the craptacular

Terrifying Tveit in Tears

January 16, 2011. We all knew the day was coming.  We did.  Solid rumors had been swirling for months. (Which is to say nothing of the naysayers predicting constant doom almost from word one.) But that didn’t make today’s announcement—like a gut punch you see coming but just can’t avoid—hurt any less.  Next to Normal is closing.

Losing Tony winner Alice Ripley and (shirtless) Aaron Tveit had been hard enough over the last year.  But now, our whole beloved show is taking a bow and we’re not ready to say goodbye.

The little show that could, Next to Normal took its unlikely story—of a family struggling with profound mental illness—from regional theater to Broadway with sharp-as-a-tack marketing, brilliant use of social media, and a smart business plan.  At the Booth Theater it broke hearts open, brought tears pouring down people’s cheeks and inspired fierce devotion.  But by recouping its investment in March of 2010, Next to Normal also proved that real, honest-to-goodness new musicals are still viable in this day and age.  Then it won a fucking Pulitzer.

Next to Normal will be dearly missed.  But is a huge success story, even in closing, and we hope it will continue inspire—not only future audiences, but also aspiring theater writers, composers and producers.  We know the story will never leave our hearts.

Image: Next to Normal

Norbert Leo Butz. Aaron Tveit. That girl who was in Hairspray with the Big Voice who I am tempted, off the top of my head and at this very late hour, to call Kelli O’Hara, but who IN NO FEASIBLE WAY is Kelli O’Hara.

Kerry Butler. Her.

Some other people.

And. And! We’re really excited! Because Aaron Tveit may once again bear his splendid and shining assets on a Broadway stage. And also because Norbert Leo Butz needs to sing again, and because he’s pretty sexy even with his shirt on.

On the marginally less superficial side of things, we’re sure this show’s creators are dreaming sweet Tony-filled dreams for this cast, especially for the two leading men. For us, we’re mostly waiting for the split screen moment in the telecast when we get Norbert, Aaron and Ben Walker all at once. Start mentally preparing now, girls. June is just around the corner.

Photo: Curt Doughty

On the first legit freezing night of the season, the crowd inside at Birdland was anything but. On November 8, Gavin Creel played the second of three gigs that marked his return to New York City after a stint in London with the cast of Hair.

Worth mentioning: a) His new batch of heartbreak songs are just too much–in a good way–and surely made us want to kick the unamed (ahemmm…) heartbreaker in the teeth. b) Gavin still wears a pair of jeans like almost no one wears a pair of jeans, and c) when Gavin’s in town, New York just seems like a better place to be.

In case you couldn’t make it–or you couldn’t snag tickets to the last show on November 15–some people definitely took some not-that-horrible camperaphone video for you to enjoy:

And one from the November 1 show:

Look at you, beautiful.

To the shock and awe of exactly no one, Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark has delayed the start of previews by several weeks and pushed its opening from December 21^st 2010 to January 11, 2011.

What might be shocking, however, is the enthusiasm we here at The Craptacular feel for this show.  We are dying  for Spider-Man to open, and we’re not even joking right now. Honestly.

Here’s why:

1. So people can stop being seriously injured. Because obviously actual performances are far less dangerous than rehearsals, right? Right…
2. Because we’re dying to either love it or hate it.  But mostly, we’re dying to love it.
3. So Reeve Carney can be famous. Because his pretty face shouldn’t be hidden in the recesses of the Foxwoods Theater forever. We should be able to ogle it. Regularly. Stat.
4. So we can see how big Julie Taymor’s balls really are. We’re guessing, just based on what we’ve heard, that gargantuan won’t even cover it.
5. So Bono can add Broadway Composer to that really empty resume of his. That guy is such a slouch. He needs this.

Photo: Peter Yang for Rolling Stone

Something kind of crazy is happening on Broadway right now: Go figs, the first two major new musicals of the season, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Scottsboro Boys, are both really good.

I know.

What even in hell is going on here?

Besides that, these shows do actually have something in common; they both examine  American history with a satiric eye. But while Bloody Bloody looks at the past through a contemporary lens, The Scottsboro Boys is in the style and entertainment of the era in which the events took place. That is to say, it’s presented as a minstrel show.

And how do the creators of this show get away with staging a minstrel show in 2010 without offending everyone on earth? They use it to tell a harrowing story of racial injustice—the wrongful conviction of 9 black men for the rape of a white woman in Alabama in 1931.

