Ducking Disney

Every theatre geek's gotta love this clip from SNL, but as I was giggling through it, I wondered what the heck oldsters like The Music Man and Annie were doing in the sketch. Where was Simba the Lion King? Where was Ursula the Seawitch? Where was Mary Poppins, or Beauty, or the Beast? These are all easily identifiable musical characters which would have helped Middle America enjoy this very Manhattan-centric skit. Oh, but all those characters are owned by Disney.

Remember that most infamous of Oscar broadcasts? The one where Rob Lowe serenaded Snow White? Disney claimed ownership of Snow's image, and went to court over copyright infringement. Somebody at NBC is clearly on the lookout to avoid such costly litigation. Looks like the Peacock bowed to the Mouse...

ah well, who cares. The sketch is still a hoot:

Theatre Droppings: (F)Abnormal Edition

There are a couple of ladies currently living on DC musical stages who are, how should this be put? They're a couple of tacos short of a combo plate...


I've been curious about the musical Grey Gardens since the great Christine Ebersole made such a splash with the original on Broadway. I've listened to the score several times, but I can now attest that the music plays better in the theatre than on record. Studio Theatre is presenting the area premiere, in a version which, out of spacial necessity, is scaled down. But the performances are terrific, particularly DC's own Jenna Sokolowski. Her Act One role of Little Edie makes almost no impression on the original cast recording, but in the theatre, the character, as played by Sokolowski, is a major presence. Score one for the home team.








As I said, everybody's good, but the second act is pretty much swiped by Barbara Broughton as Big Edie. She's clearly having a ball. The cast is headed by the great Barbara Walsh in the Ebersole role(s). Walsh is another of those well-respected Broadway performers who would probably have graduated to national stardom in a different generation. Because that kind of thing does not happen nowadays, her fame is restricted to the theatre community. I had heard her name for years, and finally saw her in the video of the Company revival (you know, the one where everybody carried around a trombone). In that one, I was suitably impressed by her work as Joanne, a role which, for a lot of people, cannot be played effectively by anyone except its originator, Elaine Stritch. But Walsh made the role her own, and, at least for me, was able to put her own stamp on the show's most famous song, Ladies Who Lunch. Here in Grey Gardens, she is doing a bang-up job, but I got the feeling that, the afternoon I was there, she was disturbed by something, or in a bad mood, or...something. Just a feeling that she had not jumped headfirst into her dual roles that day, that she was not having any fun. Ah well, whatever the problem was, the show was a good one, and director Serge Seiden did a terrific job fitting a large scale musical on his small stage.






Across the river on Arena Stage's temporary stage, there's another gal in need of some therapy. Next to Normal had a production in New York a while back, and the authors have been tinkering. This version is riveting; I don't know when I've admired a new musical so thoroughly. It's a simple story of a family dealing with grief, sort of Rabbit Hole, 15 Years Later, With Music. These writers really sucked me in, and the rest of the crowd too, so when the "reveal" happened, there were audible gasps in the audience. The performers sang the heck out of the score, which was pretty relentless, reflecting the tortured feelings of these characters. I am no judge of music, but I can report that the lyrics are clear and clean and rip at your heart. I attended a noon matinee, so the house was not at all full, and as I have noticed often with noon matinees, the star was absent. Alice Ripley, who was a standout in the Company which the Kennedy Center produced several years ago, has been playing the central role of the mother, but, as I said, she was out the day I caught the show. The understudy was absolutely fine, but I have a hunch there might have been an extra sparkle had Ripley been there. No matter, the show is extremely well cast, mostly with hold-overs from the Off-Broadway production. Aaron Tveit stands out as the teen-age son, darting up and down the three story set while belting out the rock-tinged numbers. He effectively oversees a lot of the action, and is a terrific "observer." (He looks pretty good in those boxers, too.) But the heroic performance is being given by J. Robert Spencer as the Dad. He is playing the least flamboyant character in the piece, so had the harder time of it. But his "recognition" scene with his son is so powerfully played, so powerfully sung, that I lost it. I admit I had been crying well before that moment, but at that instant, well, just shoot me now. Fathers and Sons and all that. The show, as I said, is pretty relentless, but is handled with a lot of dark humor which makes the piece very enjoyable. This endeavor deserves to have a future life. Any show that can make a musical number out of electro-shock therapy is a keeper in my book.

(update: 2/24/09: Next to Normal has announced a Broadway production, including the entire Arena Stage cast, to open April 15 at the Booth)

Friday Dance Party: Shake It.

