the craptacular

It’s that time of year again when you’re making your list and checking it twice and you realize… The Phantom is so damn hard to shop for. What do you get for the man who has everything? If your usual gift of a cashmere pashmina and a nice bottle of Galliano just won’t cut it this year, we have some suggestions that we think he’ll love.

Flameless Candles with Remote Control

At-Home Microdermabrasion Kit

Sparkle-Plenty Chandelier Spray Cleaner

The Magic Organ: 22 Great Organ Favorites on CD

Replacement Doll Eyes

35 Feet of Red Rope, and The Complete Book of Knots

Korg Synth with Vocoder

Soothing Lip Balm

Stand-Up Dehumidifier

Gifting Note: This item ships in the manufacturer’s original packaging. If intended as a gift, the packaging may reveal the contents.

The Art of the Personal Letter

For most people I know, The Phantom of the Opera is the first Broadway musical they ever saw. Something that was safe for a class trip to the Big Apple, or seemed like a good choice to Dad when the intimidating TKTS ticker was staring him down. But it’s not the kind of show most people would plan an expensive trip across an ocean to see. (Because, let’s be honest, we save those trips for Hugh Jackman.)

I’ve lived in New York City for ten years now and it’s been at least eight years since I even so much as took a tourist friend to see the show. Some potentially bad math tells me that’s about 3,300+ opportunities to see Phantom that I’ve passed up.

So you as you might imagine, it was both vaguely depressing and vaguely hilarious when—due to a combination of bad luck and poor planning—I landed in a seat at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London for a matinee performance of Phantom this October. Things got even more depressing/hilarious when I realized we were seeing an alternate Christine and an understudy Phantom. You know. The two biggest roles in the whole show.

It’s not their fault—the understudies, I mean—they actually have a really difficult job. Being the person no one planned to see, the person everyone suspects is probably second rate. Getting up in front of an audience at that kind of disadvantage is a weirdly brave thing. And I appreciate that. But I’m still just… not an understudy person. I’d rather see the person whose name is up on the marquee.

Like John Owen Jones! I wanted to see John Owen Jones.

And then Simon Shorten and Katie Hall—as the Phantom and Christine, respectively—took the stage. And nothing was depressing or hilarious anymore. I didn’t even miss John Owen Jones for half a second.

Because those two crazy kids were unbelievable. That afternoon I enjoyed Phantom more than ever before—more, even, than the first time I saw it as a kid—and I have to give Shorten and Hall all the credit. Sure, with a full orchestra in a smaller theater the music was more lush and immediate. And that fucking chandelier fell like an asteroid plummeting toward earth, making the whole thing actually terrifying (unlike its timid counterpart in New York).

But at the end of the day Phantom fails horribly if the characters aren’t engaging. And thanks to Katie Hall and Simon Shorten, I feel like I saw Christine and the Phantom for the first time. I feel like I understood them for the first time.

Because let’s be real. Christine Daaé is kind of an idiot. For 98% of the show she just lets the world act upon her and wonders why everything sucks. But Ms. Hall managed to completely transcend the boundaries of her character and make Christine seem stronger and more interesting.  Plus, you know, she sings real good.

And then there’s Mr. Shorten. Holy shit, Simon Shorten. I’d heard rumors of his epic badassery drifting across the ocean over the last year or so, but they paled in comparison to the reality. I honestly cannot even believe how wonderful, how human, how uncomfortably attractive his Phantom was. I could go on for pages about how he used his hands to convey emotion—to say nothing of his beautiful, flexible voice—and how, for the first time the Phantom seemed real and relatable.  And sexy. God dammit to hell, Simon Shorten’s Phantom was sexy. His “Past the Point of No Return” had me squirming in my seat.  In that moment, I finally understood Christine’s battle. I finally understood how homegirl could make out with an extortionist/murderer/dude with a creepy doll fetish & half of his brain exposed through his skull. Because, like…  I would too. I’d do worse! THAT is how sexy Simon Shorten’s Phantom is.

