Robert Viagas and King Kong
King Kong
Written by Jack Thorne, songs by Eddie Perfect, other music by Marius de Vries.
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
There has been talk of bringing the Australian musical spectacular King Kong to Broadway since 2010.
Now, through a possibly unprecedented combined effort of the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization, Jujamcyn, the Ambassador Theatre Group and two dozen other above-the-title producers, the extravaganza (based on the classic 1933 film) is finally pounding its chest and bellowing at the Broadway Theatre. But not as primally as it needs to. ’Tis political correctness that kills this beast.
As in Oz, the star of the show is the colossal animatronic marionette/robot playing the title character, a two-story monster gorilla who is hunted and captured from the wild in Act I and hubristically brought to Manhattan to be exhibited to the public in Act II. But a force of nature like Kong can’t be kept in chains for long. By the end, Kong makes his epic climb up the Empire State Building where his final fate awaits him.
This unique creation deserves a detailed description. Twenty feet tall, he dominates the stage both with his overwhelming physical presence and, significantly, with his acting. Yes, his acting. He is operated by seven black-clad puppeteers who scurry around him, skillfully manipulating his body and limbs with their hands and with long ropes that act exactly like puppet strings. After a while your mind subtracts the puppeteers and you see only Kong. In addition, his mouth, eyes and facial muscles are operated by computer-run servos. Kong’s face is so large that wherever you sit in the theatre you can see his remarkably expressive facial expressions in the equivalent of a movie closeup. Alternately terrifying and heartbreaking, the expression of his emotions as he deals with these strange little human creature are the best part of King Kong.
This epic monster will undoubtedly go down in Broadway history. For many, the chance to experience it will be worth the ticket price.
Humanizing this force of nature is an amazing feat, but often undercuts the drama. To make the story more contemporary and politically correct, the creators monkeyed around with the characters, making the leading lady Ann Darrow (Christiani Pitts) more of a driver of the story. But that means she has to take more of the blame for her “betrayal” of Kong, who becomes less of a threat, and more like a moody boyfriend. Making him more human actually diminishes his stature. Kong the Mighty spends most of Act II moping.
To make Ann’s role bigger, librettist Jack Thorne and songwriter Eddie Perfect had to make the other characters smaller. Filmmaker Carl Denham (Eric William Morris) is now just a creepy con man and ship captain Englehorn has almost nothing to do.
Perfect’s score doesn’t always live up to the grandeur of the central character (who doesn’t sing, thankfully), but he does provide Pitts with several satisfying power ballads, including a wow of an eleven o’clock number, “The Wonder,” delivered as she stands alone at the pinnacle of the Empire State.
King Kong plays at the Broadway Theatre in Manhattan.
“Long Rail’s” Journey North
After a successful run in the New York International Fringe Festival, C.A.G.E. Theatre Company is proud to encore The Long Rail North, written by award-winning playwright, Michael Hagins, and directed by Planet Connections’ former Artistic Director, Brock H. Hill. The riveting play about a Black Union soldier and a young White Southern girl, will be at the Soho Playhouse, for a special three-performance run.
The Long Rail North opens Friday, December 28th at 7 pm, and runs on Saturday, December 29th at 7 pm and closes Sunday, December 30th at 3 pm at the Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street.
The Long Rail North is the story of Private Thomas Morgan, a Black Union soldier, who must escape via train with a young Southern White girl named Molly Barnes that he rescued from a plantation fire of a nearby Civil War battle. Exhausted with limited resources and even fewer allies, Thomas continues traveling north in the near-empty boxcar, hoping to get Molly to safety despite her ignorant and preconceived opinions of him and his race, all while both Union and Confederate forces pursue them. He will do whatever he can to protect her…at all costs.
Playwright Michael Hagins shares his journey with this gripping play.
I started writing The Long Rail North when I was 15 years old. I had a love for the Civil War and its history, and for the brave Black soldiers who risked their lives to save others. When I finished, it only had 3 characters (Thomas, Molly and Vickers) and was roughly 20 minutes long. It took me a long time to find it again and fill the holes and do the edits I needed to feel good about it. I think I picked it up again way back in 2003, and even then I didn’t have a computer at home so I’d spend a lot of time in computer labs writing and editing.
