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12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/6Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel'sBustTheater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's BustGUYS AND DOLLS *** 1/2 out of **** IF/THEN * 1/2 out of ****GUYS AND DOLLS *** 1/2 out of **** CARNEGIE HALLFrank Loesser must be the most happy fella in musical theater heaven right. His two greatest shows have justbeen performed in New York City in productions that could open on Broadway to rapturous acclaim. The MostHappy Fella is playing at City Center's Encores through April 6 and was showered with acclaim. (What I wouldn'tdo to beg, borrow, or steal a ticket!)And for one night only, Guys And Dolls was given a benefit performance at Carnegie Hall. (One night only?That's crueler than rolling snake eyes when you've got $5,000 riding on the outcome!) But big deal, right? Whatcould be easier than mounting a production of this sure-fire musical comedy smash filled with great songs? Ha!In fact, Guys And Dolls has only been successfully revived once, back in 1992. Most recently, Craig Bierko,Lauren Graham and Oliver Platt tackled it in 2009 in a version that ran for mere weeks. I saw a pleasant take onit in London with Ewan McGregor as Sky Masterson. He has a thin but personable voice and charmed his waythrough the part with conviction; unfortunately he was surrounded with several other actors with vocal limitationsand that kept it from taking off as well.So anyone who has seen tepid revivals of Broadway classics knows that it ain't easy to get it right, even whenthe musical itself is a knock-out. But they sure made it look easy on Thursday night. From the opening moment,when director Jack O'Brien had gangsters wander onstage, stare slack-jawed at the audience and peek over theshoulders of the orchestra, this Guys And Dolls was firing on all cylinders.The always too-brief "Fugue For Tinhorns" kicked things off and the cast never looked back. Any modestcaveats were due simply to the one-night nature of this event. And after weeks of hearing new shows onBroadway and off sung with wavering ability, it was a pleasure and a joy to hear every single part delivered byglorious voices. (With the amusing exception of Steve Schirripa from The Sopranos, who played Big Jule andseemed to be awkwardly mouthing the words when asked to join in the chorus; even that made me smile.)The story is simplicity itself. Nathan Detroit needs to find a safe joint to hold his crap game, but the cops areputting the squeeze on his usual haunts. Also putting the squeeze on Detroit is his long-suffering fianceAdelaide, who wants to get married already. It's been 14 years and people are starting to talk! Desperate forfunds, Detroit makes a can't-miss bet with the gambler Sky Masterson that Sky can't whisk a prim missionarynamed Sarah Brown off to dinner in Havana, Cuba. Romance blossoms, jokes are told and hilarious, wonderfulsongs tumble out one after another.Nathan Lane was born to play Nathan Detroit and obviously his parents knew it. He's probably incapable ofgiving less than 200% but even so, it's wonderful that after doing the part for so long, he can still tackle it withgusto and wit and charm and make you feel it's opening night. Sierra Boggess is a wonderful Sarah Brown. Shemakes this sweetheart trying to help others truly sweet, rather than prim. Her highlight was "If I Were A Bell,"
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/6which she delivered with comic aplomb and hilarious physical comedy. What a wonderful, old-fashionedinstrument she has. And what a pity she's only appeared on Broadway in The Little Mermaid, Master Class andThe Phantom Of The Opera, which she returns to on May 12.The great Len Cariou brought warmth to his second act plea to Sarah to embrace love with "More I Cannot WishYou." As happened so often during the performance, at the end of his song, they would pause in place as theapplause grew and grew. John Treacy Egan and Christopher Fitzgerald killed with the title number and Egansavored every moment of the show-stopper "Sit Down, You're Rockin' The Boat." Choreography was a trickiertask, but the hoofers shone on "The Crapshooters Dance." Heck, even conductor and musical director RobFisher got into the act, serving up drinks, wandering off with chorus girls and generally having a grand time. TheOrchestra of St. Luke's was in top form, as well.As Sky Masterson, Patrick Wilson is awkward casting. He has an innate, Gary Cooper-like decency that is allwrong for the dangerous and magnetic gambler. This guy needs reforming? This