Usually I’m all cranky about having to see understudies perform, but London seems to have my back. Last year I saw Jonathan Williams as Valjean in Les Mis, and this year it was Simon Shorten and Katie Hall in Phantom. They gave some of the best theater performances I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing in some of the biggest roles the West End has to offer. At this point, I’m kind of curious what understudy London is going to produce to wow me next.  Now excuse me while I go listen to “All I Ask of You” again. And again.

Holla! TV’s official Prince of Adorableness, Darren Criss, is going to be on Broadway real soon. You know what that means, right? Time to get a Joe’s Pub gig! Darren’s was yesterday, and it was a “secret show.” And by “secret,” we mean that it was on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr and written in skywriting and stuff like that. Here are are some videos of the gig. Look out for: messed-up lyrics, songs from The Little Mermaid, and special guest star Chuck, who happens to be Darren’s brother.

Technically, there are six more sleeps until Christmas this morning. But last Monday—when, technically, there were thirteen more sleeps—we attended a benefit concert called One More Sleep ‘Til Christmas, which featured the songwriting talents of Sam Salmond, Alana Jacoby and Jenny Stafford. The cool thing about this gig is that it didn’t just star young actors, it was also put together by a young producer (Natasha Sinha), and featured young composers. We were excited.

Plus, it starred our new favorite—he should be your new favorite, too—Claybourne Elder. So Monday night we bundled off to the Laurie Beechman Theater in our pajamas for some booze and musical holiday cheer.

And then this happened. And it was AWESOME. This song written by Salmond and performed by Charlie Brady, Taylor Trensch & Claybourne Elder is called “Ready to Go.”  I think I almost fell out of my chair laughing during the performance. It was easily my favorite number all night.  I don’t know for certain if video can ever approximate the sheer, unbridled hilarity/joy of watching Claybourne Elder fake dry-heave in person. But we had to try.

Well. It’s nearly Christmas, boys and girls. We’re decking the halls, putting glitter on everything and tracking Santa’s whereabouts like it’s our job. Also, we’re following theater a bit, too. Below, some news items that grabbed our attention this week:

• This week, the tiny, wonderful Lysistrata Jones got a rave review in the New York Times. This is cool partly because it deserved it, and partly because it could really use some help with its shockingly low average ticket price, which, last time we checked, was less than the cost of a bucket of fried chicken and a rental DVD.
• I know you say to yourself at least twice a day, “Abraham Lincoln just isn’t that sexy.” Well, you’re wrong.
• The Kim Cattrall-fronted revival of Private Lives will close five weeks early. This is the part where I should probably refrain from saying something about how shows with weird domestic violence-y overtones that play as comedy should probably not be at the top of everyone’s, “Let’s Immediately Revive That!” list. But I won’t.
• Remember that time when some people on Twitter got super indignant because Ben Brantley liked Lysistrata Jones and hated Bonnie & Clyde and somehow thought those things were linked, conspiratorial, and designed simply to torture them? Oh, and also to prove that Ben is just MEAN and UNFAIR and has NO TASTE? We do. And we promise you, Ben Brantley doesn’t.
• Speaking of Bonnie & Clyde. The producers stopped pussyfooting around/torturing their cast/being bad at PR and finally announced the show will close on December 31. This is all terribly shocking, I know. Because they definitely didn’t stop selling (and start refunding) tickets weeks ago or anything like that. The good news is, when it closes, Bonnie & Clyde will have played 69 performances. If you gotta go out, you might as well go out with a lucky number.
• Sergio Trujillo will bring Flashdance to Broadway next year. You know, guys. There are like… things that we would love to transfer over from the West End. And then there are some other things…
• Raul Esparza is officially set to star in Leap of Faith on Broadway, which is now aiming for a fall 2012 opening. If we could hold our breath that long, we would. That’s how excited we are to have our spicy Cuban meatball back on the Broadway singing songs.
• Venus in Fur will transfer to the Lyceum this February, taking its stars Nina Arianda and Hugh Dancy right along with it. If Nina Arianda doesn’t win that Lead Actress Tony this year, we’ll probably just burn the Lyceum to the ground in protest. Everyone thinks that joint is cursed anyway, right?
• We honestly don’t even know why this happened, other than that like… the universe is rightfully seeking just about any excuse to put Ramin Karimloo on television. But this week in London, Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger performed with (count ‘em) FOUR Phantoms of the Opera. And guess what? Homegirl didn’t embarrass herself. I mean, we were watching Ramin the whole time. But… she sounded okay, right?
• New musicals Tuck Everlasting and Duncan Sheik’s Because of Wynn Dixie are eyeing Broadway runs. So. We guess it’s a good time to be a kid who likes theater?
• And last but not least, Steel Burkhardt announced he’d be cutting his long, lustrous locks after he completes his run in Hair on tour this January. We have various concerns about this and its Samson-esque potential to destroy our worlds, and The Mick is probably going to cry herself to sleep tonight in preemptive mourning.

