Blithe Spirit (The SOB Review) - Shubert Theatre, New York, New York*** (out of ****)Talk about truth in advertising. With a virtuoso performance by one of the greatest stage actors of our time,
Noël Coward's
Blithe Spirit certainly lives up to its name.
Any chance to see
Angela Lansbury tread the boards is more than worth the effort. But as Madame Arcati, the legend effortlessly demonstrates the merry agility and grace of someone half her age. Lansbury packs more acting into her seemingly simple expressions and nimble, free-spirited movements than many actors exhibit in a lifetime.
Fortunately, Lansbury shares the stage of
Blithe Spirit with a top drawer cast, including
Rupert Everett (in his dashing Broadway debut as novelist Charles),
Jayne Atkinson (hilarious as his second wife Ruth) and
Christine Ebersole (luminous as Charles' deceased wife Elvira, who's not only been summoned from the dead by Madame Arcati during a seance, but she refuses to leave).
Initially, Coward's comedy made its West End debut a mere two months after the infamous Nazi
Blitz on the United Kingdom had ended. Britain had suffered through nine devastating months of bombings that killed more than 43,000, half of them in London. No wonder audiences at the time were so eager to embrace such a mirthful show, even one that used the dead to liven spirits.
Fast forward 68 years to the current production.
Michael Blakemore's steady direction has polished the "improbable farce" up nice and shiny. And with its sterling cast, the resurrected
Blithe Spirit sparkles anew for today's audiences needing a perfect escape.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Angela Lansbury, Blithe Spirit, Christine Ebersole, Jayne Atkinson, Michael Blakemore, Noel Coward, Play, Revival, Rupert Everett, The SOB Review
More Than In Spirit: Ebersole Will Be Back On BroadwayWith the nation, let alone the world, holding its collective breath as our do-nothing Congress apparently has yet to grasp that the entire global economy is on the line, it was a relief to read a
welcome message providing some modicum of escape.
Christine Ebersole is returning to the Great White Way in an improbable farce:
Blithe Spirit. Ebersole will portray the eponymous ghost named Elvira.
This will mark the second Broadway revival for
Noël Coward's three act farce, which made
its Rialto debut on the cusp of America's entry into World War II on November 5, 1941. It was a celebrated and -- given the time, no doubt -- a most welcome success that not only lasted 657 performances at both the
Morosco Theatre and
Booth Theatre, but managed to enjoy a
return engagement of another 32 performances at the Morosco with four of its original principals --
Mildred Natwick,
Philip Tonge,
Clifton Webb and
Peggy Wood -- intact.
Leonora Corbett portrayed Elvira in the first incarnation, while
Haila Stoddard haunted the latter.
The
first revival of
Blithe Spirit was mounted at the
Neil Simon Theatre in March 1987. Under
Brian Murray's direction, the production lasted a mere 104 performances. In a bit of serendipitous casting, the production starred
Blythe Danner as the Blithe Spirit, alongside such talent as
Richard Chamberlain,
Judith Ivey and
Geraldine Page, who received a Tony nomination.
While the rest of the cast has yet to be announced,
Michael Blakemore is set to direct the production that will begin previews on February 26 and open in March at a Shubert Theatre "to be determined."
Any chance I have to enjoy a little mirth during a time of crisis sounds good to me, and even better, I can't wait to see Ebersole perform again. My only question here is this. Whatever
did happen to those
announced plans to mount
Grey Gardens in London?
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Blithe Spirit, Broadway, Christine Ebersole, First Word On New Show, Michael Blakemore, Noel Coward, Play, Revival
Is He Dead? Not Even Close Among CriticsYesterday afternoon,
Mark Twain's long-lost unpublished work (at least until 2003)
Is He Dead? opened at Broadway's
Lyceum Theatre.
Adapted by
David Ives and helmed by
Michael Blakemore, the comedy stars
Norbert Leo Butz as French realist painter
Jean-François Millet, along with
Jeremy Bobb,
Marylouise Burke,
Patricia Conolly,
Jenn Gambatese,
Byron Jennings,
Michael McGrath,
John McMartin,
David Pittu,
Bridget Regan and
Tom Alan Robbins.