This week was Elvis’s birthday, the perfect time to celebrate The King with a clip from one of his swivel-hipped performances. But not here. I wrote last week of my desire “to dance” this year, and Presley never inspired me to do so. But a goofy little musical called “Hairspray” did, and still does. The show closed on Broadway this week after a hefty run (see entry below), and I cannot listen to this big finale without wanting to get up and twist. The above montage celebrates the film version, which seems to be a pretty fair translation of the show (I’ve never seen it live, but Edna Turnblat is now on My List...one day...)

You can’t stop the beat.

Broadway Bloodbath

I haven't seen a Broadway show in several years, and though I'm in New York several times a year, I often lose touch with what's going on there, but this month's exeunts deserve mention; much of the Great White Way is going dark . Thirteen shows are shuttering in January, and though some were always scheduled to be limited engagements, and two others were seasonal attractions, there are more than a handful which seem to be victims of the current economic freefall.

Nobody really wants to see White Christmas anytime other than during the holidays, do they? I wouldn't think so (though the show has been making the rounds in the regions for several years, and not always at Christmas). I've written a bit about my love of the film, but I wouldn't mind seeing the stage version; I may yet get my chance, as the show's box office overcame lukewarm reviews to become a bona fide hit. I imagine it will be making return visits to New York in upcoming years. Another seasonal show closed this month, an entertainment centered around some Russian clowns. The show, Slava's Snowshow, had a successful run off-Broadway last year, and made the leap uptown this year. I read almost nothing about this piece, so who knows if it will be back.

Two more limited run shows are closing this month. Liza Minnelli returned to Broadway and wowed the critics with her stamina, her drive, and her attendance (like most of her career, she missed a few performances on doctor's orders, but graciously added shows to make up for it). I saw Liza at Radio City many years ago; she was on her decline at that point, and shouted the songs. This year, though, she seems to have made it work for her.

The All My Sons revival was also a financial success, and the stage debut of Mrs. Tom Cruise may have had a little something to do with that. Katie Holmes got mixed reviews, from what I read, but she was surrounded by real pros, and I've heard from folks who saw the play that it was terrific. I have a lot of respect for TV actors who return to the stage (John Lithgow, also in the show, is one of them), but I have absolutely no respect for producers who hire TV names for marquee value, without regard for their ability to actually deliver a performance. Ms. Holmes had never been on a stage before. I wonder what's next: Tori Spelling as Hedda Gabler?

All the other shows closing this month are commercial ventures which, I'm sure, would prefer to be hanging around a bit longer. Dividing the Estate is the latest Horton Foote family drama, with a large cast headed by Elizabeth Ashley. I wonder if some of their thunder was stolen by last year's Tony winner for Best Play, August: Osage County, which is still playing. Word is that most of the cast of Foote's play will be reprising their roles in an upcoming production at Hartford Stage. But for now, they're history.

The other straight play which is closing this month is Boeing-Boeing, a revival of a 60s flop which has been running for about a year. I would have loved to see this one, as the original cast included Christine Baranski, Bradley Whitford, and a Brit who is apparently a comic genius, Mark Rylance. A national tour is in the works, according to their website. I read an interview with one of the producers of the show, and was reminded that, in the old days, plays were really only meant to last a season, then tour a season, then disappear. Broadway economics eventually put a stop to that, and now a show has to run and run and run to turn a profit. Anyway, doesn't this show look fun?

Lots of musicals are calling it quits this month, including a show called 13, which stars actual teen-agers. Here is another show about which I had heard very little, though the picture reminds me of a show I saw decades ago, Runaways (this show's cast looks much more clean-cut).
Spring Awakening, 2007's Tony winner for Best Musical, definitely seems to be a victim of the economy. It received very good press, and though I've never heard the score, I certainly heard ABOUT the score, from the guys in the dressing room at Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre. When I was there during the summer of '07, all of them were enamored of this show about youth and sexual tension. I doubt I'll ever see this piece, as I have it on good authority that people in my generation just don't get it.

Another musical about youth and sexual tension bit the dust this week. This umpteenth revival of Grease was a little unusual, as the leading players were chosen on a Reality TV Competition. Apparently they were pretty good, but did we really need yet another revival of that warhorse? When we have yet to see a revival of A Little Night Music? I was in a summer stock production of Grease back in the 80s (in fact, I earned my Equity card playing Teen Angel), so I can state without hesitation that the show is more fun to be in than to watch. (Off the top of my head, I think Godspell and The Lion in Winter also fall into that category. Lots of fun to perform, not so much fun to attend.)

And while we're talking about winners of Reality Show Competition, it's worth noting that American Idol's most famous loser, Clay Aiken, returned to Spamalot for its final performances. I have enjoyed listening to the score of this long-running hit, but was never a Monty Python fanatic, so never took the time or money to see the national tours as they rumbled through DC. This show may just have run out of steam, rather than being an economic victim, as it's been running since 2004.