In the two years that we’ve been running this web site, I’m not sure I’ve known a show to open amidst such immensely negative buzz as Michael Mayer’s revised sort-of revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. I don’t know a single person who liked it.

It’s strange to walk into a show under that cloud, knowing that people whose opinions you respect feel a certain way about something. It is even stranger to disagree with them, which is what happened when I saw the show, which opened at the St. James Theatre on Sunday.

I have no history with On a Clear Day, and have never seen any of its previous incarnations (pun intended?). I can’t help but wonder if that lack of experience contributed to my enjoyment of it. Of course, I’m not sure whether that qualifies as unfortunate ignorance or experiential purity. You’re welcome to take your pick, but I liked the show.

I liked the show without thinking it’s the most genius show I’ve ever seen, and even while acknowledging that it’s kind of a mess. But still, I thought it was an ambitious, tuneful mess that attempted to do something fairly complex in a world where new, complex, big-budget Broadway musicals don’t happen very often.

On a Clear Day is the story of David Gamble (David Turner), a young gay man in New York in the 1970s who wanders into therapy in hopes that it’ll help him quit smoking. Instead, we discover that he has a second personality who only emerges when he’s hypnotized. Complicating things, the young man’s therapist — played by Harry Connick, Jr. — falls in love with the second personality, a club singer from the 1940s named Melinda Wells.

Melinda’s emergence itself is so thoroughly weird and out of left field, and in a completely wonderful way. It takes some courage to topple an audience’s expectations twenty minutes into a show, and expect that they will come along with you for the equally weird ride—one that asks you to think about psychotherapy, reincarnation, and the prospect of Harry Connick, Jr. kissing a guy. I was grateful for a show that never felt predictable or even remotely ordinary, and the belief that it could be staged for a modern audience. And then there are those songs.

Written by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner, and taken mostly from the original production, they are endlessly tuneful and beautifully sung, care of Harry Connick, Jr., who could sing a grocery list and it would sound great. But Jessie Mueller, playing Melinda, is the lovely surprise here. Her voice is to die for—and her smoky, tremulous delivery evokes a mod Judy Garland. Hearing her sing is one of the great joys of this production.

Even David Turner, who can’t exactly compete with Jessie and Harry in the vocals department, gets a lovely musical moment in the second act. When the patient finds out about his second personality—and that Dr. Bruckner is in love with her, and not with him—his rendition of “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” brings the house down.

Other aspects don’t work as well. Harry Connick, Jr., beautiful singing aside, is not always an ideal Dr. Bruckner. Though he holds court well, particularly in scenes where he addresses the audience directly as though they’re attending a psychiatry convention, Dr. Bruckner’s emotional connection to the scenes happening around him is always a little suspect.

And then there’s the issue of Dr. Bruckner’s character itself. His romance with fake Melinda never quite adds up or feels authentic, partly because we see how negatively it affects David. The show tells us to simply view Dr. Bruckner’s character as flawed and lovestruck, but it’s hard to get past the idea that he’s doing so much damage to one of his own patients. Ultimately, he atones for his behavior, but the resolution doesn’t feel satisfying or fair. We’re asked to understand it in the context of another era, when the rules of the therapist/patient relationship were (possibly?) different. But how different can they actually be? “Do no harm” seems pretty standard if you’re a doctor of any sort, at any point in history. And Dr. Bruckner does lots of harm. There is also a fleeting subplot about reincarnation held over from the original show, but it never quite gels or makes complete sense.

