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NYC Theater Roundup: 'Golden Boy' On Broadway; 'Great God Pan' Off Broadway

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 20 December 2012 15:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Golden Boy

Written by Clifford Odets; directed by Bartlett Sher

Performances through January 20, 2013

The Great God Pan

Written by Amy Herzog; directed by Carolyn Cantor

Performances through January 13, 2013

Strahovski, Numrich in Golden Boy (photo: Paul Kolnik)

It’s not easy to make a creaky theatrical piece an edge-of-your-seat spellbinder. But that’s what director Bartlett Sher has done with Golden Boy, Clifford Odets’ tragic melodrama that, in this scorching 75^th anniversary production (in the theater it premiered at), feels more urgent than anything on or off Broadway.

Odets’ play concerns boxing phenom Joe Bonaparte, an immigrant kid who decides to fight instead of following his artistic temperament to play the violin. Despite the play’s hokiness, there’s humor, tension, romance and tragedy galore, and its characters are wise-cracking, gritty, tough New Yorkers (with one from New Jersey) souls who lead a willing audience through a familiar but absorbing story for three hours.

Sher smartly plays it straight: by avoiding irony or adding a contemporary feel, this production never condescends to the play, taking its plot holes, dated dialogue and near-caricatures at face value. That extends to the brilliant production design: Michael Yeargan’s sets, Catherine Zuber’s costumes and Donald Holder’s lighting create an onstage world in which everyone’s blood, sweat and tears are deeply felt.

Of course, none of this would work without a phenomenal cast, and Sher’s excellent ensemble has not one weak link among its 19 performers. Even small parts, like local sportswriters and rival boxers, are acutely etched, as are juicy supporting roles like Joe’s sister Anna (an appropriately frumpy Dagmara Dominczyk) or talkative neighbor Mr. Carp (a sly Jonathan Hadary).

If Tony Shaloub, as Joe’s immigrant father, overdoes his “Eye-talian” accent, he also has profound moments of quiet subtlety toward the end; likewise, Anthony Crivello’s Eddie Fuselli—the mobster promoter who buys a piece of Joe on his way up—begins as an unbearable Little Italy stereotype, then shrewdly reins it in as the show progresses.

The always reliable Danny Burstein nails the essence of Joe’s loyal trainer Tokio, and Danny Mastrogiorgio displays remarkable restraint in what could have been showiness as manager Tom Moody, who reluctantly takes Joe on.

Seth Numrich’s Joe perfectly blends bravado and vulnerability, especially in his intimate scenes with Yvonne Strahovski, a superb Australian actress who, in her Broadway debut, takes the stock part of Lorna, Tom Moody’s secretary/mistress from New Joisey, and invests her with so much emotional intensity that she almost steals the play from Odets’ conflicted protagonist.

Strong, Goldberg in Pan (photo: Joan Marcus)

Amy Herzog’s latest play, after her overrated After the Revolution and 4000 Miles, again provides little illumination on an interesting theme: in the case of The Great God Pan, it’s the persistence of memory—or forgetting.

Jamie, a 30ish blogger, meets with Frank, a childhood friend he hasn’t seen in years, who confesses that his own father sexually abused him and asks Jamie if he remembers anything that might bolster the criminal case against his dad. Jamie initially demurs, but slowly discovers more about what may have happened to him when he was a child—talking to his sympathetic girlfriend Paige, visiting his parents and the old lady who was his and Frank’s babysitter—but despite circumstantial evidence that something might have happened, he can’t (or won’t) remember.

Herzog tries to keep her characters—and the audience—off-balance. As the possible evidence mounts, Jamie slowly realizes he’s always erased inconvenient memories, but Herzog merely checks off what’s on Jamie’s not-to-do list with little urgency or drama. He didn’t tell his parents when his dog died, he’s cagey about his new job, he bristles when Paige brings up his sexual inadequacies, and he even begs her to allow him a week to think when she announces her pregnancy.

None of this is particularly insightful, which Herzog seems to sense, so she fleshes out her play with peripheral characters. She drags in Polly, the former babysitter, merely so that a wisecracking octogenarian in a wheelchair can garner laughs—and bring up the play’s title, which comes from an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem which Polly recited to the boys.