Critics' reviews are in, and most seemed to enjoy the work almost as much as
I did.
Cheering the play's "remarkably sprightly step" that left "gold dust" in his eyes,
Ben Brantley of
The New York Times can never be accused of having no sense of humor again: "
Is He Dead?, which opened last night at the Lyceum Theater, benefits mightily from a top-grade team of resurrection artists. They include the director Michael Blakemore, the playwright David Ives (who adapted Twain’s script) and an infectiously happy cast, led by the wondrous Norbert Leo Butz, that serves a master class in making a meal out of a profiterole....[O]nce Mr. Butz puts on a pink dress, this Tony-winning comic actor...who had been rather flavorless in his opening scene, shows the true comic genius of which he is made. From that moment the whole production feels as if it’s been pumped through with nitrous oxide. Jokes you would swear you would never laugh at suddenly seem funny."
Registering "high on the mirth meter" for
David Rooney of
Variety, he
echoes the enthusiasm: "it's a welcome surprise that in its Broadway premiere, director Michael Blakemore, adapter David Ives and a spirited cast led by human whoopee cushion Norbert Leo Butz have turned this trifle into a ripely enjoyable confection....Ives clearly has had a significant hand in ironing out the kinks, but the irreverent potshots at cultural pretentiousness and the hypocrisies of the art world are typically Twainian....The most consistent delight is the gifted Butz....Butz is a riot. He's so utterly relaxed and in command onstage that he appears to be making up Daisy's dialogue as he goes along."
Praising it as "riotously funny," the Associated Press'
Michael Kuchwara heaps on the laurels: "Done up in drag, (Butz) is the fireplug who jump-starts
Is He Dead? — a long-lost Mark Twain farce adapted by David Ives and directed by Michael Blakemore with a sure ear for language and an even surer eye for physical comedy. Their teamwork is one of the most felicitous collaborations of the season....Best of all is David Pittu, who in a variety of roles, plays a foppish English art buyer, an unctuous manservant and the king of France. Quite a range -- and all of them immensely comic."
Calling it "very amusing,"
Joe Dziemianowicz of New York's Daily News is also singing praises for the
Dead: "Director Michael Blakemore (
Noises Off) hasn't just awakened the
Dead. He and his cast, some of the best comic actors in New York, have turned an old-fashioned, sometimes wobbly piece of material into a delightfully silly and entertaining evening....Headlining the cast, Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz...proves that in pants or a dress, he's Broadway's finest, funniest and most appealing rascal."
Feasting on a "barrage of sidesplitters," Bloomberg's
John Simon is similarly taken: "As directed at the Lyceum on Broadway by the dependable Michael Blakemore and with an expert cast surrounding that slapstick dynamo Norbert Leo Butz, it emerges very comic indeed....It is hard to say which is funnier as Butz plays the widow: his successful travesty of femininity or his hilarious lapses out of it....Byron Jennings's caricature of a melodrama villain, like John McMartin's amorously dithering elder, add welcome touches of Daumier to the Millets on display. David Pittu, as a quartet of farcical characters, conjures fourfold fun."
Concluding that its "subtly nutsy ensemble performance" is hard to resist,
New York Post's
Clive Barnes offers two and a half stars: "Frankly, Twain's play (even with Ives' tinkering) is pretty feeble....Yet Twain (and Ives) have struck it rich with Blakemore, the set designer Peter J. Davison, the costume designer Martin Pakledinaz and a cast that can spin gold out of lead. Of his own paintings, the real-life Millet observed: "I make the trivial an expression of the sublime." And that pretty much sums up what Blakemore, Butz & Co. achieve here.
Critics seem to enjoy it almost as much as me.
Once again,
Newsday's Linda Winer is having none of it, try as she might not to laugh: "
Is He Dead? is a bit more than a curiosity but far less than a lost masterwork....Blakemore and Ives offer lots of exaggerated comic asides, mistaken identities and multiple doors to hide plot devices. The result reminds me of the sort of annoying person who keeps tickling you until, finally, you're forced to laugh despite your better judgment. We suspect that Twain, bankrupt at 63 and depressed by the death of his daughter, was going for more than goofy humor here. He wondered why artists had to die in order to succeed. We're forced to wonder if this would be on Broadway if a living playwright had written it."
With only the big Winer providing the wurst of the reviews -- sorry, I had to throw that in given the comedy's sausage joke -- expect the box office to boom with audiences clamoring to have fun again at the theatre.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.
Related Stories:Is He Dead? (The SOB Review) (December 10, 2007)
Resurrected Is He Dead? Opens (December 9, 2007)
Discounted Is He Dead? Is Alive Again On Broadway (December 1, 2007)
All Of Great White Way Gleams Tonight (November 29, 2007)
Never Say Never The Twain Shall Meet (August 1, 2007)
Labels: Broadway, Byron Jennings, Critics' Capsule, David Pittu, Is He Dead?, Mark Twain, Michael Blakemore, Norbert Leo Butz, Play
Is He Dead? (The SOB Review) - Lyceum Theatre, New York, NY*** (out of ****)If America's quintessential humorist
Mark Twain is looking down on Broadway's
Lyceum Theatre these days, he's no doubt enjoying quite a laugh. I know I sure did in spades.
His last produced play -- a bomb called
Colonel Sellers As A Scientist -- was DOA when it opened and closed the same day on an earlier Lyceum stage in New York City back in 1884.
It seems apropos that less than one year after
first letting the world know in 1897 that "The report of my death was an exaggeration," Twain would write a play
Is He Dead? that practically went to the grave with him in 1910.
The irony of course is that nearly 100 years later, Twain is most definitely alive and -- well --
well once again on Broadway thanks to the discovery and resurrection in 2003 of the comedy that's at once bully good and full of real belly laughs.
This roaring ripsnorter has been successfully resuscitated via master defibrillator
Michael Blakemore, whose proficient hand delivers exactly the right electric jolt needed to bring
David Ives' adaptation completely to life. As the Tony winning director demonstrated via
Noises Off, he clearly knows his way around a good farce. And despite the play's age, Blakemore ensures that it doesn't feel like some moldy oldie or in desperate need of disinfectant (unlike the rancid Broadway revival of
The Ritz that closed last evening).
Is He Dead? is a spirited, fantastical romp that reimagines how the great French realist painter
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) achieved fame and fortune. Unlike
Aaron Sorkin, who's infamously been accused of turning fact on its head in a
little Rialto show that opened last week, Mark Twain made no pretense about fictionalizing his subject's life. Instead, Train freely admitted that he had "'taken the pardonable liberty to highly antedate' the bidding wars over Millet's
Angelus that had occurred after Millet's death," according to
Shelley Fisher Fishkin's fascinating book about her discovery of the long lost script for
Is He Dead?Since others had been prone to exaggerate Twain's own death, not long after the 1896 loss of his 24 year old daughter Susy, Twain was in need of some rejuvenating tonic to bring his own spirits up. According to Fisher Fishkin, he largely succeeded in that task when writing
Is He Dead?Twain fantasizes that Millet (an outrageously flamboyant
Norbert Leo Butz) has an epiphany. His works would be worth more if he was dead. With a trio of conspirators in Agamemnon "Chicago" Buckner (
Michael McGrath aping Nathan Lane), Hans von Bismarck (a terrific
Tom Alan Robbins, who makes the most with the wurst jokes) and Phelim O'Shaughnessy (a naturally gifted comedian
Jeremy Bobb), Millet fakes his own death only to come back as his own "identical" sister, the Widow Daisy Tillou (that's "to you" to you).