The first time I put the show up, it ended up having 3 performances in a now-defunct festival for 8 people. TOTAL – as in across the 3 shows. The shows took place during a snowstorm, and yet the actors always showed up and always did the show. I felt so bad that I couldn’t give them a more full house, and I remain so thankful to them that they stuck it out with me. When I submitted it to Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, I felt like it was a near-finished product. I say that because none of my work is ever truly done. Even this play…maybe I missed something. Maybe there’s more I could create. And luckily, I’ve always had an amazing cast and crew to keep encouraging me to create more and to be happy with the work I’ve been able to provide for them.
Mario Lantigua and family drama
Pink Arts Peace Productions, Inc. presents the revival of the compelling play by Mario Lantigua, Two Faces One Mirror. Workshopped in 2013, Mario Lantigua’s powerful drama will be revived at the landmark American Theater of Actors, 314 W 54th Street New York City, for a limited run, December 28 – 30. Tickets available at: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/pink-arts-peace-productions-inc-18255837545
Lantigua also directs his play – about the journey of a young single mother and her blind-to-reality daughter. “This play serves as a parable of love and sacrifice,” says Lantigua, regarding his play.
We spoke with Mr. Lantigua about his work.
What is YOUR message as a writer – what do you hope to contribute to the independent theatre scene?
My message as a writer is to never put the pen down, and to keep telling your story. Even though I still consider myself a student in the world of theatre and film, I never stop writing. The stories that I tell are a part of the lives of so many people who may not otherwise be heard. We write for ourselves and for all of those around us.
What was the inspiration for this project?
My inspiration for this story comes from the girls and women I grew up with in the Bronx. While their stories are unique, they also have so much in common. Sacrifice, love, navigating family expectations. I think there’s something really special about this particular production, with Sunflower Duran playing the lead role, who herself has lived as a young Dominican mother from the Bronx. It’s a classic tale.
What’s your creative process like?
I actually started writing this play for a class I took in 1995. It’s hard for me explain my creative process, but I just keep writing what I see and feel.
What makes this different or special from the first run?
This run of 2 Faces One Mirror is being produced by Pink Arts Peace Productions Inc. (PAPI), with an outstanding cast and crew. I had no idea what I was doing during the first run of the play. I was doing everything myself, from writing the play to managing the stage, and many of the cast were acting for the first time. With the backing off PAPI, I can focus on directing, while the experienced talent can focus on what they do best.
What did you learn/are learning about yourself through this process?
I am learning to trust myself more, and to also trust a team. As I learned through experience, you can’t do everything yourself. You need a team behind you.
What are your ultimate goals for this production or your company for the future?
My goal is to take this production on the road. PAPI and the cast is filled with Bronx natives who have actually lived through the experiences of 2 Faces One Mirror. Our stories are incredibly important. I would especially love to see 2 Faces One Mirror in Hollywood, as a theatre production and also as a film production.
What’s next?
People say the sky is the limit, but I want the whole universe. My team and I won’t stop till till we get it. In addition to a film version of 2 Faces One Mirror, I’m working on a documentary with the working title ‘Freeing Manuel Lugo’. It’s about gangs, corruption, and the prison system in the Bronx. Our stories must be heard.
As You may or may not Like It
As You Like It
By William Shakespeare
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
Rosalind, Orlando and the rest of the merry band of lovers and miscreants in As You Like It who take refuge in the forest of Arden encounter “hippies” and homeless people in Carrie Issacman’s zero-frills staging of William Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy for the Shakespeare Sports Theatre Company.
STC is primarily a traveling theatre, and specializes in an aesthetic self-described on the official website as “unrehearsed Shakespeare.” It’s an apt description. The notion of having the cast read their lines from handheld scrolls instead of bound scripts could not disguise the fact that most of them hadn’t memorized their halting speeches or built much of a coherent characterization beyond eye rolling and hand waving. More than once the action paused while actors glanced nervously at each other waiting for someone else to give the next line. The tactic might work better with plays by Brecht or Foreman, but didn’t really do Shakespeare or the audience any favors.
