plays
you saw over the past year? I invite you to join the conversation by sharing your theatre experiences with me.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Related Stories:SOB's Best Of 2007-08: Best New Musicals (May 29, 2008)
SOB's Best Of 2007-08: Best Revivals Of Musicals (May 28, 2008)
SOB's Best Of 2007-08: Best Revivals Of Plays (May 27, 2008)
SOB's Best Of 2007-08: Best Special Theatrical Events (May 24, 2008)
The SOB Five "Worst" Of 2007-08 (May 23, 2008)
SOB's Best & Worst Of 2007-08 Theatre Season (May 22, 2008)
SOB's Best Of 2006-07: Top Ten Of The Year (June 4, 2007)
SOB's Best Of 2006-07: Best New Musicals (May 22, 2007)
SOB's Best Of 2006-07: Best New Plays (May 21, 2007)
SOB's Best Of 2006-07: Best Revivals Of Musicals (May 18, 2007)
SOB's Best Of 2006-07: Best Revivals Of Plays (May 16, 2007)
The SOB Five "Worst" Of 2006-07 (May 14, 2007)
SOB's Best & Worst Of 2006-07 Theatre Season (May 14, 2007)
SOB's Best of 2005-06: #1 - Theater Of The New Ear (May 30, 2006)
SOB’s Best of 2005-06: #2 – Guys And Dolls (May 26, 2006)
SOB’s Best of 2005-06: #3 – Hedda Gabler (May 25, 2006)
SOB’s Best of 2005-06: #4 – A Blameless Life (May 24, 2006)
SOB’s Best of 2005-06: #5 – Reeling (May 23, 2006)
SOB’s Best of 2005-06: #6 – “MASTER HAROLD”…And The Boys (May 21, 2006)
SOB’s Best of 2005-06: #7 – Love Song (May 19, 2006)
SOB's Best of 2005-06: #8 - Billy Elliot The Musical (May 18, 2006)
SOB's Best of 2005-06: #9 - The Well-Appointed Room (May 17, 2006)
SOB's Best of 2005-06: #10 - Sweeney Todd (May 15, 2006)
SOB's Best and Worst of 2005-06 Theatre Season (May 12, 2006)
Flashback: Best of 2004-05 (May 26, 2006)
Flashback: Best of 2003-04 (May 25, 2006)
Flashback: Best of 2002-03 (May 25, 2006)
Flashback: Best of 2001-02 (May 24, 2006)
Flashback: Best of 2000-01 (May 23, 2006)
Labels: 100 Saints You Should Know, August Osage County, Best New Plays, From Up Here, Mauritius, Play, SOB's Best of 2007-08, The Seafarer, Tracy Letts
100 Saints: Were Critics Singing Its Praises?Two evenings ago, budding playwright
Kate Fodor's new play
100 Saints You Should Know opened. The reviews are mixed on the material, but generally positive on performances.
Calling it "a play you should know,"
Newsday's
Linda Winer recommends the work: "Fodor invents rich characters who speak in their own peculiar rhythms and make observations that defy our expectations for this perilous subject matter....
Ethan McSweeny has directed an exquisite cast to find the humor, absurdity and simple elegance of the search....The luminous
Lois Smith continues her recent surge of priceless portrayals of seemingly ordinary women in such plays as
The Trip to Bountiful....Any cliche of the impossibly precocious daughter is turned into something exhilarating, scary and new by the terrific young actress
Zoe Kazan....
Jeremy Shamos has a quiet, touching credibility as the priest whose conflicts go beyond the generality of headlines into particular heartbreak."
Observing that the show's characters "earn the attention they crave,"
Variety's
Marilyn Stasio also offers praise: "Helmer Ethan McSweeny's sensitive reading of the material and an extremely classy cast make all the difference in a production of this episodic and none-too-original drama about the difficulties of grasping and holding onto one's beliefs in a modern world....Structurally, Fodor has written an articulate, if dramatically circular play, with the overlong and repetitive setup scenes in the first act methodically paying off in the second."