guy is dangerous? He'd shamea Boy Scout with his trustworthiness, honesty and square-jawed dignity. That said, Wilson sang the partterrifically well and made it easy to understand why a do-gooder missionary would fall for him. On the otherhand, it made Nathan Detroit seem like a schmuck for not assuming any girl would fall for Sky in a heartbeat.It's too easy to pass over Nathan Lane. Of course he's great. But having missed that 1992 revival (Sue me! Iwas poor and it was a smash.), nothing can match seeing him deliver this iconic part with gusto. Surely it helpedthat he was paired with Megan Mullally as Adelaide. The great triumph of this benefit concert was to find theheart of the story. The show always delivers laughs but with Mullally (and Boggess) it also had genuine emotion.It's a dreadful shame that Mullally has only appeared in two shows since debuting on Broadway as a bit playerin Grease. She had her breakout role in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying and then a key turnin the woebegone musical Young Frankenstein. That's it! Pairing her with Adelaide was almost too perfectcasting. How could you not expect comic heaven and then churlishly say she fell short?Guided by the sure hand of director O'Brien, Mullally did much more than knock out a comic gem like"Adelaide's Lament." She created a full, fascinating character, brought her to life and made you love her asmuch as Nathan Detroit does. It's easy to make Adelaide a scatter-brained ditz. Mullally chose instead to makeher fully aware of her predicament, without sacrificing the laughs, either. At the Hot Box Nightclub, she waswonderfully good on "A Bushel And A Peck" and "Take Back Your Mink." Her body curved deliciously this wayand that, with her bum seeming to stick out so much it could be a very sexy end table whenever she kissed herman.And her "Adelaide's Lament" was a joy. Too often, musical numbers that become famous show-stoppersencourage people to aggressively hawk their greatness. I recently saw a woman sing "I Can Cook, Too" fromOn The Town and she was selling it so hard from the start that I wasn't buying. Here Mullally uses herconsiderable chops to elevate Adelaide from an empty-headed dingbat to a real girl in love. She delivered thesong with self-aware deprecation; this is one cookie who knows exactly what's going on, but darn it she lovesthe guy. It made the song very funny but also quite moving.Mullally carried that triumph through the rest of the show, from the even more plaintive "Adelaide's SecondLament" to her great duet with Lane on "Sue Me" (her vocals were rat-a-tat perfection) to the final "Marry TheMan Today" with Boggess, a song that should scare the bejeezus out of any commitment-phobic man. WhenNathan Detroit sings that he loves her, it's not strictly because she's the sexiest gal in town but something fardeeper and more meaningful. That takes the story to another level and gives this Guys And Dolls a genuinebeating heart.Mullally's work was musical comedy of the highest order. And she was surrounded by talent making the most ofthis one night revival. The only flaw was that the audience couldn't tell their friends to rush out and buy tickets
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/6right away.Here's the Tony Awards performance from the legendary 1992 revival, which also starred Nathan Lane.IF/THEN * 1/2 out of **** RICHARD RODGERS THEATREWith Rent and Wicked and the feature film Frozen to her credit, it's no surprise that Tony winner Idina Menzelwas packing them in for the very first preview of the new musical If/Then. From the creators of Next To Normal,it's the story of a woman in New York City and how our lives might take drastically different courses. Oneafternoon, she fatefully if innocently must choose between attending a protest with her best friend or hanging outwith a new one, between answering her cell phone and letting it go to voicemail. As the show progresses, wewatch this person's life branch out: in one, she's happily married to a soldier, raising children and teaching; inanother she has a very successful career as an urban planner.The fatal problem with If/Then is that neither of these lives are terribly interesting. They certainly don't reflect orplay off one another in any telling or revealing way. The simple fact that both are happening at the same timedoesn't make them dramatically engaging. Both lives are pretty darn great (though clearly we're meant to favorthe warmth of family over career). The result is a musical that is stillborn with nothing to offer other than thatinitial Sliding Doors-like gimmick. It's almost