Herzog also includes two dramatically deadly scenes in which Paige—an ex-dancer whose injury ended her career—in her new role as therapist deals with an anorexic teenage girl; they feel like forced attempts to draw a parallel to Jamie’s own emotional baggage.

Carolyn Cantor’s straightforward staging isn’t helped by Mark Wendland’s foliage-laden set, which represents the woods where the boys played while Polly watched them both naturally and symbolically, with neither particularly incisive. And the abruptness of Herzog’s shaggy-dog non-ending—the play should have begun where its author stops—does the director no favors dramatically.

Finally, Cantor’s talented cast cannot overcome these characters’ flimsiness. Jeremy Strong does little more but mope as Jaime, while Phyllis Goldberg’s Paige, despite the actress’s natural appeal, remains a cipher. There’s one very strong scene, a small disagreement between Jaime and Paige that plausibly erupts into a battle royale in short order: but it only throws into sharp relief the muddiness and vagueness of the rest.

Golden Boy

Belasco Theatre, 111 West 44^thStreet, New York, NY

http://lct.org

The Great God Pan

Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42^ndStreet, New York, NY

http://playwrightshorizons.org

Film Review: "The Hobbit" Stretches Too Little Too Far

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 18 December 2012 20:45; Written by Matt Oakes

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey The Hobbit- An Unexpected Journey 74
Directed by Peter Jackson
Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood

With The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, director Peter Jackson has bitten off more than he can chew. Jackson has to reinvest his audience with a new and somewhat minor quest while introducing an entirely novel and risky technological advancement.

The Hobbit details the journey of hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a company of dwarves led by warrior prince Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) as they embark towards the conquered dwarf palace carved into the Misty Mountains to reclaim a vast treasure stolen by the malevolent dragon, Smaug. The travelers encounter one misplaced affair after another and between the orcs, wargs, mountain trolls, storm giants, goblins, a mysterious necromancer and disapproving elves, the tale feels overstuffed and a little inorganic.

With so much going on, it sometimes becomes languid and monotonous but the visual effects, character and set design, and lavish costumes create a stunning backdrop for the tale to unfold which is even more pronounced when seen in high-frame rate 3D.

The advent of high frame rate -- 48 frames per second (FPS) -- technology came on the heels of complaints that 3D films shot at the industry standard (24 FPS) are shutter strobed when the camera is panning, particularly during action sequences. But do the consequences of higher frame rates outweigh the positives?

The answer is… kind of. 48 FPS presents a hyperrealism that makes camera adjustments completely unnoticeable but is distracting to the inaugural eye and, at times, uncomfortably jarring.

In scenes where characters are talking, or more notably, writing, their gestures seem unnaturally accelerated and physically inconsistent. At best, this goes unnoticed and at its worst, looks like a hi-def home video shoot.

During the action sequences though, it works brilliantly. Every blade swing is crystal clear, every slain goblin sprawling from a cliff is beautifully articulated and the sweeping camera movements create sequences that seem painterly in their scope and motion.

People typically resist tech advancement at first, from the use of commercial airplanes to iTunes updates, so it’s hard to say what the real value of this technology is. Is a commercial and critical backlash symptomatic of a natural resistance to the new or is this a more definitive rejection?

One thing is clear, it’s going to take some adjustment for the uninitiated to accept high frame rate films, a process that isn’t going to happen overnight.

But technology is not the only thing on display here and unfortunately the story can be, at turns, equally lackluster and divisive.

Whereas The Lord of the Rings was surprising touching, its emotional resonance is almost entirely absent here. The bond of the original fellowship rendered the trilogy a record-breaking 11 Oscar wins (The Return of the King) but there is little earned about the relationships in this prequel.

The hefty troop of dwarves are more caricatures than fleshed-out people and the return of Gandalf, played by McKellen, is disappointingly amiss. The inimitable light has gone from his eyes as it has from the series itself.

While a handful of cameos from familiar faces may stir nostalgia for the original triad, it rarely serves the film effectively. An introductory scene that features a glimpse of a virginal Frodo is fine but entirely unnecessary to the plot of this tale. Freeman (Sherlock) however is perfectly cast as Bilbo and remains the most promising aspect of this film’s journey.

The standout of the film though is the glorious return of Gollum, played with wit and panache by series regular Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, Rise of the Planet of the Apes). While Bilbo may be stealing Gollum’s precious ring, Serkis is stealing the scene.