The show’s humor is acerbic—indeed, the audience is asked to laugh within some horrific contexts—but the moral message is clear. Here are some other things in The Scottsboro Boys to take note of

1. The (relative and debatable) genius of Susan Stroman: So, I’ll just put it out there: I’m not a major fan. The Producers was a sexy-as-a-brick letdown, and Stroman’s other work has landed on so many Must Avoid lists that I actually listened. But I liked the particularly Stroman-y qualities of The Scottsboro Boys—the razzmatazz choreography, the mugging to the crowd, the “let’s-put-on-a-show, boys!” verve of the thing. All of that works within the minstral show construct. Which of course made me wonder if Stroman had found a niche that really works for her. Bummer that it’s in a totally antiquated format.

2. The 2011 Tony nominess for Best Actor in a Musical: Joshua Henry left such an impression in American Idiot in such a tiny blip of a role. As the single standout star of The Scottsboro Boys, he commands the stage as Haywood Patterson, one of the accused men. Patterson, in real life and in the show, goes on to chronicle the events in a book, and as such, he’s the show’s emotional center. Breaking through the minstral show’s bawdy, joke-y veneer, Henry delivers the show’s most emotional moments with real, big-singing power.

3. The benefits of a really good ensemble cast: Everyone in The Scotsboro Boys does everything. They sing. They dance. They play the comedy and the drama with equal panache, and with so much energy. Their formidable talent is an important ingredient—it makes a very tough, sad story very easy on the eyes and ears.

4. The viability of super old-time-y entertainment, in two ways: Yes, the minstral show is a totally old (that is to say, extinct) form of entertainment that takes on new life in The Scottsboro Boys. But really, this show has more in common with the Kander and Ebb musicals of the 60s and 70s than with minstrelry. Yes, there is the cakewalk and Mr. Tambo, but there’s also the hero-identifying opening number, the big moment-of-reckoning character ballad, the tap number. There is nary an electric guitar in earshot and the youth-mongering angst of a Spring Awakening is nowhere to be found. In a lot of ways, this is super-traditional, classic musical theater. It dodges the pitfalls of that form, and feels fresh only because the subject matter hits so hard, and because reviving the minstral show feels so audacious. But really, at its heart, this isn’t a subversion of the minstral form. It’s a clever subversion of the classic musical form.

5. The mess in your head: The Scottsboro Boys challenges its audience to think big about its themes of inequality, justice, and racism, and there’s no attempt at a happy ending. A show like Chicago, for example, deftly implicates its audience in the end, but the message here packs a lot more punch: In fact, the show makes a startling point: The course of history has been tragic. It’s up to you, gentle theatergoer, to fix it in the future.

Photo: Paul Kolnik

Quick, gaze to the right and think!

GATZ is no joke.  With a running time of about 8 hours, seeing this show is a real commitment.  You don’t half-ass this.  Or, you can half-ass this, but then, why even bother in the first place?

I went on an exhausted Friday afternoon after one of the longest weeks I can ever remember living, and honestly, I was a bit concerned.  Eight hours of theater seemed daunting; no matter how excited I’d once been to see this show.  Sure, GATZ pushed a shit-load of my nerd buttons at once—theater lover, English & American Literature major, and reader response criticism enthusiast, to name a few—but what if I just couldn’t make it?  Those tickets were NOT cheap.  What if I fell asleep?

Except, in the end, I was worried about nothing.  I didn’t fall asleep.  Instead, I just fell in love.  With everything.

And I mean everything.  From the novel itself, right on down to the hilarious pink suit Gatsby— played by Jim Fletcher—wore with such a serious air.  I fell in love with Scott Shepherd (hell yeah, redheads!) and his magnificent speaking voice—somehow both soothing and engaging at once.  And I fell in love with Gary Wilmes and his compelling transformation from silent background character to brutish physical presence as Tom Buchanan.  But most of all, I fell in love with books again.  And reading, and theater, and the way art can become something so big and real and palpable in every aspect of your life, even when it begins as only words on a page or a performance before your eyes.

GATZ asks for a commitment from you as an audience member, which is perhaps as much a commentary on the act of theater or the life of a book, as it is anything else.  But it pays you back in spades with the kind of rich enjoyment that seems almost impossible, given the circumstances.  Perhaps that is what is most brave about GATZ.  In this Web 2.0 generation of instant everything, it risks being a colossal waste of both your valuable time and your hard earned money.  You risk those things, too, when you walk into the Public’s Martinson Theater.  And that makes the reward so much sweeter at the end of the long, long night.

Photo: Joan Marcus

Well, not right now, maybe. Because six hours of your day will disappear instantly. But do read them. Or read something (or everything) by Tony Kushner, because everyone should.

As the revival of Kusner’s Angels in America opens this week at the Signature Theatre, many have noted that Kushner is standard lit-course cannon these days. What’s below is his semi-cannon, a series of speeches and essays culled ragtag from the wilds of the internet, plus John Lahr’s impressions of Kushner as a person and a writer. We’ll call these Kushner’s b-sides—short pieces that contain his big thoughts about big things—Equality, America, Politics, Justice, The Future. Read. Feel hopeful. And be happy, for a moment, that someone as excellent/bright/compassionate as Tony Kushner decided to make his life in theater.

1. 2010 Commencement Address at the School of Visual Arts
2. John Lahr on Kushner in The New Yorker
3. On Matthew Shepard, 1998
4. Despair is a Lie We Tell Ourselves, written before the 2004 election
5. 2002 Commencement Address at Vassar College
6. Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy: Scene 1
7. Eulogy for Arthur Miller

Hello, Sir.

Last night, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opened on Broadway at the Jacobs Theater.  After its successful run downtown, which we have written about ad nauseum, this transfer seemed like a no brainer.  Only.  Nothing is ever a no brainer in this business we call show.

The good news is, the show doesn’t suddenly suck now! In fact. It’s basically more badass than ever.  Here’s why:

1.  The entire cast is poppin’.

Sitting in the Jacobs, you get the distinct sense that all of these people are outside their goddamn minds.  Each. And every.  One.

And that, my friends, is the best part about this cast of theatrical hooligans.  They are all there, 100%, and they are taking you along for the ride.  Even if you’re kicking and screaming.  With its no-holds-barred approach to theater and history, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson absolutely requires a cast this tight.  It requires the supporting actors to give the most insanely hilarious performances ever—Jeff Hiller, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, we’re looking at you —and for the company to unabashedly bust their asses to keep the wheels on this bus of bananas rolling.  Thank god they do.

2.  It got smarter and more nuanced.

This show is smart.  It always was.  But the changes Timbers and Friedman have made in the last few months only make it smarter.  Subtle though they may be, they serve to heighten the human implications of the conflicts Jackson faced as President.  Timbers and Friedman have upped the stakes for the audience, giving Jackson’s foes more depth while exposing more of his dark underbelly, and they manage all that without making Jackson entirely unsympathetic/unfuckable, either.

3.  Don’t worry about the awesome dumb jokes, though.

They’re still there.  There were hardly any jokes actually cut at all, actually.  And a few were added—especially for John Quincy Adams—that are funnier than they have any right to be.  At one point, a friend actually complained that her cheeks/stomach were hurting from laughing so much.  When is the last time you heard someone say that about a Broadway Musical?

4. It’s a completely immersive experience, like nothing else on Broadway right now.

You don’t get splattered with blood, really.  And only one lady is lucky enough to score a lap-dance each night. But one of the coolest parts of the experience at The Public was the theater itself, and the creators were able to replicate that same feeling in the (much larger) Jacobs.  As soon as you step inside, the dim red lighting, upholstered walls and White House gone Frat House vibe set the perfect, mad-cap tone.  Even the pre-performance playlist gets you in the mood.  From the moment you enter the theater, you are surrounded by Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson—even without the man himself straddling your lap.

5. Benjamin Walker is still a Rock Star. Also, he is still hot as fuck. (And yes, that matters in this role. That makes the role.)

Neither of those things changed, or got lost in translation on the way uptown.  The lights are clearly brighter at the Jacobs, and Walker is sweating it out more than ever.  But he’s also continuing to grow into the role with each performance.  And honestly?  He makes that show his bitch every single night. That’s worth seeing again and again, take it from someone who has.

Photo: BloodyBloodyAndrewJackson.com

There is a moment in Love Never Dies, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera sequel that’s currently playing at London’s Adelphi Theatre, that brought tears to my eyes and made me want to leap out of my seat.

It is the moment in which the Phantom makes his grand entrance into Christine Daae’s fabulously gilded New York City hotel room, which looks more like the high roller suite at The Venetian. It’s the first time she’s seen him since the events of the original play. She’s still lovely—her famous chestnut curls have been heaped on top of her head like a mountain of soft serve, the only dim insinuation that she’s aged. You know what’s coming because the strings suddenly grow louder; the melody swoons. And in slinks the Phantom through a mirrored glass door, wearing the same outfit he’s been wearing for twenty years, surrounded by a wispy cloud of smoke.

Everything in this moment is theatrical perfection. It’s suspenseful and evocative of the original in all its familiar excess. Even the ruffles on Christine’s robe—a more blinged-out version of the wisp she wore last time—seem to fall in flawless order.

Only one thing seems off, and threatens to throw the whole proceeding off the tracks, except that it’s so utterly on-the-nose: Why, on the 40th floor of a New York City skyscraper, is the Phantom surrounded by a cloud of smoke? It follows him everywhere throughout the evening, as though he were a kind of Gilded Age Pigpen. Apparently the Phantom could not bear to leave France for Coney Island without taking along his smoke machine. This detail is so instantly meta, so much more about how the creators of Love Never Dies think an audience thinks of the iconic Phantom—you know, the guy on the billboard—than about real character development. Forget the strings. In that moment, I nearly swooned.

Of course, all of Love Never Dies is more or less exactly like this—visually sumptuous, blunt as a hammer and weirdly both aware and unaware of the fame of its predecessor, like Season 4 of The Real World. But like the original show, it tells a good story, and manages to do so with some actual emotion. If it were a film, it would be an instant cult classic for its shear audacity and melodrama. But with the recent announcement that it won’t make it to Broadway this season, and that an Australian run may come first, it seems likely that a major rewrite is in order. For me, I wouldn’t change a note.

Here are some other things the Phantom has working in his favor:

1. This show does not even pretend to fuck around.
From the enormous set to the overspangled costumes to the thick-as-concrete power ballads, no show turns it up to 11 quite like Love Never Dies. In an era when every producer is looking to stage a “scaled back” revival of everything, it’s as though this show’s creators thought the opposite: That they wanted to take an old idea and make it ten times bigger than the original. This is refreshing because it’s such a rarity, and because it requires such risk. Of course, the more-is-more treatment also applies to the show’s plot, and to less positive ends. For example, Love Never Dies insists that we make a couple of truly ludicrous presumptions about the original show that simply aren’t true. For anyone (everyone?) who’s seen The Phantom of the Opera, this disconnect feels more than a little uncomfortable. The show gets beyond this by telling a convincing love story, and the plot twist at the end is genuinely shocking. But really, this isn’t exactly a show to see for its nuance.

2. The tunes. You will hum them.
In an era that’s produced few truly memorable musical scores, this one is way less terrible than it could or should be. The songs aren’t brilliant—they are Andrew Lloyd Webber’s endlessly recycled pap, to be sure—but they stick. They feel like part of a coherent whole, and they work hard to highlight the dramatic moments. The Phantom’s anguished “Till I Hear You Sing” tries to be “The Music of the Night” for a new generation and doesn’t quite succeed, thank God, but there’s something thrilling about the big, unabashed note at the end, about theater songs that aren’t afraid to be theatrical. For those of us who cut our teeth on “Why God, Why?”, that’s not such a bad throwback.

3. Hey, the Phantom is hot now.
Michael Crawford was, by all accounts, a fine Phantom. But for all his fake-y voiced, history-making posturing, he just wasn’t that sexy. Some new casing has re-imagined the OG himself as, well… kind of hunky. Ramin Karimloo, with his shiny tenor voice, is more in the Marius/Chris pocket than, say, the Jean Valjean/Fagan pocket—a positive development for all of us who appreciate a little cheese with our whine and roses. This happened just in time, of course, for the Phantom to get himself a girlfriend, a better looking lair (It’s GOLD!), and a thoroughly creepy army of friends, toys and friend/toys. His face is still busted up, but as a billboard recently informed me, tonight belongs to the Phantom. And has belonged to him for decades. In a climate where musicals are working so hard to get smaller, it’s a relief to know that there’s at least one guy out there who’s willing to go big.

Photo: The Daily Telegraph