The production design, too, feels a little schizophrenic. It abounds in inkblots and geometric test patterns, like a Hitchcock movie on acid. Occasionally, though, something lovely will break through all those eye-crossing lines and dots. It’s hard to argue with Melinda’s frothy cupcake of a gown in the closing scene, for example, or with all that endless, radiant colored light. If you can keep the migraine away, that is.

And in the end, I found On a Clear Day’s eccentricities to be endearing. There aren’t many musicals on Broadway right now that have the courage to risk eccentricity—or gaudy explosions of flowers, or the occasional reference to reincarnation. Maybe I wasn’t quite as hypnotized by the proceedings as David Gamble was, but in the end, that’s probably good thing.

photo: broadway.com

Tell me a good story. And don’t bore me. Those are the two basic things I require in the theater. If I’m seeing a musical, I need at least three good songs. Preferably five. Doesn’t seem like much, right? Except… in my experience, those are some shockingly high standards to meet.

Which is why it’s always such a pleasant surprise to sit down in the theater and find a show that can do all those things at once. All three of ‘em. And thank god (the gods? Zeus?), that’s the experience I had at the Walter Kerr a couple weekends ago, where I saw the new musical Lysistrata Jones.

Because damn have I had a rough run this year. I can’t remember the last time I was really, truly excited about a Broadway musical. I suspect it was Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson last fall. (Okay, that Mormon musical wasn’t so bad, either.) Which is sort of an apt point, because interestingly enough, I think Bloody Bloody and Lysistrata Jones have some things in common—chief among them the fact that they are both musicals written by and for a new generation of musical theater enthusiasts.

This is not your Grandmother’s musical. I mean, the book—a loose adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, written by Douglas Carter Beane—is full of dick jokes, modern slang and pop-cultural references. And it is aggressively ridiculous at times.

But it succeeds, not because of or in spite of these things, but because it’s telling a great story with a lot of heart. And at the end of the day, that’s what matters most. On the surface, Lysistrata Jones is the story of a young woman who is tired of watching her school’s basketball team lose, and who takes some drastic measures—a sex strike!—to push the boys to victory. But just beneath, at the heart of the story, is a young woman who is terrified by the prospect that the world around her has become completely devoid of passion and all too happy to settle for mediocrity.

It is that story—a young woman’s search for passion and life in this world—that grabs hold and doesn’t let go. A stream of great jokes—I mean, you KNOW I loved the “Instant Boner Material” gag—and pithy dialogue, interrupted by occasionally great songs doesn’t hurt the cause, either. And the performances, oh, the performances.

Patti Murin, playing the title character, is utterly divine. She’s bright, perfectly chirpy, and damn can that girl sing. Just WAIT until you hear her belt out “Where Am I Now” at the end of the first act. It hits you like a steam train, and is, honestly, one of the first truly, transcendently awesome moments in the show.

Josh Segarra plays Mick—OMG YOU GUYS WE HAVE THE SAME FAKE NAME!—the captain of the basketball team and Lysistrata’s boyfriend. While his singing is not a performance highlight—with a vocal range that sounds limited and lacking power, his singing mostly just gets the job done—his acting is spot-the-fuck-on. Honestly. Every facial contortion, every stupid (but weirdly insightful) line, is perfect. He had me cracking up in my seat, and his performance really elevated the slap-sticky material. Also, he looks disturbingly good in a sparkly white skirt with a dead bear wrapped around his shoulders. Actually… he just looks disturbingly good all the damn time.

Then there’s Lindsay Nicole Chambers, who plays Robin, the poetry-slamming library assistant Lysistrata befriends. She came out of nowhere—honestly, I’d heard a lot about Segarra and Murin before I saw the show, but not a peep about Chambers—and she was wonderful. Funny, sweet, appropriately weird and nerdy… her performance is an all-around slam-dunk.