Among those who acquitted themselves honorably were Charles Lear as the imperious Duke, Joe Crow Ryan as a grizzled Touchstone, and Roger Stude as a disheveled Jacques who stood out with his slapdash but strangely effective “Seven Ages of Man” speech. Director Issacson herself provided a highlight as the coquettish Audrey. Donna Stearns and Melanie Gretchen (who also played Hymen) composed music for Shakespeare’s lyrics.
Some of the actors were in costumes or partial costumes. Most were in street clothes, supposedly circa 1968, when this production is listed in the program as being set. The stage was almost bare, backed by black curtains which the actors sometimes fumbled through, searching for the gap to make their exit.
As You Like It appeared at the tiny Steve and Marie Sgouros Theatre space at the Players Theatre in Greenwich Village through December 8.
Robert Viagas examines The Lifespan of a Fact
The Lifespan of a Fact
By Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell.
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
One of the curses of journalism is the act of “fudging.” Not the wholesale falsifying of stories, but the adjusting of seemingly small details—“insignificant” details—to make a story more exciting, more resonant, perhaps more literary. But which only make it untrue.
If recognized, these fudges undermine the public’s faith in the story, and, ultimately, in journalism itself.
Costarring the Rushmore-like three-generation trio of Cherry Jones, Bobby Cannavale, and Mr. Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, The Lifespan of a Fact, now on Broadway at Studio 54, dramatizes this issue by presenting just such a situation as it happens at a New Yorker-like literary magazine. Jones plays the editor, who believes she has found the once-in-a-generation story about a young woman’s suicide, written by a renowned author, played by Cannavale.
The story seems like a slam-dunk prize-winner for her and for her magazine, so she assigns the pro-forma fact-checking to Jim, a promising recent college grad, played by Radcliffe. But this first-timer turns out to be more dogged and thorough than either of the veterans expected, and keeps finding tiny but significant fudges in the story that give it sweep and resonance, but which turn out to have been made up by the author.
The author is annoyed and the editor is dismissive at first, but, as the fudges pile up, the situation turns from problematic to disastrous.
It took three playwrights to adapt an essay written by two journalists (Jim D’Agata and Jim Fingal), but these too many cooks have managed not to spoil the broth. The play moves energetically and decisively as Jim keeps discovering more and more inconsistencies. The power of the play comes from the way the audience’s attitude shifts from comic annoyance with the gumshoe-like youngster, to respect for the youngster and alarm at the casual dismissiveness of the two veterans who should have known better.
Directed by Leigh Silverman, the play never gets dry or didactic. It finds plenty of humor in a situation that asks serious questions about whether journalists are less careful than they were years ago? And, if so, are their editors and other gatekeepers, like the authors of this play, equipped enough and dedicated enough to do something about it?
The Lifetime of a Fact is scheduled to play at Studio 54 in Manhattan through January 13, 2019.
An Englishman, an Irishman and an American Wake Up in Plato’s Cave
A review by Joshua Crone
Whatever political realities may have prompted Animus Theatre Company’s captivating revival of Irish dramatist Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch over Me, the universally human dimensions of the play are what ultimately justify its extended sentence. The unrelenting image of two, sometimes three, men chained to a wall burns itself into the brain in the course of the play’s considerable runtime until it becomes less an illustration of the characters’ plight than a symbol of the human condition, a dramatization of Plato’s cave allegory or a sly foray into Beckettian theatre of the absurd—sly because the absurdity is achieved naturalistically rather than imposed formally; it is earned through the suffering of the characters and the fully committed actors who play them, their arms weary from set after set of pushups, their legs and eyes red and raw from real and mind-forged manacles.
Driven to distraction, they toast with invisible glasses, drive imaginary cars, play tennis in the presence of the Queen, hop around like bunnies to a childish little song. And these manic games, alternately amusing and disturbing, express their desperation far more effectively than the occasional tearful breakdown. Their unseen captors are referred to, even shouted at, but never seen or heard. In a Kafkaesque twist, the reason for their imprisonment can only be guessed at. And in perhaps the most potent symbol of all, the door to the cell stands open.