The longest running show to be closing this month is Hairspray, which won lots of Tonys back in 2003, and topped 2600 performances before closing last week. Original stars Harvey Fierstein and Marisa Jaret Winokur returned to close the show, and composer Marc Shaiman clearly blamed the economic downturn for the show's demise. "It's not like the show was ailing," he complained, "it's like putting a dog to sleep, not because he's sick, but because you can't afford the dog food." Still, the show had a phenomenal run, and clocks in as the 19th longest running show in Broadway history. It's actually a tribute to the piece that it continued to run several years after the film version was released.

The biggest budgeted Broadway Musical to be closing is Young Frankenstein (excuse me, I mean The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein, the actual title. He has no ego, has he?) The New York Times ran a piece as soon as this show posted its closing notice, regarding the fact that the Broadway community will not be sorry to see this monster go. The hubris of charging 400 bucks a ticket may have caught up with the producers, and the Times review was very very poor. Still, the show hung on for a year, and I'm sorry that its star, Roger Bart, did not receive better notices. He may be one of those actors who are just better "in support."

In my opinion, which holds no weight because I have not seen ANY of the above shows, the greatest loss this month is the premature closing of Gypsy. This revival won raves, and all three leads won Tonys.

The producers had already decided to close the show in March of this year, when the contracts were up for their Tony winners, but the gloomy financial situation forced them to shut down this week instead. Patti Lupone's performance, I've heard, should be preserved on film, for posterity to see how Mama Rose should be played. I've seen Angela Landbury, Bette Midler, and Tyne Daly play the role, and would pay top dollar to see Lupone chew it up.

So, 13 shows will be gone this time next month. Actually, 15, as the limited run of Equus, starring Harry Potter and his uncle, will be ending in early February, and Mamet's Speed-the-Plow departs next month as well. So, almost half of the current Broadway offerings will have closed. It remains to be seen how long their theatres will be vacant. Dolly Parton's first stage musical, 9-5, seemed to do well in Los Angeles and is surely on its way in. I've already mentioned excitement over the Waiting for Godot revival (though that's being presented as a limited run). The Public's revival of Hair, which was a big hit in the park last summer, has faced trouble with the cast and the backing, but they seem to be forging ahead as well. Broadway is experiencing the same financial dilemmas as the rest of the world, so who knows what will happen next...

s'Newz

...an occasional series mentioning current events which lately held my interest...

I saw Milk the other day, and was duly impressed. It's an engaging telling of a story I thought I knew (but really didn't). The performances were top-notch all the way around. I'm not a regular viewer of talk shows, but I am not surprised that the Big Topic whenever any of the stars is interviewed is the kissing. The Washington Post's Hank Stuever wrote an essay on the subject last week, and made terrific points. There are hardly two actresses in Hollywood these days who have not lip-locked for a film or TV show or photo shoot or whatnot. Nobody blinks. But for an actor, man-on-man kissing is more dangerous than stunt work, and more horrifying than putting a gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger. Go read this article.


Here's a kid who really wants to get to school. A 6-year old missed his bus, so he hopped into his mother's Ford Taurus and drove 10 miles before ramming the vehicle into a tree. He was not injured, but his parents were arrested for felony child endangerment. Seems the father was under a court order NOT to leave his kid alone with his wife (no mention has been made of what necessitated such a court order). The dad left the house anyway, and the mother was asleep when the kid left for school. That's right, this mother allowed her 6 year old child to get ready for school all on his own. It's infuriating that same-sex couples are prevented from adopting children in many states, and yet breeders like this can raise kids. Maybe this poor child wasn't all that anxious to get to school, maybe he just wanted to get away from these losers he was stuck with as parents.




Here's a scary one for stage performers. A German actor was appearing in Schiller's Mary Stuart in Vienna when a prop knife was switched with a brand new, real one, and he slit his own throat on stage. With blood gushing everywhere, the audience went wild with enthusiasm over the spectacular special effects. (The actor survived.)















I'll want to slit my throat, too, if this really happens. Two years ago I shuddered when the announcement was made that Andrew Lloyd Webber was writing a sequel to Phantom of the Opera. At the time, I could not come up with a single successful musical sequel (anybody seen a revival of Bring Back Birdie lately?). Well, this story has reared its frightening head again, as Lloyd Webber has said it will be set in Coney Island, and the production may open simultaneously in New York, London, and Shanghai. The show is called Phantom Love Never Dies, but I have a feeling this one will. The plan to open the show in three cities at once seems a blatant attempt to overcome what will probably be horrible reviews. Get this: they are talking Hugh Jackman for the lead. Really? How are they going to work in a scene in which the aging, deformed Phantom can take off his shirt?


