The SOB Five "Worst" Of 2008-09Over the past year, I've had opportunities to take in over 70 performances of a wide range of musicals, plays and "special theatrical events" both on Broadway and off, as well as productions from Melbourne and Sydney to London with plenty of stops in between.
Thankfully, I've enjoyed so many more shows than the ones that left me groaning. Yet, it takes seeing those bad productions to make me truly appreciate the good ones. And on the whole, I would much rather see a terrible show live on stage than take in virtually any other form of entertainment. It's that in-the-moment communal experience with other theatre lovers that makes every stage performance worth seeing. Or almost.
As a completely independent theatre blogger beholden to no one -- I pay for every ticket and I still take no advertising -- I'm exercising my freedom of speech by presenting my fourth annual list of the "5 Worst" shows I've seen during the 2008-09 Theatrical Season.
Drumroll, please:
5 - To Be Or Not To Be (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, New York)
Daring to ask
Shakespeare's famous question
To Be Or Not To Be right up front in the title of a play is a risky proposition, to be sure. But since there's no shying away from responding, the answer is a simple, "No." Why playwright
Nick Whitby and director
Casey Nicholaw ever decided this was Broadway ready? Well,
that my dear reader is the
real question.
4 - The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, Chicago, Illinois)
While I have no doubt that
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame has been a labor of love for
Dennis DeYoung of
Styx fame, it’s almost as if he has spent a little too much time studying the musical techniques offered by
Andrew Lloyd Webber or the team that gave the world
Les Misérables. The world of musical theatre has long since moved on. Could this
Hunchback someday prove to be the bell ringer DeYoung envisioned? The answer is a qualified "yes." But this incarnation took its toll.
3 - Annie (Providence Performing Arts Center, Providence, Rhode Island)
Leapin' lizards, what a dog! The current touring production of
Annie is a pale imitation of the
original show I loved so much. Bet your bottom dollar, because it looks as cheap as it is bad. There's absolutely no magic. With its heavy use of scrims, no wonder this revival falls so flat. This warmed-over
Annie marks the worst, most disappointing musical revival I’ve seen over the past year. It’s a hard knock, but someday, if not tomorrow, a dazzling revival worthy of the exceptional core show will come along.
2 - You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush (Cort Theatre, New York, New York)
Rather than too little, too late, this occasionally funny retread of the last eight years feels like far too much so soon after the eponymous
president left office. So much for mission accomplished. While
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush has some genuine laughs and moments of inspiration, this
Will Farrell vehicle tries to shock with purported images of the Commander-in-Chief's chief of staff. It's ironic that a show about a president often accused of intellectual laziness suffers from too much of the same. While that may work on television, it wasn't really ready for a prime Broadway berth.
1 - Eddie Izzard: Stripped (State Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Stripped seemed like an apt metaphor for this threadbare show that was bereft of articulate, cogent thought I had come to expect from comedian/actor
Eddie Izzard. Also largely missing was the humor. But
Stripped instead unintentionally came off as a pseudo-intellectual's desire to have his rambling and often incoherent thoughts -- which he's constantly interrupting himself, only to ask the audience, "Where was I?" -- taken seriously. Feeling truly trapped during an appallingly unpolished performance, the only thing I felt stripped of was the money I paid to sit through this tedious slog.
So, there you have them: SOB's choices for the "5 Worst" shows I endured, I mean
enjoyed, during the 2008-09 Theatrical Season. As I've stated in previous years:
Of course, this is all in the eyes of the beholder. You may vehemently disagree or wonder whether I even have a clue as to what is artistic and what is not. But since my goal in life is to enjoy it rather than simply being a dilettante, I’m going to tell it like I see it by naming the five productions that I enjoyed less than any others.
If you saw any of these shows, let me know what you thought. And please feel free to share the worst shows you sat through (or walked out of) during that past year!
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Annie, Eddie Izzard, Musical, Play, SOB Five Worst of 2008-09, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, To Be Or Not To Be, You're Welcome America. One Final Night With George W Bush
It Just Was Not To BeJust yesterday, I was in the
Manhattan Theatre Club's
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre to take in
Nick Whitby's adaptation of
To Be Or Not To Be.
At one point yesterday, I was asked if I thought the show would close early. Since Manhattan Theatre Club is a non-profit with a considerable subscriber base (myself included), my response was "no" for that reason.
Well, looks like I was only half right. Less than 24 hours later comes news that the play will close one week early on November 16 ... just as soon as the subcription portion of the run concludes.
Originally plagued by casting changes, then by rumors of conflicts between Nicholaw and Whitby, followed by roundly
bad reviews and finally by less than 50% capacity crowds, it's little wonder that MTC has chosen to close shop one week early. When the show closes, it will have "enjoyed" just 40 regular performances as opposed to the 48 initially scheduled.
Personally, the show wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, but I'll provide my SOB Review a little later.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Broadway, Casey Nicholaw, Closing Notices, Film, Manhattan Theatre Club, Nick Whitby, Play, To Be Or Not To Be
To Be Or Not To Be (The SOB Review) - Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, New York*1/2 (out of ****)Daring to ask
Shakespeare's famous question
To Be Or Not To Be right up front in the title of a play is a risky proposition, to be sure. But since there's no shying away from responding, the answer is a simple, "No."
Try as he might, playwright
Nick Whitby has come up quite short in his efforts to update the classic
1942 comedy about a Polish theatre troupe. After being forced to close by the Nazi censors, the actors are recruited for their greatest acting challenge involving covert activity.
Despite the capable cast, including
David Rasche as troupe leader Josef and
Jan Maxwell as his straying wife Maria, and some intermittently funny bits, director
Casey Nicholaw can't save this from being among the most ill-conceived and boring "new" plays of the season.
Why Whitby and Nicholaw ever decided this was Broadway ready? Well,
that my dear friends is the
real question.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Broadway, Film, Manhattan Theatre Club, Nick Whitby, Play, The SOB Review, To Be Or Not To Be
Answering The Critical Question Of To Be Or Not To BeLast evening,
To Be Or Not To Be --
Nick Whitby's adaptation of
Ernst Lubitsch's satirical
1942 film -- opened at the
Manhattan Theatre Club's
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (formerly the
Biltmore). Helmed by
Casey Nicholaw, the comedy stars
David Rasche, and
Jan Maxwell, along with
Peter Benson,
Robert Dorfman,
Steve Kazee,
Peter Maloney,
Michael McCarty,
Kristine Nielsen,
Brandon Perler,
Rocco Sisto,
Jimmy Smagula and
Marina Squerciati.
When answering the titular question, critics were largely saying, "No!"
Deadpanning that it's a "walking corpse of a comedy,"
The New York Times'
Ben Brantley sniffs: "Chalk it up as the latest confirmation of the principle that a classic movie does not a classic play make.... Like many of its screen-to-stage predecessors, this one feels like a faint, blotchy carbon of its prototype. And while I’m all for shows that give performers as talented as Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Rasche gainful employment, it hurts to see them squeezing themselves into shoes originally worn with devil-may-care comfort by
Carole Lombard and
Jack Benny."
Concluding that "we have endured far too many herring and hambone jokes to be manipulated,"
Newsday's
Linda Winer offers a bit of a mixed assessment: "Nick Whitby's new play ... has neither the macabre courage of the original nor the singular
Mel-ness of the
redo. What Casey Nicholaw's production does have is a cast, headed by Jan Maxwell and David Rasche, forced to work way too hard to find a twinkle of charm, much less hilarity and heartache, in this return to this odd trifle-within-a-tragedy."
Regretting this as a "nice idea, but at least in this clumsy attempt, it's not to be,"
Variety's
David Rooney laments: "Whitby's inert reworking of
Edwin Justus Mayer's screenplay for the Lubitsch movie simply slaps it onstage, with embellishments that add nothing and supposed expedients that slow things down. Part of the blame has to go to director Casey Nicholaw's poor feel for pacing, flow and transitions, resulting in a production with the lumpy sluggishness of a fatigued road show. But the writing is so pedestrian it's hard to gauge whether more confident handling might have made a difference."
Noting that "most of the laughs seem lost in translation in the adaptation,"
Joe Dziemianowicz of New York's
Daily News awards just two out of five stars: "The ingredients for comedy are in place -- a self-loving leading man, a flirty leading lady, backstage antics, espionage and impersonations. The show is hobbled by too many off-target jokes and off-putting pacing. The play should gallop, but the staging by Casey Nicholaw moves in sluggish fits and starts.... Rasche ... makes a suitably egotistical Josef, a ham down to the bone.... Maxwell, in Lombard tresses and clingy dresses, performs with signature panache."