Taking note of "unresolved quality throughout,"
Ben Brantley of
The New York Times is mostly kind: "This tale of everyday people in search of faith, directed by Ethan McSweeny and featuring the estimable Lois Smith, is thoughtful, well spoken, humbly aware of its limitations and respectful of its characters. It is, in other words, the kind of play you could take home to mother. Just don’t expect it to provide you with a transporting night of passion....But the story approaches these topical matters with a calm, open mind and a tidy, symmetrical structure that balances and parallels different points of view....Ms. Kazan enjoyably nails the hostile neediness of an adolescent girl who hates her mother as much as she loves her. And Ms. Smith...turns Colleen’s first scene into a mini master class in acting."
Labeling it "sensitive and engaging yet, in the end, uneven,"
Joe Dziemianowicz of New York's
Daily News offers a mixed review: "The dialogue sometimes sounds more like a setup for punch lines than honest-to-God conversation....(The second act) tolls with such honesty and depth that one imagines
Francis de Sales, the patron saint of authors, watching Fodor's back when she wrote it....The always excellent Lois Smith makes the most of Colleen....Zoe Kazan, memorable last year in
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is uninhibited and brash and makes the wild-child Abby both believable and sympathetic."
Noting how
100 Saints You Should Know "has enough issues for a trio of
Lifetime movies,"
New York Post's
Frank Scheck offers a two-and-a-half star review: "Though the playwright's compassion is evident -- as is her ability to interweave their plights in emotionally resonant and sometimes humorous ways --
100 Saints has a patented feel that recalls the many similarly sensitive off-Broadway dramas that preceded it....To her credit, Fodor doesn't provide any pat solutions to her characters' crises....It's hardly a surprise that Smith is wonderful, but there is also fine work by Moloney...Shamos....and the two younger performers.
As you'll recall from last week,
I recommended the production with ***1/2 stars. Performances of
100 Saints You Should Know run through September 30.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:100 Saints: One Opening Night (September 18, 2007)
100 Saints You Should Know (The SOB Review) (September 14, 2007)
Labels: 100 Saints You Should Know, Critics' Capsule, Jeremy Shamos, Kate Fodor, Lois Smith, Off-Broadway, Play, Zoe Kazan
100 Saints: One Opening NightThis evening marks the opening night for
Kate Fodor's "world premiere" Off-Broadway engagement of
100 Saints You Should Know at
Playwrights Horizons, which offers this synopsis:
Theresa cleans the rectory of the local parish to support her unruly teenage daughter. When its priest leaves the church under uncertain circumstances and returns home to his protective mother, Theresa finds herself compelled to pursue him. One eventful night joins them all, forcing a reckoning with the broken memories and shaken faith that divides them — and the discovery of a shared, tenuous common ground.
Last week, I provided
my positive review. Other bloggers have weighed in, too -- some good (like
Rocco at What's Good/What Blows) and some not so good (like
George Hunka of Superfluities who created quite the stir by reviewing the show without staying beyond the first act -- hey, at least he's honest!).
Tomorrow, I'll let you know whether critics think this is a show worth knowing.
(Despite its late September opening, the show is currently scheduled to close on the 30th.)
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.
Related Stories:
100 Saints You Should Know (The SOB Review) (September 14, 2007)
Labels: 100 Saints You Should Know, Blogs, Kate Fodor, Off-Broadway, Opening Night, Play, Superfluities, What's Good/What Blows in New York Theatre
100 Saints You Should Know (The SOB Review) - Mainstage Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, New York, NY
***1/2 (out of ****)Coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the death of that
most saintly of 20th Century Nobel Prize winners, recently released passages from
Mother Teresa's remarkable diaries have illuminated what has been characterized as
her personal crisis of faith. All of which begs the question of where faith and disbelief intersect.
Those two intangible elements intersect quite literally in
Kate Fodor’s arresting and provocative new play,
100 Saints You Should Know, now enjoying its "world premiere" at Off-Broadway’s
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theatre (in actuality, it was first presented last July at
Steppenwolf's Garage Theatre in Chicago, but I won't quibble that point here).