While nothing here is egregious, The Hobbit fails to live up to the massive heights of one of the greatest film trilogies of all time. Although it’s better than your average blockbuster both in terms of its visual razzle-dazzle and plotting, it isn’t destined to join the ranks of unforgettable classics.

The end product is a loose hodgepodge of scenes, many of which could have been left for the blu-ray extended editions. Had Jackson focused more on storytelling and thoughtful character development, The Hobbit would have become a much tighter and purposeful film.

December '12 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 16 December 2012 10:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Bill Cunningham New York

(Zeitgeist)

This engaging chronicle of the New York Times’ legendary photographer shows Cunningham’s unique work ethic as he navigates the busy New York streets for decades.

Cunningham is eccentric but appealing, and his photographs—which are still published every Sunday in the Times’ Style section—wittily balance the fashion and everyday worlds. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras include additional scenes and interviews.

La Boheme

(Deutsche Grammophon)

In Puccini’s beloved perennial, Anna Netrebko, as tragic heroine Mimi, provides her usual nuanced characterization with her magnificent vocal cords. As Roldofo, Piotr Beczala makes a good match, and their duets drip with the emotion Puccini put into his notes.

Too bad Damiano Michieletto’s 2012 Salzburg production has a modern setting, which neither ruins nor illuminates the story. Danielle Gatti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic and Salzburg Choir well; the Blu-ray image is immaculate.

Dick Tracy

(Disney)

Warren Beatty’s 1990 live-action cartoon about the legendary detective has such eye-popping visuals—the extravagance of Richard Sylbert’s sets, Milena Canonero’s costumes, John Caglione’s makeup and Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography—that the uneven movie suffers by comparison.

Beatty himself, while too old, is a decent Tracy, and Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman have a blast hamming it up as freakish villains. But the women—bland heroine Glynne Headley and unsexy “sexpot” Madonna—are hilariously awful. The Blu-ray image perfectly showcases the shining, brilliant colors.

Finding Nemo

(Disney)

The most sheerly delightful picture from Pixar’s stable deservedly won the 2003 Oscar for Best Animated Film, and has two strong voice performances: Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres give perfect, tongue-in-cheek portrayals.

The visuals are cleverly presented, lacking the self-conscious humor Pixar would later fall into the trap of. The visuals look striking on Blu-ray; extras include featurettes, interviews and an alternate opening.

Mankind

(History)

This History Channel series ambitiously explores how civilization has moved forward through millennia, from ancient Egypt to the present, including fascinating parallels that might have eluded most of us, such as China’s thriving while Europe crawled through the Dark Ages.

Although I’m not a fan of the reenactment mania that has hit many documentaries, here it works, along with dazzling CGI that brings so many historical eras to vivid life. The hi-def image is excellent.

Nixon in China

(Nonesuch)

John Adams’ 1985 opera about Richard Nixon’s visit to Red China had its Metropolitan Opera premiere in 2010 in Peter Sellars’ staging, his most lucid directing job ever.

James Maddalena is a tremendous President Nixon, Janis Kelly an equally compelling Pat Nixon and Richard Paul Fink a stunning Mao; but Adams’ dramatic music—conducted by the composer himself—makes this a stage work for our times. The Blu-ray image is first-rate; extras include interviews with Sellars, Maddalena, Kelly, Fink and others.

Osombie

(e one)

I’m embarrassed to admit I watched this in its entirety: not that it’s bad—it’s watchably mediocre—but it’s a freaking zombie movie! Check that: it’s a zombie movie set in the Middle East as U.S. soldiers fend off al Qaeda zombies led by bin Laden himself.

The movie opens with a humorous take on Osama’s killing, as his body is dumped into the sea and he returns as a murderous member of the undead. The remaining 90 minutes become boring, with endless scenes of soldiers blowing heads off the walking dead. It’s likely a better time for 17 year old males. The Blu-ray image is very good.

Silent Night

(Anchor Bay)

I’m usually immune to the flagrant gore that’s risen exponentially in recent horror movies, but this tacky, “Santa Claus is Killing in Town” flick is reprehensible.