curiously bad on every level.I respected Next To Normal by Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), but I didn't love it likeothers. Still, with that show's critical acclaim and solid commercial appeal, it was exciting to anticipate what theymight do next. Perhaps they were given too much carte blanche or the modest challenge of presenting twoparallel storylines sucked up all their energy. Whatever went wrong, it was complete.Early word that it was hard to tell which "reality" we were in from moment to moment was overblown. It's prettystraightforward: in one reality our hero Elizabeth (Menzel) wears glasses and loves her soldier husband Josh (astrapping James Snyder). Her best friend Lucas (Anthony Rapp) -- who is bisexual -- meets and falls in love withthe soldier's best friend, a doctor no less (the very appealing Jason Tam). In the other reality, she's lured intobecoming an urban planner for New York City and does great things, shaping the lives of people, helpingremarkable projects happen and even incorporating the needs and desires of activists like Lucas (though it'sawfully hard to turn an additional 1000 units of low income housing into a rousing number). Lucas, by the way,spends this reality pining for Elizabeth. In both, she's got the support of Kate (the welcoming presence ofLaChanze), who will be the first to tell you she's one hell of a good kindergarten teacher.That's it. We follow her storylines and each one is dull, albeit filled with the usual ups and downs of life. It's notlike one decision leads to tragedy and another to triumph or we revel in the clever ways her lives play off oneanother. Again, the career path is slightly less rosy, with Elizabeth hitting on her married boss and remainingsingle. But in both she becomes pregnant, in both she has great guys asking her to be with them forever. In bothshe is as in control of her destiny as any human can be. (Tragedy and outside forces naturally factor in, as theywill.)I must assume the creative team is not so retrograde as to suggest a woman choosing a career path isunfulfilled and miserable. Still, they come awfully close with abortion and that possible affair seeming to dragElizabeth down. But really, since her boss clearly has feelings for her and repeatedly says his marriage is all butdead, would it be so dreadful if he left his wife and they got together? If this musical wanted to show a womanmaking one bad decision after another, they needed more than kissing a man who shows up at your apartmentunannounced at 9:30 at night with a lame excuse about why he's there.So what does this elaborate structure reveal? Why did it drive the creation of If/Then? Surely Kitt and Yorkeyrealized it's actually a cliche to talk about how one fateful decision (however innocuous) can change your life.
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&4/6Whatever their intentions, the banal nature of the stories being told leads to muddled work by all involved.The set design by Mark Wendland and lighting by Kenneth Posner are a mess. The set has a vague, split-levelstructure. When they're in the park, trees float in the air. Once in a while, people stand on a raised platform,sometimes for a good reason (they're on a fire escape or roof), more often for not. But it's a muddy, unclear andalmost entirely unnecessary visual plan. Similarly, the lighting comes into play when the setting is more abstract;sometimes there are green blobs in the background, sometimes they're blue or silver.The costumes and wigs make no impression but the vocal arrangements by Annmarie Milazzo are notablyawkward and discordant. On even the sloppiest shows, when the cast raises its voice in song, usually the soundis appealing. Here, the voices almost never blend well, though I blame the score and songs far more. Indeed,there's a vague, acoustic guitar vibe lost in the mix during the opening number (the sound is by Brian Ronanand, again, you can't make something bad sound good). Numbers glide by without leaving any impressionwhatsoever, especially in the first act.The program does not list individual songs, but things improve a tad in the second act. A song I'll call "WalkingBy A Wedding" has some specific and vivid lines that actually reveal our heroine's innermost feelings in a freshway. And Snyder as the soldier husband Josh has a pretty good number about being an expectant dad. That'sit, with Menzel's 11 o'clock number of empowerment falling flat, even though the audience has been waiting theentire evening for the actress to unleash those steel-clad, Merman-like pipes of hers and really let loose.The choreography of Larry