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12/16/2015Theater: ERS's "Sound And Fury" Signifying...Something; Broadway By The Year's Season Finale | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=aa3a8032-317c-4412-a351-180994906b8b&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Theater: ERS's "Sound And Fury"Signifying...Something; Broadway By The Year'sSeason FinaleTheater: ERS's "Sound And Fury" Signifying...Something; BroadwayBy The Year's Season FinaleTHE SOUND AND THE FURY ** out of **** BROADWAY BY THE YEAR: 1966-1990 *** out of ****THE SOUND AND THE FURY ** out of **** THE PUBLIC THEATERWhen is a show a master stroke and a missed opportunity at the same time? When it's a remounting of theElevator Repair Service's adaptation of William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury. That acclaimed productionfrom 2008 made the name of ERS and spurred them on to further success like Gatz. Now they've put theirmoney where their mouth is for a commercial run, giving those who missed it the first time around a chance tosee . It's a financial leap of faith even for a company that has proven itself via some sixteen different shows;Faulkner is hardly box office magic. Happily, the line for stand-by was lengthy the performance I attended, soERS will have made a shrewd investment in its legacy.But the missed opportunity is my reaction to excitedly seeing The Sound And The Fury for the first time. The1929 novel is famously confounding in the initial section devoted to Benjy, the lengthy section they've chosen toadapt. Benjy is mentally challenged and Faulkner chose to leap back and forth in time almost at random. Insome passages Benjy is a little boy, in others a teen and still others around 30 years old. Faulkner offers norhyme or reason and unprepared readers are often bewildered. The rest of the book is straightforward and onceyou've got a handle on it, the Benjy section is hilarious and bleak and moving . All readers need is a littleguidance. (You can search for "tips on how to read The Sound And The Fury for a very simple key to the textthat won't spoil it at all.) So a stage adaptation? Perfect. With actors playing certain roles along with visual andaudio cues, one could easily make the leaps in time crystal clear without sacrificing the spirit of the work.After all, an adaptation is supposed to offer something new and ERS might have offered a "Benjy" play that wasmoving and funny and brutal and sad. Surely you want people seeing the show to get excited about thismasterpiece? Surely you want them to rush out and say, "What have I been waiting for? Let's read the book!"Instead, one imagines that most audience members will be just as perplexed at the end of this show as theywere at the beginning. Reading the book will be the last thing on their mind, unless it's with the conviction thatthere must be more to it than this.Worse, now that I've seen three ERS adaptations of classic novels, their approach begins to seem a setformula. If you adapt three writers as distinctive and different as Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises), F.Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) and Faulkner, one would expect three radically different approaches to thematerial at hand, approaches that were very sympathetic to the wildly unique voices of the authors. But thatdoesn't seem the case. As with Gatz, The Sound And The Fury is given a framing device. Here it seems morerandom and pointless: a family gathering at Christmas.Bored relatives take to reading out passages of the book, often delivering them in a flat, affectless style. That's
12/16/2015Theater: ERS's "Sound And Fury" Signifying...Something; Broadway By The Year's Season Finale | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=aa3a8032-317c-4412-a351-180994906b8b&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4contrasted with non sequiturs that pop in, such as random silly dances punctuating certain scenes. While thenovel The Sound And The Fury cries out for some clarity, they chose to have different actors tackle the sameroles...and NOT assign actors to different stages of Benjy's life. Maybe that would have been an obvious choice,but it certainly would have helped to have a clue as to what is going on and when. Audiences will get the generalgist but not much more.Essentially (and plot is not the point since much of it is revealed at the start), we are seeing a Mississippi familyof some renown fallen on hard times and sinking farther. The sons turn to suicide or bitterness, the daughterscat around and the "idiot" Benjy is seen by most as a symbol of their disgrace. (The times are not kind to thementally challenged.)A few moments stand out, such as children arguing with vehemence in the kitchen when they're supposed tokeep quiet; the genuine sense of chaos they create is a highlight of the night. But time and again, I was thinkingof what was missing from the book: Faulkner's spot-on depiction of the feuding and one-upmanship that typifiessiblings; the subtle shading of race relations; and most of all the humor. (This evening is only amusing in asides,whereas Faulkner's text is wickedly funny on virtually every page.)And I felt I'd seen this approach before, though of course Gatz came after. Would I have liked that show less ifI'd seen The Sound And The Fury first? Perhaps not, since The Great Gatsby is easily digestible and a model ofclarity; that show simply hung together more readily. Still, it's telling that my estimation of their three "novels"chart a downward path. Whatever order you see these shows in, the formula is wearing thin.BROADWAY BY THE YEAR: 1966-1990 *** out of **** TOWN HALLIt's hard to predict the future, but not if you're talking about Broadway By The Year. This theater institutioncreated by Scott Siegel -- yes, after 15 years, it's officially an institution -- ends its current season on June 22 atTown Hall. They'll have at least 25 stars celebrating shows from 1990 to 2014. I guarantee the following: you'llsee Broadway and cabaret stars, you'll enjoy some nifty dancing, you'll hear songs you've never heard before(unless you're REALLY a Broadway baby) and you'll discover some new talent you'll want to see again, soon.Am I psychic? No, but that's exactly what Broadway By The Year has delivered consistently for years now. Itscurrent successful format takes place during the first half of the year in four parts. each night tackles 25 years ofBroadway history and thus invariably turns up some nuggets that are new to you. Indeed, the most recentedition on May 11 did all of this, despite acts bedeviled by the various ailments of spring that led to some lastminutes cancellations. Because of this, the excellent first half was stronger than the second. But it was still agreat bargain and a worthwhile evening.It was a heart-tugger of a night, coming right after Mother's Day. Jenny Powers led off the night with a lovely"Where Am I Going?" from Sweet Charity, proudly showing off the baby she's apparently due to deliver anyminute. The young Mercer Patterson delivered the shamelessly maudlin "Mama, A Rainbow" from Minnie'sBoys, but when he's a little kid and the son of the show's musical director Ross Patterson and it's dedicated tohis mom AND he's such a newbie he forgot to bow during the applause, well, maudlin can be forgiven.That crowd-pleaser was followed immediately by Jamison Stern delivering "The Kite" from You're A Good Man,Charlie Brown, which was a nice example of an adult playing a kid without cloying sentimentality. (Thanks in partto the sensibility of Charles Schulz that the show faithfully captured.) But the real highlight in many ways was theappearance of Tony nominee Lorraine Serabian singing "Life Is" from Zorba, a musical given a recent showcaseby Encores. Serabian earned plaudits when she debuted the song in the original production in 1968 and hereshe was more than 40 years later singing the tune with zest and passion and panache. Everyone was delightedbut none more so than Serabian herself, who was having a blast.
12/16/2015Theater: ERS's "Sound And Fury" Signifying...Something; Broadway By The Year's Season Finale | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=aa3a8032-317c-4412-a351-180994906b8b&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4Of course, nights like this are always a mixed bag. I wasn't wowed by Gabrielle Stravelli's take on "Time HealsEverything," but she ended the first half of the night with the far jazzier and looser "Keepin' Out Of MischiefNow," a number turned into a nifty duet between her and tapper Noah Racey that was thoroughly engaging.Clearly, this is Stravelli's metier.The always delightful Mary Testa probably chose the wrong venue and crowd to put over her mind-bendingdeconstruction of "The Look Of Love." I enjoyed it -- it's Testa, after all -- but a more intimate venue might havebeen a better frame for this rendition. And no one can make me enjoy most of the music from Chess, so despitea committed performance by Jessica Hendy and the Broadway By The Year chorus (talent spotted andchampioned by Siegel), when "Nobody's Side" ended all I could do was wonder why theater folk remainenchanted by this bloodless show and its mechanical score. And the evening's closer "Oh Boy!" by Buddy Holly(taken from the hit jukebox musical Buddy, of course)is a great pop record but not a terribly interesting tune tocover, though Danny Gardner gave it the college try.Happily, Patrick Page delivered the tongue twister "Cyrano's Nose" from Cyrano with aplomb. The trio ofGardner, Brent McBeth and Drew Humphrey sang and danced smoothly through "Nice Work If You Can Get It."And while the always charming and impressive Tony nominee Bobby Steggert was not at 100% vocally (thatdamn bug!), he offered an illuminating version of Sondheim's "Not A Day Goes By" nevertheless; when so manyothers merely seem to be singing, Steggert is always acting -- his singing flows with purpose and insight, nevercalling attention to itself. Also engaging was a rare instrumental performance from Ross Patterson's Little BigBand. They swung the Supremes' number "Stop! In The Name Of Love" with excellent vigor; an instrumentalfrom them would be a welcome bonus at every show.Nonetheless, the show stopper of the night belonged to William Blake. He sang "Home" from The Wiz andsimply tore it apart. Not by trilling and tossing out run after run like so many would-be Mariah Careys, but bydigging deep into the melody, presenting it with feeling and care...and then building and building it until the runsand gospel inflections that others toss in willy nilly made perfect emotional and artistic sense. Blake is a genuineand unique talent and announced he's going to be recording a new album this summer. Everyone who saw himsing this song is unquestionably just as excited to hear it as I am. It's the sort of moment that makes eveningslike this memorable and unmissable.This video isn't from Broadway By The Year (and gosh, I hope someone has been recording and archiving theshow visually, or at least the audio). It's William Blake at Birdland, a taste of what this artist can do.THEATER OF 2015Honeymoon In Vegas ** The Woodsman *** Constellations ** 1/2 Taylor Mac's A 24 Decade History Of Popular Music 1930s-1950s ** 1/2 Let The Right One In ** Da no rating A Month In The Country ** 1/2 Parade in Concert at Lincoln Center ** 1/2 Hamilton at the Public *** The World Of Extreme Happiness ** 1/2 Broadway By The Year 1915-1940 ** Verite * 1/2 Fabulous! * The Mystery Of Love & Sex ** An Octoroon at Polonsky Shakespeare Center *** 1/2
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=aa3a8032-317c-4412-a351-180994906b8b&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Theater: ERS's "Sound And Fury"Signifying...Something; Broadway By The Year'sSeason FinaleTheater: ERS's "Sound And Fury" Signifying...Something; BroadwayBy The Year's Season FinaleTHE SOUND AND THE FURY ** out of **** BROADWAY BY THE YEAR: 1966-1990 *** out of ****THE SOUND AND THE FURY ** out of **** THE PUBLIC THEATERWhen is a show a master stroke and a missed opportunity at the same time? When it's a remounting of theElevator Repair Service's adaptation of William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury. That acclaimed productionfrom 2008 made the name of ERS and spurred them on to further success like Gatz. Now they've put theirmoney where their mouth is for a commercial run, giving those who missed it the first time around a chance tosee . It's a financial leap of faith even for a company that has proven itself via some sixteen different shows;Faulkner is hardly box office magic. Happily, the line for stand-by was lengthy the performance I attended, soERS will have made a shrewd investment in its legacy.But the missed opportunity is my reaction to excitedly seeing The Sound And The Fury for the first time. The1929 novel is famously confounding in the initial section devoted to Benjy, the lengthy section they've chosen toadapt. Benjy is mentally challenged and Faulkner chose to leap back and forth in time almost at random. Insome passages Benjy is a little boy, in others a teen and still others around 30 years old. Faulkner offers norhyme or reason and unprepared readers are often bewildered. The rest of the book is straightforward and onceyou've got a handle on it, the Benjy section is hilarious and bleak and moving . All readers need is a littleguidance. (You can search for "tips on how to read The Sound And The Fury for a very simple key to the textthat won't spoil it at all.) So a stage adaptation? Perfect. With actors playing certain roles along with visual andaudio cues, one could easily make the leaps in time crystal clear without sacrificing the spirit of the work.After all, an adaptation is supposed to offer something new and ERS might have offered a "Benjy" play that wasmoving and funny and brutal and sad. Surely you want people seeing the show to get excited about thismasterpiece? Surely you want them to rush out and say, "What have I been waiting for? Let's read the book!"Instead, one imagines that most audience members will be just as perplexed at the end of this show as theywere at the beginning. Reading the book will be the last thing on their mind, unless it's with the conviction thatthere must be more to it than this.Worse, now that I've seen three ERS adaptations of classic novels, their approach begins to seem a setformula. If you adapt three writers as distinctive and different as Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises), F.Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) and Faulkner, one would expect three radically different approaches to thematerial at hand, approaches that were very sympathetic to the wildly unique voices of the authors. But thatdoesn't seem the case. As with Gatz, The Sound And The Fury is given a framing device. Here it seems morerandom and pointless: a family gathering at Christmas.Bored relatives take to reading out passages of the book, often delivering them in a flat, affectless style. That's
12/16/2015Theater: ERS's "Sound And Fury" Signifying...Something; Broadway By The Year's Season Finale | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=aa3a8032-317c-4412-a351-180994906b8b&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4contrasted with non sequiturs that pop in, such as random silly dances punctuating certain scenes. While thenovel The Sound And The Fury cries out for some clarity, they chose to have different actors tackle the sameroles...and NOT assign actors to different stages of Benjy's life. Maybe that would have been an obvious choice,but it certainly would have helped to have a clue as to what is going on and when. Audiences will get the generalgist but not much more.Essentially (and plot is not the point since much of it is revealed at the start), we are seeing a Mississippi familyof some renown fallen on hard times and sinking farther. The sons turn to suicide or bitterness, the daughterscat around and the "idiot" Benjy is seen by most as a symbol of their disgrace. (The times are not kind to thementally challenged.)A few moments stand out, such as children arguing with vehemence in the kitchen when they're supposed tokeep quiet; the genuine sense of chaos they create is a highlight of the night. But time and again, I was thinkingof what was missing from the book: Faulkner's spot-on depiction of the feuding and one-upmanship that typifiessiblings; the subtle shading of race relations; and most of all the humor. (This evening is only amusing in asides,whereas Faulkner's text is wickedly funny on virtually every page.)And I felt I'd seen this approach before, though of course Gatz came after. Would I have liked that show less ifI'd seen The Sound And The Fury first? Perhaps not, since The Great Gatsby is easily digestible and a model ofclarity; that show simply hung together more readily. Still, it's telling that my estimation of their three "novels"chart a downward path. Whatever order you see these shows in, the formula is wearing thin.BROADWAY BY THE YEAR: 1966-1990 *** out of **** TOWN HALLIt's hard to predict the future, but not if you're talking about Broadway By The Year. This theater institutioncreated by Scott Siegel -- yes, after 15 years, it's officially an institution -- ends its current season on June 22 atTown Hall. They'll have at least 25 stars celebrating shows from 1990 to 2014. I guarantee the following: you'llsee Broadway and cabaret stars, you'll enjoy some nifty dancing, you'll hear songs you've never heard before(unless you're REALLY a Broadway baby) and you'll discover some new talent you'll want to see again, soon.Am I psychic? No, but that's exactly what Broadway By The Year has delivered consistently for years now. Itscurrent successful format takes place during the first half of the year in four parts. each night tackles 25 years ofBroadway history and thus invariably turns up some nuggets that are new to you. Indeed, the most recentedition on May 11 did all of this, despite acts bedeviled by the various ailments of spring that led to some lastminutes cancellations. Because of this, the excellent first half was stronger than the second. But it was still agreat bargain and a worthwhile evening.It was a heart-tugger of a night, coming right after Mother's Day. Jenny Powers led off the night with a lovely"Where Am I Going?" from Sweet Charity, proudly showing off the baby she's apparently due to deliver anyminute. The young Mercer Patterson delivered the shamelessly maudlin "Mama, A Rainbow" from Minnie'sBoys, but when he's a little kid and the son of the show's musical director Ross Patterson and it's dedicated tohis mom AND he's such a newbie he forgot to bow during the applause, well, maudlin can be forgiven.That crowd-pleaser was followed immediately by Jamison Stern delivering "The Kite" from You're A Good Man,Charlie Brown, which was a nice example of an adult playing a kid without cloying sentimentality. (Thanks in partto the sensibility of Charles Schulz that the show faithfully captured.) But the real highlight in many ways was theappearance of Tony nominee Lorraine Serabian singing "Life Is" from Zorba, a musical given a recent showcaseby Encores. Serabian earned plaudits when she debuted the song in the original production in 1968 and hereshe was more than 40 years later singing the tune with zest and passion and panache. Everyone was delightedbut none more so than Serabian herself, who was having a blast.
12/16/2015Theater: ERS's "Sound And Fury" Signifying...Something; Broadway By The Year's Season Finale | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=aa3a8032-317c-4412-a351-180994906b8b&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4Of course, nights like this are always a mixed bag. I wasn't wowed by Gabrielle Stravelli's take on "Time HealsEverything," but she ended the first half of the night with the far jazzier and looser "Keepin' Out Of MischiefNow," a number turned into a nifty duet between her and tapper Noah Racey that was thoroughly engaging.Clearly, this is Stravelli's metier.The always delightful Mary Testa probably chose the wrong venue and crowd to put over her mind-bendingdeconstruction of "The Look Of Love." I enjoyed it -- it's Testa, after all -- but a more intimate venue might havebeen a better frame for this rendition. And no one can make me enjoy most of the music from Chess, so despitea committed performance by Jessica Hendy and the Broadway By The Year chorus (talent spotted andchampioned by Siegel), when "Nobody's Side" ended all I could do was wonder why theater folk remainenchanted by this bloodless show and its mechanical score. And the evening's closer "Oh Boy!" by Buddy Holly(taken from the hit jukebox musical Buddy, of course)is a great pop record but not a terribly interesting tune tocover, though Danny Gardner gave it the college try.Happily, Patrick Page delivered the tongue twister "Cyrano's Nose" from Cyrano with aplomb. The trio ofGardner, Brent McBeth and Drew Humphrey sang and danced smoothly through "Nice Work If You Can Get It."And while the always charming and impressive Tony nominee Bobby Steggert was not at 100% vocally (thatdamn bug!), he offered an illuminating version of Sondheim's "Not A Day Goes By" nevertheless; when so manyothers merely seem to be singing, Steggert is always acting -- his singing flows with purpose and insight, nevercalling attention to itself. Also engaging was a rare instrumental performance from Ross Patterson's Little BigBand. They swung the Supremes' number "Stop! In The Name Of Love" with excellent vigor; an instrumentalfrom them would be a welcome bonus at every show.Nonetheless, the show stopper of the night belonged to William Blake. He sang "Home" from The Wiz andsimply tore it apart. Not by trilling and tossing out run after run like so many would-be Mariah Careys, but bydigging deep into the melody, presenting it with feeling and care...and then building and building it until the runsand gospel inflections that others toss in willy nilly made perfect emotional and artistic sense. Blake is a genuineand unique talent and announced he's going to be recording a new album this summer. Everyone who saw himsing this song is unquestionably just as excited to hear it as I am. It's the sort of moment that makes eveningslike this memorable and unmissable.This video isn't from Broadway By The Year (and gosh, I hope someone has been recording and archiving theshow visually, or at least the audio). It's William Blake at Birdland, a taste of what this artist can do.THEATER OF 2015Honeymoon In Vegas ** The Woodsman *** Constellations ** 1/2 Taylor Mac's A 24 Decade History Of Popular Music 1930s-1950s ** 1/2 Let The Right One In ** Da no rating A Month In The Country ** 1/2 Parade in Concert at Lincoln Center ** 1/2 Hamilton at the Public *** The World Of Extreme Happiness ** 1/2 Broadway By The Year 1915-1940 ** Verite * 1/2 Fabulous! * The Mystery Of Love & Sex ** An Octoroon at Polonsky Shakespeare Center *** 1/2