Despite the game Malcolm McDowell and Jaime King as sheriff and deputy tracking down the insane St. Nick, they’re defeated by murder scenes that go above and beyond, including a nasty sequence when a poor, nude bimbo is eviscerated in a tree shredder. The hi-def image is decent enough; extras include deleted scenes and an on-set featurette.

Titanic—Blood and Steel

(Lionsgate)

In Titanic’s centenary year, the focus has been on that damn iceberg: this mini-series instead concentrates on what happened before the ship sank. Michael Caton-Jones lucidly directs this epic prologue, in which Cunard officials, wealthy industrialists and backbreaking workers battle as the ship is built before its fateful voyage.

While interesting historically—giving a needed sense of balance to the tale—the series is too long: do we need 10-plus hours to tell these stories? The Blu-ray image looks terrific; extras include making-of featurettes.

Why Stop Now

(IFC)

There’s not much to this character study about a young man, on the day of his piano audition for a prestigious music school, who takes his drug-addicted mother to her dealer so she can score before being admitted to rehab.

It’s as strained as it sounds, and the detours taken are less amusing than co-writers-directors Philip Dorling and Ron Nyswaner think. But the excellent cast (Jesse Eisenberg, Melissa Leo, Tracy Morgan—guess who is whom?) wrings laughs and even pathos out of a clichéd situation. The hi-def image is good; extras include featurettes and a Morgan interview.

DVDs of the Week

Big Tits Zombie

(e one)

The title tells all: a bunch of strippers try and fend off a bunch of bloodthirsty zombies with their physical assets, and gory hilarity ensues.

There are a slew of bad, punning lines that occasionally sound funny in the crappy English dub (which again brings up What’s Up Tiger Lily?), so if you want to see it, skip the Japanese soundtrack. The movie is shown in both 2D and 3D, if spurting blood and scantily-clad stripper close-ups are your thing. Also included is a making-of featurette.

Dreams of a Life

(Strand)

The sad case of Joyce Vincent—whose skeleton was found in her apartment with the TV on a full three years after the 38-year-old died—is taken up imaginatively by writer-director Carol Morley, who intersperses recreated events from Joyce’s life with emotional interviews with people who knew her.

This fiction-documentary hybrid works quite well, even if it doesn’t (or can’t) answer the question of why no one noticed her missing before police discovered her after a lot of unpaid back rent. The lone extra is a 30-minute making-of featurette, Recurring Dreams.

The Ghost Sonata

(Arthaus Musik)

German composer Aribert Reimann likes to tackle serious literature in his operas—he set Kafka’s The Castle (1992) and Shakespeare’s King Lear (1978), his masterpiece—and he did it again with August Strindberg’s play The Ghost Sonata.

This recording, made during its 1984 Berlin premiere run, is yet another intensely dramatic Reimann opera whose modern idiom is an acquired taste. But those who take the plunge are rewarded with a compact (85 minute) and scalding musical ride. The singers are tremendous and the orchestra plays Reimann’s difficult music superbly under Friedemann Layer’s baton.

I Love It from Behind and Sex Hunter—Wet Target

(Impulse)

There’s little subtlety in these “classic” Japanese cult flicks. Behind follows a young female collector of penis prints who wants to get her 100^th and last before getting married; she meets up with a man who can go at it for 24 hours without finishing, and she must do something about that.

Sex is a bloody flick about a man who avenges his sister’s rape/murder at the hand of a group of American soldiers. Not for everyone, obviously, but for those so inclined, they’re entertaining in spite of their risible deficiencies.

The Point

(MVD)

Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson—creator of hit tunes and friend of the Beatles—created this amusing animated 1971 film about a young boy in the land of pointy-headed people whose round noggin makes him an outsider.

The obvious premise makes a decent children’s story, Nilsson’s songs (like “Me and My Arrow”) are instantly hummable, the animation harkens to the visual stew of Yellow Submarine, and Ringo Starr provides laconic narration. Extras include four featurettes about Nilsson’s career and the film.

CDs of the Week

Respighi: Marie Victoire

(CPO)

Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, best known for glorious orchestral scores Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome and Three Botticelli Pictures, composed equally ravishing operas.

However, this hidden gem about Marie Antoinette—finished in 1913, it premiered in 2004, 68 years after Respighi’s death—boasts a meaty soprano role, taken in this 2009 recording by charismatic Takesha Meshe Kizart, who explodes with compelling emotion. Respighi’s richly melodic music is in good hands as Michail Jurowski conducts the Berlin Opera chorus and orchestra.