And lest I forget, Liz Mikel, who plays Hetaira—a muse/courtesan/brothel owner who also leads the audience through the show—is completely badass, too, and her powerhouse vocals are a joy. But it’s her comedic performance that’s the real highlight. It’s a rare to see a woman given the opportunity to give such a raunchy, physical comedic performance on stage, and Mikel makes the most of it.

Other things of note: set designer Allen Moyer made great use of the more traditional Broadway setting by building the basketball court on stage so that it makes the audience feel like they’re on the court, too. The band is great, and frankly, loaded with cute boys I’d love to chat up in the bleachers (or, you know, at a bar). And the music and lyrics by Lewis Flinn, though occasionally spotty, score a few big hits including “Where Am I Now”, “Hold on” and “When She Smiles.”

Photo: LysistrataJones.com

Today, The Craptacular goes where it has not gone before — the dance world. Below, our special dance correspondant, Mark Panzarino, shares his thoughts on George Balanchine’s The Nutracker, which is being shown in cinemas across the country, and on PBS.

In George Balanchine’s 101 Stories of the Great Ballets (written with Francis Mason), he notes that he was always changing his 1954 version of The Nutcracker.  It is well-documented that “Mr. B” — the most famous 20th century neo-classical ballet choreographer — was in constant revision of his  work to suit the needs of his  day. I could not help but wonder while watching last night’s first live-in-HD New York City Ballet cinema-broadcast of this ubiquitous production what the master might change were he still alive today.

Given the recent trend of hyper-awareness of bullying everywhere — thanks, Glee — for the first time, I noted that most of the Act 1 choreography for young dancers is not designed with kindness.  Fritz, Marie’s brother, pulls  his sister’s hair (twice); children repeatedly tug on Drosselmeier’s coattails to get his attention; they steal and break each other’s’ toys; grab at snacks; and  harass each other with horns and drums en masse.  Were Mr. B here to see Jonah Mowry’s YouTube video or the “It Gets Better Project”, would he have adjusted his work?  Certainly, the choreographer knew how to tap into the zeitgeist.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, as it stands, is about spirit, and tonight’s orchestra kept our spirits light.  Clotilde Otranto conducted with sforzando throughout.  The orchestra sounded particularly fine-tuned and composed.   The “Snow” scene certainly sacrificed clarity for speed (as did the additional Sleeping Beauty passage), yet this was a small price to pay, given the full presentation of  both acts, combined with Kelly Ripa’s introduction and intermission.

Kelly Ripa, by the way, who hosted, appeared more than slightly ripa’d.  Yes, she imitated a ballerina in a tutu at an audition.  Yes, she told the pre-pubescent-bunheaded girls to come to her for ballet advice.  Yes, she mispronounced “ballet.” Fun! Kelly Ripa is the new Alec Baldwin, with significantly more facework.

In Act 2’s Land of the Sweets, many featured principals in the company stood out — Tiler Peck in the Marzipan variation was especially musical (reminding me of Kyra Nichols), and Daniel Ulbricht added unique twists to his Candy Cane, while Megan Fairchild was an unadventurous if competent Sugarplum Fairy.

Ashley Bouder performed as Dew Drop in the “Flowers” section. (She and I have frequently butted heads on NYCB policies and politics via Twitter, but except for one short comment, I have yet to voice my opinion about her artistry.)  Ms. Bouder has often been subject to harsh artistic criticism by the press.  This is completely understandable: her technical capabilities surpass every other dancer within the company.  To measure somebody with such prowess and artistic potential by the same standards as any other would be demeaning to her and to the form.  No, it’s probably not fair, but there it is.  She’s better than the rest: she’s the best.  One watches her work and sees a gift being squandered and stifled.  Her sense of center and balance and strength and dynamic and clarity and well… the list could go on.  And there she is, performing second lead in a company which specializes in one choreographer who passed away 28 years ago, whose most notable works were created more than 20 years before that.