I'll be posting an entry soon regarding all the Broadway shows which are closing this month, but here's one which appears to be still on track for an April opening. Roundabout's cast of Waiting for Godot will be worth the wait. In addition to Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin as those two clowns Vladimir and Estragon, the show will include two of my favorite character actors of all time, John Goodman and David Strathairn. Goodman did yeoman's work all those years on Roseanne, under what were very trying circumstances. He was even able to make her look like she had some acting chops on some occasions. Strathairn has been on my radar since he co-starred with Blair Brown on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, one of TVs first "dramedy" programs. Since then, he's been in just about every movie ever made. This is a terrific ensemble, and the only character yet to be cast is the title role.

Now I know what you're thinking: Godot never shows up, does he?







Well, in that case, Jeremy Piven would be perfect casting. He recently bolted from his limited engagement in Speed the Plow, leaving the producers scrambling to replace him. On doctors' orders, he returned to Los Angeles because he had too much mercury in his system. (Cynically, I wonder if he got a really spectacular film offer that he couldn't refuse).



As for that mercury, playwright David Mamet got in the last word. "I understand that Jeremy has given up show business to begin a new career as a thermometer."

TAG: You're it! ...or not...

I've had more free time than is good for me lately, as I wait for my next adventure to begin, so to while away the hours, I've been doing some scanning.

I've taken pictures throughout my teen and adult life, and am still no good at it. I took a Kodak camera to Europe when I was 17, and took pictures of everything. When I returned to the States and developed the shots, I learned an important lesson. I had taken many pictures of landmarks and scenic wonders, but they were boring as hell, and not nearly as good as a postcard. But if I happened to place one of my friends in front of Versailles, suddenly the picture had life.

From then on, I took pictures of people. I never took a picture of the gorgeous view, unless someone I cared about was standing in front of it.

During my college years, my post-college years, my grad school years, and my post-grad school years, I took thousands of pictures of the people in my life. Everyone around me was so used to my snapping candids that they didn't even remember that I had done so. Of course, one of the joys of taking pictures of your friends comes when you present them with the finished shot as a memento.

That almost never happened. I have over a dozen huge photo albums stuffed with pictures which my friends would love to have, but don't.

Along comes Facebook. With the help of my slow but efficient scanner, I am now able to share all these pictures with the folks for whom they were intended. I've spent the better part of the past week laboriously scanning various pictures onto the computer, and uploading them to FB. I love the fact that one can "tag" the photos with the people who are in them; Facebook then alerts these folks that new photos have been posted, and they can come find the pics.

I don't have any intention of posting ALL my photos, as I'm sure I have close to 10,000. But I'd like to distribute a representative number, and to that end, my Facebook Photo albums include shots of my college chums, as well as the group of actors with whom I did several shows at the Granada Dinner Theatre. I've also started an album of my grad school days, and one which contains more recent shots of one of my favorite theatrical experiences, Shear Madness, an association of which I am extremely proud. I plan to gradually add more shots to these albums.

When I was taking these pictures (some of them 30 years ago and more!), no one could have conceived that we would one day have the technology to display those photos for anyone in the world to view. So I am glad that Facebook allows anyone who has been tagged in a photo to remove that tag of themselves; as an actor, I am keenly aware how difficult it is to control one's image. I don't think anyone should be forced to have their image available for the whole world to see.

But here's the curious part. I currently have a few hundred pictures online at Facebook. One would think that, in that number, quite a few of the ladies might feel a bit self-conscious about their picture being so available, but one would be wrong. I have not had a single female friend signal her objection to a photo of herself; everyone seems to love reviving old memories and sharing a chuckle at their youth.

Out of the dozens of friends who appear in the pictures on my Facebook site, only three have UNtagged photos of themselves. All three are men.

Pat Hingle

1924-2009

Primarily known to today's film audiences as Commissioner Gordon in the first four Batman remakes, Hingle had a lengthy career on film and the stage. He appeared in the original casts of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (as slimy eldest son Gooper) and The Price (as policeman Victor Franz), as well as other notable premiere productions of Dark at the Top of the Stairs and J.B. He spent some time in the long-running original production of The Odd Couple and worked a season with the American Shakespeare Festival, playing Macbeth, among other roles.

On film, he was Warren Beatty's father in Splendor in the Grass and Sally Field's in Norma Rae. Actress Angelica Huston reported that his work in The Grifters so terrified her that, during the filming, she could not sleep at night. His breakout performance on film eluded him when he fell down an elevator shaft in 1959; he lost a finger and the title role of Elmer Gantry (to Burt Lancaster, who won the Oscar). He spent the rest of his career "in support."

Over the years, Hingle's stage work included revivals of Death of a Salesman, Our Town, Strange Interlude, and The Glass Menagerie (as the Gentleman Caller!) His final Broadway appearance was as Ben Franklin in the 1997 revival of the musical 1776.

He continued to appear in films and on regional stages until his death last week.