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.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Anything Goes, a musical by Cole Porter at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. Starring Sutton Foster, Joel Grey, Jessica Walter, John McMartin, Laura Osnes, Colin Donnell, Adam Godley, directed by Kathleen Marshall. Although in previews for a just a week, this new revival of a classic looks positively smashing. The cast is very strong with Joel Grey a delight and the hugely talented Sutton Foster in what is probably the role of her life. After a week of dreadful news, this once and future Depression era hit really proved an antidote, a happy two and a half hours of sheer bliss. Because there will probably be changes it isn't fair to give details except to give advance notice that this is likely to be a huge hit on the Pajama Game or South Pacific level and that tickets will be scarce and expensive, so be warned! Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test Grade A+

Where's Charley" a musical by Frank Loesser at the New York City Center Encores!
The last Encores! of the season was the best, a funny, fizzy, happy performance of Loesser's first musical with an enchanting cast featuring veteran Broadway favorite, the lovely Rebecca Luker whose warm clear soprano has never sounded better. The direction by John Doyle was spot on and the youngsters in the cast give a bright promise for a big Broadway future, and several Broadway veterans added their comic expertise. Rob McClure as Charley had the audience eating out of his hand in "Once in Love with Amy." The Amy, pretty Lauren Worsham had a breakout success with "The Woman in His Room".
Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test Grade. A

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Arcadia, a play by Tom Stoppard at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Directed by David Leveaux. In its final week of previews, this is shaping up as an anemic revival of Stoppard's celebrated play. There is a pulse here, a weak one, but where it is really lacking is in heart. Possibly that's due to the disastrously mis-cast Bel Powley as Thomasina. Projecting a whining flippancy, she neither is convincing as a precocious genius, nor makes us believe that she matures in the two years that pass between Acts One and Two into a young woman on the verge of sexual awakening. One thing Powely needs to do is learn to project her voice without shouting at the top of her lungs.
The rest of the cast is uneven. Tom Riley is superb as Hodge and Raul Esparza is quite good as Valentine. My wife and I split on Crudup, she liked his over the top performance, while I found him one dimensionally irritating. Grace Gummer, the younger daughter of Meryl Streep has a radiant presence and was good in the minor role of Chloe. Too bad she wasn't cast as Thomasina. Margaret Colin is a wan and ineffectual Lady Croom.
In this production, the play seems all hat and no cattle, with lots of pseud0-intellectual and cultural trappings to make an audience feel smarter than they and the play really are.
But perhaps with a good Thomasina and a different director the play might live up to its reputation. The production itself badly needs color and that sense of landscape that seems to be built into the text. As it is, it's a big open room, all white monochrome which is belied by the gorgeous curtain drop providing the riot of landscape and color that is absent.
There are pleasures to be sure -- Stoppard's prose is elegant and brilliant -- but so much of it seems like a magician's bag of tricks, dazzling, but empty. Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test Grade B-