Marie and Bruce at The New Group

As a regular theater goer in the New York area, every year at about this time I start getting brochures from, it seems, every subscription theater group in the tri-state area.  A few years ago I finally broke down and bought my first, to Second Stage.  I enjoyed four very good years of theater at reasonable prices (although usually the same reasonable price that I will know doubt get in a post card or e-mail after the show opens) and then hit a dud.  I don't remember particularly why I didn't care for the season except that one entry was a one women show featuring Anna Deveare Smith that even for all her immense talent could not create a satisfying theatrical experience.  Down went Second Stage and up went Playwrights Horizon. Playwrights Horizon went the way of The Public, and The Public to The Atlantic.   I've cycled like this with five or six companies over the years.

Still, the thrill of seeing something new before everyone else overweighs the fear of tge inevitable clunker and I was an early fan of Next to Normal,  Putnam County Spelling Bee and Suburbia at Second Stage, secured great seats to the Stoppard tribute to Chekhov because of my Lincoln Center subscription and dug Mauritius through an MCC "4-Pack" deal.

This year I added The New Group, a red hot off-Broadway company of the moment.  Noted for their very physical, risk-taking productions, home is a small venue on the 42nd Street theater row so when they get a hit it tends to sell out quickly leaving poor souls like me on the outside looking in (and I really hate that!).  No Aunt Dan and Lemon for Evan.  After really enjoying a revival of Hurlyburly last year, I took the plunge and once again had the privilege of seeing Ethan Hawke's ass crack (that caused a big stir in Hurlyburly, nigh a whisper from the critics about it in 2010) in Blood From A Stone, the first production of the season.  Since Blood From a Stone was so well cast, well written and exceptionally well directed, I had great hopes for what would be my third New Group production.  After all, with Marissa Tomei starring, and Wallace Shawn writing, what could be wrong with Marie and Bruce?

EVERYTHING and nothing it turns out, is wrong with Marie and Bruce, currently in production at 410 W 42nd street, because after the first fifteen minutes you are so tuned out to anything going on up there you start making mental checklists of everything you have to do the next day, which can be very productive.  About the time I was considering where to make lunch reservations, the scenery changed and Marie and Bruce (fyi...we hear that Marie and Bruce are married and Marie really, really hates Bruce a lot before you finally tune out) went to party where everyone smoked, wore seventies clothes, and talked about boring things.  By the time the party was over, I had mentally mapped out a work project.  I glanced at creepy characters doing a set change while checking my e-mails (I know, I know...but I took great pains to cover the light) and when they were finally done yammering up there was all ready for bed.

See this play ONLY if you need some quiet time for free thought, because this show offers nothing to think about.    I have no idea what it is trying say and don't really want to put the effort in to find out.  This is a dud, plain and simple and given the tepid applause at the end (with the exception of obvious Marissa Tomei fans in the mid-section) I think the rest of the audience agreed.  There wasn't even -- shocking! -- a standing ovation.

I hear Signature is doing a neat season next year -- any up for a sub?

The Book of Mormon

The next time I start on my rant on how live theater is dead as an art form, remind me of The Book of Mormon.  Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of South Park fame, have enough entertainment clout to have chosen any medium they wanted for their next project.  When they decided to desecrate the Mormon Church with the same incredible wit, satire, and filthy (and I mean filthy!) language that they bring to their television show, they teamed up with co-creator Robert Lopez of Avenue Q fame and chose live theater as their medium.  

Thank you.  What a funny, relevant, filthy, extraordinary show is playing at the Eugene O”Niell Theater and a very welcome entry to a rather lame season.

The ludicrous plot of The Book of Mormon tells the story of Elders Price and Cunningham, two teenage missionaries sent to Uganda to spread the word.  Price is the winner of the two, all Donny Osmond smile and white teeth, expected to do great things.  His companion, Arnold Cunningham, is a sort of mission-school dropout.  As played by the energetic Josh Gad, he’s an overweight kid with a lying problem, thrilled to be going on a mission so he will finally have a friend.  No one expects him to amount to anything.

When Price and Cunningham reach Uganda, the natives don’t want anything to do with either of them.  What with AIDS, war, bugs on their…uhm…private parts and the constant threat of their women being circumcised by a menacing General named Buttfu**innaked, they have enough to worry, and sing, and dance about.  

Price and Cunningham’s fellow missionaries in Uganda aren’t in much better shape than the natives and in a hilarious, show-stopping number Rory O’Malley almost steals the show with “Turn It Off,” leading a chorus of missionary boys in describing how they deal with feelings that aren’t authorized by the Church.

It is all too much for wonder boy Price, who flees, hoping The Church will reassign him to where he has always dreamed Heavenly Father would lead him – the magical world of Orlando.  Instead, he has “Creepy Hell Dream” a hilarious musical number where Satan joins with all that is evil (including dancing Starbucks coffee cups) in scaring Price back to the mission. 

But he is too late.  In his absence, Cunningham was alone winning over the natives.  Since he’s never read the book of Mormon, and thinks it’s boring anyway, he creates his own story of deliverance featuring Jedi and Deathstars.  The man, who no expected anything from, has single-handedly converted more natives than any mission in Africa.

And he did it with a story that seems as plausible as the official Morman story, we are told, of ancient Israelis sailing to the New World burying messages on gold plates dug up millennia later by Joseph Smith. 

In the second act the heathens find happiness, Cunningham finds his calling, Price is back in the fold, and no matter how bizarre your beliefs, as long as you have faith you are a winner. 

I know I’ve devoted a lot of space to plot, but that really isn’t the point of The Book of Mormon; it’s all really a conceit for a cutting parody of all things Mormon, and all things Julie Taymor. Stone and Parker have done their homework and created a very traditional musical, with a story arc, an underdog, a love interest, an obstacle that must be overcome and a finish that wraps it all up in a nice pretty bow.  Songs and lyrics move the plot along, and borrow frequently from other musicals and musical styles, with big Broadway, rock, and lullabies all layered into a musical that moves.  Perhaps the highlight of a show that never stops topping itself is a takeoff on the Uncle John’s cabin scene from The King and I, where the natives perform the Book of Mormon (as described by Arnold Cunningham) to an audience of Mormon elders.  Like The King, they are not amused.

This being a musical parody set in Africa, Stone and Parker can’t help themselves from taking frequent swipes at The Lion King and Julie Taymor, whose Spider-Man disaster is playing down the street.  The biggest laugh of the night comes after the native performance, where one native asks about the Elders “Do they know we are in previews?”

The show is exceptionally well cast and choreographed.  Andrew Rannells, as Elder Price, brings innocence and leading man authority to the role.  Josh Gad, as Elder Cunningham, does what he did in Putnam County Spelling Bee, make you root for the fat, unpopular underdog.  Here he gets to show off his considerable singing and dancing talents (still, I couldn’t help but think what Norbert Leo Butz would bring to the role).  Nikki James, as Nabalungi, the female love interest, does what she can with a non-funny role in a very funny play. 

This may be the hardest working ensemble on Broadway.  Working with just enough electronic wizardry to set the scene, the audience is focused on the people on stage and they never miss a step.

I heard someone on line at intermission say that he was a missionary 21 years ago and it wasn’t all that different from what they were describing on stage.  Between Book of Mormon and Big Love, can we really trust the judgement of Mormon Mitt Romney as President?  I know what Stone and Parker would have to say.

WHAT IT MEANS TO "SETTLE" - KIN AT PLAWRIGHTS HORIZON

It is a deflating day that when adult children realize their parents are just human --  mere mortals, part saint and sinner.  Every child feels they have a right to pursue their dream of happiness, but when it comes to their  parents if it doesn't fit the idea of the perfect nuclear family in Bathsheba Doran's new play, KIN, currently in production at Playwrights Horizon, it's a reason for pain and petulance.

Broadly, KIN is about the courtship of Anna and Sean, a Columbia English Professor and physical trainer, respectively.  Two kids trying to make it in the big city.  We meet their parents and friends, and in episodic vignettes (the theatrical shortcut equivalent to looking directly at the camera to comment on the action, that is so cheap and prevalent on comic television right now) watch their relationship form.

Sean is from Ireland, Anna from Texas. Anna is distant from her father, but puts on a good show until discovering that her dead mother wanted to divorce him before she died.  Sean's mother was raped when he was 8...abandoned by Church and husband, she retreated into the safety of her home, not to walk out again until the exotic American Anna, arrives Xanax in hand some 20 years later.  Sean's reaction to his mother's agoraphobia was to move halfway around the world, as we keep being told by everyone except Sean.

Neither Sean nor Anna confess to be in love, and yet  with no other alternatives on the horizon, we watch them become willing to "settle."

The best moments of the play are with the older characters who conquered their settling issues a long time ago.  A poignant moment has Kay's father visiting the deathbed of a women he had an affair with for many years, played by the arresting Kit Flannigan.  When she holds Anna's voluminous new book, we see what can only be described as motherly pride.  Suzanne Bertish plays Sean's damaged, non-apologetic mother Linda.  One can only imagine what growing up in that house was like, but in his weekly phone calls home we don't see any bitterness from Sean and its through Ms. Bertish's layered performance that we understand why.

The set, designed by Paul Steinberg, is a big frame that moves as we change locales and continents.  With the notable exception of a very effective wedding scene set on the cliffs on the Ireland, it neither contributes or deters from the action.

Sam Gold's direction is hopscotch and his choices are not always clear.  Why, for the last 15 minutes, are all the characters on stage?  Nothing has really changed.  A side plot has Anna's best friend meditating in the woods with a realistic backdrop -- the only one we see during the course of the 1:45 hour, no intermission piece.  Why the need for trees?

KIN, I hope, is a work in progress with lots of potential.  Clearer direction and more focus on the main characters who define KIN will create a sharper, more lasting theatrical experience.