In this frequently humorous, yet ultimately circumspect morality play directed with sharp veracity by
Ethan McSweeny, another Theresa (Janel Moloney) finds herself on a spiritual quest. Having been a teenage mother -- her acerbic, downright bitter teenage daughter Abby (Zoe Kazan) is now teetering close to the precipice in replicating Theresa's earlier missteps -- she is nearing middle age and searching for more meaning in her life. Perhaps it's no accident that she's found herself cleaning toilets in the rectory of a local Catholic Church.
Matthew (
Jeremy Shamos) -- a priest on leave from that parish is experiencing a crisis of faith -- returns home for respite in the care of his reliably faithful, old-fashioned Irish mother Colleen (
Lois Smith). Fueling Matthew’s crisis is his inability to reconcile his inner longings with church doctrine (or for that matter his own mother's).
When Garrett (Will Rogers), the dimwitted young son of Colleen's grocer, drops by with his latest delivery, he immediately places Matthew on the defensive by asking probing, sexually suggestive questions. While Garrett's pondering is meant to assuage his own carnal guilt, his questions further isolate a despairing Matthew.
Later that same evening, Theresa calls on Matthew, while leaving her daughter out in the car. Theresa is seeking spiritual guidance, but finds she must scale the walls Matthew has built around himself. Meanwhile, a very bored Abby is left to her own devices outside; she chances upon Garrett, who's hanging around hoping to bare his soul to Matthew, but instead shares his innermost secrets and desires with Abby.
Since I won't act as spoiler, let's just say that what transpires from there spins everyone's lives out of control (aided by Rachel Hauck's simple, yet stirring turntable set design). What still resonates and lingers with me is the purity in which Fodor wrote this compelling piece seemingly without any agenda or ax to grind.
In the program notes, Fodor writes, "I was interested in thinking about what true religious longing might feel like, especially if it took a nonbeliever by surprise, and as a mirror image, what it might feel like for a believer to be pulled away from God by a longing for the things in the secular world." To that end, Fodor has succeeded brilliantly without being heavy-handed or preachy.
It doesn't hurt that she is aided tremendously by the uniformly exceptional cast. Certainly, many will go to see
100 Saints You Should Know for the unique opportunity to see the graceful dignity offered by Lois Smith. But Shamos offers his own solemn, if sobering, portrayal as the priest in crisis. Kazan once again demonstrates that no young stage actress delivers sassy adolescent insolence quite the way she can. Rogers' tender yet goofy take on Garrett shows the awkwardness that comes with burgeoning teen sexuality. And Moloney is radiant as the would-be believer.
Regardless of your religious beliefs or lack thereof,
100 Saints You Should Know is worth seeing and knowing.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Labels: 100 Saints You Should Know, Ethan McSweeny, Janel Moloney, Jeremy Shamos, Lois Smith, Off-Broadway, Play, Playwrights Horizons, Steppenwolf, World Premiere, Zoe Kazan
Becoming SOLI've often said, "If I never go back to Las Vegas, it's too soon."
However, for me, it's best to never say never, especially since I do public relations in the travel industry where my fellow Americans have made this city the top domestic destination... by
choice.
Alas, Monday is my day of reckoning when I'll once again be traveling to Vegas for work, as opposed to play. I don't gamble, so I don't really have to worry much about my luck. That is, unless I get punched in the head like I did the last time I was there in a completely unprovoked attack directly outside one of the
Strip's top hotels.
Since most of my trip will be spent working, the fanciful idea of being a high roller won't be entertained. However, I do plan on
being entertained by taking in three of Vegas' top shows:
The Beatles Love,
Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular, and
Mystère. Soon thereafter, you can expect to get a full rundown of each show.
And lest I forget, expect to see two additional reviews in this space over the next week: the Off-Broadway world premiere of
100 Saints You Should Know and Disney's
The Little Mermaid during its second-to-last tryout performance in Denver.
This is Steve On Las Vegas, er, Broadway (SOB).
Labels: 100 Saints You Should Know, Broadway, Las Vegas, Love, Musical, Mystere, Off-Broadway, Phantom The Las Vegas Spectacular, Play, The Beatles, The Little Mermaid
Saints Go Marching On
