West Side Story (The SOB Review) - Palace Theatre, New York, NY
**1/2 (out of ****)When
Arthur Laurents' beautiful revival of
West Side Story soars, it flies so high that you practically can feel yourself being lifted out of your seat.
With
Leonard Bernstein and
Stephen Sondheim's timeless score and
Joey McKneely's lovingly recreated choreography from the show's original director
Jerome Robbins, how could it not?
I was practically moved to tears many times by the amazing vocal talent Laurents amassed. In particular,
Matt Cavenaugh's Tony was especially angelic. And the captivating
Josefina Scaglione as Maria makes for a most auspicious Broadway debut.
But the conceit of this revival, of course, is its ultimately frustrating use of Spanish language to tell the Sharks' tale. While I laud Laurents for daring to break new ground by having his Sharks speak their native tongue from Puerto Rico, so much was lost in translation -- or complete lack thereof -- that this conceit gnawed at me as highly arrogant. Had Laurents done for his audience what opera has done for years -- providing subtitles of some sort -- he would have had no bigger advocate of his otherwise sparkling revival than I.
Instead, I left feeling cheated and very disappointed that I only got one side of this story.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Arthur Laurents, Broadway, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Matt Cavenaugh, Musicals, Stephen Sondheim, The SOB Review, West Side Story
A Catered Affair (The SOB Review) - Walter Kerr Theatre, New York, NY
**** (out of ****)Like a rare vintage wine that deserves to be sipped and savored, the seriously sublime
A Catered Affair opens up across the tastebuds into a glorious bouquet. That is, if only you open up your mind and your heart and let it permeate all your senses.
This tender tale of a mother's revelatory determination to use her fallen son's military
death gratuity toward her daughter's wedding will never be confused with fizzy champagne delights served up as a musical comedy.
Nor does it have the tasteless buzz of flat day-old beer like some of this year's lesser efforts. Yet, when all is said and done, this beautifully-acted, earnest chamber musical is intoxicating nevertheless.
Granted, as many an oenophile can attest, not everyone can fully appreciate a dry tannin as it's absorbed by the tongue's epithelium. It's an acquired taste.
The same is most certainly true of taking in a tuner, rich with integrity, daring to wear its dry dignity on its sleeve, right alongside its huge beating heart. But those who have the palette for the introspection of 1950s humanity will love
A Catered Affair almost as much as I did. In fact, while the show itself may be dry, it left me in tears.
That's in part because of the incredible compassion with which
Harvey Fierstein has vividly crafted his genuinely touching book (and he certainly has a knack for imbuing his carefully drawn characters with appropriate, almost poetic language evocative of its time). Fierstein's libretto has been wondrously blended with
John Bucchino's stirring score.
John Doyle's understated direction strikes the right balance between the many trials and inner demons the musical's principal characters face and the often hidden gentility each possesses.
Chief among them is Aggie Hurley (
Faith Prince in the performance of her career), the aforementioned grieving mother who has recently lost her beloved son in the Korean Conflict. Having invested all her hopes and dreams in him, only to have them dashed by his death, she's had a late-breaking epiphany in realizing she's largely ignored her daughter Jane (
Leslie Kritzer, a pure revelation). That's in spite of the fact that the self-effacing Jane has placed her own dreams on the backburner so she could pitch in to help her financially struggling parents, including her complex cabbie father Tom (an impressive
Tom Wopat), make ends meet.
That is, until she's met the well-bred Ralph Halloran (
Matt Cavenaugh). The two announce that they plan to be wed in a civil ceremony to keep things simple with only immediate family invited to attend. No matter that Jane's Uncle Winston (a fantastic Fierstein) sleeps on the Hurley's living room couch, although the fact that he is a "confirmed bachelor" may have something to do with the slight as a way of appeasing Ralph's uppercrust family.
Dejected by the slight, Winston drowns his sorrows with alcohol and shows up soused at the dinner meeting between Hurleys and Hallorans, becoming unassailably uncorked. If it's true that people speak the truth when they drink, Uncle Winston's pronouncements, however crude, have reached the pinnacle of honesty that would make
Paddy Chayefsky -- known for his workmanlike realism -- very proud. And to think that even today, some fifty plus years later, there are still some superciliously selfish families, who would turn their backs on their own loving and giving brothers and uncles simply because they were born gay.
Completely devastated by the thought that she's betrayed her own brother, Aggie has a second epiphany when she receives a check from the military for her son's demise. She decides that she's going to put on a lavish affair with all the trappings she never enjoyed herself (her own wedding was of the shotgun variety), and Aggie enlists Winston to provide his expertise in making the wedding an event Jane will never forget. This despite Tom coveting the dollars to finally own his share of the cab company.
In telling the story, Doyle excels in creating an awe-inspiring authenticity -- from the breathtaking, nuanced portrayals offered by his impeccable cast right down to subtle flourishes like Aggie making real scrambled eggs for Tom on a working oven (thanks to
David Gallo's simple, yet serviceable set design) -- steadily building to a splendid finish.
This slice of fifties Bronx is brought to life further by
Ann Hould-Ward's spectacularly unspectacular costumes and
Zachary Borovay's inspired projection designs. And while some may think
Brian MacDevitt's lighting is a tad heavy-handed, particularly when the Hurley son's casket flag is highlighted, I found its use highly effective and respectful, particularly given the ongoing sacrifices American troops continue to make in wars far from home.
If even half of Broadway had as humungous and unpretentious a heart as Harvey Fierstein, the theatre world would never be viewed quite as cynically by those looking at it from the outside as irreflective of society. For that and more, I proudly raise a glass to toast Harvey & Co. on one of the best shows I've seen on Broadway or anywhere else over the past year.
For anyone who has a palate worthy of the best reserve,
A Catered Affair is a must-see.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:A Snubbed Affair (May 14, 2008)
And The Tony Nominees Go To... (May 13, 2008)
Whoopi! Tony Eligibility And More Handicapping (May 9, 2008)
Did Affair Positively Cater To Critics? (April 18, 2008)
A Catered Opening Night (April 17, 2008)
Early Tony Handicapping (March 25, 2008)
Wildfires Force Closure Of La Jolla And Old Globe Theatres (October 23, 2007)
Harvey Fiersback (October 5, 2007)
Were Left Coast Critics Feting A Catered Affair? (October 3, 2007)
San Diego Opening Is Catered Affair (September 30, 2007)
Which Upcoming Broadway Musicals Will You See? (June 15, 2007)
Fierstein To Musicalize Bette Davis' Fave Flick (March 21, 2007)
Labels: A Catered Affair, Broadway, Faith Prince, Harvey Fierstein, John Bucchino, John Doyle, Leslie Kritzer, Matt Cavenaugh, Musical, The SOB Review, Tom Wopat
Did Affair Positively Cater To Critics?Last evening,
A Catered Affair -- the latest
film turned stage musical -- opened at Broadway's
Walter Kerr Theatre under
John Doyle's direction.
Written by
Harvey Fierstein and
John Bucchino, the tuner stars
Faith Prince,
Tom Wopat,
Matt Cavenaugh and
Leslie Kritzer, as well as Fierstein himself.
Even though this show was set very simply in the Bronx, the critic's reviews were practically all over the map.
Advising his readers to "hug it to your heart,"
Clive Barnes of
New York Post offer a four-star review: "Under John Doyle's expert, discreet direction, it emerges less like a musical and more like a play with music: lovely, urban chamber music.... But it's
(Paddy) Chayefsky's spirit that dominates the scene, and Fierstein has captured his 1950s, working-class milieu to perfection. This Bronx tale, with its interlocking, underlining and quietly beautiful music and lyrics by John Bucchino, skims along the edge of sentimentality to find honest sentiment in this story of a young soldier's death, a wedding and a taxi.... It's simply a musical with an honest heart, and that's enough."
Calling it a "small but satisfying drama,"
Variety's
David Rooney is largely positive: " The odds that
A Catered Affair will find mainstream acceptance may be slim, but the show commands respect by further challenging standard preconceptions of how the Broadway musical should sound, function and feel.... There are deep psychological nuances to be mined here, and Fierstein and Bucchino meticulously excavate the feelings of characters for whom suppressed emotion and sacrifice are an ineluctable part of life.... But the show resonates due to its modesty, grace, gentleness and emotional integrity -- qualities not often front and center in musicals."
Lauding the show she says is "ultimately a celebration of life,"
Elysa Gardner of
USA Today offers a glowing three-star review saying
A Catered Affair has "an emphasis on characters drawn with passion and compassion, and handled with that most quaint of virtues: dignity.... Harvey Fierstein, who co-stars as Winston, Aggie's big-hearted brother, has fashioned a witty, wise, moving script. John Bucchino's score is similarly thoughtful and heartfelt, though less accessible.... Doyle, Bucchino and Fierstein have a fine interpreter in Faith Prince, whose Aggie emerges as a sort of antithesis to
Gypsy's Mama Rose.... Prince makes Aggie's conflicting emotions palpable and haunting. And her relationships with Fierstein's wisecracking Winston, Tom Wopat's worn Tom and Leslie Kritzer's touching Janey are completely believable."
Labeling the show "a disappointment -- one so intelligently staged and performed, however, that at times you can almost believe the show is as good as its production,"
The Wall Street Journal's
Terry Teachout neatly tallies what he sees as the production's shortcomings: "Mr. Fierstein was right to think that Mr. Vidal's screenplay had the stuff of a musical in it, but he made three big mistakes in adapting it for the stage. The first was to put an anachronistically contemporary spin on his book by turning Aggie's brother, played in the film by Barry Fitzgerald, into a more or less openly gay florist, and the second was to play the part himself.... Mistake No. 3 was to invite Mr. Bucchino to write the score.... The problem is that his songs, with their pastel harmonies and introspective lyrics, have nothing in common with the working-class setting of
A Catered Affair."
Dismissing "the undramatic new musical drama of disappointed lives,"
Ben Brantley of
The New York Times is flat-out negative: "A short (90 minutes) but slow depiction of the family-fracturing pressures of planning an expensive wedding,
A Catered Affair is so low key that it often seems to sink below stage level. From Mr. Bucchino’s trickling, self-effacing score to the tight-lipped stoicism of its leading performances, from
David Gallo’s tidy tenement-scape set to
Zachary Borovay’s tentative photographic projections, this show is all pale, tasteful understatement that seems to be apologizing for asking for your attention. (Well, except for Mr. Fierstein’s character, but you could have guessed that.)... No one is given to extreme reactions in
A Catered Affair, except Uncle Winston and the gossiping chorus of tenement housewives (Ms.
(Lori) Wilner,
Heather MacRae and
Kristine Zbornik) who lean out their windows in a conceit that was stale even in the mid-1950s."
Concluding that he had dashed hopes "this would have been an
Affair to remember," Joe Dziemianowicz of New York's
Daily News -- who now gives out stars on a five-point scale -- provides just two: "The show, which opened last night, seems well-intentioned but doesn't deliver enough story, substance or satisfaction. It's about poor people, yes, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't have meat on the bone and icing on the cake.... Fierstein stays close to the sources, but still manages to veer in places. Chiefly, he's made the uncle who lives with the family openly gay -- and put himself in the role. Unfortunately, the character and performance are distracting.
The music by
John Bucchino, a popular cabaret composer, fails to add much dimension, or fire many emotions."
Lamenting "How sad that the results are so glum,"
Newsday's
Linda Winer tries to be kind, but offers a critical assessment: "[T]his is a colorless little piece of '50s social realism about a Bronx family that isn't so much emotionally repressed as emotionally deficient.... Composer John Bucchino, better known for cabaret songs, has written meandering, conversational melodies baked by innocuous accompaniments.... Fierstein, the quadruple Tony Award winner and perpetual force of nature, both gives and takes away in his adaptation and his performance."
Citing how "this admirably spartan staging ultimately feels like as much of a contrivance as the standard bells-and-whistles approach,"
Eric Grode of
The New York Sun wonders aloud what he think went wrong: "It wears its virtues on its threadbare sleeve, and the vaguely medicinal taste goes a long way toward negating Mr. Fierstein's terse, insightful libretto and a pair of emotionally stripped-down performances by, as the pressured daughter and regret-steeped mother, Leslie Kritzer and an atypically somber Faith Prince. The show's missteps are understandable and often heartening in their own right, but they are missteps nonetheless.