Schoenberg: Gurre-lieder

(Helicon)

Although he had already begun composing atonal works, Arnold Schoenberg premiered this great, gargantuan vocal masterwork in 1913; this 90-minute cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra has a lushness and sweep reminiscent of Wagner and Mahler.

This recording, by the Israeli Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta’s direction, is flavorful if not completely gripping, although the quintet of soloists, speaker and Prague Philharmonic Choir acquit themselves admirably. Also included is a nicely paced account of the orchestral version of Schoenberg’s seminal sextet Verklarte Nacht.

December in NYC: Holiday Music (and more) at Carnegie, Guggenheim, Met Museum

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 14 December 2012 10:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Orpheus

December 1, 2012

Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

New York Philharmonic

December 21 & 22, 2012

Metropolitan Museum of Art & Symphony Space, New York, NY

Metropolitan Museum of Art Holiday Concerts

Performances through December 23, 2012

Met Museum, New York, NY

Works and Process: Peter and the Wolf

Performances through December 16, 2012

Rotunda Holiday Concert

December 16 & 17, 2012

Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

December on New York City stages means much—but not exclusively—holiday music. And the month began with an Orpheus concert at Carnegie Hall (December 1) in which the conductor- less chamber ensemble played joyful but decidedly secular works.

The concert opened with a snazzy version of Prokofiev’s skillful Haydn pastiche, the Classical Symphony (his first) and closed with Mozart’s monumental Jupiter Symphony (his last). In between was the main reason I was there: hearing the amazing Anne Akiko Meyers as soloist in Samuel Barber’s masterly Violin Concerto. The concerto, a treacherous piece to navigate, packs a lot into the space of a mere 20 minutes, but Meyers hit everything thrown at her, brilliantly building to the crescendo Barber wanted. Orpheus’ next Carnegie concert features the Wayne Shorter Quartet playing several of the jazz saxophone master’s works—including the world premiere of Lotus—on February 1.

Jack Quartet at Met Museum

Although annual New York Philharmonic seasonal concerts are on tap at Avery Fisher Hall—Holiday Brass (December 16) and Handel’s Messiah (December 18-22)—new music is on the docket December 21 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the next night at Symphony Space. With compositions that would never find be heard on a subscription Philharmonic program, the concert—conducted by Jayce Ogren—comprises world premieres by Jude Vaclavik and Andy Ahiko, a New York premiere by Andrew Norman, and the ensemble version of 1994’s Counterpoise, the last major work by Jacob Druckman, who died in 1999. Counterpoise will be sung by the exquisite soprano Elizabeth Futral, an artist who moves easily from baroque to modern music with a bit of Broadway thrown in, as witness her luminous Marian the Librarian in The Music Man at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown last summer.

Peter drawing (Will Cotton)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the midst of its holiday concerts in the Medieval Sculpture Hall in front of its annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche, winds up its series with performances by the Jack Quartet, whose Modern Medieval is a selection of holiday music ranging from the Middle Ages to today (December 16); The Vienna Boys Choir, always a popular treat, singing Christmas in Vienna (December 18); and the choir ensemble The Crossing, doing David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion and other contemporary works (December 23).

Finally, there’s the Guggenheim Museum, which hosts as part of its ongoing Works & Process series Sergei Prokofiev’s delightful Peter and the Wolf, staged by Will Cotton in a gingerbread chalet that houses the characters of this beguiling fairy tale, narrated by Isaac Mizrahi. Conductor George Manahan leads the Juilliard Ensemble. After the performances (which continue through December 16), audience members are invited to view the onstage sets up close.

Holiday concert in Guggenheim Museum Rotunda

On the evenings of December 16 and 17, the Guggenheim’s famed Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda is the scene for concerts of holiday music by the VOX Vocal Ensemble, conducted by George Steel. This is one performance, in a singular setting, that is fast becoming another New York holiday perennial.

Orpheus

http://orpheusnyc.com

New York Philharmonic

http://nyphil.org

Met Museum Holiday Concerts

http://metmuseum.org

Works and Process: Peter and the Wolf

Rotunda Holiday Concert

Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

http://guggenheim.org