This is not to say Ms. Bouder is not without he flaws.  Her initial attack can be needle-nosed, especially for “soft” roles such as Dew Drop (a problem of interpretation other critics have noted before, particularly in Swan Lake).  I don’t think her facial expressions are as problematic as others have detailed — she’s no Kelly Ripa — though I do think a make-up reevaluation and brow-line softening might be in order.  She could do with greater release and breath through her trapezius. One wonders if she has levels of ballon short of 747-height.  These are such flaws?!

No. Her sole flaw lies in the limited range she allows her work. Perhaps Ms. Bouder could take a lesson from Mr. B’s original notes and make more changes within her own work, much as he did with his during his lifetime.  The trick, it would seem, for such an outstanding artist, is to have a greater pliancy, instead of forcing her idiom to remain frozen in place.  “Ballets have short lives,” Mr. B said.  So do dancers.  One wonders what Ms. Bouder’s next move might be.

photo: New York Times

Mark Sean Panzarino was hand-selected at the age of 6 to study with Nina Youshkevich, protégé of Bronislava Nijinska. His education continued at the School of American Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet School, and the David Howard Dance Center, before joining Miami City Ballet as an apprentice in 1990. He has performed, choreographed, and taught at Broadway Dance Center, Dance Theatre of Harlem School, American Ballet Russe, Metropolitan Repertory Ballet, the Choreographic Lab at Steps on Broadway, Renaissance Dance Ensemble, Eugene Lang College at the New School, Tampa Bay City Ballet, InMotion Dance Company, and Texas Dance Theatre. Additional artistic projects include a sculptural work of mixed media featured prominently in the lobby a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A book of short poems was published in 2002. Mark is an ordained minister in the First Church of Atheism. He lives in Manhattan with a 14-year-old Dalmatian.

So last Monday night I was lucky enough to attend the Roundabout Theatre Company’s benefit concert performance of the 1963 musical She Loves Me starring all kinds of awesome people like How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor, and Broadway’s Kelli O’Hara and Gavin Creel. (And Rory O’Malley and Jane Krakowski, and Victor Garber, and and and…)

Before that night I’d neither seen, nor heard She Loves Me before and was honestly mostly just attending because—you guys—Gavin Creel.  So I really wasn’t sure what to expect. But it turns out, even if you don’t know you know She Loves Me, you know She Loves Me. Because the musical was based on a late 1930s Miklos Laszlo play called Parfumerie that was also the basis for the movies The Shop Around the Corner and You’ve Got Mail.

Needless to say, I loved every single thing that happened on stage at the Stephen Sondheim.  I imagine you’re not surprised. I’m kind of not surprised either… well, with one shining exception.

Read on for a recap of the night—from the totally unsurprising to the night’s one big revelation.

Things that were fully not surprising at She Loves Me:

• Rory O’Malley was sweet and charming and funny, and got some really big laughs as young Arpad Laszlo.
• Gavin Creel plays a great smarmy ladies’ man—Jimmy, oh Jimmy—and every time he sings I swear to god an angel gets its wings. Not even exaggerating when I tell you our entire row swooned and sighed when he walked out on stage (with a mustache and a pimp cane, natch), and when he sang… I for real ended up with my chin in my hands and hearts in my eyes. I may or may not be looking into changing my name to Ilona.
• Kelli O’Hara brought the fucking house down with “Vanilla Ice Cream.” Because she isn’t even a human being. She’s just perfection personified.

The one surprising thing at She Loves Me? Josh Radnor.

I mean, I knew he was handsome. And that he could act. But I completely did not expect to see a new musical comedy stah born Monday night. I expected something along the lines of a Daniel Radcliffe in H2$… good acting, passable singing, not-making-a-mockery-of-the-material kind of business. And then Radnor stepped on the stage. And he can sing. Like, he has a nice full tenor with good power in his chest voice. And he’s hilarious. And most importantly, he gave a fully realized performance as Georg—a man in love with his anonymous pen pal, who secretly happens to be his most despised colleague. Radnor was, in turns, overbearing and sharp and then lovesick and goofy—spot on physical comedy, man—and he did right by the title song, which is no small feat considering it came right after Kelli O’Hara’s electric “Vanilla Ice Cream.”

Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia