Just out., August 20, 2004, Page 37, Image 37

auflusl 20.2004 ’ jUSt Ollt 37
The Roundabout’s revival of John Weidman
and Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant Assassins also
suffers from overkill. As if to make the disturb­
ing musical collage more palatable to Broadway
audiences, director Joe Mantello (who won a
Tony, go figure) has devised a production that
neuters the show’s dark power with lots of
cheap jokes and surface glitz. What should be
both chilling and difficult material is now just
another show, albeit one with a slight streak of
blasé postmodernist shtick. Brecht-Lite.
The strangest revival this year is David Le-
veaux’s refined reinterpretation of Fiddler on the
Roof. This production has many lovely compo­
nents—a gorgeous mcxmlit forest setting, an
impeccably rehearsed cast (this is surely the
sole Russian peasant village to have vocal
coaches) and a sumptuous-sounding orchestra
that shares the stage with the actors.
Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2’s Doc Ock) is a
marvelous actor, but his work here seems oddly
tranquilized. His Tevye is devoid, like the rest of
the production, of passion, grit and deep-seated
human need. This Fiddler’s Martha Stewart shtetl
decor, artfully tossed autumn leaves, deconstruc­
tivist hovels and <xldball Cirque du Anatevka
dream sequence seem the work of musical-
comedy-loving aliens with exquisite taste and
absolutely no insight into human behavior.
fascinating than it actually was, and Wright
does little to make it engrossing.
The device of having one actor portray
Charlotte along with 40 or so other characters
is the script’s sole interesting idea, and Jefferson
Mays does a fantastic job of channeling all of
them. But the grating deployment of Wright
utilizing his own angst in writing the play as a
device gets stale very quickly.
Much more impressive is Bryony Lavery’s
haunting Frozen. This chamber work about the
darkest depths of human behavior and the eternal
possibility of forgiveness is remarkable, but while
the Broadway prixluction offers two superb per-
formances in Swoosie Kurtz and Brian F. O’Byme,
it ultimately falls short of the script’s potential.
The self-conscious staging and finicky, man­
nered light and sound design serve only to dis­
tance the audience rather than draw it in. This
evocative play will no doubt be seen to better
advantage around the country.
The season’s biggest off-Broadway hit also is
a bit of a letdown. Acclaimed Chicago actor
and playwright Tracy Letts (who could forget
his outrageous trailer trash melodrama Killer
Joel) has fashioned an intriguing paranoid
premise in his new play Bug. This extended
X-Files episode does get under the skin and is
wonderfully acted by a crackerjack cast, hut its
sense of mounting dread ends up being a bit of
hen it comes to the year’s crop of impor­
a tease. Once again, the whole does not quite
tant new plays, the news continues to be
add up to the promise of its creepy parts.
disappointing. The winner of both the
Finally, the best New York work this season
Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize for Best Play of
isn’t a play or a musical but the legendary Bar­
2003 shows just how dismal a season it was.
bara C<x)k in her newest concert, Barbara
Doug Wright is a quirky, intriguing play­
Cook’s Broadway. Her remarkable artistry blends
wright, but the much-lauded I Am My Own
together a vocal instrument of incomparable
Wife turns out to be much less than the sum of
beauty with an emotional depth and interpre­
its mini-parts. Unfortunately, the character
tive honesty second to none. To witness her, at
study of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a real-life
the astounding age of 77, still weave her magic
German transvestite who somehow managed
is the season’s most luminous event. n
to survive both the Nazis and the Communists
while simultaneously ntnning both a cultural
J on KRETZU is associate artistic director of Artists
museum and nightclub/brothel, sounds more
Repertory Theatre in Portland.
W
Double take
Gender-bending musical
revue debuts at Miracle
by
M eg D aly
HU II the best songs are taken by women,”
■■ lamented Kirk Herring to friends in
■A 1998. More often we hear women
I ■ decrying the lack of gcxxJ female roles,
but the longtime musical performer envisioned
a different type of musical, in which men sing
the female roles, and women sing the men’s.
Fast-forward six years and find Flip Side, a
musical revue of some of the best-loved Broad­
way tunes strung together to form a storyline
Kirk Herring wrote and stars in Flip Side
about love, loss and desire, which runs Aug. 20
to 28 at Miracle Theatre. And every song is
ropolitan Church of Portland as a benefit for
sung by the opposite gender.
its Esther’s Pantry program, which provides gro­
Herring is quick to emphasize that the
ceries and personal care items to people living
actors will not be in drag. Nor will they change
with AIDS. Esther’s Pantry director and MCC
the pronouns in the songs. Instead, what quick­
music director Steven Couch is rhe musical
director for the show.
ly emerges is a same-sex romantic subtext, in
which, for instance, one female character
Herring, who played leading roles in the
muses that “She Loves Me,” while her object of
Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera
and San Francisco’s Beach Blanket Babylon, says
desire maintains that she’s a “Proud Lady" who
his Flip Side cast includes “some of the most
likes to get around (The Baker’s Wife).
gifted, professional actors I’ve had the chance
And haven’t you always wanted to see gay
to work with.”
men do Chicago’s “Cell Block Tango”?
The weeklong prixluction is followed by a
Herring—who wrote, directed and appears
reprisal of the show during a Sept. 11 gala
in Flip Side —says it’s a sort of social experiment
event for Esther’s Pantry at Montgomery Park.
with the audience. He wants to challenge
Tickets for the Miracle Theatre run are $12-
stereotypes about gender and portray men
$19. Ticket for the gala are $110, and Exh are
“being hormonal” and women as “cads.”
available from 503-281-8868. JH
The prixluction is being presented by Met-
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 23
ARLENE SCHNITZER
CONCERT HALL
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