As the Widow Daisy, Millet reaps the windfall as the price of his paintings skyrockets, even upon the news of his supposed mortal illness. Daisy shares the largess with Papa Leroux (an exceptional
John McMartin) --father of Millet's beloved Marie Laroux (an iridescent
Jenn Gambatese) -- whose stratospheric debts to the dastardly Bastien Andre (a most amusing
Byron Jennings) threaten to cast him in the street.
Months later, Millet is living in style, as are his friends -- certainly aided by
Peter J. Davison's glorious set design and period costumes by
Martin Pakledinaz. Yet success is dampened by Andre, who holds a contract with Millet for 25 of his paintings, which he now demands since they've increased exponentially in value. Unless, that is, if Daisy agrees to be his wife.
Through plenty of predictable plot twists, as well as unexpected turns that'll have you wondering whether Twain may have been favorably inclined to the notion of
Boston Marriages,
Is He Dead's best asset is the biggest surprise: the hysterically
funny David Pittu. With amazing finesse and superb comic timing, Pittu portrays four wide-ranging foils, thus giving Butz a run for his funny money. He ends up summarily stealing the show.
Is He Dead? may possess many
good old-fashioned one-liners, but it's more than just some amusing little chestnut come back from the dead. The work succeeded in making me laugh out loud early and often, making every inch of me feel, well, alive.
And isn't that what a decent comedy is supposed to do?
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:Resurrected Is He Dead? Opens (December 9, 2007)
Discounted Is He Dead? Is Alive Again On Broadway (December 1, 2007)
All Of Great White Way Gleams Tonight (November 29, 2007)
Never Say Never The Twain Shall Meet (August 1, 2007)
Labels: Broadway, Byron Jennings, David Pittu, Is He Dead?, Mark Twain, Michael Blakemore, Norbert Leo Butz, Play, The SOB Review
Resurrected Is He Dead? OpensThis evening, the fifth Broadway opening of the past
week occurs at the
Lyceum Theatre. The long-lost
Mark Twain work
Is He Dead? is adapted by
David Ives and directed by
Michael Blakemore.
Even more intriguing is the comedy's casting of Tony winner
Norbert Leo Butz in his first non-musical role on Broadway. Butz will portray artist Jean-Francois Millet, an artist who thinks the value of his work will increase if everyone presumes he's dead.
Butz isn't the only actor I'm paying to see. I'm pleased that he'll be sharing the stage with such former Tony nominees as
David Pittu,
Michael McGrath and
John McMartin, as well as theatre favorite
Byron Jennings.
Will critics think this comedy was worth resurrecting, or call it dead on arrival? Find out tomorrow as I not only present my regular critics' capsule of top theatre critics, but also share my very own SOB Review.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:Discounted Is He Dead? Is Alive Again On Broadway (December 1, 2007)
All Of Great White Way Gleams Tonight (November 29, 2007)
Never Say Never The Twain Shall Meet (August 1, 2007)
Labels: Broadway, David Pittu, Is He Dead?, John McMartin, Mark Twain, Michael Blakemore, Norbert Leo Butz, Opening Night, Play
Never Say Never The Twain Shall MeetAccording to
Playbill,
Mark Twain will live on the Great White Way once more when his long lost
Is He Dead? opens this fall, thanks to an adaptation by
David Ives. The play is scheduled to begin previews on November 9 at the
Lyceum Theatre, with an opening set for November 29.
Perfectly timed to give audiences an American treasure to be thankful for, the
Michael Blakemore-helmed show will surely capture additional buzz thanks to its lead.
Norbert Leo Butz -- one of my personal favorite stage actors -- will return to Broadway for his first time since his Tony-winning turn in
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
While Twain wrote
Is He Dead? at the close of the 19th Century, the work was unpublished until
Shelley Fisher -- a noted Samuel Clemens expert -- rediscovered it. The comedy's plot surrounds a staged death of an artist designed to drive up the bidding on his oeuvre.
While I wouldn't hesitate to see Butz perform again, one wonders whether he's being typecast in con men roles. Let's just hope this is the role of a lifetime.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Broadway, First Word On New Show, Is He Dead?, Mark Twain, Michael Blakemore, Norbert Leo Butz, Play