New York Post's
Clive Barnes is back with a vengeancem, along with a one-half star rating: "
To Be or Not To Be is a shabby little play. It bears the marks of most bad comedies - it's not funny, and it's incomprehensible.... David Rasche as Tura and, especially, Jan Maxwell as his wife are both good, but certainly no patch on Benny, with his double-takes, or Lombard, with her voluptuousness. Most of the supporting cast -- including Michael McCarty, Kristine Nielsen, Peter Maloney and Rocco Sisto -- do their best to lighten the Stygian gloom cast on everything by Casey Nicholaw's ditch-water dull direction."
I'll be taking in this limited run over the next few days and will weigh in shortly thereafter. But for the time being, it sounds like this production was not meant to be.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Casey Nicholaw, Critics' Capsule, David Rasche, Film, Jan Maxwell, Manhattan Theatre Club, Nick Whitby, Play, To Be Or Not To Be
MTC Opening: Consider It "To Be"
MTC Opening: Consider It "To Be"This evening, the
Manhattan Theatre Club's first play of the 2008-09 Theatrical Season opens at the newly renamed
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (formerly the
Biltmore).
Based on
Ernst Lubitsch's satirical
1942 film of the same name,
To Be Or Not To Be is adapted for the stage by
Nick Whitby and directed by
Casey Nicholaw. The limited run of
To Be Or Not To Be is scheduled through November 23.
Originally,
Craig Bierko was to star, but he has since been replaced by
David Rasche, who is perhaps best known for his mid-1980s television show "
Sledge Hammer!" Rasche will be joined by
Jan Maxwell, along with
Peter Benson,
Robert Dorfman,
Steve Kazee,
Peter Maloney,
Michael McCarty,
Kristine Nielsen,
Brandon Perler,
Rocco Sisto,
Jimmy Smagula and
Marina Squerciati.
Whether critics think this is a show that should be or shouldn't be, that is now the question. Find out what they say in my critics' capsule tomorrow.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Broadway, Casey Nicholaw, David Rasche, Film, Jan Maxwell, Manhattan Theatre Club, Nick Whitby, Opening Night, Play, To Be Or Not To Be
Broadway Preview: To Be Or Not To BeOn Monday, the
Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) announced principal casting for its upcoming world premiere Broadway production of
Nick Whitby's
To Be Or Not To Be.
The show will be headlined by
Craig Bierko (most recently seen on the Great White Way in the short-lived 2001-02 musical
Thou Shalt Not) opposite
Jan Maxwell (last seen on a Main Stem stage in 2007's short-lived
Coram Boy).
Based on
Ernst Lubitsch's satirical
1942 film that took aim squarely at the Nazis, this
Casey Nicholaw-helmed dark comedy will begin its limited run at MTC's
Biltmore Theatre on September 11, with opening night set for October 2. The play is scheduled to run through December 7.
Considering this play is a send-up of a film that was used to ridicule one of the United States' worst enemies, I find it an interesting coincidence that two of the key dates associated with this production's debut and end (
September 11 and
December 7, respectively) are dates that will forever live in infamy among Americans. The original flick premiered less than one year after the United States entered World War II (thanks to the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941), and it famously starred
Carole Lombard opposite
Jack Benny, along with a very young
Robert Stack.
MTC's Web site describes the play as follows:
At the Polski Theatre in 1939 Warsaw, Joseph and Maria Tura are about to open yet another smash with their theatrical troupe. As the German invasion gets underway, the theatre is closed by the censors, forcing the troupe to face desperate times. But when a handsome young bomber pilot enlists their help to catch a spy, what is a group of actors to do? This hilarious black comedy is an ingenious commentary on the World War II era and an inspired tribute to the timeless joys of the theatre.
With some of the excellent works MTC has produced over the few years, this could be one heck of a production worth seeing.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Related Stories:Broadway Preview: The Seagull (July 1, 2008)
Broadway Preview: Equus (June 30, 2008)
Broadway Preview: A Tale Of Two Cities (June 28, 2008)
Broadway Preview: for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf (June 25, 2008)
Broadway Preview: [title of show] (June 24, 2008)
Broadway: What's Next (June 20, 2008)
Labels: Broadway, Casey Nicholaw, Craig Bierko, Film, First Word On New Show, Jan Maxwell, Manhattan Theatre Club, Nick Whitby, Play, To Be Or Not To Be, World Premiere
5 - To Be Or Not To Be (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, New York)
