Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test

The Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test is our personal and highly opinionated Commuter's Guide to New York theater and cultural events, with an emphasis on Broadway and Off-Broadway theatrical productions. The test is simple: is an event worth the always expensive, time consuming, and too often horrendous struggle to commute to New York City from New Jersey, Long Island, Upstate New York or Connecticut? Only truly great or near-great performances and productions may meet this stiff challenge!

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Location: Princeton, New Jersey, United States

James Camner is an antiquarian dealer of autographs, manuscripts and printed music and books of Opera, Classical Music, Theater, Dance, and Film, as well as a published author of more than 10 books on the performing arts including "How to Enjoy Opera" (Simon and Schuster), "The Great Opera Stars in Historic Photographs" (Dover), "Stars of American Musical Theater in Historic Photographs" (Dover - with Stanley Appelbaum); was for over 20 years a reviewer for Fanfare Magazine and has written feature articles and reviews for Opera News.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

La Bete, a play by David Hirson at The Music Box theater, starring Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley, directed by Matthew Warchus. Two seasons ago, Mark Rylance and Matthew Warchus revived a failed play, "Boeing, Boeing" and struck gold. Well, here they've done it again, and have found an even richer vein, for "La Bete" which only ran 15 performances the first time around, emerges as a comic masterwork of the highest order. Rylance, whom we've seen in so many plays including Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Henry V, etc, and who has been magnificent in all of them, rises in "La Bete" , or rather sinks, to a level of vulgar hilarity, with an antic yet naturalistic delivery of the verse that keeps the audience in convulsions. By its skillful ease and inhibition, this astonishing performance leaves his audiences grasping for superlatives. His two co-stars, Joanna Lumley and David Hyde Pierce, are superb foils for his manic comedy. Lumley, radiant and regal, is appropriately fierce but at all times very funny. The sets and costumes by Mark Thompson are very striking. .
Why did "La Bete" fail? Looking at the original cast, there was no Mark Rylance to be found for one thing, but perhaps it is its scabrous humor that savages critics among others. Could this be why Frank Rich savaged the play in turn? I wouldn't be surprised, for critics who blithely tear apart the work of a lifetime without even thinking of the consequences are notoriously thin- skinned themselves.
So rich in humor and wisdom disguised in a faux-Moliere-comedy setting,"La Bete," which is entirely in rhyme, is sublime and not to be missed. Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test Grade A+

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Orlando, a play by Sarah Ruhl adapted from the novel by Virginia Woolf, at Classic Stage Company.
In "Orlando" Sarah Ruhl has once again found the fusion of magic, myth, humor and enchantment that marked her sublime "Eurydice." "Orlando," which lasts two hours with one ten minute intermission, waves a spell that is only occasionally punctuated by laughter. Ruhl's quirky absurdist sensibility matches well with this great anamorphic love story penned by Woolf to Vita Sackville-West. And in "Orlando" Ruhl may have created her finest work to date, a masterwork to stand with and perhaps surpass "Eurydice."
The performances by five gifted actors, two of whom are beautiful women and three men of middling appearance, are phenomenal. In the lead role, Francesca Faridany who has lurked on the fringe of fame should at last achieve a breakthrough. Faridnay, mesmerizingly beautiful in her man/woman transformation, in and out of clothes, gives a towering performance that should land her several off-Broadway awards. Particularly noteworthy is the poetic reading of her lines both narrative and dialogue, lines that stick in the memory like "The dead have wonderful memories."
Annika Boras is gorgeous and haunting as Sasha and the three men are remarkable in several roles including Queen Elizabeth. The stagecraft in the diminutive space is startlingly creative. Movement and dance is choreographed by Annie-B Parson and the direction by Rebecca Taichman is award-worthy. So too is the spellbinding music by Christian Frederickson and Ryan Rumery. It is quite likely that "Orlando" will be the most talked about play of the early season, if not the year. Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test grade A+