Did these critics really all see the same show? I'll be taking in a performance of this musical in a couple weeks and will provide my SOB Review shortly thereafter.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:A Catered Opening Night (April 17, 2008)
Early Tony Handicapping (March 25, 2008)
Wildfires Force Closure Of La Jolla And Old Globe Theatres (October 23, 2007)
Harvey Fiersback (October 5, 2007)
Were Left Coast Critics Feting A Catered Affair? (October 3, 2007)
San Diego Opening Is Catered Affair (September 30, 2007)
Which Upcoming Broadway Musicals Will You See? (June 15, 2007)
Fierstein To Musicalize Bette Davis' Fave Flick (March 21, 2007)
Labels: A Catered Affair, Broadway, Critics' Capsule, Faith Prince, Harvey Fierstein, John Bucchino, John Doyle, Leslie Kritzer, Matt Cavenaugh, Musical, Tom Wopat
A Catered Opening NightFifty-two years after
Paddy Chayefsky's kitchen sink film "
The Catered Affair" starring
Bette Davis,
Ernest Borgnine,
Debbie Reynolds and
Rod Taylor first appeared, Tony winner
Harvey Fierstein hooks up with
John Bucchino to present a musical adaptation that opens on Broadway tonight.
A Catered Affair, under
John Doyle's direction, features Fierstein along with
Faith Prince,
Tom Wopat,
Matt Cavenaugh and
Leslie Kritzer in this five-handkerchief tuner.
The show received some
positive reviews during its San Diego tryout last fall. However, it took a major hit from
The Los Angeles Times, which may not have received nearly as much play had it not been for
Fierstein's fierce rebuttal.
In the best of all worlds, this might be
the musical to beat in the annual Tony derby given its pedigree. But in the year of the decidedly smaller show, will
A Catered Affair prove to be too much of a feast for the critics? Stay tuned as I present my critics' capsule tomorrow.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:Early Tony Handicapping (March 25, 2008)
Wildfires Force Closure Of La Jolla And Old Globe Theatres (October 23, 2007)
Harvey Fiersback (October 5, 2007)
Were Left Coast Critics Feting A Catered Affair? (October 3, 2007)
San Diego Opening Is Catered Affair (September 30, 2007)
Which Upcoming Broadway Musicals Will You See? (June 15, 2007)
Fierstein To Musicalize Bette Davis' Fave Flick (March 21, 2007)
Labels: A Catered Affair, Broadway, Faith Prince, Film, Harvey Fierstein, John Bucchino, John Doyle, Matt Cavenaugh, Musical, Opening Night, Tom Wopat
San Diego Opening Is Catered AffairWhile significant media coverage has centered on the two Broadway-bound musicals due to open this fall (
Young Frankenstein and
The Little Mermaid)
, A Catered Affair has been quietly unfolding in San Diego. Tonight, the world premiere of this other film-based tuner opens at the city's
Old Globe Theatre.
A Catered Affair finds its roots in the
Paddy Chayefsky teleplay for the 1955 broadcast of "
The Philco Television Playhouse" (starring
Pat Henning,
Thelma Ritter and
J. Pat O'Malley) and subsequent
1956 feature film written by Chayefsky and
Gore Vidal (starring
Bette Davis,
Ernest Borgnine,
Debbie Reynolds,
Rod Taylor and
Barry Fitzgerald).
The new musical version is helmed by
John Doyle -- minus his earlier conceit of having actors double as musicians -- and includes a book by
Harvey Fierstein and music by
John Bucchino. The only double duty on display comes from Fierstein via his starring role as Uncle Winston. Other cast members include
Faith Prince,
Tom Wopat,
Matt Cavenaugh and
Leslie Kritzer.
Set in the 1950s,
A Catered Affair centers on how "Bronx family ties are strained when a couple decides to give their daughter the grand wedding they never had." Self-described as "stunning...funny, heartwarming and uplifting for audiences of all ages," the musical is already accomplishing the kind of positive buzz via
New York Post's Michael Riedel that all other comers could only hope for: "Possible sleeper here for the Tony Awards, especially if the industry sours on Brooks' $450 tickets for
Young Frankenstein."
While I won't be able to travel to San Diego to catch the world premiere running through October 28, I'm looking forward to feasting on Fierstein's latest feat on Broadway, due at the
Walter Kerr Theatre on March 25.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.
Related Stories:Which Upcoming Broadway Musicals Will You See? (June 15, 2007)
Fierstein To Musicalize Bette Davis' Fave Flick (March 21, 2007)
Labels: A Catered Affair, Bette Davis, Broadway, Buzz, Faith Prince, Film, Harvey Fierstein, John Doyle, Leslie Kritzer, Matt Cavenaugh, Michael Riedel, Musical, San Diego, Television, Tom Wopat