Keigwin involves some desultory twirling and a few angular moves and little else,though the dancers -- led by the hard-working and personable Curtis Holbrook -- did what they could with thismodest fare. The direction by Michael Greif (Rent, Grey Gardens, Next To Normal) is workmanlike butanonymous, just like the material.With such generic characters, what can you say about the actors? LaChanze is a warm, appealing presencewhen she arrives, but is so unnecessary to the story she slowly fades into the background. Rapp is simplyforced to glide by on the nebbishy charm he's often been forced to repeat ever since Rent. The deadly dull bookis at its worst with jokes about his activism, with dreadful jokes about dining at Applebee's and other mediocregibes. One feels sorry for this talent. Snyder is certainly a handsome actor but the role of Josh begins and endswith one trait: Nice Guy in a Uniform. This is a Lifetime TV movie and the show doesn't care about him at all; hehas no personality, no drive, no quirks, no details that remotely bring this half of the show's romance to life.Stephen (Jerry Dixon) is the boss who is constantly tracking down Elizabeth and offering her the jobopportunities of a lifetime, which she annoyingly rejects until he finally forces her into them. Dear god, where'sthis man in my life? But again, his "troubled" marriage (he bitches, but it's actually fine) and his fairy talegodfather desire to grant Elizabeth's wishes are all we ever know about him. Tam is very believable as a loveinterest for Lucas but only because of the actor's innate charm; he too has no particular personality and justsweeps Lucas out of a squatter's nightmare into his home with an organic garden in the background. TamikaLawrence can do nothing with the assistant Elena because like every other character in the show, Elena feelsanonymous and dispensable.Menzel is lost amidst all this jumping around. Since the book doesn't show Elizabeth becoming a particularlydifferent sort of person in either reality, it's basically the same person in both tales. She can't differentiatebetween them (other than whipping her glasses on and off) because the show hasn't done so either. Sure, shecan belt it out at the end, but nothing sounds more empty than a big note being held in a vacuous song. It's ashame she waited ten years to return to Broadway with this.SPOILER: As the final, almost laughable nail in the coffin, the show ends in a remarkable way. Surely the entirepurpose of If/Then was to show how decisions both large and small can take our life in dramatically differentdirections. But they absurdly undercut this idea at the last second. In the storyline where Elizabeth chose
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&5/6marriage and children, she is still handed the plum assignment of a lifetime: the remodeling of a new PennStation. In the storyline where Elizabeth chose an important and satisfying career, she still gets to meet and fallin love with the Josh, the soldier man of her dreams. So no matter what you choose, you can have it all? Huh?END OF SPOILERIf they wanted to show how different paths can lead to the same destination, the show needed to be rewrittenfrom top to bottom. Of course, it needed that anyway.THEATER OF 2014Beautiful: The Carole King Musical ***Rodney King *** Hard Times ** 1/2 Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead ** I Could Say More * The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner ** Machinal *** Outside Mullingar *** A Man's A Man * 1/2 The Tribute Artist ** 1/2 Transport ** Prince Igor at the Met ** The Bridges Of Madison County ** 1/2 Kung Fu (at Signature) ** Stage Kiss *** Satchmo At The Waldorf *** Antony and Cleopatra at the Public ** All The Way ** 1/2 The Open House (Will Eno at Signature) ** 1/2 Wozzeck (at Met w Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson and Simon O'Neill) Hand To God *** Tales From Red Vienna ** Appropriate (at Signature) * Rocky * 1/2 Aladdin *** Mothers And Sons ** Les Miserables *** 1/2 Breathing Time * 1/2 Cirque Du Soleil's Amaluna * 1/2 Heathers The Musical * 1/2 Red Velvet, at St. Ann's Warehouse *** Broadway By The Year 1940-1964 *** 1/2 A Second Chance ** Guys And Dolls *** 1/2 If/Then * 1/2Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming websiteBookFilter, a book lover'sbest friend. It's a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, providescomprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personalrecommendations every step of the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week in
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/6Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel'sBustTheater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's BustGUYS AND DOLLS *** 1/2 out of **** IF/THEN * 1/2 out of ****GUYS AND DOLLS *** 1/2 out of **** CARNEGIE HALLFrank Loesser must be the most happy fella in musical theater heaven right. His two greatest shows have justbeen performed in New York City in productions that could open on Broadway to rapturous acclaim. The MostHappy Fella is playing at City Center's Encores through April 6 and was showered with acclaim. (What I wouldn'tdo to beg, borrow, or steal a ticket!)And for one night only, Guys And Dolls was given a benefit performance at Carnegie Hall. (One night only?That's crueler than rolling snake eyes when you've got $5,000 riding on the outcome!) But big deal, right? Whatcould be easier than mounting a production of this sure-fire musical comedy smash filled with great songs? Ha!In fact, Guys And Dolls has only been successfully revived once, back in 1992. Most recently, Craig Bierko,Lauren Graham and Oliver Platt tackled it in 2009 in a version that ran for mere weeks. I saw a pleasant take onit in London with Ewan McGregor as Sky Masterson. He has a thin but personable voice and charmed his waythrough the part with conviction; unfortunately he was surrounded with several other actors with vocal limitationsand that kept it from taking off as well.So anyone who has seen tepid revivals of Broadway classics knows that it ain't easy to get it right, even whenthe musical itself is a knock-out. But they sure made it look easy on Thursday night. From the opening moment,when director Jack O'Brien had gangsters wander onstage, stare slack-jawed at the audience and peek over theshoulders of the orchestra, this Guys And Dolls was firing on all cylinders.The always too-brief "Fugue For Tinhorns" kicked things off and the cast never looked back. Any modestcaveats were due simply to the one-night nature of this event. And after weeks of hearing new shows onBroadway and off sung with wavering ability, it was a pleasure and a joy to hear every single part delivered byglorious voices. (With the amusing exception of Steve Schirripa from The Sopranos, who played Big Jule andseemed to be awkwardly mouthing the words when asked to join in the chorus; even that made me smile.)The story is simplicity itself. Nathan Detroit needs to find a safe joint to hold his crap game, but the cops areputting the squeeze on his usual haunts. Also putting the squeeze on Detroit is his long-suffering fianceAdelaide, who wants to get married already. It's been 14 years and people are starting to talk! Desperate forfunds, Detroit makes a can't-miss bet with the gambler Sky Masterson that Sky can't whisk a prim missionarynamed Sarah Brown off to dinner in Havana, Cuba. Romance blossoms, jokes are told and hilarious, wonderfulsongs tumble out one after another.Nathan Lane was born to play Nathan Detroit and obviously his parents knew it. He's probably incapable ofgiving less than 200% but even so, it's wonderful that after doing the part for so long, he can still tackle it withgusto and wit and charm and make you feel it's opening night. Sierra Boggess is a wonderful Sarah Brown. Shemakes this sweetheart trying to help others truly sweet, rather than prim. Her highlight was "If I Were A Bell,"
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/6which she delivered with comic aplomb and hilarious physical comedy. What a wonderful, old-fashionedinstrument she has. And what a pity she's only appeared on Broadway in The Little Mermaid, Master Class andThe Phantom Of The Opera, which she returns to on May 12.The great Len Cariou brought warmth to his second act plea to Sarah to embrace love with "More I Cannot WishYou." As happened so often during the performance, at the end of his song, they would pause in place as theapplause grew and grew. John Treacy Egan and Christopher Fitzgerald killed with the title number and Egansavored every moment of the show-stopper "Sit Down, You're Rockin' The Boat." Choreography was a trickiertask, but the hoofers shone on "The Crapshooters Dance." Heck, even conductor and musical director RobFisher got into the act, serving up drinks, wandering off with chorus girls and generally having a grand time. TheOrchestra of St. Luke's was in top form, as well.As Sky Masterson, Patrick Wilson is awkward casting. He has an innate, Gary Cooper-like decency that is allwrong for the dangerous and magnetic gambler. This guy needs reforming? This guy is dangerous? He'd shamea Boy Scout with his trustworthiness, honesty and square-jawed dignity. That said, Wilson sang the partterrifically well and made it easy to understand why a do-gooder missionary would fall for him. On the otherhand, it made Nathan Detroit seem like a schmuck for not assuming any girl would fall for Sky in a heartbeat.It's too easy to pass over Nathan Lane. Of course he's great. But having missed that 1992 revival (Sue me! Iwas poor and it was a smash.), nothing can match seeing him deliver this iconic part with gusto. Surely it helpedthat he was paired with Megan Mullally as Adelaide. The great triumph of this benefit concert was to find theheart of the story. The show always delivers laughs but with Mullally (and Boggess) it also had genuine emotion.It's a dreadful shame that Mullally has only appeared in two shows since debuting on Broadway as a bit playerin Grease. She had her breakout role in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying and then a key turnin the woebegone musical Young Frankenstein. That's it! Pairing her with Adelaide was almost too perfectcasting. How could you not expect comic heaven and then churlishly say she fell short?Guided by the sure hand of director O'Brien, Mullally did much more than knock out a comic gem like"Adelaide's Lament." She created a full, fascinating character, brought her to life and made you love her asmuch as Nathan Detroit does. It's easy to make Adelaide a scatter-brained ditz. Mullally chose instead to makeher fully aware of her predicament, without sacrificing the laughs, either. At the Hot Box Nightclub, she waswonderfully good on "A Bushel And A Peck" and "Take Back Your Mink." Her body curved deliciously this wayand that, with her bum seeming to stick out so much it could be a very sexy end table whenever she kissed herman.And her "Adelaide's Lament" was a joy. Too often, musical numbers that become famous show-stoppersencourage people to aggressively hawk their greatness. I recently saw a woman sing "I Can Cook, Too" fromOn The Town and she was selling it so hard from the start that I wasn't buying. Here Mullally uses herconsiderable chops to elevate Adelaide from an empty-headed dingbat to a real girl in love. She delivered thesong with self-aware deprecation; this is one cookie who knows exactly what's going on, but darn it she lovesthe guy. It made the song very funny but also quite moving.Mullally carried that triumph through the rest of the show, from the even more plaintive "Adelaide's SecondLament" to her great duet with Lane on "Sue Me" (her vocals were rat-a-tat perfection) to the final "Marry TheMan Today" with Boggess, a song that should scare the bejeezus out of any commitment-phobic man. WhenNathan Detroit sings that he loves her, it's not strictly because she's the sexiest gal in town but something fardeeper and more meaningful. That takes the story to another level and gives this Guys And Dolls a genuinebeating heart.Mullally's work was musical comedy of the highest order. And she was surrounded by talent making the most ofthis one night revival. The only flaw was that the audience couldn't tell their friends to rush out and buy tickets
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/6right away.Here's the Tony Awards performance from the legendary 1992 revival, which also starred Nathan Lane.IF/THEN * 1/2 out of **** RICHARD RODGERS THEATREWith Rent and Wicked and the feature film Frozen to her credit, it's no surprise that Tony winner Idina Menzelwas packing them in for the very first preview of the new musical If/Then. From the creators of Next To Normal,it's the story of a woman in New York City and how our lives might take drastically different courses. Oneafternoon, she fatefully if innocently must choose between attending a protest with her best friend or hanging outwith a new one, between answering her cell phone and letting it go to voicemail. As the show progresses, wewatch this person's life branch out: in one, she's happily married to a soldier, raising children and teaching; inanother she has a very successful career as an urban planner.The fatal problem with If/Then is that neither of these lives are terribly interesting. They certainly don't reflect orplay off one another in any telling or revealing way. The simple fact that both are happening at the same timedoesn't make them dramatically engaging. Both lives are pretty darn great (though clearly we're meant to favorthe warmth of family over career). The result is a musical that is stillborn with nothing to offer other than thatinitial Sliding Doors-like gimmick. It's almost curiously bad on every level.I respected Next To Normal by Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), but I didn't love it likeothers. Still, with that show's critical acclaim and solid commercial appeal, it was exciting to anticipate what theymight do next. Perhaps they were given too much carte blanche or the modest challenge of presenting twoparallel storylines sucked up all their energy. Whatever went wrong, it was complete.Early word that it was hard to tell which "reality" we were in from moment to moment was overblown. It's prettystraightforward: in one reality our hero Elizabeth (Menzel) wears glasses and loves her soldier husband Josh (astrapping James Snyder). Her best friend Lucas (Anthony Rapp) -- who is bisexual -- meets and falls in love withthe soldier's best friend, a doctor no less (the very appealing Jason Tam). In the other reality, she's lured intobecoming an urban planner for New York City and does great things, shaping the lives of people, helpingremarkable projects happen and even incorporating the needs and desires of activists like Lucas (though it'sawfully hard to turn an additional 1000 units of low income housing into a rousing number). Lucas, by the way,spends this reality pining for Elizabeth. In both, she's got the support of Kate (the welcoming presence ofLaChanze), who will be the first to tell you she's one hell of a good kindergarten teacher.That's it. We follow her storylines and each one is dull, albeit filled with the usual ups and downs of life. It's notlike one decision leads to tragedy and another to triumph or we revel in the clever ways her lives play off oneanother. Again, the career path is slightly less rosy, with Elizabeth hitting on her married boss and remainingsingle. But in both she becomes pregnant, in both she has great guys asking her to be with them forever. In bothshe is as in control of her destiny as any human can be. (Tragedy and outside forces naturally factor in, as theywill.)I must assume the creative team is not so retrograde as to suggest a woman choosing a career path isunfulfilled and miserable. Still, they come awfully close with abortion and that possible affair seeming to dragElizabeth down. But really, since her boss clearly has feelings for her and repeatedly says his marriage is all butdead, would it be so dreadful if he left his wife and they got together? If this musical wanted to show a womanmaking one bad decision after another, they needed more than kissing a man who shows up at your apartmentunannounced at 9:30 at night with a lame excuse about why he's there.So what does this elaborate structure reveal? Why did it drive the creation of If/Then? Surely Kitt and Yorkeyrealized it's actually a cliche to talk about how one fateful decision (however innocuous) can change your life.
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&4/6Whatever their intentions, the banal nature of the stories being told leads to muddled work by all involved.The set design by Mark Wendland and lighting by Kenneth Posner are a mess. The set has a vague, split-levelstructure. When they're in the park, trees float in the air. Once in a while, people stand on a raised platform,sometimes for a good reason (they're on a fire escape or roof), more often for not. But it's a muddy, unclear andalmost entirely unnecessary visual plan. Similarly, the lighting comes into play when the setting is more abstract;sometimes there are green blobs in the background, sometimes they're blue or silver.The costumes and wigs make no impression but the vocal arrangements by Annmarie Milazzo are notablyawkward and discordant. On even the sloppiest shows, when the cast raises its voice in song, usually the soundis appealing. Here, the voices almost never blend well, though I blame the score and songs far more. Indeed,there's a vague, acoustic guitar vibe lost in the mix during the opening number (the sound is by Brian Ronanand, again, you can't make something bad sound good). Numbers glide by without leaving any impressionwhatsoever, especially in the first act.The program does not list individual songs, but things improve a tad in the second act. A song I'll call "WalkingBy A Wedding" has some specific and vivid lines that actually reveal our heroine's innermost feelings in a freshway. And Snyder as the soldier husband Josh has a pretty good number about being an expectant dad. That'sit, with Menzel's 11 o'clock number of empowerment falling flat, even though the audience has been waiting theentire evening for the actress to unleash those steel-clad, Merman-like pipes of hers and really let loose.The choreography of Larry Keigwin involves some desultory twirling and a few angular moves and little else,though the dancers -- led by the hard-working and personable Curtis Holbrook -- did what they could with thismodest fare. The direction by Michael Greif (Rent, Grey Gardens, Next To Normal) is workmanlike butanonymous, just like the material.With such generic characters, what can you say about the actors? LaChanze is a warm, appealing presencewhen she arrives, but is so unnecessary to the story she slowly fades into the background. Rapp is simplyforced to glide by on the nebbishy charm he's often been forced to repeat ever since Rent. The deadly dull bookis at its worst with jokes about his activism, with dreadful jokes about dining at Applebee's and other mediocregibes. One feels sorry for this talent. Snyder is certainly a handsome actor but the role of Josh begins and endswith one trait: Nice Guy in a Uniform. This is a Lifetime TV movie and the show doesn't care about him at all; hehas no personality, no drive, no quirks, no details that remotely bring this half of the show's romance to life.Stephen (Jerry Dixon) is the boss who is constantly tracking down Elizabeth and offering her the jobopportunities of a lifetime, which she annoyingly rejects until he finally forces her into them. Dear god, where'sthis man in my life? But again, his "troubled" marriage (he bitches, but it's actually fine) and his fairy talegodfather desire to grant Elizabeth's wishes are all we ever know about him. Tam is very believable as a loveinterest for Lucas but only because of the actor's innate charm; he too has no particular personality and justsweeps Lucas out of a squatter's nightmare into his home with an organic garden in the background. TamikaLawrence can do nothing with the assistant Elena because like every other character in the show, Elena feelsanonymous and dispensable.Menzel is lost amidst all this jumping around. Since the book doesn't show Elizabeth becoming a particularlydifferent sort of person in either reality, it's basically the same person in both tales. She can't differentiatebetween them (other than whipping her glasses on and off) because the show hasn't done so either. Sure, shecan belt it out at the end, but nothing sounds more empty than a big note being held in a vacuous song. It's ashame she waited ten years to return to Broadway with this.SPOILER: As the final, almost laughable nail in the coffin, the show ends in a remarkable way. Surely the entirepurpose of If/Then was to show how decisions both large and small can take our life in dramatically differentdirections. But they absurdly undercut this idea at the last second. In the storyline where Elizabeth chose
12/12/2015Theater: Megan Mullally's Triumph; Idina Menzel's Bust | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=65b41fac-11b6-4b05-b9af-b3167d2f72b2&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&5/6marriage and children, she is still handed the plum assignment of a lifetime: the remodeling of a new PennStation. In the storyline where Elizabeth chose an important and satisfying career, she still gets to meet and fallin love with the Josh, the soldier man of her dreams. So no matter what you choose, you can have it all? Huh?END OF SPOILERIf they wanted to show how different paths can lead to the same destination, the show needed to be rewrittenfrom top to bottom. Of course, it needed that anyway.THEATER OF 2014Beautiful: The Carole King Musical ***Rodney King *** Hard Times ** 1/2 Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead ** I Could Say More * The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner ** Machinal *** Outside Mullingar *** A Man's A Man * 1/2 The Tribute Artist ** 1/2 Transport ** Prince Igor at the Met ** The Bridges Of Madison County ** 1/2 Kung Fu (at Signature) ** Stage Kiss *** Satchmo At The Waldorf *** Antony and Cleopatra at the Public ** All The Way ** 1/2 The Open House (Will Eno at Signature) ** 1/2 Wozzeck (at Met w Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson and Simon O'Neill) Hand To God *** Tales From Red Vienna ** Appropriate (at Signature) * Rocky * 1/2 Aladdin *** Mothers And Sons ** Les Miserables *** 1/2 Breathing Time * 1/2 Cirque Du Soleil's Amaluna * 1/2 Heathers The Musical * 1/2 Red Velvet, at St. Ann's Warehouse *** Broadway By The Year 1940-1964 *** 1/2 A Second Chance ** Guys And Dolls *** 1/2 If/Then * 1/2Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming websiteBookFilter, a book lover'sbest friend. It's a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, providescomprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personalrecommendations every step of the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week in