There is much to recommend in this gritty, visceral production, from the dirty floor and ochre walls of Scott Tedmon Jones’s set, realistic yet bleakly surreal in the manner of de Chirico, to the masterfully orchestrated ebb and flow of speech, action and emotion under director Alan Langdon’s baton.
But by and large it is the brutally honest performances of the actors that keep this infernal machine in motion. As the American, Leif Steinert’s Adam ranges from stoic voice of reason to blubbering defeatist.
As Michael, the disoriented latecomer and quintessential Englishman, Michael Broadhurst follows the opposite arc, his upper lip gradually stiffening to deliver some of the play’s funniest and most incisive lines.
And Jonathan Judge-Russo’s Edward, chained to center stage and just as central to the story, drives the action in ever-tightening circles with controlled intensity and an impeccable Irish brogue.
The production could benefit from a sound design that does more to suggest a world offstage, perhaps a few ominous sounds at key points to lend credence to their fear of the unseen captors. And there are moments when the tears flow a little too freely, where an effort to restrain them would be more believable and affecting. Finally, the text itself suffers at times from being overly schematic, as it plays out all the possible permutations of persecutor vs. victim in a cell with precisely three anchor points.
But there is so much life and lyricism and breadth of vision in both the text and the production that minor shortcomings are quickly forgotten. What remains, long after the play has ended, is, to quote the director’s own note, a sense of “the resilience of the human spirit,” even under absurd conditions. And since life itself is arguably absurd, regardless of the political or material circumstances under which it plays out, what could possibly be more timely and relevant?
Running thru Decemver 9 – https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1001209
Chorus Line Stars Old and New Unite at TRU Benefit
By Robert Viagas
Stars of the original production of A Chorus Line appeared alongside members of the 2018-19 international touring production at the Nov. 4 “TRU Love” benefit for Theatre Resources Unlimited (TRU) at Caroline’s Comedy Club in New York City.
Tony Award winner Priscilla Lopez (the original Diana Morales) was among those who paid tribute to her onetime castmate Baayork Lee (original Connie Wong). Lee, now a director, choreographer and co-founder of the National Asian Artists Project, received the TRU Spirit of Theater Award for “a lifetime of creating opportunities for Asian artists.”
Lopez recalled Lee during the original A Chorus Line rehearsals as “the brightest spirit in the room,” and after describing Lee’s little-known efforts as a surrogate parent for her own niece and nephew, saluted her for her remarkable abilities to inspire others, saying, “she’s always ready to make miracles happen.”
Accepting the award, Lee recalled how, her very first Broadway audition, at age 5, for the original cast of The King and I, she told her mother “This is where I want to be.” As an Asian-American artist who has opened to door for so many others, she said, “The door opened little bit [for me] and I stuck my foot in…. We are here to stay!”
Observing that A Chorus Line has been lauded wherever in the world it has played, Lee said, “I think we’re going to go to the moon someday, because A Chorus Line is everywhere.”
Members of the current ACLtour, choreographed by Lee, sang the show’s signature song, “What I Did for Love.”
The theme for the event was “The Power of Community,” which well suited Lee’s fellow honoree, John Chatterton, founder of the Midtown International Theatre Festival, who received the TRU Entrepreneur Award for “providing 17 years of developmental opportunities for a range of independent theater artists.”
Chatterton spoke briefly about his lifelong desire to provide opportunities for artists through the Midtown Festival, and also to provide much-needed critical attention to their work through the publication OOBR (Off-Off-Broadway Reviews).
That mission lined up well with that of the awards’ hosting organization, Theatre Resources Unlimited, which gives money to help jumpstart the careers of young producers, directors and other theatre artists. To support those activities, TRU held an auction at the event that raised more than $5000 with bids on Hamilton tickets, a Uniworld European River Cruise for two, and two pairs of Yankees Legend Suite tickets.
Directed by Jonathan Cerullo, the event also included performances by the cast of the Off-Broadway musical Sista, the song “Superior” from Thrill Me, the song “Take Me America” from the musical of the same name, and Brenda Braxton performing “Family” from Dreamgirls. As an opening number, Xander Chauncy and the young actors from A Chorus Line set the tone of the event by singing Stephen Schwartz’ “(We Can Build a) Beautiful City” from Godspell.
Arts Independent 